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 THIS BOOK* 
 
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 HENRY BYRON PHILLIPS 
 
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 /\JcC<JjLU^ VtJA-OtJ. 
 
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 r
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA 
 
 A RIDE TO LITTLE TIBET 
 
 HENRY LANS DELL, D.D 
 
 M.R.A.S., F.R.G.S. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "through SlUIRIA," "RUSSIAN CENTRAL ASIA," 
 "through CENTRAL ASIA," ETC. 
 
 SSith IThvrc Jthips nnb d-ightn Jllwistraiions 
 
 I IV TWO VOLUMES 
 Vol,. I. 
 
 Hontion 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, & COMPANY, Limited 
 ST DUNSTAN'S HOUSE, FETTER LANE, E.G. 
 
 1S93 
 
 [ All rights rescivcif]
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 RUSSIAN CENTRAL ASIA, 
 
 KULDJA. BOKHARA. KHIVA, AMD MERV. 
 In Two \'olunies, 42^. 
 
 THROUGH CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 With a Map and Appendix on the Russo-Afghan Frontier. 
 In Ony Volume, 12s. 
 
 THROUGH SIBERIA. 
 
 In One N'ulinr.e, lo.c 6/. 
 Library Edition, Two Volumes, 30^. 
 
 Ear further particulars., see page 457.
 
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 The EmPEi\oi\ ob ^(Ihinh, 
 
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 •J Sire, 
 
 Seeing that my ivork on " Russian Central Asia " was 
 
 dedicated by permission to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor 
 
 ^ of Russia, I desired that these volumes on " Chinese Central 
 
 ' Asia " should be dedicated to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor 
 
 ^ of China. To this end permission zvas asked on my behalf of 
 
 ^ the Imperial Government in Peking by Her Britannic Majesty's 
 
 ^ Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, Sir John 
 
 Walsham, Baronet ; and the answer of the Yainen, telegraphed 
 
 by him to the Foreign Office in London, was to the effect that 
 
 no foreign work could be presented or dedicated to the Emperor 
 
 i»J until it had been translated into Chinese, and examined by the 
 
 ^ responsible ministers. 
 
 ^ A few weeks later, however, letters arrived from Peking 
 
 telling me more fullv ivhat had been done, and inclosing a 
 
 ■translation of a letter from the Secretar'ies of the Yamen to 
 
 Mr Jordan, Oriental Secretaiy at the British Embassy at Peking. 
 
 In this translation I read that " The Prince and Ministers 
 
 consider Dr Lansdell has done a very praiseworthy ivork indeed 
 
 in making a special study of the habits and customs of the people 
 
 among whom he travelled, and in compiling a book which he 
 
 ivishes to see widely circulated in China.'' I gather also t/iat 
 
 i'**l AC C'X.^X.
 
 iv DEDICA TION. 
 
 the Secretaries of the Yamcn on one occasion verbally requested 
 Mr Jordan to inform Sir John IValsham that you, Sire, were 
 graciously disposed to accept the proposed dedication {which I 
 esteemed a great kindness on the part of your Majesty), though 
 the letter referred to affirms the general rule in regard to works 
 of foreign origin and language. 
 
 Seeing then. Sire, that my linguistic attainments do not enable 
 nw to translate my tvork into Chinese, and that I caimot delay 
 its publication in England, and hoping further that I have at 
 least your good-will and favour in the matter, I trust I shall not 
 be committing an unpardonable crime if I venture here to offer 
 mv book to your Lnperial Majesty as a humble token of thank- 
 fulness for protection and safe conduct whilst travelling through 
 a remote portion of your Majesty's dominions. 
 
 I confess to having been gratified, on crossing the Chinese 
 frontier at Kuldja, to find my coining expected, and at Kashgar 
 mv reception provided for. Much assistance was afforded me in 
 the Hi valley by the provision of suitable interpreters for the 
 little-knoivn languages of some of the peoples with whom I ivas 
 brought into contact. Moreover, in preparing for my journey 
 across the Muzart Pass, the greatest care ivas taken of my person, 
 and my comfort studied, whilst as I continued round Chinese 
 Turkistan I received from your Majesty s officials repeated mani- 
 festations of hospitality and good- will. All this made my journey 
 less arduous than I expected, and greatly mitigated ivhat were 
 to me the privations of the way. 
 
 Chinamen, I believe, usually travel for one of three reasons — 
 namely, on Government service, commerce, or religion. It was the 
 last of these, Sire, that led me to travel in China, and from the 
 following pages it will be seen that my object was to spread the 
 knowledge of the supreme God. I am aware that ivhen an 
 Englishman thus approaches the Chinese, he approaches an an- 
 cient nation with a literature much older than his ozvn ; a people
 
 DEDICA TION. v 
 
 which numbers perhaps a third of the population of the globe, 
 and whose armies, through many centuries, were ever victorious. 
 I have heard, too, of Chinese prejudice against the religion and 
 ways of foreigners ; but I do not forget that Buddhism, now so 
 widely spread throughout the cnipire, was originally imported from 
 abroad, and that an illustrious Emperor of China, more than a 
 thousand years ago, gave a respectful hearing to a Nestorian 
 teacher of Christianity, and, after raising him to high religious 
 office, appointed him " Great Conservator of Doctrine for the 
 preservation of the Stated Others of your Imperial Majesty's 
 august predecessors have similarly shown favour to Christianity 
 {some of them by building Christian churches^, and only ivithin 
 the last few years an edict has been issued enjoining the Chinese 
 people to respect Christians and praising their teaching as pro- 
 moting peace and good living. 
 
 These things lead us in England to hope that some, at least, 
 in China are willing to give to Christianity a fair hearing. And 
 this, Sire, is precisely what we ask for. We do not seek to force 
 our religion upon your Majesty's subjects (as the Muhammadans 
 have often done in the Tarim valley) by the power of the sivord. 
 We are willing that the superiority of our religion should be tested 
 by its fruits, feeling sure that Christianity, rightly taught, can do 
 as much for the happiness of the Chinese as it has done for the 
 English. To this end there are some hundreds of my countrymen 
 and countrywomen volio are nobly and unselfisJily spending their 
 lives for the good of China. For these nuiy I ask your Majesty's 
 favour and encouragement, feeling as I do that they are deserving 
 of kindness and consideration ? Most of them have sundered, 
 wholly or in part, family ties, zvhich are deemed sacred all the 
 world over. Not a few have relinquished positions of comparative 
 ease and comfort, in order to be of use to the people amongst 
 whom they have come to live. And although, lastly, my oivn 
 little effort is not worthy of mention in comparison with theirs.
 
 vi DEDICATION. 
 
 yd, innsniiic/i as the journey recorded in these volumes was by 
 Jar the hardest I have known, I hope that the record of what 
 has been attempted may be regarded as some little indication of 
 my desire for zvhat I believe to be the good of your Majesty's 
 empire. 
 
 It is -with these sentiments, Sire, of thankful appreciation of 
 kindness sliown to me in Chinese Turkistan, and with every 
 good ivish for the highest welfare of your Majesty and the people 
 of your vast dotninions, that I venture respectfully to subscribe 
 myself. 
 
 Your Imperial Majesty s very humble Servant, 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS book is intended to be a companion and 
 complement to my Russian Central Asia. The 
 area covered by the two works extends all across the 
 continent from the Caspian to the Pacific, whilst my 
 Through Siberia- deals with the rest of Asia, north- 
 ward, to the Arctic Ocean, By Chinese Central Asia 
 is meant that portion of the Celestial Empire lying 
 outside the Great Wall — that is to say, external or 
 extra-mural China ; but not all parts thereof are here 
 treated with equal fulness. 
 
 In the chapters concerning Chinese Turkistan I 
 have endeavoured to be fairly thorough, if only 
 because we have no standard work treating of this 
 country as a whole. In saying this I do not forget 
 the contributions of Sir Douglas Forsyth, Surgeon- 
 General Bellew, and others, to whose valuable reports 
 and writings, published and unpublished, in connection 
 with the Yarkand Missions, I am greatly indebted. 
 Names of other writers also on certain parts of the 
 country, to whom I owe much, are given in the 
 Bibliography. 
 
 The main object of my journey was to spy out the
 
 viii IREFA CE. 
 
 land for missionary purposes. If, however, the lover 
 of missionary information should think that I did little 
 or no work of a missionary kind myself, I would re- 
 mind him that as a preacher I was dumb ; as a dis- 
 tributer of literature I had not the proper translations ; 
 whilst as a pioneer I conceived it my chief task to 
 observe what openings existed, or could be made, for 
 qualified evangelists to follow. 
 
 The book has been longer in making its appearance 
 than I intended. As a matter of fact the word "Finis" 
 was written on my rough manuscript more than a year 
 ago, but the work of revision and printing has been 
 delayed by private affairs with which it is not neces- 
 sary to trouble the reader. 
 
 A preface, though coming in a book first, is written 
 last, and therefore may be regarded in more senses 
 than one as a suitable ijlace for thanksQfivinsf. Several 
 old friends who aided me with my earlier books have 
 again come to my assistance ; such as Mr Glaisher, 
 F.R.S., in meteorology, and Professor Bonney, F.R.S., 
 in geology. Mr Dresser, F.Z.S., determined and 
 arranged such of my birds as are here presented ; 
 whilst Mr Bethune-Baker, F.L.S., F.E.S., and Mr 
 Western, F.E.S., kindly made lists of my Icpidoptera 
 and coleoptera. In literary matters, Lieut. W. H. 
 Cromie and Mrs Bell have again helped in Russian 
 translation, and the Rev. W. W. Tyler, B.D., has done 
 much by way of revision. To all of the foregoing my 
 thanks are due, as also to my wife, who has penned 
 the whole of the Bibliography, and the Chronology.
 
 PREFA CE. ix 
 
 Most of the illustrations are from my own photo- 
 graphs, and have been drawn to illustrate articles in 
 Harper s and Scribner s Magazines, the Graphic, the 
 Fishing Gazette, and Black and White, as well as a 
 series of letters on " A Ride to Little Tibet " in the 
 Daily Graphic. If the illustrations from the last of 
 these should appear somewhat rough and unfinished, the 
 reader will kindly remember that the blocks were not 
 prepared for this book, but for the exigencies of rapid 
 newspaper printing. They are, however, so true to 
 nature and what actually occurred that it was deemed 
 desirable not to omit them. To the editors of the 
 above-mentioned periodicals I am indebted for electro- 
 types. Still more perhaps am I indebted to Dr 
 Lindsay Johnson, the oculist, who not only urged my 
 taking a camera, but with excellent judgment selected 
 my apparatus, and gave me lessons in photography. 
 
 The foregoing may be called home thanksgivings. 
 It is with difficulty that I mention names of those who 
 helped me abroad ; for if I begin, where shall I stop ? 
 As I did not rely in vain upon the assistance of the 
 Foreign Office, the Russian Embassy, or the Chinese 
 Legation at home, so was I siniilarly favoured at 
 the Russian capital, where his Excellency M, Pobe- 
 donostzeff and various Ministers of State lent me their 
 important aid, so that between St Petersburg and the 
 Chinese frontier the Russians outdid all they have ever 
 done for me in smoothing my way. 
 
 In India, again, the Marquis of Lansdowne, as 
 Viceroy, and several heads of departments, not only
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 lent me valuable books and maps, but gave me letters, 
 and showed me an amount of attention out of all pro- 
 portion to my claims or descrvings. I was favoured 
 for the entire journey with from three to four hundred 
 introductions — official, social, religious, scientific, lite- 
 rary, and general. What they did for me may be 
 surmised when it is added that, though I set foot in 
 every country of Asia, I was permitted to go there to 
 scarcely a dozen hotels. 
 
 In sending forth this book, I do so with hearty 
 greetings to those who, in various parts of the world, 
 have perused my former works. If it shall further 
 interest or instruct them, I shall be glad ; but my 
 greatest happiness would be that the work may in 
 some way call attention to the need, and help in fur- 
 ther opening up the remote parts of China to the 
 infiuence of the Gospel. 
 
 H. L. 
 
 MoRDEN College, 
 
 Blackheath, London, S.E. 
 
 wth November, 1893. 
 
 P.S. — Within a few days of sending this sheet to 
 press, my attention has been called to a new map of 
 the Pamir regions by Messrs Constable & Co., who 
 state that it embodies the latest information published 
 (besides much of value that is unpublished) on the 
 region in question. I have accordingly inserted the 
 map in Volume II., to illustrate further my chapter on 
 the Pamirs, and my route over the adjacent mountains.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Dedication 
 
 Preface 
 
 Contents of Chapters 
 
 List of Illustrations in Volume I. 
 
 The Author's Itinerary . 
 
 Observanda 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Ill 
 
 vii 
 
 xi 
 
 XX ii 
 
 xxiv 
 
 XXX 
 
 XXX i 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 FROM LONDON TO MOSCOW. 
 
 The start, and Author's forebodings, i. — Delayed arrival at Berlin ; 
 Visit to the Chinese Embassy, 2. — Custom-house at Wirballen ; 
 Arrival at St Petersburg, and objects of visit ; Request to travel 
 by Trans-Caspian Railvv'ay, 3. — Calls on Sir Robert Morier and 
 M. Pobedonostzeff ; Acceptance by Emperor of Through Central 
 Asia, 4. — Promise of help from Minister of Interior ; Scientists 
 visited ; Social gatherings, and dinner at Embassy, 5. — Visit to 
 M. Vlangali, Assistant-Minister for Foreign Affairs ; Reception by 
 Prince Dondukoff-Korsakoff, and recommendation to General 
 Annenkoff ; Visit to the Minister for War, 6. — My programme, 8. 
 — Meeting with General Kostenko, 9. — Departure for Moscow ; 
 Travelling acquaintances, Dr Alexeef and Count Bobrinsky, junr, 
 10.— Arrival in Moscow, and call on Count Leo Tolstoi, 11. — 
 Departure southwards, 12 i — i;
 
 xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 FROM MOSCOW TO THE CASPIAN. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Railway dangers ahead ; Pleasant fellow-passengers, and offers of 
 hospitality, 13. — Arrival at Kursk; Arrival and enforced stoppage 
 at Kharkof, 14. — Former visit to town prison, 15. — Departure 
 from Kharkof, and arrival in Crimea, 16. — Improved weather at 
 Sevastopol; Sunday service, 17. — Departure for Batoum ; H.B.M. 
 Consul ; Departure across Caucasus, and arrival at Tiflis ; Sir 
 Drummond Wolff and Col. Stewart ; Presentation of introductory 
 letters, 18. — Dr Kadde and i\I. Hcdjouboff; Dei)arture from Tiflis 
 to Baku, 20 13—20 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 
 
 Wanted" by the Police-master; Call on the Governor, 21. — Com- 
 forts on steamer to Uzun Ada ; Landing at railway terminus, 22. 
 — Trans-Caspian stations to oasis of Akhal Tekke, 25. — Kizil 
 Arvat, 26. — Arrival at Geok Tepe, 28. — My coming to Askhabad 
 expected, 30. — Continuation of journej^to Dushak, 32. — Arrival at 
 Merv, 35. — Hospitahty of Colonel AUkhanoff; Modern Merv, 36. — 
 Oriental carpets and embroidery, 37. — Alikhanoff's successful 
 administration ; Quiet and order of Panjdeh, 38. — A visit to Old 
 Merv, 39. — Ruins on site of Merv ; Arab and Persian remains, 
 41. — Russian annexation of Merv, 43. — How brought about, 44. — 
 Liberation of slaves, 46 ........ 21 — 46 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM MERV TO THE OX US. 
 
 Further railway favours, 47. — Journey through sand barkhans and 
 desert stations, 48. — Guest at Amu-daria with Colonel Tcharykoff, 
 50. — Reforms by new Emir of Bokhara, 51. — Dinner-party at 
 Colonel Tcharj'koff's, 52. — Visit to Bek of Charjui ; Murder of 
 previous Bek, and lynching the murderer, 54. — The prison re- 
 visited, 55. — The gallows, 57. — Journey continued in a rolling 
 maisonette, 58.— Bridge over the Oxus, 59. — Inn at Bokhara 
 station, 60 47_6o
 
 CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BOKHARA. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Drive to the town, 6l. — Fellow-guests and repeated experiences; 
 Madame Klemm's hospitality, 62. — Russian ladies in Bokhara, 63. 
 — Espionage and suspicion of natives ; Visit to bazaar and Kalan 
 Mosque ; Photography allowed but suspected, 64. — House of the 
 Ishan and maniacs, 65. — Picture-taking under difficulties ; Visit to 
 Jewish synagogue, 67. — Morning prayers and circumcision, 68. — 
 Jewish oppression in Bokhara, 69. — Visit to city prison, 70. — 
 Lepers' quarter, 72. — Audience with the Emir, 73. — " A bargain's 
 a bargain"'; Political influence of Russian Residency, 77.— Rides 
 about the town, 78 61 — 79 
 
 CHAPTER \T. 
 
 SAMARKAND. 
 
 Departure from Bokhara, 80. — Arrival at head of tlie line ; Guest of 
 General Annenkoff, 81. — M. Rubenstein and Dr Heyfelder, 84. — 
 Drive to Katte Kurgan ; Custom-house ; A banquet anticipated, 85. 
 — Departure by post-horses, 86. — Farewell to General Annenkoff ; 
 Bridges prepared for railwaj^ 87. — Approach to Samarkand ; 
 Guest with M. Tolpygo ; Dinner at Government House, 88. — 
 Condition of former acquaintances ; Sights revisited ; Tamerlane's 
 Mausoleum, 89. — Synagogue, and visits from Jews ; Farewell to 
 M. Tolpygo and Samarkand, 91 . . . . . . 80 — 91 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TASHKEND. 
 
 Crossing the Zarafshan to the bridge of .Shadman-Malik ; Route 
 to Jizak, 92. — Across the "Hungry" Steppe to Chinaz, 93. — 
 Tashkend, 94. — Dinner with Governor-General Rosenbach ; Help 
 from Captain Blinoff, 95. — Easter services, and subsequent recep- 
 tion at Government House ; Lutherans' request for a service 
 and Easter communion ; Withdrawal of money from bank, 96. — 
 Arrangements for communication with Kashgar, 97. — Improve- 
 ments in Tashkend and purchases, 99. — Russian lady nurses, loi. 
 — An open-air bazaar; Further visits to Government House, and 
 parting amenities, 102 ....... 92 —
 
 xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 CIIAI'TKR VIII. 
 FROM TASHKEXD TO ISSIK-KUL. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Departure from Tashkend ; Arrival at Chimkend, 103. — Passing through 
 Aulie-Ata ; Previous visit remembered at stations beyond, 104. — 
 Region of " Ming-bulak"; Out of General Government of Turkistan 
 into that of tlie " Steppe " ; Telegrams to and from General 
 Kolpakovsky ; Arrival at Pishpek, 105. — Should I visit Issik- 
 Kul ? 106. — Start with a Colonel ; Arrival at Tokmak, and excur- 
 sion to the Burana Tower, 107. — Recent discovery of Nestorian 
 cemeteries, 109. — Two graves opened, no. — Traces of surround- 
 ing habitations; Tokmak cemetery; Inscriptions and decipher- 
 ment, 1 12. — Departure from Tokmak ; The Buam defile ; Crossing 
 the Chu to Kok-Mainak, 114. — Northern chain of the Tian Shan ; 
 The Ala-Tau and Alexander ranges; Basin of Issik-Kul, 115. — 
 Description of the lake ; Road along its northern shore ; A narrow 
 escape; Arrival at Kara-Kol, 116 . . . . . 103 — 116 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FROM LSSIK-KUL TO VIE R NY. 
 
 A previous traveller to Issik-Kul ; Scenery of Kara-Kol, 1 1 7. — Attentions 
 from Colonel Vaouline ; Arrangements of Chief of the District on 
 my behalf, 118. — Change of plans, 119. — The Kara-Kirghese ; their 
 districts, origin, and costume, 120. — How far Muhammadans ; 
 Missions among them of Russian Church, 121. — Kirghese modes 
 of treating disease; Fish, for specimens, 124. — Passing through 
 Pishpek, 125. — The Chu river and the Aral depression ; Our wheel 
 fallen to pieces, 126. — Arrival at Otar, and repair of tarantass, 127. 
 — Arrival at Uzun-Agatch, and escort to Vierny, 128 . 117 — 128 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 VIERNY AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE. 
 
 \'icrny pleasantly situated, 129. — Eye-witnesses' description of earth- 
 quake, 130. — Houses of burnt brick most damaged; Destruction 
 around town; Mud streams from the mountains, 131. — Losses of 
 life, 132. — Removal of inhabitants; Author taken to Governor's 
 temporary abode; Lodged in M. Gourdet's new house, 133. — 
 Money sent to Kashgar, 134. — Anniversary of earthquake, and 
 Memorial Chapel; Seismic record of earthquake shocks, 135. — 
 Baggage delayed; Remissness of Russian Society for Trans- 
 port, 137. — Dot/ceitr given and misappropriated, 138. — Arrival of 
 baggage; Luggage forwarded to Jarkcnd, 139. . . 129—139
 
 CONT£iVTS. ; 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FJiOM VIERNY TO THE CHINESE FRONTIER. 
 
 PAG 
 
 Departure from Vierny, and meeting an Englishman at llisk, 140. — A 
 gang of Siberian exiles ; False statement as to their chains, 141. — 
 Altitude of llisk, 142. — Crossing bridge ; Geology of the road ; 
 Need of sound wheels ; Road to Jarkend, 143. — Hospitality pro- 
 vided, 144. — Introduction to a rich native; Offers of service from 
 Prjevalskys guides, 145. — Arrangements for money, and modes 
 of conveyance ; Purchase of cart and horses, 146. — Kindness of 
 Yuldasheff; Departure from Jarkend, and review of Russian 
 favours, 147. — Driving towards the frontier, and warnings as to 
 being stopped, 148. — Advised to approach from Peking, 149. — 
 Deprived of interpreter, 150. — Cossacks for escort, and "success 
 number one"; Site of ancient Almalik ; Martyrdom of mediaeval 
 Christians; To and at Suiting; Arrival at Kuldja, 151 . 140 — \\ 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MANCHURIA, MONGOIIA, SUNGARIA. 
 
 China within and beyond the Wall ; Outer China girdled by mountains ; 
 Former extent of China's dominion; Character of surface, 153. — 
 Political divisions of Outer China, 1 54. — Manchuria; its boundaries, 
 dimensions, mountains, and rivers ; its provinces, government, 
 and population, 155. — Our knowledge of Manchuria, and whence 
 acquired; Nomad tribes, their Shamanism, and partial conver- 
 sion, 156. — Manchuria colonised by Chinese ; Manchu, the court 
 and official language of China ; Efforts to Christianise Man- 
 churia, 158. — Mongolia; its dimensions and climate, 160.— Divisions 
 and towns of Mongolia ; Kiakhta, and tea route ; Inhabitants of 
 Mongolia, 161. — The Mongols, lamaists, 162. — Missionaries' trans- 
 lation of Bible still in use ; Baptisms by Russian missionaries ; 
 Missions to southern Mongols, 163. — A difficult but open field, 164. 
 — Sungaria ; its depressions a highway to and from the Turkistan 
 plains; Three districts of Sungaria, 165.— Chuguchak ; its troops 
 and trade, 166.— District of Kara-kur-usu ; its lakes and towns; 
 The imperial high road to Hami, 168. — History of the Sungars, 
 and their approximate extermination ; Sungaria repeopled by 
 various nationalities, 169. — Translation of Scriptures into Kalmuk ; 
 Another field for missionary effort, 170 . . . . 152 — -170
 
 xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 CIIAPTKR XITI. 
 CHINESE OFFICIAL PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Lodgings at Kuldja, 171.— Book-post parcels not opened by Censor, 
 172.— Packages from Russian Consul; Visit to M. Uspensky, 173. — 
 Changed appearance of Kuldja under Chinese, 175. — Arrival of 
 horses, 176. —Paucity of public buildings; Call from Lutheran 
 postmaster. 177. — Letter from the Tsian-Tsiun ; Excursion to 
 Suiting, 178. — Appearance of Suiting, 179. — Chinese inn; Intruding 
 natives and distracting noises, 181.— Called to breakfast with Kah; 
 A score of dishes, 182. — Chinese table etiquette and conversa- 
 tion, 184. — Return call from Kah; his Manchu agility; Audience 
 with the Tsiatt-Tsiitn, 185. — Presents to Tsian-Tsiun and Kah ; 
 Calls from and upon Mattie, a former acquaintance, 186. — Presents 
 from Tsian-Tsiun, including a sucking-pig; Disgust of Muham- 
 madan innkeeper ; Return to Kuldja, 187 . . . 171 — 187 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PREPARATIONS AT KULDJA. 
 
 ;\Iy impedimenta, 188. — Food, physic, and clothing, 189. — Furniture, 
 books, and instruments, 190. — Presents ; Visit from a blind 
 native, 192. — Call on Roman missionaries, 193. — Their assistance 
 sought by Chinese ; 111 effects of child-marriage, 194. — Shelter given 
 to the girl by missionaries ; Names added to roll of adherents ; 
 Chinese quarter of Kuldja and magistrate's procession, 195. — 
 Instruments of punishment, 196. — Intended route changed, 197. — 
 Interpreter into Chinese unwilling to proceed, 198. — Withdrawal 
 of interpreter into Turki ; Perplexing, but subsequently proving 
 well ; Objections to route via Urumtsi ; Consideration as to moun- 
 tain roads, 199. — The Muzart Pass, 200. — A caravan leader willing 
 to attempt it ; How affecting main object of journey ; Where to 
 find interpreter? 201 — Another excursion to Suiting, 202. — Chinese 
 temple and theatre, 203. — Change of route sanctioned and 
 arranged for, 204 — Return to Kuldja ; Interpreter sent for to 
 Kashgar, 205. — My Tatar hostess, 206, — Farewell visit to Suiting 
 and Chinese officials, 207 188 — 207 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FROM KULDJA TO THE PASS OF CHAPCHAL. 
 
 Caravan travel by horses ; M. Bornemann and his linguistic abilities, 
 208. — Caravan leader and negotiations; Text of contract, 210. — 
 Departure from Kuldja, 212. — Swollen condition of river; Escort 
 of four, 213. — Jing's pretensions ; Whipping the ferryman, 214. — .
 
 CONTENTS. xvii 
 
 PAGES 
 
 The Hi, and how crossed ; Bivouac, and departnre next morning, 
 215. — Personnel of caravan, 216. — ASibo village ; Solon colonists, 
 217. — Reception at Kalmuk encampment, 218. — Shooting grouse, 
 and ride to Damarchi ; Taranchi inhabitants, 2ig. — Hospitality at 
 Damarchi ; Ride along the Uzun-Tau Mountains, 220. — Arrival at 
 gorge of Chapchal, 221 . . . , . . . 208 — 221 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE TERES VALLEY. 
 
 B'irst Sunday in camp, 222. — Lodging in Kalmuk tent, 223. — Breakfast 
 menu, 224. — Review of month, 225. — My servant Joseph, 226. — 
 Lack of efficient interpreter, 227. — Altitude and temperature of 
 Chapchal ; Visit to Kalmuk tents, 228. — Pass of Chapchal ; Defile 
 of Sua-Chow ; Geology of Uzun-Tau,' 229. — Altitude of Pass, 230. 
 — Descent to Booghru ; Cattle of the Kalmuks, and dogs, 231. — 
 March from Booghru and butterfly hunt, 233. — Manchu larking 
 on horseback ; Caution against spirit-drinking, 234. — Arrival at 
 Khanakai, 235. — Taking photographs ; Departure to the Tekes ; 
 its rise and course, 236. — Impracticable ford at Geelan and detonr 
 to Narin-Kol; Welcome at Russian picket, and help of Cossacks, 
 238. — Fording the Tekes, 239. — Another night on river bank ; 
 Awakened by Lama's prayers ; Departure for Muzart defile, 
 240 ........... 222 — 240 
 
 CHAPTER XVH. 
 
 UP THE MUZ-TAG MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Orography of Tian Shan system, 241. — Abundance of glaciers, but few 
 rivers, 242. — Sources of our knowledge of the Tian Shan ; the 
 Muz-Tag range, 243. — Fording the Urten Muzart, 244. — Absence 
 of Kirghese ; Entrance to Muzart defile ; A quiet Sunday, 245. — 
 Remains of stone fort; Starting-point of Shepeleff; Kostenko's 
 route, 246. — Departure from Shattoo ; Inscription on granite rock ; 
 Forest zone of birch, fir, etc., 247. — Beauty of path, 248.— Butterfly- 
 hunting on horseback, 249. — Arrival at Udungei ; Chinese picket, 
 and Kalmuk tents ; Kalmuk food, 250. — Osman Bai's orthodoxy as 
 to food, 251. — Departure to Khan-Yailak, 252. — Visit to last Kalmuk 
 tent ; Comparison of koumiss of Orenburg and farther east, 253. — 
 Kalmuk photographs and anthropological remarks, 254. — Dress, 
 numbers, and administration, 256. — Russian education of Kalmuks ; 
 their intellectual capacities, 257. — Buddhist objects of worship ; 
 Kalmuk women, marriage customs, and morals, 258. — Features of 
 nomad life ; Chinese picket, 259. — Willingness of Jing and Tor-jee 
 to proceed ; other two attendants sent back, 260 . . 241—261 
 
 b
 
 xviii CONIENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 OVER THE MUZ-DA VAN, OR ICE PASS. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 From Khan-Yailak to bed of Muzart, 262.— View of Archali-Karachat 
 glacier ; Camp at Toghri-su, 263. — Stir at daybreak, 264. — Basin 
 receiving five glaciers, 265.— Photograph of the " White Moun- 
 tain," 266.— Kaulbars' remarks on Jalyn-Khatsyr glacier, 268. — 
 Ice-tables and stony roads; View of tncr-de-glacc, 272. — Ice- 
 hummocks, crevasses, grottoes, and pinnacles ; Difficulties of 
 pack animals, 274. — Fall over precipice of horse and baggage; 
 Mazar-bash ; former hermitage, and fort, 275. — Soldiers' pro- 
 visions and horses hauled up an ice-cliff, 276. — Scrambling down 
 the Muz-davan, 277. — Road over rocks and stones, 278. — From 
 Mazar-bash to Tamgha-tash ; End of glacier, and superb ice- 
 cavern ; Hiuen Tsiang's description, 279. — Frequent loss of 
 horses ; Good fortune of first European in completely crossing 
 the Pass, 2S1 262—281 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DOWN THE MUZ ART VALLEY. 
 
 Tamgha-tash station unapproachable ; Waiting for baggage, and 
 supperless to bed in the open, 283. — A remarkable day, 284. — 
 Arrival next morning of Osman Bai ; Military insignificance of 
 Tamgha-tash, 285. — Departure southwards; A marble monu- 
 ment, 286. — Fine view from Balguluk ; Professor Bonney's note 
 on Romanovsky's geological map ; Kungei Ala-Tau range ; 
 Rocks east, south, and west of Issik-Kul, 287. — Shaping of 
 mountains, and suggested periods of earth movements, 288. — 
 Alexander chain compared with Swiss Oberland ; Complicated 
 orographical structure at Kara-Kol watershed, 289. — The Ferghana 
 mountains and their characteristic rocks extending to Pamirs ; 
 Geologj^ of route southwards, 290. — Three lines of orographical 
 folding; Continuation of author's route, 291. — Accident in fording 
 river ; Camera washed away ; Attendants' pursuit, and success in 
 recovering baggage, 292. — Arrival at Kailek, 294. — Breaking into a 
 post-station, 295. — To Tuprak ; An afternoon's shooting, 296.— Pur- 
 chase of an eagle, 297. — Josephs taxidermical masterpiece, 298. — 
 Departure from Tuprak, and pursuit of partridges ; Narrow escape 
 from homicide ; Arrival at Muzart-Kurgan, 299 . . 282 — 299
 
 CONTENTS. xix 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 FROM MUZART-KURGAN TO AKSU. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Lodging at Muzart-Kurgan, 300. — Objections to Customs examination ; 
 Advice concerning Chinese officials, 301. — Standing on one's 
 rights, 302. — Visit of Customs official, 303. — Inspection of Muzart- 
 Kurgan; Nimrods cunning, 304. — Route continued over undulating 
 tableland ; Dust columns, 305. — Kizil-Bulak ; Route southwards 
 over curious geological formation, 306. — Messenger from Aksu ; 
 Stay at Auvat, and ride to Jam, 307.— Southern view of Tian 
 Shan, 308. — Khan Tengri, visible 100 miles off, 309. — Glaciers 
 and crests westwards ; From Jam to Tash-Lianger, 310. — Death 
 of a horse and dog, 311. — Thermometrical observations between 
 Kuldja and Aksu ; Arrival of Madamin Bai from Russian Consul, 
 312. — A minatory letter, 314. — Escorted into Aksu, 316 . 300 — 316 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CHINESE TURKISTAN. 
 
 Chinese Turkistan ; its boundaries and varying names, 318. — ^The Sin 
 Kiang, or New Frontier ; its eastern boundary and latest carto- 
 graphy, 319. — Its dimensions, mountains, rivers, and lakes, 320. — 
 Surface and communications, 322.— The country described as 
 approached from Peking by northern route, and by southern route, 
 to Kami, 323. — Hami ; its history, European visitors, and present 
 condition, 326. — Roads from Hami to Kobdo, Barkul, and Guchen, 
 329. — Urumtsi ; its history and situation as headquarters town of 
 the Sin Kiang, 330. — Route via Toksun to Pishan and Turfan, 333. 
 — History of Turfan ; its sacred mountain and latest PZuropean 
 visitors, 334. — Karashar and its Kalmuks, 337. — Kurla, Kuchar, 
 and Bai, 338 317—339 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 OUR STAY AT AKSU. 
 
 Aksu ; its history and area, 340. — Our ariival and lodging, 341. — 
 Intricacies of Chinese money ; shoes, tengas, and cash, 343. — 
 Visits from mercliants ; Distribution of Scriptures, 345. — Reward 
 offered for Dalgleish's murderer, 346. — Aksu bazaar, 347. — Riding 
 round the town ; its buildings, cemetery, and mode of burial, 348. 
 — Repair of camera, 349. — Visit to Chinese Aksu ; Reception of 
 official visits, 351. — Inspection of prison, 352. — Preparations for 
 departure, and payment to Osman Bai ; Presents to Monkey-facp 
 and Tor-jee ; Letters despatched to Kuldja. 354. — Cart-driver 
 taken before the magistrate, 355 . . . . 340 — 355
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF CHINESE CENTRAL 
 
 ASIA. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Meaning of "Chinese Central Asia," anciently " Cathay," 356. — How 
 regarded by Greeks and Romans ; Ptolemy's " Serica " ; Chinese 
 historians, 357. — The Buddhist pilgrims, 359. — Arabian knowledge 
 of the " Seres " ; Armenian and Persian intercourse with China, 
 360. — Nestorian and Roman missionaries, 361. — Marco Polo, 362. 
 — Benedict Goes; Translations from Chinese records and from 
 Tchuen-yuen, 364. — Russian contact with Mongols ; Missions to 
 Peking and Yarkand, 368. — Advances to Sungaria and Kashgar, 
 370. — Prjevalsky's journeys in Mongolia, 371. — Renat's map of 
 Sungaria, 372. — English explorers in Sungaria, and in Tarim 
 basin, 374. — Forsyth's missions to Kashgar, 375. — Later travellers 
 in Chinese Turkistan, 376 356 — 376 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 FROM AKSU TO MARALBASHI. 
 
 Two roads to Kashgar; Northern through Ush-Turfan, followed by 
 Younghusband, 377. — District of Ush-Turfan ; its people and 
 capital, 378. — Aksai valley and Kirghese nomads, 379. — Our de- 
 parture by southern route, 380. — March to Chinese city of Aksu, 
 ■381. — Fording the Janart river, and shooting birds, 383. — Ride 
 to Sai-Aryk, 384. — Stormy weather, 385. — Night travel through 
 Chilan to district of Maralbashi, 386. — Sunday at Yaka Kuduk ; 
 A Chinese official, 387. — Undesirable companions, 388. — March 
 to Chadir-Kul, 389. — Its birds and buildings, 390. — Pheasants 
 and Podoces, 391. — Scriptures at Tum Chuk, 393. — Arrival at 
 Charwagh, visited by Biddulph for shooting, 394. — Antiquities 
 between Charwagh and Maralbashi, 395 . . . 377 — 395 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE INHABITANTS OF CHINESE TURKISTAN. 
 
 Chinese Central Asia and its inhabitants ; Manchus in Hi and Pelu 
 towns, 396. — Kalmuks in Sungaria and Karashar, 397. — Kirghese ; 
 their anthropological characteristics, diseases, morals, and occu- 
 pation, 398. — Scarcely subjected by Chinese ; Turkish inhabitants 
 of plains, 405. — Their alleged Aryan descent, 406. — Lack of 
 physical strength ; The Turks hard-working and honest ; Weak
 
 CONTENTS. xxi 
 
 PAGES 
 
 points of urban character ; Lack of baths ; Abuse of narcotics, 
 408. — Sexual depravity, 409. — Piteous story of a female prisoner, 
 410. — Degradation of country through Muhammadanism ; The 
 Chinese, "strangers and foreigners"; their mandarins and sol- 
 diery, 412. — Chinese garrisons and traders; Total population, 
 414 396—414 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 FROM MARALBASHI TO KASHGAR. 
 
 An early welcome, 415. — Call on the mandarin; The bazaar, 416. — 
 Visited by mandarin, 417. — Photography, and consequent excite- 
 ment, 418. — The fortress and its features, 420. ^General character 
 of forts in Chinese Turkistan ; Maralbashi, a strategical position ; 
 Road southwards to Yarkand, 422. — Dolan shepherds and their 
 underground dwellings, 423. — Departure from Maralbashi, 424. — 
 A trot to Urdaklik, 425. — Caught in a quagmire, 426. — A neigh- 
 bourhood of wild-boars and deer, 427. — March to Faizabad ; 
 Visited by Chinese general, 428. — Features of the town, 429. — ■ 
 Limits of Kashgar district ; March to the Yengi-shahr, 430. — 
 March through fortress to old town of Kashgar, 431 . 415 — 43: 
 
 CHAPTER XXVn. 
 
 OUR STAY AT KASHGAR. 
 
 Ride to Russian Consulate, 433. — Ascent of city wall, 434. — M. Nicolas 
 Petrovsk)' and his Consular staff, 435. — His hospitality and intel- 
 lectual tastes, 436. — Miscarriage of letters ; Visited by local 
 authorities, 437. — Taking photographs, 438. — Trade of Chinese 
 Turkistan and its ramifications, 439. — Calls and presents from 
 the Tautai, 440. — Visit to prison, 441. — ^Three homicides, and 
 instruments of torture, 442. — Uncertainty as to route ; Thougiits 
 of Kafiristan, 444. — Preparations for Karakoram route ; Osman 
 Bai paid off, and three carts engaged ; Lack of antiquities in 
 Kashgar, 446. — Ruin of Aski Shahr ; Present town of Kasligar ; 
 Visit to shrine of Khoja Aphak, 447. — Rifled grave of Yakub Khan, 
 449. — The Mausoleum, 450. — The Golden Mosque ; The Consul's 
 photography and Muhammadan prejudice, 451 . . 433 — 451 
 
 Chronology of Chinese Central Asia 452
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOL. I, 
 
 THE RAILWAY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FORDING THE MUZART-NiN-su (See page 291) .... Frontispjece 
 
 MAP OF CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA, WITH AUTHOr's ROUTE . . To face I 
 
 GENERAL L. M. ANNENKOFF, CONSTRUCTOR OF THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 
 
 UZUN ADA, THE WESTERN TERMINUS OF THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 
 
 KODJ STATION IN THE AKHAL TEKKE OASIS ...... 
 
 A BROKEN ICE-HOUSE ON THE PERSIAN FRONTIER .... 
 
 THE STATION AT GEOK TEPE ......... 
 
 TEKKE FORTRESS OF GEOK TEPE, SHOWING THE HOLES IN WHICH THE TUR- 
 KOMANS HID THEMSELVES FOR PROTECTION FROM THE RUSSLAN MISSILES 
 
 RAILWAY STATION AT ASKHA3AD ..... 
 
 GARDEN OF THE MILITARY CLUB, ASKH.ABAD 
 
 THE TO.MB OF CAIN AT SARAKHS ..... 
 
 STATION AT DUSHAK, THE FARTHEST POINT SOUTH, WHENCE 
 MAY BE CONTINUED TO THE AFGH.\N FRONTIER 
 
 NEW BRIDGE AT MERV ....... 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL GATEWAY OF BAIRAM ALI 
 
 A RUSSIAN OFFICER NEGOTIATING WITH TURKOMAN CHIEFS; TURKOMAN 
 WOMEN WITH SPINNING WHEEL ; A TEKKE BEAUTY" IN FESTAL ARRAY 
 
 RESERVOIR AT BAIRAM ALI, OR OLD MERV ..... 
 
 RAILWAY DEPOT AT AMU-DARIA ....... 
 
 BATCHAS, OR DANCING BOY'S, WITH MUSICIANS AND SINGERS 
 
 CEMETERY, AND MODE OF EXECUTION IN BOKHARA AND KHIVA . 
 OPENING OF THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE OXUS AT CHARJUI 
 
 BRIDGE OVER THE OXUS, 6,230 FEET, THE LONGEST IN THE WORLD 
 
 JEWS OF BOKHARA ......... 
 
 THE EMIR OF BOKHARA AND HIS TREASURER .... 
 
 COLLEGE OF DIVAN-BEGGI ........ 
 
 AT THE HEAD OF THE LINE 
 
 7 
 
 24 
 26 
 27 
 28 
 
 29 
 30 
 31 
 
 44 
 48 
 
 50 
 53 
 56 
 57 
 5«, 59 
 70 
 
 75 
 78 
 8i
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 A LOCOMOTIVE HABITATION FOR GENERAL ANNENKOFF, PART OF HIS STAFF, 
 
 AND SERVANTS ••■........ 82 
 
 LAYING RAILS AT THE RATE OF FOUR MILES A DAY ..... 83 
 
 MAKING A CUTTING — ASSES TAKING AWAY THE EARTH IN PANNIERS . . 84 
 
 CONSTRUCTION OF A BRIDGE NEAR SAMARKAND 87 
 
 THE GUR-EMIR, OR MAUSOLEUM OF TAMERLANE, AT SAMARKAND . . . 90 
 
 WELLS IN THE " HUNGRY " STEPPE ........ 93 
 
 COSTUMES OF CENTRAL ASIAN WOMEN IN THE STREET ..... ICO 
 
 A WOMAN OF CENTRAL ASI.\ .\T HOME ........ Id 
 
 THE SOURCE OF THE KOPA . . . . . . . .12/ 
 
 A MUD-STREAM AFTER AN EARTHOU.^KE . . . . . • 'j^ 
 
 A CONVICT WITH H.\LF-SHAVEN HEAD . . . . . . I4I 
 
 CHAINS AND SUMMER COSTUME OF A SIBERIAN PRISONER .... I42 
 
 A GROUP OF GOLDI CHRISTIANS . . . . . . . . -157 
 
 MANCHU SOLDIERS AT SWORD DRILL, AT DURBULJIN, NEAR CHUGUCHAK 166, 1 67 
 THE TARANCHI MARKET AT KULDJA . . . . . . . -175 
 
 THE DISCOMFORTS OF A CHINESE INN AT SUITING — PREPARING A ROOM FOR 
 
 THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . I 80 
 
 BREAKFAST WITH THE COMMISSARY OF RUSSO-CHINESE AFFAIRS AT SUITING I83 
 A TATAR WOMAN . . .......... 206 
 
 VAN, A KALMUK KHAN, WITH HIS SUITE, AT BAR.\TOL.\ .... 2O9 
 
 ON THE WAY TO THE MUZART PASS — THE AUTHORS CAR.WAN . . .217 
 
 BAGGAGE TENT AND " PAL.\TKA " AT KHANAKAI ...... 244 
 
 A GROUP OF MONGOLS IN CHINESE TURKISTAN ...... 255 
 
 SUNRISE ON A PEAK IN THE MUZART PASS, LOOKING SOUTH-WEST FROM 
 
 TOGHRI-SU ............ 265 
 
 THE "WHITE mountain" IN THE ]\IUZ.\RT PASS, AS SEEN WHEN APPRO.A.CH- 
 
 ING FROM THE NORTH .......... 267 
 
 THE DORGA GLACIER IN THE MUZART PASS ....... 272 
 
 COMING DOWN THE ICE-CLIFF AT MAZAR-B.\SH . . ... 278 
 
 NEARING AKSU TEA BY THE W.\Y 315 
 
 IN THE PRISON AT AKSU — METHODS OF PUNISHING THE PRISONERS . . 353 
 
 A KIRGHESE IN " M.\LAKHAI," OR TRAVELLING HOOD ..... 399 
 
 A KIRGHESE BRIDE ........... 4OI 
 
 INTERIOR OF A KARA-KIRGHESE TENT ........ 4O3 
 
 CHINESE WOMEN AT KASHG.\R . . . . . . . . .413 
 
 TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE BAZAAR. . . . . . . -419 
 
 TAKING A PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE ROOF OF THE CARAVANSERAI . . .421 
 
 AT KASHGAR — THE " TAUTAI " ON HIS WAY TO VISIT DR LANSDELL . . 44O 
 
 DERVISH SHAH ISMAIL, A KALENDAR OF THE APHAK MONASTERY . . 448 
 
 AT KASHGAR — MULLAHS INDICATING THE RIFLED GRAVE OF YAKUB KHAN . 45O
 
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 OBS E RV AN DA, 
 
 In proper names the letters should be pronounced as follows : — • 
 a as in feather ; c as in tht-re ; i as in rav/ne ; o as in gc? ; z/ as 
 in l/znar ; and the diphthongs ai and ci as / in pr/de. 
 
 The consonants are pronounced as in English, save that tck 
 is guttural, as ch in the Scotch \och. 
 
 Unless otherwise stated : — 
 
 English weights and measures are to be understood. 
 
 Degrees of temperature are expressed according to the 
 scale of Fahrenheit. 
 
 The Chinese ja»ib (50 tae/s) is reckoned at ^i 1 5.^. od. English. 
 „ tael, /iang, or seroi silver is rgckoned at ^s. 6d. 
 
 >> 
 
 cash 
 
 T\d 
 
 J) 
 
 catty 
 
 l\ lb. 
 
 )) 
 
 jing 
 
 I5 lb. 
 
 J) 
 
 // (1825*25 English feet) 
 
 , ^ mile 
 
 The Turkis 
 
 1 tenga 
 
 2 id. 
 
 >) 
 
 pill 
 
 ^d. 
 
 The Russian rouble (paper) 
 
 , 2S. 
 
 J J 
 
 verst 
 
 , % mile 
 
 »> 
 
 pound , 
 
 14-43 oz. 
 
 ,, 
 
 pood , 
 
 36 lbs. 
 
 The Indian 
 
 rupee , 
 
 , i^. 6d.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 1 PURPOSE, in the present work, to treat in general 
 of Chinese Central Asia, and, more particularly, my 
 journey from London to Little Tibet. 
 
 As to the reasons and motives for the expedition, especially 
 those of a personal character, I might prefer quietly to pass 
 them over ; but they are of interest to some, who like to 
 " begin at the beginning," and experience has taught me 
 that if, on such points, I keep silence, others undertake to 
 speak, but not always so accurately as I could wish. 
 
 Thus, one newspaper, during my absence, flatteringly 
 designated me as a " useful and enterprising agent of the 
 Bible Society " ; and I have been frequently connected in a 
 similar manner with the Religious Tract Society ; the fact 
 being that I have never acted as an agent of either, albeit 
 that both Societies, as well as the Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, have accorded me grants of religious 
 literature for distribution. 
 
 Again, another newspaper, during my absence from P'ngland, 
 informed its readers that I " went out more than a year ago 
 with a sort of roving commission from the Church Missionary 
 Society," which is so wide of the mark that the Committee 
 felt obliged to decline my two requests for co-operation. 
 
 The story of my going is simply this. When proceeding 
 to Russian Central Asia in 1882, I received from the Marquis 
 Tseng letters to the Governors of Hi and the New Dominion,
 
 xxxii INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 on the remote possibility of my wishing to cross the Chinese 
 frontier near Kuldja. Time did not permit of my doing 
 so ; but I made the remark, I think at the dinner-table of 
 the Governor-General of Turkistan — Colonel Poukaloff, six 
 years afterwards, reminded me of it — how interesting a 
 journey it would be to cross the Tian Shan Mountains to 
 Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan. My fellow-guests, who 
 were officers, agreed as to the interest of the journey, but 
 thought it would be difficult to accomplish. 
 
 Nine months afterwards, at the Mildmay Conference, I 
 found myself seated next to the Rev. Hudson Taylor, Founder 
 of the China Inland Mission ; and, upon making his acquaint- 
 ance, I asked what they were doing for Western China, and 
 broached the thought of my possibly some day going there 
 through Mongolia. He readily favoured the idea, and offered 
 to do all he could to help me, by advice or letters, or 
 possibly by sending a man to accompany me. 
 
 This was kind and encouraging, as Mr Hudson Taylor 
 has been ever since ; but he rather damped my ardour 
 when he went on to say that his Society had a man on 
 the frontier of Tibet, learning the language, and ready to 
 go in when permitted. 
 
 What need, then, I thought, to pursue the matter ? 
 
 On the same day I went to the Chinese Legation, where 
 I had promised to give information about travelling to Kuldja 
 through Russia ; and took the opportunity to inquire about 
 the possibility of going to Mongolia. I learnt that the 
 country was free to travellers, and was promised such help 
 as could be given. 
 
 Two days later, on meeting a scientific acquaintance, he 
 said that a journey across Mongolia would present facilities 
 for useful investigations in almost every department of 
 Natural History. 
 
 These considerations, with the foregoing, I thought over
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxiii 
 
 on the morrow, and, for the time being, put the matter 
 to sleep. This was in June 1883, when I was busy writing 
 Russian Central Asia. 
 
 My diary for the following September and December 
 shows that the idea was not abandoned, however ; nor, on 
 the other hand, in April of the following year, was it growing, 
 for I thought the China Inland Mission had the business 
 in hand. In 1885 I was invited to take temporary charge 
 of St Peter's Church, Eltham, and became so happily engaged 
 in parochial work that I thought my long journeys were 
 over. 
 
 Nor was this equanimity disturbed in the following year 
 on receiving a letter from an American named Crossett, 
 lately arrived from Peking, who at Tientsin had been reading 
 my Through Siberia. He thanked me for what I had done 
 for that country, and, on obtaining an interview, intimated 
 that he would like me to go to Mongolia and Tibet, whilst 
 in the coolest manner possible he took out his pocket-book 
 and gave me the names of two or three persons for inter- 
 preters. Not wishing to appear rude or indifferent, I wrote 
 them down, but told him I had no thought of going. 
 
 Nor had I ; though in a few weeks things were changed. 
 My temporary engagement came to an end ; the Church 
 Homiletical Society, of ^^'hich I had been Honorary Secretary, 
 was dissolved, and I had just given up the editorship of 
 the Clergyman's MagarJne, when I received another note 
 from Mr Crossett, this time asking for linguistic information, 
 after which he added, " I am hoping tliat the way will be 
 opened soon for a pioneering tour into the eastern and 
 northern borders of Tibet from Peking. Will you come 
 out and lead the way ? " 
 
 Such a bald question, put by a stranger, would ordinaril)- 
 have cost me but a few moments' consideration ; but on 
 this occasion the thought occurred to me. Is this a call.
 
 xxxi V INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 " Come over and help us " ? I felt I could not summarily 
 dismiss the matter, and on the following Sunday, after 
 carefully seeking for guidance, determined that I must not 
 say " no " without further inquiry. 
 
 On my going next day to Mr Hudson Taylor, he surprised 
 me by showing that I had previously misunderstood him, 
 in supposing that the China Inland Mission had the matter 
 in hand. Their plan, he said, was to go forward stage by 
 stage, establishing a line of missions behind ; and in this 
 way, he said, it would take them many years to reach 
 Western Mongolia. But he thoroughly welcomed the idea 
 of my going as a pioneer, and again offered such help as 
 his Society could render. 
 
 I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance on the 
 day following of Mr Xey Elias, who kindly furnished me 
 with a good deal of information on the region in question, 
 and added that, in taking the Scriptures to Chinese Turkistan, 
 I should be doing a work hitherto unattempted. 
 
 With such data, then, as had been gathered, I set apart 
 the next day to consider the question of a journey through 
 Mongolia to Chinese Turkistan. I traced in my diaries 
 what had been written thereon since 1882, and then put 
 down what seemed to me the arguments for and against 
 the undertaking. 
 
 On the one hand, my friends thought I ought to be settled 
 in a parochial charge. I had the disqualification of not 
 speaking the requisite languages, and prudential considera- 
 tions naturally suggested that my going would mean loss 
 of income, perhaps loss of life, and that, in any case, there 
 would be some danger and certainly many difficulties. 
 
 On the other hand, the peoples of Chinese Turkistan, I 
 thought, have not probably a Bible among them, and cer- 
 tainly have never seen the face of a Protestant missionary. 
 Translations of the Bible, or parts of it, are ready in Persian,
 
 INTR OD UCTION. xxxv 
 
 Kirghese, and Chinese. The country, from a missionary 
 point of view, is unknown ; no other pioneer appears to be 
 in the field ; and I have at least the advantage of previous 
 experience in Siberia and Russian Central Asia. 
 
 Both religion and science might be advanced by such a 
 journey, and, for the moment, I am free from definite respon- 
 sibilities at home. If I lose my life no one is dependent 
 on me, whilst certain facilities germane to the situation 
 appear within my reach, and there does seem a definite 
 call to the work. Finally, I asked myself whether Mr 
 Crossett's question was from God, and said, " If it be, and if 
 God will provide the means, not for stipend, but for cost of 
 travel, etc., then my answer shall be, ' Here am I ; send me ! ' " 
 
 This is easy to write, still easier to read, but it was not 
 easy to resolve. It looked like breaking up one's nest for 
 nearly three years, and going forth presumably assured of 
 food and raiment only, besides putting oneself further out 
 of the way of clerical preferment at home. With the murders 
 before me of Stoddart, Conolly, Schlagintweit, and Hayward, 
 the danger to life did not, at this stage, present itself as a 
 trifle, and I fully realised that it was by far the biggest 
 leap in the dark that I had ever ventured on. 
 
 To make open confession, however, I had recently read a 
 paper by Dr Cust * on the heroic conduct of the native 
 Christians among the Melanesians ; how, in their zeal to 
 spread their new religion, some of them faced the extreme 
 probability 0f being eaten by their cannibal tribesmen ; and 
 then the writer drew the contrast so obvious to every one who 
 will honestly think of it, how microscopically little average 
 Christians in England do by way of personal service or self- 
 sacrifice for the spread of the religion they profess to believe 
 and love. 
 
 * " How Native Teachers Evangelised Polynesia anJ Melanesia "" {^Church 
 Alissioiiaiy Intellii:;enccf, 18S7).
 
 xxxvi INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 This consideration helped me in resolving to take my leap, 
 and the following shows how all this theory, as some will call 
 it, was converted into action. 
 
 I set to \\ork by speaking in private to sundry acquaint- 
 ances and friends who had seats on Committees of our great 
 Church Missionary Societies. The manifesto placed before 
 them was headed, "A Projected Expedition to Chinese 
 Turkistan " ; its object being to distribute Scriptures and 
 other religious literature, and to study as a pioneer the 
 religious condition and needs of the people. 
 
 To this was added : " Among the results wholly or partially 
 due to my former journeys, has been the supply by sale or 
 gift of Scriptures, and religious literature, to the number of 
 I 50,000 copies, to the prisons, hospitals, and people generally 
 of Scandinavia, South-Eastcrn Europe, Finland, the Caucasus, 
 a large portion of European Russia, and the whole of Siberia 
 and Russian Central Asia. The value of this work has been 
 recognised by the Christian Church and the reports of the 
 Bible and Tract Societies, and similar advantages might 
 reasonably be expected from similar work on the virgin soil 
 of China. A country so little known as Chinese Turkistan 
 presents, moreover, a field of inquiry upon many topics of 
 .scientific and general, as well as missionary, interest ; and 
 of these I should make note, as opportunity might serve, for 
 the use of those who may follow." 
 
 The manifesto went on to state that to carry out my 
 project thoroughly might take from one and a half to three 
 years. For this I asked no salary, but inquired of various 
 societies whether they could contribute towards what I was 
 advised, and what my previous experience led me to estimate, 
 would be the cost of the expedition. 
 
 The individuals spoken to, for the most part, seemed 
 interested, and some — the Archbishop of Canterbury among 
 them — promised support, if possible, in committee. As for
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxvii 
 
 the secretaries of the societies, I found most of them 
 sympathetic, some of them very much so ; but I do not 
 remember one of them who held out hope that I should get 
 from his committee the help I needed. 
 
 I continued trying in vain for tlirce months, after \\hich 
 the time to start was rapidly approaching, if, that is, I was to 
 be in Peking by the autumn, as suggested ; so that, had I 
 staked everything upon the great English societies, my pro- 
 jected expedition would now probably have collapsed. 
 
 But light was arising in another quarter. One of the first 
 persons I had communicated with was Dr Robert Needham 
 Cust, who more than once, on meeting me in the street and 
 elsewhere, had casually asked, " When are you going on 
 another journey ?" volunteering on one occasion the remark, 
 " I shall ask the committee of the Bible Society to send you 
 somewhere," to which I then replied neither yea nor nay. 
 
 Now that I had such a journey in prospect Dr Cust 
 suggested my writing, and using his name, to a certain 
 gentleman ^^ ho had given large sums for the distribution of 
 the Bible in Africa, and who perhaps might be taken with 
 my scheme. 
 
 I did so, and received for reply a suggestion that I should 
 approach Mongolia from the west, getting my funds from the 
 same sources as for previous journeys ; whilst my correspon- 
 dent, for a simultaneous work, should send ^200 to the China 
 Inland Mission for the visitation, Avith appropriate Scriptures, 
 of the eastern half of Chinese Turkistan. Subsequently, he 
 enlarged his proposed area to the whole of Mongolia, and 
 sent the ^200 to Mr Hudson Taylor. 
 
 At this time, and previously, I had several interviews \\ith 
 Mr Hudson Taylor, and I have a pleasant recollection of the 
 patience with \\hich he listened and entered into my plans. 
 Once he was ill, always he was busy, on one occasion just 
 returned from a long journey, on another wanted here and
 
 xxxviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 there after a public meeting, but ever treating my little affair, 
 not as something to be got rid of as quickly as decorum 
 would allow, but as if he thought it of importance. 
 
 In making arrangements it was necessary to look far ahead, 
 and, before a penny was promised, he wrote in faith and hope 
 to China as to who should accompany me, and also asked 
 whether the American Bible Society at Shanghai would be 
 likely to aid in my project. 
 
 This elicited a kind reply from the Secretary of the Society 
 in New York, who wrote thus to Mr Taylor : — 
 
 " If in the present case the explorer were unknown or 
 inexperienced, there would be reasons for hesitation and 
 delay, which do not now exist, but Dr Lansdell's journey 
 through Siberia has already given proof of his qualities, and 
 exhibited a measure of philanthropy which we admire and 
 honour." 
 
 After which he went on to say that his Board had 
 authorised the expenditure of 500 dollars a year, for a period 
 not exceeding three years, for the exploration of Central 
 Asia and Tibet, with a view of promoting there the circula- 
 tion of the Scriptures, particulars to be learned from their 
 agent at Shanghai. 
 
 This reached me on July 23rd, after I had come to the 
 conclusion, three weeks before, that my way to Chinese 
 Turkistan through Peking was blocked. Whether I could 
 enter from the west, in the following Spring, was doubtful, 
 and might remain in abeyance, I thought, till September, 
 when I had been invited to speak of my journeys at a 
 Convention in Dublin ; and I wondered whether anything to 
 the point might transpire there. 
 
 Accordingly, when the time came, I stated publicly in 
 Dublin my willingness to go another journey ; and at Old 
 Connaught, in the drawing-room of the Archbishop of 
 Dublin, with whom I had the privilege of staying, I remarked.
 
 INTR OD UCTION. xxxix 
 
 at a private lecture on my travels, that I thought my 
 amended scheme would cost a thousand pounds ; but I did 
 not invite contributions. An Irish rector's wife, however, 
 volunteered to give \os.^ and afterwards Lady Cochrane 
 sent a cheque, saying that of the needed thousand pounds 
 she should like to give one, which was the first brick of my 
 building really laid. 
 
 But things did not look very bright. Mr Hudson Taylor 
 had tried to cheer me by saying, " Don't be discouraged ; 
 the devil will be sure to hinder " ; and I confess to having 
 carried sometimes a heavy heart. I had met with many 
 disappointments and discouragements, and was beginning to 
 wonder whether I had mistaken my call, insomuch that, on 
 October 25th, I went to Mr Hudson Taylor with the question: — 
 
 " Why should / go at all ? Why not let the two men we 
 have in view, instead of accompanying me, go by themselves, 
 and leave me out of the question ? " 
 
 Had he humoured this mood I think I should have been 
 willing, at this period, to withdraw ; but he thought it 
 decidedly better that I should go, and offered me half of the 
 ;^200 sent to him for Mongolia. To this I mentally added 
 what looked, at first sight, a promise of ^^"300 from the 
 American Bible Society ; resolved to submit the matter to 
 a few persons of means likely to be interested therein ; and 
 if sufifilcient promises for the remaining ^"600 were not forth- 
 coming before the end of November, then to interpret it as 
 God's will that I was not to go. 
 
 Accordingly I corrected the manifesto to altered circum-. 
 stances, mentioned one and a half or two years instead of 
 three, a greatly shortened journey, and an estimate of 
 expenses cut down by half On November 8th I began to 
 send out letters, not in hundreds and thousands to the public 
 generally, but three or four at a time to names from m\' 
 address book.
 
 xl IXIRODUCTION. 
 
 And no\v the tide completely turned. Within a \\cek I 
 heard from Mr Blackstone, of Illinois, who had from the 
 outset warmly encouraged my scheme, and now promised 
 iJ^iOO. The post, one morning, brought two letters of 
 curiously opposite character. In the first, the writer spoke 
 of the contemplated journey as " serious and perilous," to 
 which he could not contribute ; whilst in the second, the late 
 Mr R. C. L. Bevan " thought the enterprise very hopeful and 
 feasible," and promised ;^IC)0. 
 
 And so cloud alternated with sunshine, and I was wonder- 
 ing on the 24th whether the ;^I30 lacking would come. On 
 the 28th arri\ed a note from the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 inclosing a " cheque of nominal value only, but as a token of 
 good will," which helped to raise my spirits, if not greatly 
 to increase my pile, whilst my friend Miss Peache and the 
 late Mr AUcroft sent ^^50 each, so that by the 29th I regarded 
 the matter as pecuniarily settled, and began to think of a 
 day for the start. I was afterwards found to have been 
 precipitate in reckoning on ;^300 from the American Bible 
 Society, for they now felt obliged to limit the amount to 
 ;^200 ; but the late Sir William Mackinnon came to the 
 rescue with £^0, and smaller sums made up the total to 
 ;^i,ooo \os. a^d. 
 
 How a few hundred pounds in addition were raised for an 
 attempt to travel in Tibet proper will be found stated in 
 Chapter XLVIII., on "Plans Concerning Lassa." Mean- 
 while, my purse being made up, I learned from the Russian 
 Embassy that, in the e\'ent of my wishing to travel by 
 the Trans-Caspian railway, it would be wise on my part, 
 in.stead of proceeding there direct, to go for permission 
 to St Petersburg, which accordingly I proceeded to do.
 
 IJ \ 
 
 r-CSO^ 
 
 Wfr 
 
 
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 kj*. 
 
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 k//.- > '""' 
 
 (if 407" 
 

 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA 
 
 A RIDE TO LITTLE TIBET. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FROM LONDON TO AIOSCOTV. 
 
 The start, and Author's forebodings, i. — Delayed arrival at Berlin ; 
 Visit to the Chinese Embassy, 2. — Custom-house at Wirballen ; 
 Arrival at St Petersburg, and objects of visit ; Request to travel 
 by Trans-Caspian Railway, 3. — Calls on Sir Robert Morier and 
 M. Pobedonostzeff ; Acceptance by 'Em'^e.rox oi Through Central 
 Asia, 4. — Promise of help from Minister of Interior ; Scientists 
 visited ; Social gatherings, and dinner at Embassy, 5. — Visit to 
 M. Vlangali, Assistant-Minister for Eoreign Affairs ; Reception 
 by Prince Dondukoff-Korsakoif, and recommendation to General 
 Annenkoff; Visit to the Minister for War, 6.— My programme, 
 8. — Meeting with General Kostenko, 9. — Departure for Moscow; 
 Travelling acquaintances, Dr Alexeef and Count Bobrinsky, junr, 
 10. — Arrival in Moscow, and call on Count Leo Tolstoi, 11. — 
 Departure southwards, 12. 
 
 IT was a dirty night on February 19th, 1888, when 
 I left London for St Petersburg ; and my spirits 
 were somewhat in harmony with my environment. I 
 did not forget, when planning to enter Bokhara, that 
 Stoddart and Conolly, the last Englishmen there, had 
 been put to death by the FLmir, and now I was medi- 
 tating Kashgar, where Schlagintweit had by order of 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 2 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 the ruler been killed. I will not say that I had any- 
 thing so strong as a foreboding that such might be 
 my own fate ; but I acted as if it were to b^, and 
 so arranged my home affairs as if I were never to 
 return, hoping, of course, for the best. 
 
 Friday night is the time for packing off the Indian 
 mail. This delayed us at Cannon Street ; and the 
 rouofh state of the Channel after a hurricane increased 
 the delay, so that we arrived at Calais to find the 
 express gone, and the ground covered with snow. 
 Slow trains, and waiting at Cologne, brought me early 
 on Sunday morning, instead of Saturday, as planned, 
 to Berlin. This was to be my first halting-place, for 
 here I hoped to see Hung Ta-jen, the Chinese 
 Minister. 
 
 Going on Sunday evening to St George's English 
 Church, where they pounced upon me to preach, I 
 was not a little surprised to see in the porch, and 
 afterwards at the service, a Chinaman in full costume 
 and pigtail, who, though not a member of the Legation, 
 gave me sundry pieces of minor information anent 
 thereto, and I drove there on Monday morning by 
 appointment. 
 
 A change had been made only a few weeks previously 
 in the Chinese diplomatic arrangements. Formerly, 
 the Minister who resided in London looked also after 
 Chinese interests at St Petersburg, and the Minister 
 at Paris had Berlin under his charge. Now London 
 and Paris are under one diplomatic Minister, and 
 Berlin and St Petersburg under another. 
 
 I therefore showed his Excellency what had been 
 given me by the Minister in London, told him what I 
 received when going to Kuldja before, and said that 
 as I was now about to pass through Russia, to which
 
 FROM LONDON TO MOSCOW. 3 
 
 he had been recently accredited, I begged of huii also 
 a letter, and if possible an open one. An open letter, 
 he observed, was not necessary — my passport would 
 be sufficient — but he would give me a letter to the 
 Governor-General of Hi. The ambassadorial seal on 
 this, he said, would be useful, and it should be sent to 
 me on the morrow. 
 
 On the day following the promised letter arrived by 
 the hand of an English-speaking servant, and I left 
 the Central Hotel in Berlin the same night for Russia. 
 My luggage, having been booked through to St 
 Petersburg, had preceded me, and I wrote from 
 Cologne to the officials of the Russian Custom-house 
 explaining why my baggage would appear without its 
 owner. 
 
 On arriving, therefore, at Wirballen, I was expected, 
 and met with nothing but smiles and every possible 
 assistance, which was very gratifying, seeing that I 
 had more than 3 cwt of luggage in eight cases, the 
 extra carriage of which had already cost me more 
 than half the price of my ticket. Besides these eight 
 packages I had sent 19 others by sea to Batoum. 
 Thus my total luggage weighed already 16 cwt. 
 
 Most English travellers rush from the German 
 frontier to the Russian capital without breaking the 
 journey. I did the same three times without knowing 
 what I lost thereby. On the present occasion, after 
 travelling through the night, I determined to stop for 
 a clay at Pskoff, which I did, and arrived at eight 
 o'clock on the following morning at St Petersburg. 
 
 The objects that took me to the Russian capital 
 might be termed diplomatic, administrative, and 
 financial. The first thing to be asked for, and that 
 of prime importance, was permission to travel as far
 
 4 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA 
 
 as possible towards Kuldja by the new Trans-Caspian 
 railway. Not that this was the only way of reaching 
 Kuldja from St Petersburg, for there was the summer 
 route of rail, river, and road by which I proceeded 
 there before, and the post route, through Orenburg 
 and the Syr-daria province ; but on both these routes 
 frost and snow were now supreme. Accordingly, a 
 few hours after my arrival, I called at the British 
 Embassy, and found Sir Robert INIorier ready to help 
 in every way. 
 
 I had, besides, the advantage of acquaintance with 
 his Excellency M. Pobedonostzeff, the Chief Pro- 
 curator of the Holy Synod. To this gentleman I 
 drove next, and received a welcome. He had seen 
 my TJiroiigh Centi^al Asia, then recently published ; 
 and, the Emperor having intimated his pleasure to 
 accept a copy, I told the Procurator I had brought 
 it to St Petersburg. 
 
 The proper person through whom the presentation 
 should have been made was the Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs, but M. Pobedonostzeff volunteered, without 
 further ceremony, to send the copy direct. I for- 
 warded it to him that afternoon ; it was sent to the 
 palace in the evening, and at midnight his Majesty 
 sent to M. Pobedonostzeff a kind message of ap- 
 preciative thanks. As for my needed permissions, 
 M. Pobedonostzeff handed me over to his assistant, 
 M. Sabler, the Secretary to the Synod, and on the 
 morrow we set to work with a will. 
 
 I called, alone, on M. Pleve, Assistant to the 
 Minister of the Interior, who, if I did not remember 
 him, speedily showed that he had not forgotten me ; 
 for, opening a drawer, he drew forth my portrait, which 
 I had presented to him when, six years before, he was
 
 FROM LONDON TO MOSCOW. 5 
 
 in the police department. He was good enough to 
 say that he appreciated my works on Russia as of 
 scientific value, promised me another open letter such 
 as I had been furnished with on previous occasions, 
 and added that he would write to the several depart- 
 ments and do all he could to forward my wish to 
 travel by the new railway, 
 
 I had also to call on sundry persons — scientific, 
 literary, and otherwise — for introductions, information, 
 and advice. Dr Bretschneider, who spent many years 
 at the Russian Legation in Peking, has published 
 several interesting books on the geography of Central 
 Asia as known to the Chinese in mediaeval times. 
 I was glad, therefore, to call upon this savant and 
 sinologue, and talk of some of the places I was 
 about to visit. 
 
 Running hither and thither left little time for sight- 
 seeing or social intercourse. I was present one evening 
 at a meeting of the Imperial Geographical Society, 
 which was well attended, for public meetings in Russia 
 are rare ; but it struck me as tame and somewhat 
 gloomy by comparison with the gatherings of our 
 Geographical Society in London. 
 
 On another evening I dined at the British Embassy, 
 where Sir Robert Morier was rejoicing in an excep- 
 tionally able Russian-speaking staff Amongst the 
 party I met Lord (now the Duke of) Fife and 
 Colonel Herbert, the Military attache, a Mr Harford, 
 and some others. Sir Robert promised to get me 
 official letters to the Russian consuls at Kulclja and 
 Kashgar, and to add one from himself to Governor- 
 General Rosenbach at Tashkend. From various other 
 sources also promises of introductions were received, 
 and my way was becoming clearer, though I dared
 
 6 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 not yet take for granted that I might do all I wished 
 in proceeding by the Trans-Caspian railway. 
 
 A few days after seeing M. Pleve, I had taken a 
 letter from M. Sabler to M. Ylangali, the Assistant- 
 Minister for Foreign Affairs, who asked me to write 
 definitely what I wanted, and he would then try to 
 get me the needed permissions. Accordingly, in 
 addition to the railway journey, I asked that, if it 
 should for any reason seem desirable, after entering 
 Chinese Turkistan, for me to return to Russia instead 
 of proceeding south to India, I might have the option 
 of crossino^ the Pamirs into Fero-hana. 
 
 Some thought that in this I had asked a hard thing 
 and had better withdraw it, since no Englishman had, 
 up to that time, been allowed so to do ; and no answer 
 coming for a day or two, I feared this might partly 
 account for the silence ; but soon it seemed that the 
 carriage for the Minister of War blocked the way, 
 inasmuch as he had not answered M. Pleve's letter. 
 
 M. Pleve had, however, heard favourably from 
 Prince Dondukoff- Korsakoff, then Lieutenant of the 
 Caucasus, as to my crossing the Caspian, and as 
 the Prince happened to be staying, as I was, at the 
 Hotel d'Angleterre, I waited on him. He had lately 
 been reading my Through Siberia, gave me an ex- 
 cellent reception, and promised all I asked for ; told 
 me whom to see at Tifiis ; and for General Annenkoff, 
 the constructor of the Trans-Caspian line, he gave me 
 his card with the following words thereon: "■Prince 
 Dondukoff- Korsakoff, Aide-cie-Camp Ghidral, recom- 
 niande chaleureuscment a la bienvcillance et atix soiiis 
 du Gdndral Annenko^, Dr Lansdell si connu par ses 
 voyages, et ses sympathies ponr la Russiey 
 
 I then went all in a glow to General Obrucheff the
 
 FROM LONDON TO MOSCOW. 
 
 Chief of the Staff of the Minister for War, but was 
 received at first, I thought, with martial rigour and 
 without a smile or anything that savoured of the milk 
 of human kindness, being formally and coldly asked 
 what I wanted. Having briefly replied. I was told 
 
 GENERAL L. M. ANNENKOFF. 
 
 that I must make out my line of march, since it might 
 be necessary in some places to divert my course. I 
 had never before been asked to do such a thing, and 
 did not know whether to suspect a trap wherein to 
 catch and defeat my plans, or the furnishing a clue 
 whereby my steps might be watched,
 
 8 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 I was conducted through room after room and passage 
 after passage of that huge building the "Etat Major" to 
 what I now suppose was the head office of the Asiatic 
 section, where, among several officers, I was seated 
 at a table with paper and pens that revived the long- 
 passed anxieties of college examinations. 
 
 I thought it would not do to be too general in 
 my statements, lest vagueness should leave room for 
 suspicion that I was keeping something in the back- 
 ground, nor too minute, lest, if I did not hereafter keep 
 exactly to the programme, I might be charged with 
 breaking faith. So I wrote as follows — 
 
 " St Petersburg, ^'^^'-"^^ 23^-^, iggg. 
 March 6th, 
 
 " I expect to leave St Petersburg to-morrow, or 
 soon after, for Moscow ; to stay not more than a 
 week (for banking arrangements, etc.), then proceed 
 direct to Batoum ; from Batoum to Tiflis (stay 2 
 or 3 days), then to Baku and Askhabad (stay i 
 or 2 days, perhaps), Merv (2 or 3 days), Charjui 
 (i or 2 days, to get, if possible, fishes, pheasants, 
 etc., for specimens), Bokhara (about a week, to see 
 places once again that I visited in 1882), Samarkand 
 (3 or 4 days), Tashkend (about a week, to pur- 
 chase various necessaries), V^ierny (2 or 3 days, 
 to receive my luggage, sent forward from Batoum), 
 Kuldja. I hope to arrive at Kuldja by May ist (n.s.), 
 and at Urumtsi by June ist (n.s.), there to meet my 
 English interpreter into Chinese. If news reaches me 
 that he arrives earlier, I shall hasten forwards ; if I 
 learn that he will come later, then I need not go 
 through Turkistan quite so fast. I should like to 
 arrive at Yarkand by September ist, and cross the
 
 FROM LONDON TO MO SCO IV. g 
 
 Himalayas, and it is only in case of accident, sickness, 
 or something important and unforeseen, that I should 
 wish to return to Russia from Kashgar to Ferghana. 
 ''{^Signed') Henry Lansdell, D.D." 
 
 This declaration had now to be translated into 
 Russian by one of the officers present, and I mean- 
 while had time to breathe and observe, though my 
 spirits were not high. Every face was strange to 
 me, but one officer in a general's uniform spoke as 
 if I were not entirely unknown to him. He was short 
 'n stature, sallow in complexion, and I could not make 
 out whether I was speaking to one who had power 
 to decide the matter, or whether he was collecting 
 and preparing information about me to submit to a 
 council, presumably sitting in the adjoining room. 
 
 Presently something revealed his name — Kostenko 
 — and my thermometer began to rise. Could it be, 
 I asked, the author of The Tiirkistan Region, whose 
 book, whilst I was writing Russian Central Asia, was 
 scarcely out of my hands ? It was the very same, and 
 I saw one whom, quite apart from the present business, 
 it gave me the greatest delight to meet, for we were 
 fellow-writers upon the same ground. He recognised 
 me as such, knew my volumes, told me he was chief 
 of the Asiatic section, and volunteered that if I got 
 into any difficulty I might telegraph to him. 
 
 My spirits now were jubilant, and spread to the 
 officers near ; for when they became acquainted with 
 my projected journey one of them said they were quite 
 excited. What was better, they brought in Captain 
 Grombchevsky, who had recently made the journey 
 from Kashgar to Khokand. and who gave mt; much 
 pertinent information.
 
 lo CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Looking round. I noticed on the wall a map of the 
 region about the head-waters of the Oxus, and com- 
 prising much of the territory I was going to. It was 
 newer and better than any I had seen, and like a 
 spoiled child I wanted it, and asked where a similar 
 one could be purchased. I was told that " it was not 
 on sale," being, I suppose, " secret and confidential." 
 Some whispering, however, went on between one and 
 another, and then I was asked to accept a copy, which 
 I congratulate myself upon possessing. 
 
 It was presently intimated that the letter desired 
 would be given, and thus before I left the " Etat 
 Major " I had received all I had asked for, and more 
 than all, for General Mirkhovitz favoured me with an 
 invitation I gladly accepted for the morrow, to meet 
 Madame Mirkhovitz, and see from the windows of the 
 House of the Staff a parade of troops before the 
 Emperor. 
 
 On the day following, March 9th, after taking lun- 
 cheon with Princess Lieven, who had heard of my 
 being in St Petersburg, and sought me out at the 
 Bible Society, I left for Moscow. 
 
 " A good name " Solomon affirms to be better than 
 riches, and a fellow-passenger in the train seeing mine 
 on the label of my portmanteau, forthwith claimed 
 acquaintance on the ground that when recently in 
 England he was to have had an introduction to me. 
 
 This little incident gave me a pleasant travelling 
 companion and occasional interpreter ; my fellow- 
 passenger being Dr P. Alexeef, who had lately been 
 studying the temperance question in America, and in 
 England had heard of me at the Church of England 
 Temperance Society. 
 
 On being addressed by another passenger in the
 
 FRO Ad: LONDON TO MOSCOW. ii 
 
 same carnage, a young soldier in uniform, I asked 
 where he had learned such excellent English. 
 
 " Near Edinburgh," said he. 
 
 "Why, then," I replied, "you must be one of the 
 sons of Count Bobrinsky ? " to which he answered in 
 the affirmative, but appeared rather surprised till I 
 gave my name, and mentioned my having met his 
 family in London. 
 
 The young Count and some of his sisters were on 
 their way to a wedding in the family of Count Leo 
 Tolstoi, upon whom Dr Alexeef proposed that we 
 should call to talk upon matters teetotal. 
 
 Accordingly, after a somewhat uncomfortable night 
 in a second-class sleeping carriage, we reached Moscow, 
 and I accompanied my friend to the study of the 
 novelist, who recently had taken up the temperance 
 crusade and was trying to work it in Russia, where, 
 notwithstanding the crying need of it, the movement 
 has reached only to the stage at which it remained 
 some years in England, when silly people dismissed 
 the matter with a laugh or a sneer, but failed to recog- 
 nise their lack of philanthropy and self-denial in doing 
 nothing to oppose a curse which ruins so many. 
 
 Understanding that I was going to Chinese Turki- 
 stan to circulate the Scriptures, the Count said he 
 envied my work and would gladly go too, but for his 
 wife and a dozen or so of children, some of whom we 
 presently met round the family samovar ; and thus 
 finished a pleasant visit to the house of this celebrated 
 Russian nobleman. 
 
 On the next day I preached at the English Church, 
 and on Monday was no more successful than I had been 
 in St Petersburg in making banking arrangements for 
 Kashgar. I determined, therefore, to push forward on
 
 12 C7JINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 the Tuesday, but news came that the Hne southwards 
 was snow-blocked. 
 
 The same afternoon, on the introduction of Madame 
 Alexeef, I drank tea with Princess Mestchertsky, and 
 afterwards had some hours of quiet rest, for, sooth to 
 say, the incessant strain upon mind and body of the 
 previous three months, in preparing, planning, and 
 packing, had sent me away from London much 
 fatigued. Then, what with the excessive cold, con- 
 tinued worries, and the water of the capital relaxing 
 my physical powers still more, I reached Moscow so 
 weak and weary that I requested Dr Alexeef to pre- 
 scribe for me. 
 
 He, however, said there was nothing organically 
 wrong, that my condition was merely the result of 
 fatigue and change of atmosphere, and that with less 
 strain recovery would soon follow, which, I am thankful 
 to say, was speedily the case.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FROM MOSCOW TO THE CASPIAN. 
 
 Railway dangers ahead ; Pleasant fellow-passengers, and offers of 
 hospitality, 13. — Arrival at Kursk ; Arrival and enforced stoppage 
 at Kharkof, 14. — Former visit to town prison, 15. — Departure 
 from Kharkof, and arrival in Crimea, 16. — Improved weather at 
 Sevastopol; Sunday service, 17. — Departure for Batoum ; H.B.M. 
 Consul ; Departure across Caucasus, and arrival at Tiflis ; Sir 
 Drummond Wolff and Col. Stewart ; Presentation of introductory 
 letters, 18. — Dr Radde and M. Hedjouboff ; Departure from Tiflis 
 to Baku, 20. 
 
 WHEN ready to journey southwards to the 
 Crimea, there were afloat ugly rumours and 
 warnings of trains being stopped and snowed up for 
 days together, to the great inconvenience of passengers 
 not provisioned for such little emergencies. I therefore 
 looked to the commissariat, and as a concession to my 
 jaded condition indulged in a first-class ticket, which 
 took me away from Moscow at all events in comfort, 
 a snowstorm notwithstanding. 
 
 One of my fellow-passengers was a pleasant Russian 
 lady, daughter of an ambassador, who in the course 
 of the day not only offered help in translation, but 
 before we parted invited me to pay her a visit at her 
 country house. This generously offered hospitality 
 was of a piece with that I had received on the same
 
 14 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 line on a previous occasion, when happening, near 
 Tula, to meet Prince Dmitry Obolensky ; and it is 
 illustrative of the kindness with which educated 
 Russians hasten to receive an English stranger. 
 
 From Moscow Tula is only 120 miles distant, but 
 this took us at least six hours to accomplish. We 
 passed through a uniform undulating plain, traversed 
 by low hills with little wood, and no remarkable 
 scenery, but having boundless cornfields and meadows, 
 for the province is one of the best cultivated and most 
 populous in the empire. The chief railway stations are 
 Podolsk and Serpukhov, the latter possessing a large 
 river traffic, some tanneries, and calico works. 
 
 We were timed to arrive at the station of Tula about 
 six o'clock in the afternoon, and allowed a quarter of an 
 hour for refreshment, after which I set about making 
 myself comfortable for the night. In this there was 
 every prospect of success, for I had the compartment 
 all to myself, and it was furnished in a manner than 
 which we have nothing better, if so good, in England. 
 Our next important stopping-place was Orel, passed 
 in the middle of the night, and early next morning I 
 awoke to find that we were at Kursk, but only about 
 350 miles from Moscow, the train being shunted into 
 a siding because the road some few stations beyond 
 was blocked by snow. 
 
 On arriving at Kharkof, which was only i 50 miles 
 from Kursk, but took about eight hours, it was an- 
 nounced that no trains were yet running southwards, 
 which did not greatly disappoint me, for I was glad 
 of an enforced stoppage, and drove to the Hotel de 
 r Europe. 
 
 My numerous packages were somewhat suggestive 
 perhaps of commercial pursuits, since, on asking for a
 
 FROM AIOSCOW TO THE CASPIAN. 15 
 
 room, the waiter took me to a huge, grandly furnished 
 apartment, which I said was too large. 
 
 " But," said the man, evidently mistaking me for a 
 commercial traveller, " will you not want to exhibit 
 your patterns ? " 
 
 He then appeared quite disappointed at not letting 
 his show-room, and landed me in a much less preten- 
 tious chamber, where I determined on the morrow to 
 read, write, and rest. 
 
 Kharkof has a population of 160,000, of whom I 
 presume an appreciable number must be Germans, 
 since I remember, on a previous visit, attending the 
 Lutheran Church and calling upon the pastor. It was 
 during that same visit, on my way to the Caucasus, 
 that I first made the acquaintance of Prince Dondukoff- 
 Korsakoff He was at that time Governor-General, 
 and gave me permission to visit the town prison and 
 distribute copies of the Scriptures.* 
 
 * My notes, taken on the spot, record "352 prisoners in 48 rooms, 
 including 22 cells. Cells of political prisoners (of whom there were 29 
 under trial) are large ; food and accommodation better than in the case 
 of criminals ; and politicals have more than one hour a day for exercise. 
 The amount of daily bread for each prisoner is two and a half pounds, 
 Russian. ICvas, or small beer, is allowed ad libitum.'''' 
 
 In the punishment ward were five men, who a few days previously 
 had attempted to escape, by making a ladder of their bedding with which 
 they scaled the wall close to a sentry, who was also under arrest. One 
 of those under correction came to the door, and through the hole in it 
 spat at us defiantly. 
 
 Corporal punishment was not allowed, the dark cell being the severest 
 form of correction, and even that might not extend beyond six days. 
 The sick list stood at 52, but I am not sure whether this might not have 
 represented the remnants of a former regime, inasmuch as they spoke 
 of none now being there for a longer term than three years. 
 
 My notes mention no library or books for the prisoners. Probably 1 
 found none, and as a friend of mine had offered to bear the expense, 
 I asked the General if he would allow me to place a copy of the New 
 Testament in each room of every prison under his charge. He thanked 
 me for the proposal, entered readily into my plans, asked me to write
 
 1 6 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 I was attempting nothing of this kind in Kharkot 
 on the present occasion, and did not leave the hotel 
 until the next evening, when it was announced that the 
 line farther south was cleared. 
 
 Kharkof is at the head of three main routes to the 
 Sea of Azof, to Odessa, and the Crimea ; but no trains 
 had been running south for several days. It was not 
 surprising, therefore, that on reaching the station con- 
 fusion prevailed. I asked for a ticket for Sevastopol, 
 and, without looking carefully at what was given me, 
 handed it to the baggage clerk, whereupon it was 
 discovered only just in time that my luggage was 
 registered for Rostoff, and put in a train which was on 
 the point of departure. This would have separated 
 me and my belongings, on our respective arrivals, a 
 trifle of 400 miles, and perhaps delayed me a week, 
 so that I was not a little thankful to get the mistake 
 rectified. 
 
 At length I found myself in a through sleeping 
 carriage to the Black Sea. The distance to be 
 traversed was nearly 500 miles, through a dull, flat, 
 snow-covered country without a station of interest 
 until we reached Baghchiserai, a name which calls to 
 mind the days when the Tatars of Central Asia 
 pushed their conquests into Russia, and made also the 
 Crimea their own. 
 
 my wishes and directions, which he promised to see carried out, and 
 then volunteered, for some reason I did not understand, to publish my 
 letter in the Journals. 
 
 It only remained, therefore, to calculate the number required. He 
 was Governor-General of six provinces or more, in which were six 
 Government or capital towns, with 150 rooms in each for what we should 
 call county prisoners, besides which there were 200 rooms for Govern- 
 ment prisoners. Altogether, therefore, I sent to him on the following 
 day, for his prisons and hospitals, 2,700 tracts, pictures, and journals, 
 and ordered to follow 1,500 New Testaments.
 
 FROM MOSCOW TO THE CASPIAN. 17 
 
 Although the Hne south of this was clear of snow, 
 the train was six hours late ; but we were entering- a 
 milder climate. My seven previous visits to Russia 
 had all been in summer, and I had looked forward 
 with pleasure to seeing St Petersburg in its winter 
 dress. Perhaps in my fatigued condition I did not do 
 so to advantage ; at any rate experience compels me 
 to pronounce one winter visit enough, and it was a 
 relief, when awaking the next morning but one in the 
 Crimea, to be able to look once more upon Mother 
 Earth, whose face had been snow-veiled all the way 
 from Calais, now 3,000 miles in the rear. 
 
 Abundance of mud and water covered the plains, 
 but as we approached the lofty rocks of Inkerman 
 surroundings improved, and the air of Sevastopol was 
 so balmy as to render agreeable a drive through the 
 dry streets in an open carriage with one's fur coat 
 thrown open. 
 
 Happening to pass our Consulate, and thinking it 
 was Saturday morning, it occurred to me to call on 
 Captain Harford, with whom I was acquainted, and 
 offer to conduct a service on the morrow. I was a 
 day out in my reckoning, however, for it was already 
 Sunday, but it was early, and whilst I went to the 
 hotel and made preparations, notice was sent round 
 by Mr Grierson, the British Pro-Consul, with the 
 result of gathering a congregation of about 20 
 persons, who met at the Consulate. 
 
 An English service is a rare thing in Sevastopol, 
 there being no chaplain, and it was entered into with 
 a zest that spoke of appreciation. I was, however, 
 told of one stumbling-block to a larger attendance 
 — namely, that English steamers come into port and 
 employ labour on Sundays ; for some London firms, 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 1 8 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 who would not dream of opening their offices or 
 employing their clerks in the "City" on a Sunday, 
 do permit their captains when abroad to do so. It 
 is proper, however, to add that in some cases the 
 captains themselves are at fault, and act thus in direct 
 contravention to their employers' orders. 
 
 On the third day after my arrival at Sevastopol, 
 Mr Grierson, having laden me with such things as I 
 had need of, accompanied me with his wife and little 
 ones to the ship. We left the port about eleven in 
 the morning, and by five in the afternoon reached 
 Yalta, which I had seen before, so that I was not 
 tempted to land ; but on reaching Kertch on the 
 following afternoon, I found time to call on our 
 Consul, Mr Hunt (whom I had met at Odessa in 
 1882), and to telegraph my coming to Batoum, where 
 we arrived, after a run of about 36 hours, early on 
 Friday morning, March 23rd. 
 
 The first person to meet me was my servant 
 Joseph, who had come from London by steamer with 
 the heavy baggage. Soon after Joseph came Mr D. R. 
 Peacock, at that time the Vice-Consul, and whose 
 brother I had met in Siberia. If pleasure had been 
 my pursuit, Mr Peacock would have prevailed upon 
 me to visit a native (I think Ghurian) prince at his 
 castle in the mountains, to whom he had mentioned 
 my coming. But I felt obliged to content myself with 
 a view of Batoum, its picturesque mountains with 
 verdant slopes, its naphtha stores and oil waggons, 
 and the native bazaars. 
 
 Next morning we started for Tifiis, and having 
 reached our destination late on Saturday evening, we 
 put up at the Hotel de Londres, where I was glad to 
 find my friend Colonel Stewart, and Sir Drummond
 
 FROM MOSCOW TO THE CASPIAN. 19 
 
 Wolff and suite, on the way to take up their respec- 
 tive appointments in Persia. Like myself, they were 
 seeking information as to the movements of steamers 
 on the Caspian ; and finding that I had four days to 
 wait, It seemed better to remain at the capital than to 
 pfo forward to Baku. 
 
 The number of Englishmen at Tiflis was less than 
 I had seen on the previous Sunday at Sevastopol, and 
 they have no Sunday service in English, so we had 
 one in the hotel ; and I visited in the afternoon a 
 German Bible-class, attended by a dozen youths and 
 conducted by a Swede named Hoijer, to whom I had 
 an introduction from Finland. 
 
 I had also a dozen introductions to other persons in 
 Tiflis. On the chance of my meeting Russian officers 
 with whom they had served on the Afghan Boundary 
 Commission, Sir West Ridgeway and Colonel Holdich 
 had given me letters, and these brought me into 
 contact with Colonel Paul Kuhlberg, Chief of the 
 Topographical Staff, who seemed to cherish a pleasant 
 recollection of his English comrades, and by whose 
 help I got some excellent maps of the Trans-Caspian 
 region. 
 
 He kindly invited me to meet General Zelenoy, 
 another celebrity in connection with the Afghan 
 Boundary Commission, and General Jdanow, Chief of 
 the Etat Majoi% at dinner. These gentlemen were 
 much interested in my projected journey to Chinese 
 Turkistan, and wished to bespeak a paper from me, 
 if I came back that way, at the Tiflis branch of the 
 Imperial Geographical Society. 
 
 Prince Dondukoff- Korsakoff, Lieutenant of the 
 Caucasus, had desired me to call upon his locuiii 
 tenens. General Sheremetieff, which I did, and I was
 
 20 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 also successful in finding at home Dr Radde, the 
 founder and curator of the excellent and well-arranged 
 Tiflis Museum. 
 
 Dr Radde was kind enough to give me sundry 
 hints as to what I might hope to do in collecting 
 specimens of fauna, and I was indebted also for various 
 attentions and assistance to M. George Hedjouboff, 
 an Armenian, to whom I had an introduction. 
 
 I took occasion before leaving Tiflis to purchase of 
 the Bible Society a few copies of the Scriptures in 
 Hebrew. I also found an agreeable photographer 
 in M. Yermakoff, who accompanied me to make a 
 trial of my apparatus, and developed for me the 
 negatives with such success as gave me hope for the 
 future, when, beyond the Caspian, I should be thrown 
 on my own resources. 
 
 We left Tiflis a little before ten on Friday night for 
 Baku, expecting to cover 340 miles in 17 hours — 
 not a furious rate of travelling, but quick in com- 
 parison with the four days required for the journey 
 in 1882, when, before the line was open to the public, 
 I travelled the distance in a horse-box. That 
 journey, however, gave opportunities for seeing the 
 country which darkness now denied. 
 
 For the last 50 miles of the way the train runs 
 along the coast of the Caspian, for the most part 
 throuo;h a desert, in the midst of which we reached 
 Baku, about three o'clock on Saturday afternoon.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 
 
 "Wanted" by the Police-master; Call on the Governor, 21. — Com- 
 forts on steamer to Uzun Ada ; Landing at railway terminus, 
 22. — Trans-Caspian stations to oasis of Akhal Tekke, 25. — Kizil 
 Arvat, 26. — Arrival at Geok Tepe, 28. — My coming to Askhabad 
 expected, 30. — Continuation of journey to Dushak, ■^2. — Arrival at 
 Merv, 35. — Hospitality of Colonel Alikhanoff ; Modern Merv, 36. — 
 Oriental carpets and embroidery, t^-j. — Alikhanoff's successful 
 administration ; Quiet and order of Panjdeh, 38. — A visit to Old 
 Merv, 39. — Ruins on site of Merv ; Arab and Persian remains, 
 41. — Russian annexation of Merv, 43. — How brought about, 44. — 
 Liberation of slaves, 46. 
 
 THERE was little to detain us at Baku, for 1 had 
 previously seen its oil wells and the temple of 
 the fire-worshippers. Notice came, however, to the 
 Grand Hotel that, my passport having been sent to 
 the authorities, the police-master required to see me. 
 Now I had heard of this man, rightly or wrongly, that 
 he was obstructive to English travellers, and apt to 
 give them trouble ; so I thought it better to take the 
 wind out of his sails by paying a visit to his chief, 
 which I accordingly did, and received from the 
 acting Governor, M. Osit Augustovitch Beneslavsky, 
 a welcome, and an invitation to dinner. 
 
 As Sir Drummond Wolff and Colonel Stewart, more-
 
 22 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 over, were expected to arrive in the afternoon and 
 start at night by steamer, they were also to be invited, 
 " Ask them to come," said the Governor, " sans 
 cdrenwnic — en petit costume de voyaged Neither of 
 the travellers, however, was thus to be seduced in the 
 midst of a journey to something like a dinner-party. 
 I had therefore to go alone, and found myself the only 
 guest. 
 
 The local authorities were very obliging in providing 
 on the steamer for the comfort of the English travel- 
 lers. The Ambassador's party was proceeding south 
 to Resht, and most, if not all, of the berths being taken, 
 some Russian passengers were, I believe, invited to 
 give up to the foreigners the accommodation which, by 
 priority of arrival, they had secured, whilst, in my own 
 case — proceeding east — I was accommodated, thanks 
 to the Governor's introduction, with a cabin for three. 
 The passage across the Caspian, in good weather, takes 
 only 20 hours for the 195 miles between Baku and 
 Uzun Ada, where we arrived on Tuesday at noon. 
 
 In my Russian Central Asia four chapters are 
 devoted to Turkmenia, so that for the general charac- 
 teristics of the country it may here suffice to say that 
 the train runs, from the Caspian to the Oxus, through 
 a desert that is enlivened by the four oases of Akhal, 
 Attek, Tejend, and Merv. 
 
 Uzun Ada, or " Long^ Island," is the terminus at 
 which the traveller arrives on the Caspian littoral, and 
 a more desolate landing-place I never beheld. Siberia 
 is a paradise to it. Nevertheless, one fellow-passenger, 
 looking on the bright side of things, observed to me 
 that less than ten years ago there was nothing on the 
 island but sand, whereas now there is a harbour, a rail- 
 way station, reservoirs of naphtha, a church, hospital.
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 23 
 
 doctor's residence, and w few houses, these last having 
 been imported ready-made from Russia. 
 
 Not a blade of grass could I see, though it was 
 now the beginning of April, and two cows, wandering 
 amongst the water-carts near an enclosure behind the 
 station, suggested the reflection that, under similar 
 circumstances in England, they might be " run in " by 
 the police for going about " without any visible means 
 of support." 
 
 The train was not to start for six hours, but carriages 
 were sent to the shore end of the jetty to take pas- 
 sengers and luggage, there being no lack of Tatar 
 porters. I had heard at Tiflis of the prodigious 
 strenofth of these men, and at Baku one of them o^ave 
 proof of it by carrying on his back to the ship four of 
 my packages, weighing 2 J cwt, and then taking in his 
 hand a bag of \ cwt more. 
 
 At the station I fell at once on my feet, and received 
 the first of a succession of kindnesses and acts of 
 attention, that continued in Asiatic Russia till I passed 
 beyond the frontier. 
 
 Showing the letter of the Minister of the Interior to 
 a military officer on the platform, he bowed himself 
 ''voire sei^viteiir,'' as he meant to say ; but, his French 
 being rather shaky, he substituted ''voire doniesiiijiie,'' 
 and immediately assigned me for my three days' 
 journey a small compartment to myself, nor would he 
 allow me to be displaced when the conductor ot the 
 train wished to turn me out in fiivour of some of his 
 friends. 
 
 We started about six in the evening, the train 
 crossing an embankment, about three-quarters ol a 
 mile long, which connects the island with the main- 
 land, and then plunged into the desert, the chiel
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 25 
 
 feature of which is sand, sand everywhere, without 
 water or food for man or beast. 
 
 At the first station, Mikhailovsk, at the head of 
 Balkan Bay, which was formerly the starting-point of 
 the line, and whither passengers were brought in craft 
 of light draught from Krasnovodsk, we reached the 
 Uzboi, one of the old beds by which the Oxus entered 
 the Caspian. The railway skirts this channel for 
 about 30 miles. 
 
 At the next station, Mulla Kara, we passed from 
 sand to an alluvial plain, and at the fourth station, 
 Bala Ishem, large tuns on wheels reminded us that 
 enormous quantities of water were distilled from the 
 brine of the Caspian at Mikhailovsk, and sent along 
 the line to the waterless districts, whilst at the same 
 place we were also reminded, by naphtha tanks or 
 trucks, like steam boilers on wheels, that the fuel of 
 our engine was not coal or wood, but petroleum refuse, 
 which is brought to Bala Ishem from oil wells in the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Near this place is a salt marsh, some 15 miles 
 long by half as broad, and also a salt station on the 
 branch line between Bala Ishem and the naphtha wells. 
 The night was passed in crossing this alluvial desert, 
 which was without inhabitants, even at the stations, 
 other than the railway officials. It is also without 
 water, except at the little village of Kazandjik, where 
 there is a potable spring and a little verdure. 
 
 And thus we went on for 140 miles to Ushak, 
 where the small station is surmounted by a tower 
 of observation, and where we arrived at sunrise. 
 Here the Muhammadans got out of the train to wash 
 themselves and pray, whilst the lark rose in the 
 heavens, as the poets will have it, to sing his hymn.
 
 ^ 
 
 
 T-. - . 
 
 : Eursc piusDe (iJE* immiHDrcaiOot 'vine; stopp«Mi M. 'vrjuv 
 
 lironn; tfeje ofil tSjct . ; 'I'fir nnnBiUifijctEanDtis nDor 
 
 
 3an> saSZQU- !» ""Tgr vJgaa^r-. m «.■«>; iTArgy^ 
 
 sdELocL i!3t fcnnni£t-cliai5s r -^rolc. 
 
 Frum tCiiiil ArsnUi tJute rjinCvK^y mmas nneaarfijr im a: 
 SCT-'. "■"" ~ ; - - ;- - - - ~ ~ : - ; :ui$» cEiiin3tii^;fiii a. 
 CO'- - ■ : : . _ " crees>. 
 
 At BianniLE s^ias- Qt" ciajIlliikiaLaDiai wore: QfeseirvafeDe ; cfias- 
 oTTQunroii mas scujUffiDr (Doveceiil fiDore aanaii nfiotare; •wrncfin
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 
 
 21 
 
 was somewhat like that of the hly of the valley ; but 
 the viilaoes. dependent on rivulets at the foot of 
 
 the mountains, were remote from the line and lew 
 and far between.
 
 28 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Passing three more stations brought us to the 
 vicinity of Durun, where there are a very unpretending 
 telegraph station, something between a Russian izba 
 and a Turkoman tent, and a ruined Tekke village 
 of mud houses, which gave a good idea of the local 
 native dwellings, the domed roofs being so constructed 
 probably for coolness, as are the huge domes erected 
 
 
 
 
 THE bTATIO.N AT GEOK TKI'i; 
 
 over the ice-cellars, several of which may be seen in 
 approaching the Persian frontier. 
 
 Soon after midday we arrived at Geok Tepe, where 
 the train stopped long enough to allow of my scaling 
 the walls of the famous fortress whose defenders 
 offered such stubborn resistance to Skobeleff The 
 wall in some places is completely broken down, but 
 enough remains to show what crude ideas of fortifica- 
 tion the Turkomans possessed. 
 
 Imagine a bank of earth 30 feet thick, finished on
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 29 
 
 the top with breast-high inner and outer walls, and 
 running for nearly three miles round a quadrilateral 
 area like that of Hyde Park or Blackheath, but with- 
 out their verdure, and you will have some idea of the 
 proportions of the " fortress " of Geok Tepe. Many 
 
 r^4 . 
 
 
 
 
 TEKKE FORTRESS OF GEOK TEPE, SHOWING THE HOLES IN WHICH THE TURKOMANS HID 
 THEMSELVES FOR PROTECTION FROM THE RUSSIAN MISSILES. 
 
 holes were still visible, made perhaps by Russian 
 shells, or dug by the besieged as hiding-places from 
 the balls of the besiegers ; but there was not a 
 structure or building of any kind within. I saw there 
 only a few camels grazing on the scanty herbage kept 
 alive by a brook
 
 .^o 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Beyond Geok Tepe the train passed through a 
 somewhat richer country, and about four in the after- 
 noon we reached Askhabad, 
 
 Askhabad is the capital of the Trans-Caspian 
 province, a place, it is said, of 10,000 inhabitants, 
 including perhaps the soldiery, for whom there is 
 a military club and garden. 
 
 The market-place is exposed to the full glare of the 
 sun, but affords the visitor an opportunity of studying 
 
 RAILWAY STATluN AT ASKIIABAli 
 
 Russian and native life together, whilst not far distant 
 is a Persian ice-cellar, built of rammed mud in the form 
 of a cone, such as I have not observed in other countries. 
 My coming to Askhabad was expected, officially — 
 probably, privately — certainly ; for on the evening of 
 my departure from Tifiis M. George Nicolaivitch 
 Milutin, entering the hotel and seeing my name on 
 the guest-board, wondered if it were that of the author 
 whose book he had read.
 
 FROAI THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 31 
 
 Seating himself at a dinner-table near me, and 
 scanning my countenance hard, he presently ventured 
 to introduce himself, saying that he should invite me 
 to drink wine with him, only that he had read that 
 I was an abstainer, and telling me that he had been 
 engaged on General Annenkoff 's staff on the Trans- 
 Caspian railway. 
 
 On learning that it was for that very region I was 
 to start in an hour or two, his friendliness at once rose 
 
 GARDEN OF THE MILITARY CECC, ASKHABAD. 
 
 to the emergency. " I will telegraph," said he, " to 
 my friends to assist you " ; and, then and there, he 
 drafted a despatch to Colonel Alikhanoff and Count 
 Mouravieft" at Merv, to General Annenkoff and others 
 of his friends, named Kulkevitch and Sabouroff, saying, 
 " The celebrated traveller Lansdell is leaving Tiflis to- 
 night for the Trans-Caspian region ; please help him." 
 This unexpected and unsought kindness, in addition
 
 32 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 to Other introductions, bore ample fruit, and I found 
 awaiting me at the Askhabad station Colonel Levashoff, 
 the actinof Governor, who had brouQ^ht to meet me 
 a countrywoman, Mrs Harfeld, married to a Russian 
 officer on the line, and a Finnish gentleman, M. Carl 
 Constantinovitch von Schultz, Controller-in-Chief of 
 the Trans-Caspian railway. 
 
 According to my official programme written at St 
 Petersburg, I expected to stay two or three days at 
 Askhabad, and they had prepared accordingly; but I 
 afterwards determined to push on, and so my friends 
 did the next best thing by giving me a capital dinner 
 at the station, which is of first rank and European 
 proportions, and sped me forward, telegraphing my 
 approach to Colonel Alikhanoff at Merv. 
 
 About eight miles from Askhabad the train passes a 
 fine old ruined mosque at Anau, and over a tongue of 
 sand to Giaurs, which may be regarded as the end of 
 the Akhal oasis. 
 
 Then we traversed an alluvial desert to Baba- 
 Durmaz, between which and the next station, Artyk, 
 lies, somewhat to the north, a salt tract. Over a 
 portion of this the train passes, and enters beyond 
 Artyk the Attek oasis. 
 
 Stretching along the Persian mountains as far as 
 Sarakhs, the Attek, though not so long as the oasis 
 we had traversed, is greener and less bare of trees. 
 Its chief town is Luftabad, and there is a considerable 
 ruin at Shilgan, whilst the ardent lover of antiquity 
 who will make a pilgrimage to Sarakhs will be shown 
 the tomb of Cain. 
 
 The sixth stopping -place beyond Askhabad is 
 Dushak ; at present only a station with a few dwell- 
 ings for the officials and workmen and a pile or two
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO AIERV 
 
 2>l 
 
 of firewood, but which has a certain importance in 
 British minds because, situated at 400 miles from 
 
 
 
 _^-vj».» 
 
 ''v^-iSt'::^' 
 
 THE TOMB OF CAIN AT SARAKII^. 
 
 the Caspian, it is the nearest point to our Indian 
 railways, the distance from Dushal: to the Afghan 
 VOL. I. ?.
 
 34 
 
 CinXESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 frontier being only as far as from London to 
 Doncaster.* 
 
 The line had run from the Caspian nearly straight 
 to the south-west, but at Dushak turned at a sharp 
 angle to the east, leaving the mountains in the rear, 
 
 — ^< - 
 
 ,_.ll^ 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 —-^^^ 
 
 =^ 
 
 = ='jt'- 
 
 STATION AT DUSHAK, llll. lAKIIll SI IMilxr ScU'TlI, WHINCC THE RAILWAY .M.' 
 CONTINUED TO TilE AFGHAN FRONTIER. 
 
 and passing from the Attek oasis to that of the 
 Tejend. 
 
 * On my way homeward through India I ran up to Quetta and pushed 
 on to New Chaman, beyond the Khojak tunnel, to the extreme end of 
 the Indian Hue, on the southern frontier of Afghanistan ; whence to the 
 northern frontier just mentioned is about 500 miles, or the distance 
 from London to Aberdeen.
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 35 
 
 At last, after passing over an uncultivated district 
 for nearly 50 miles, towards the station Karab-Ata, 
 we entered the oasis of Merv. Here daylight found 
 us on the morning of the third day from the Caspian ; 
 and at length, about half-past eight, we steamed into 
 Merv station. 
 
 The commercial and native parts of the town are 
 situated on the left bank of the Murghab, where also 
 
 NEW BRIDGE AT MERV. 
 
 is the railway station and its buildings. On the right 
 bank is the Turkoman inclosure called Kaushid Khan 
 Kala, within which are a dozen houses of brick, occu- 
 pied by civil and military officers, a temporary church, 
 and barracks. 
 
 The two portions are connected by a wooden rail- 
 way bridge, 150 feet long, of about a dozen spans, 
 the woodwork resting on piles driven into the sand ; 
 and across the bridge I drove in a station cab or
 
 36 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 phaeton through the wide opening in the fortress 
 walls to the house of Colonel Alikhanoff, the Gover- 
 nor, or more accurately Nacka/nik, or Chief of the 
 District. 
 
 The Colonel was busy in his garden, in which he 
 said he took great delight, though it had not long 
 been planted. Then, taking me indoors, he pointed 
 out that all his bedrooms were occupied, but that I 
 should be welcome to such accommodation as he 
 could offer, which was to be that of the best room 
 in the house by night and the run of the premises 
 by day. 
 
 Needless to say I thankfully accepted his hospitality ; 
 for though Merv possesses a third or fourth class 
 establishment, decorated in front with the Persian Lion 
 and Sun, and dubbed '* The Imperial Hotel," yet I 
 was only too pleased to stay for a day or two with a 
 man of whom I had both written and read, and who 
 played so important a part in bringing about the 
 submission of the Mervis, and figured so prominently 
 during the labours of the Afghan Boundary Com- 
 mission. 
 
 The next acquaintance I made was Colonel 
 Mouravieff, who took me off the same morning 
 to the Turkoman bazaar, or market, then being 
 held, where from 3,000 to 5,000 persons assemble 
 twnce a week, to deal in horses, asses, camels, and 
 sheep. 
 
 We mounted the walls of the fortress, which is similar 
 in character to that of Geok Tepe. After lunch we 
 visited the town that has sprung up since the foreign 
 occupation. I was much struck with the large number 
 of drinking-places, the stock-in-trade of the distilleries, 
 brandy, beer, and wine shops being more than double
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 
 
 2>7 
 
 that of all the grocers, pastrycooks, bakers, butchers, 
 and vendors of lemonade.* 
 
 One has a good opportunity to study certain features 
 of native life in the caravanserais or native inns of 
 Merv, where the men appear in sheepskin coats and 
 hats, and occasionally mounted on good Turkoman 
 horses, but more frequently on donkeys, their baggage 
 being carried on Bactrian camels. I was delighted 
 to find in the shops of Merv in April melons of the 
 last season, some of which we took home for dessert 
 to the Colonel's house. 
 
 Here I observed that the Colonel, Moslem though 
 he was, provided wine for his guests, whilst abstaining 
 himself It seemed also somewhat paradoxical to hear 
 him zealously advocating the building of a fine cathedral 
 at Merv. " We have so many thousand roubles," he 
 said, with the air of an enthusiastic member of a 
 church building committee, "but we must have more, 
 in order to erect such a building as will excite the 
 admiration and respect of the natives." 
 
 To a connoisseur in carpets and embroidery my 
 room was a perfect museum of Central Asian handi- 
 work. The long wall facing the windows was covered 
 in Oriental fashion with an immense Persian carpet, as 
 was the broad divan running along it, whilst suspended 
 
 * The figures were given me as follows, in roubles 
 
 Manufacturers 
 
 Biickmakers 
 
 Bokhara manufacturers 
 
 Smallware shops . 
 
 Iron shops 
 
 Timber shops 
 
 Transport Company 
 
 Grocers 
 
 Pastrycooks . 
 
 Bakers 
 
 Butchers 
 
 Seltzer and lemonade 
 
 205,000 
 62,070 
 
 150,000 
 80, 260 
 12,320 
 36,000 
 35,000 
 30,670 
 8,500 
 18,000 
 12,500 
 4,000 
 
 Distillery 
 
 
 
 10,560 
 
 Brandy shops 
 
 
 
 29,000 
 
 Wine shops . 
 
 
 
 82,000 
 
 Beer shops 
 
 
 
 45.700 
 
 Eating-houses 
 
 
 
 52,800 
 
 Tea-houses . 
 
 
 
 19,760 
 
 Inns 
 
 
 
 60,500 
 
 Baths . 
 
 
 
 18,000 
 
 Caravanserai 
 
 
 22,500 
 
 Lodging-liouses 
 
 
 
 7,800 
 
 Roubles 
 
 1,002,940 
 
 i "-^-J /I f- r— f—
 
 38 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 from the cornice all round the room was an ornamental 
 hanging of tassel work, specially made for the Colonel 
 by the Sariks of Panjdeh. At the end where I slept 
 the wall and divan were adorned with exquisite Tekke 
 carpets and tent bands, with abundance of cushions 
 of Bokhara velvet, displaying various specimens of 
 Central x^sian silk embroidery. 
 
 In excellent agreement with all this, each of the upper 
 window curtains consisted of a rich Bokhariot saddle- 
 cloth embroidered in silver and gold. The tloor was 
 covered with Persian carpets, and over the Colonel's 
 study door were hangings of Indian embroidered silk. 
 
 But more interesting than these was their owner, 
 who, fortunately for me, spoke French, and gave me 
 a good deal of information concerning the affairs of 
 Turkmenia. An Asiatic by descent, a Muhammadan 
 by birth, and of the same religion as those over whom 
 he rules. Colonel Alikhanoff appeared to be the right 
 man in the right place. In a surprisingly short time 
 he had reduced to order the most turbulent and blood- 
 thirsty of the tribes of Central Asia. Not more than 
 four or five cases of robbery a month, he told me, 
 came before him, but sometimes as many as five or 
 six murders — the frequent result of quarrels. He 
 gave me several instances of his rough-and-ready 
 fashion of administering punishments and rewards, 
 by which he seemed to have quieted and gained the 
 goodwill of the people. 
 
 In harmony with the foregoing was the testimony of 
 a Russian Colonel who dined with us, and had ridden 
 on the morning of the same day from Yulatan, on the 
 Murghab, in the direction of Panjdeh, where he was 
 administering a district of 30,000 persons, who quite 
 recently were robbers and thieves by profession, but
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 
 
 39 
 
 amongst whom he was living as the only European, 
 and undefended, save by eight native djiguitts, or 
 mounted attendants. 
 
 This Colonel told me that at Panjdeh he had entered 
 some ancient catacombs of the fire-worshippers, dated 
 back vaguely to the time of Zoroaster, one of them 
 having receptacles for 200 bodies. Of these receptacles 
 he saw 40, and showed me a sketch of the entrance to 
 one of the catacombs. 
 
 The great event of the morrow was to be a drive to 
 Old Merv, which for a traveller to omit is as culpable 
 as to visit London and not see Westminster Abbey. 
 For this the Colonel kindly ordered a carriage and 
 mounted attendants, arranging that we should lunch 
 on the way at the historic dwelling of Yusuf Khan, 
 one of the four who negotiated the submission of 
 Merv ; and word was sent to his mother, in whose 
 tent the critical meeting was held, that an Englishman 
 desired the favour of an interview. 
 
 I was accompanied by Count Mouravieff and M. 
 Guillaume, who was teaching the Colonel the French 
 language, and in other ways making himself useful. 
 It was a bright spring morning when we started, and 
 pleasantly warm. A drive of two or three hours 
 brought us to the aid or collection of tents of Yusuf, 
 and whilst lunch was being prepared I looked about 
 the premises and picked up information. 
 
 Presently we were regaled with a dostarkhan — that 
 is, a tablecloth — and with something on it in the 
 shape of meat, as well as (though tell it not in Mecca!) 
 wine and vodka to drink. Lemonade, too, and tea 
 were served, the tables being turned for the nonce, the 
 Muhammadan drinking wine and the Christian water. 
 
 In the course of conversation it transpired that
 
 40 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Yusuf Khan, though only 20 years old, had 
 under his authority 2,000 "souls" (that is to say, 
 men, for the Russians do not reckon women as 
 " souls "), with the rank of a Russian captain and 
 pay of ^120 a year. His mother, Gur Jemal, widow 
 of Nur Verdi Khan, was enjoying a pension of ^/^loo 
 a year, and, in addition, she had received from the 
 Emperor handsome presents of clothing and jewels. 
 
 Arrayed in these, she received us after lunch, and 
 our eyes were dazzled by a k/ialat, or dress of silver 
 and gold brocade, edged with sable fur. Her waist- 
 band was of gold and turquoise, and she wore a 
 necklace of precious stones, as well as numerous 
 rings ; whilst her head was covered with three 
 handkerchiefs. 
 
 Her age was said to be 47, but, like all 
 Turkoman women thus far advanced, she appeared 
 very much more — 60 at the least, though her good 
 looks had not quite left her. She had less to say 
 than to show, behaved with becoming dignity, and 
 on her thanking us for our visit, I felt glad to have 
 been favoured with admission to the presence of a 
 Turkoman lady. 
 
 She is considered rich, which Alikhanoff accounted 
 for by her possessing a canal of water. " When," 
 said he, "the Russians wished to reward me I received 
 the first-class Cross of St George " (of which, by the 
 way, I fancy he is the only man in the empire to 
 possess two), "but w^hen the Turkomans wished to 
 recompense Gur Jemal they gave her not only acres 
 of land, which are plentiful enough, but a canal of 
 water to keep them fruitful." * 
 
 * Hence we see the propriety of Achsah asking of her father as dowr}-, 
 not only a field, but springs to water it. Joshua xv. i8, 19 ; Judges i. 14, 15.
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 4I 
 
 We had still some few miles to drive, our coachman 
 being not too nice in the choice of his roads, where 
 road indeed there was none. Our party was now 
 increased by the Khan and several more djiguitts, 
 who rushed forward to show and clear the way. 
 Hitherto I had suspected that those words in the 
 "Burial of Sir John Moore" — 
 
 "The sods with our bayonets turning," 
 
 were a poet's trope, but on our way they were very 
 closely illustrated ; for, coming to a ditch deepened 
 by recent rains, the djigmtts dismounted, turned their 
 swords into spades, and speedily levelled the ground 
 for our vehicle to pass. On nearer approach to the 
 ruins we were provided with saddle horses, and in 
 this way viewed the lions. 
 
 No less than four cities have flourished on or near 
 the site of what is now called Old Merv. The most 
 ancient is called Giaour Kala, and is said to date from 
 the time of Zoroaster. 
 
 The ruins of the city next in antiquity are called 
 Iskander Kala, after Alexander the Great, who made 
 it one of his colonies. To this Merv Christianity was 
 introduced about 200 a.d. It subsequently became 
 the seat of an archbishop, and in 420 was made a 
 metropolitan see. Of these two cities little now re- 
 mains above ground except some high walls, though 
 one cannot but surmise that the spade might bring 
 to light some antiquarian treasures. 
 
 The third of the cities alluded to was built by the 
 Arabs who conquered the place in the seventh century, 
 and of this Merv, now called Sandjar Kala, there re- 
 main two or three monuments indicative of considerable 
 greatness.
 
 42 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 The structures mentioned are the chief survivors of 
 the Arab city. In the sixteenth century the Persians 
 
 
 ii'f.uiir.ii:" 
 
 \ 
 
 ■-"'■, Ajk'S, '•."»'^V,*> • ' >, 
 
 ^■>;t., 
 
 
 ^"■;^:- 
 
 
 4-V 
 
 ■?».■ 
 
 ■- *v: 
 
 took the place and built a city, the walls of which, 
 flanked with semicircular towers and possibly measurmg
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV. 43 
 
 from two to three miles round, are now called Bairam 
 All, and here it was we found the ruins most plentiful, 
 though few, if any of them, could be called beautiful. 
 A distant view of Bairam Ali presented to the visitor 
 a gateway of fine proportions, though looking very 
 dilapidated from the rear. On approaching the 
 principal entrance to the citadel, the flanking towers 
 were seen to be of sun-dried brick, as were also the 
 remains of the lesser mosque. 
 
 Our host and chaperon, being determined that we 
 should not starve, regaled us among the ruins with 
 sweetmeats and drinks, as well as conversation, so 
 that before I left Merv I was much pleased to have 
 had the opportunity of getting at first-hand, and from 
 various persons who took part therein, sundry pieces 
 of information concerning its annexation. 
 
 When England was startled in February 1884 by 
 the telegram received in St Petersburg from Askha- 
 bad to the effect that the Turkomans had declared 
 themselves subjects of the Czar, there was no lack 
 of English newspapers charging Russia with perfidy 
 in having stolen Merv, whilst British hands were full 
 in Upper Egypt and incapable of interfering. 
 
 Personally, I never joined in this hue and cry : first, 
 for lack of what seemed to me adequate proof; and 
 next, because from what I had heard at Khiva, less 
 than twelve months before, of the lawless condition 
 of Merv, it seemed to me that the Russians had only 
 to wait, and Merv must fall into their hands without 
 their even asking for it. 
 
 The telegram stated that " this decision was arrived 
 at by the Turkomans of Merv because they were 
 assured of their incapability of governing themselves." 
 This, in England, was laughed at, but was strictly
 
 44 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 in keeping with what I had heard from the Khan 
 of Khiva and others in the neighbourhood ; as also 
 with the testimony of the Baron Benoist-Mechin, who 
 visited Khiva six months after me, and, proceeding 
 thence to Merv, found, the Baron said, " such an 
 absence of all government that after our arrival in the 
 month of July we did not hesitate to write to General 
 Chernaieff it seemed to us that the Merv oasis would 
 submit without fighting at no distant date " — which 
 is precisely what happened a few months later. 
 
 Accordingly, I felt unable, from such facts as had 
 come to my knowledge, to adopt and to write upon an 
 engraving which appeared in the Graphic of April 
 25th, 1885. It represented the interior of a Turko- 
 man hut, copied from a photograph I lent to the 
 editor, whilst seated around were Turkoman chiefs 
 inserted from another of my photographs ; but there 
 was added also what was not in mine — a Russian 
 officer in the attitude of an envoy exhorting the chiefs 
 to submission, and for this I felt I could not with a 
 good conscience stand sponsor, having no proof that 
 such a conference had ever taken place. 
 
 So nearly, however, do truth and error often lie 
 together, that I afterwards learned the editor was 
 right, and so, too, was I. 
 
 The true story as to how the submission of Merv 
 was effected was given me as follows : — Colonel 
 Alikhanoff, as is well known, entered the Russian army 
 early in life, became major, and in 1875 was degraded 
 to the ranks for fighting a duel. In 1879 he took 
 part in the Turkoman campaigns, gradually rose again, 
 and in 1882, for a secret reconnaissance of the oasis of 
 Merv, was promoted to a captaincy. 
 
 It was not long after this that some Turkoman
 
 o 
 
 r
 
 FROM THE CASPIAN TO MERV 
 
 45 
 
 raiders, approaching the Persian frontier near Askha- 
 bad, carried off some natives who were Russian 
 subjects, and their sheep. This could not, of course, 
 be allowed to pass unnoticed, and a volunteer was 
 called for who would undertake the difficult work of 
 proceeding to Merv, and demanding the restitution 
 of both persons and cattle. 
 
 Alikhanoff offered to go, and when warned of 
 danger and the possibility of losing his life, he per- 
 sisted, and finally started, but with a certain number 
 of soldiers, whom, if I mistake not, he left on the 
 borders of the Merv oasis, and proceeded alone to 
 play his game in his own way. 
 
 It was no part of his commission, so I was told, 
 to broach the question of annexation, but he saw 
 therein a means of regaining perhaps his old laurels, 
 and possibly fresh ones besides. Going from mil to 
 aid, he pointed out to this and the other chief that 
 a great power like Russia could not possibly allow 
 brigandage on her borders, and that the Turkomans 
 would do well to become Russian subjects. 
 
 Their apprehension, that they should be obliged to 
 give up their Muhammadanism, he was able to allay 
 by pointing out that his father before him and he, 
 too, though both Russian officers, had nevertheless 
 continued Muhammadans ; and other objections he 
 similarly met, speaking to them in their own tongue. 
 
 The lawlessness then prevalent inclined those who 
 had anything to lose to wish heartily for a better state 
 of things. To my own knowledge they had sent 
 three times to Khiva and Petro Alexandrovsk asking 
 for a Governor of their own nationality. But this 
 move had not been successful. 
 
 Some of them told Alikhanoff that, if they must
 
 46 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 have foreign rule, they would prefer that of the 
 English, whilst others preferred that of Russia, and 
 some of Persia. 
 
 Amidst these divided counsels AlikhanofT came to 
 the spot where we had lunched — the mil of Yusuf 
 Khan — where were assembled some 600 people, to 
 whom he said : " It is impossible for me to confer with 
 so great a crowd ; I will give you half an hour to 
 decide whether or not you will become Russian sub- 
 jects, and, if you decide in the affirmative, to choose 
 four persons as representatives by whom the business 
 can be negotiated." 
 
 And thereupon he left them to deliberate, retiring 
 to the tent, if I remember rightly, of Gur Jemal. 
 
 In 15 minutes they came to say they had de- 
 cided ; and Alikhanoff despatched a messenger to 
 Askhabad ; but so taken aback were the authorities 
 there that they refused to believe, and Alikhanoff had 
 to send a second time for arrangements to be made 
 whereby the chiefs could proceed and swear their 
 allegiance before the Governor-General. 
 
 Thus, if the foregoing account is true, — as I, for 
 one, believe it to be, — the submission of Merv was 
 brought about by the diplomacy of an officer in the 
 Russian service, but upon his own responsibility, and 
 in excess of the orders with which he was entrusted. 
 
 The rest is a matter of history, but the Colonel told 
 me he had the satisfaction of liberating 700 slaves 
 in the Turkoman oasis, and among them a Russian 
 colonel.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM MERV TO THE OXUS. 
 
 Further railway favours, 47. — Journey through sand barkhans and 
 desert stations, 48. — Guest at Amu-daria with Colonel Tcharykoff, 
 50. — Reforms by new Emir of Bokhara, 51.— Dinner-party at Colonel 
 Tcharykoff's, 52. — Visit to Bek of Charjui ; Murder of previous 
 Bek, and lynching the murderer, 54. — The prison revisited, 55. — The 
 gallows, 57. — Journey continued in a rolling maisonette, 58. — 
 Bridge over the Oxus, 59. — Inn at Bokhara station, 60. 
 
 MY journey from the Caspian to Merv was tra- 
 velled with the maximum comfort the line 
 could afford — namely, a separate compartment in the 
 one second-class carriage in the train, for of first-class 
 as yet there was none. The remainder of the pas- 
 senger accommodation consisted of third-class carriages, 
 and of fourth-class, if they may be so called, without 
 seats or benches, for natives. A second-class carriage 
 was attached to the train only twice a week, and when 
 starting afresh towards the Oxus I happened to fix on 
 a non-second-class day. 
 
 The kindness of the railway officials, however, with 
 that of Colonel Alikhanoff, who accompanied me to 
 the station, proved equal to the occasion ; for, seeing 
 that there were many passengers, the station-master 
 was good enough to place at my disposal a whole third- 
 class carriage, wherein, if there was lack of cushions.
 
 ^8 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 there certainly was not of room, my only companions 
 being my servant Joseph and a messenger whom 
 Colonel Alikhanoffwas sending on business to Bokhara, 
 and who he thought might be useful on the way. 
 
 The first station eastwards is named after the neigh- 
 bouring ruins, Bairam Ali, where water is stored in a 
 tank alongside the railway, and supplied to the engine 
 from a tun raised on logs of wood. Between this and 
 
 RESERVOIR AT BAIRAM ALI, OR OLD MERV. 
 
 the next station, at a distance of about 27 miles from 
 Merv, the line enters upon the outer fringe of the most 
 terrible desert, I suppose, crossed by any railway in 
 the world. 
 
 This desert is not merely sandy, but of sand entirely, 
 with this additional drawback, that whereas the sands 
 on the coast of the Caspian may by labour be half 
 fixed, those near the Oxus are at the mercy of every 
 wind that blows. They cover the face of the country 
 
 [
 
 FROM MERV TO THE OX US. 49 
 
 in barkhans, or sickle-shciped hills, varying in height 
 up to 100 feet. 
 
 In certain places plantations of bushes suitable to 
 the soil have been placed beside the railway ; but until 
 these grow it seems inevitable that from time to time, 
 after strong winds, the rails will need to be cleared as 
 after a snowstorm. It was by reason of this uncer- 
 tainty as to what might be the condition of the road 
 that our train, though arriving at Merv in the morning, 
 did not leave until nearly midnight, so as to traverse 
 the worst part of the sandy desert by day. 
 
 In the grey dawn of very early morning we reached 
 a station significantly named Pesky, in allusion to the 
 surrounding sand. Here we bade farewell to the few 
 tokens remaining of the Merv oasis, after which 
 sunrise found us at Repetek, where was a refresh- 
 ment station, with only brackish water for making tea, 
 and then we plunged in among the sand barkhans. 
 At Karaul-Kuyu no station was yet erected, but a 
 few tents pitched and a hut constructed of railway 
 sleepers, out of which the drifting sand was kept with 
 difficulty. 
 
 From the next station, Barkhan — again named after 
 its local surroundings — there was nothing visible all 
 round but sand-hills, whilst a more desolate outlook 
 than we had from the carriage windows in steaming 
 along could hardly be imagined. 
 
 Finally, about six miles west of the Amu-daria, 
 cultivation reappeared, with fortified mud houses and 
 walls and trees, the last somewhat larger than those of 
 Merv. We had now entered the oasis of Charjui, a 
 narrow strip of cultivated land belonging to Bokhara 
 on the west bank of the Oxus ; and at ten o'clock 
 we arrived at the station Amu-daria, thus completing a 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 journey of 670 miles from the Caspian in 60 hours of 
 actual travel. 
 
 The local railway potentate for this part of the line 
 was Prince Khilkoff, who had been kind enough to 
 send to the station General Annenkoffs carriage to 
 
 RAILWAY L)i:ruT AT a;jc-daria. 
 
 take me to be the guest of Colonel Nicholas Tcharykoff, 
 the Russian Political Agent (or " Resident," as the 
 English would call him) in Bokhara, who for the 
 moment was laid up here with a broken ankle. 
 
 The Colonel spoke English fluently, having received 
 a part of his early education in Edinburgh, and proved 
 
 1
 
 FROAI MERV TO THE OX US. 51 
 
 to be one of the most polished and gentlemanly Russian 
 officers I have ever met. Though unable to go out, 
 he made my stay thoroughly enjoyable ; and knowing 
 well my writings on Bokhara, he was able to confirm 
 or correct what had been written. 
 
 Since my previous visit the Emir Muzaffar-ed-din 
 had died, and had been succeeded by his fourth son, 
 Seid Abdul Ahad, of whom it was pleasant to hear that 
 he had introduced certain reforms and improvements, 
 as, for instance, that on coming to the throne he had 
 proclaimed throughout the country liberty to slaves. 
 
 Nominally, the slave markets of Bokhara, under 
 compulsion from the Russians, had long been closed ; 
 and when I was at Charjui in 1882 I did not suspect 
 the trade to be going on, but that Persian girls were 
 brought by the Turkomans and sold there I learned 
 after my return to England from Colonel Stewart, 
 who had left Eastern Persia only a few weeks pre- 
 viously, and I thereupon, with his consent, 'published 
 his statement by way of confirmation of M. Stremou- 
 khofi"'s letters to the St Petersburg Gazette stating that 
 the odious trade was not completely stamped out in 
 Bokhara. 
 
 It was a wise and humane policy, therefore, of the 
 Russians to "advise" (which meant to command) the 
 young Emir not merely to prohibit the trade, but to 
 set at liberty those already bound, and to send special 
 orders to the frontier towns that if any slaves were 
 imported there they should be immediately set at 
 liberty. 
 
 Thus, whatever may be said in disfavour of Russia's 
 annexations, it should not be forgotten that she has by 
 this last measure completed the extirpation of slavery 
 from the shores of the Caspian to China.
 
 52 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 The new Emir was said to have made other attempts 
 to improve public morality, Mr Curzon, who accom- 
 panied a party of tourists to Bokhara at the time of 
 the opening of the railway, writing afterwards of the 
 Emir's court, says : " Bale has, or dancing boys, are 
 among the inseparable accessories of the palace, and 
 represent a Bokharan taste as effeminate as it is 
 depraved." * 
 
 But Colonel Tcharykoff informed me, in answer to 
 my question on the subject, that the new Emir, instead 
 of providing boys with their tambourine music for the 
 public entertainment of guests as did his father, had 
 forbidden batcJias, and ordered them to enlist in the 
 army, though it might be that they were in some cases 
 tolerated in private. f 
 
 On my second evening at the Amu-daria, Colonel 
 Tcharykoff gave a dinner, and invited me to meet the 
 officers of the garrison, and Captain Loewenhagen, 
 the commander of the steamer Czar, then in course of 
 construction on the river, and also an English engineer 
 named Boots. 
 
 Next morning I went by invitation of Captain 
 Loewenhagen to see the Czar, then lying below the 
 bridge alongside of the barge or lighter she was in- 
 tended to tow, after which Colonel Tcharykoff kindly 
 arranged that I should drive to the town of Charjui, 
 and pay a complimentary call on the native Bek or 
 Governor. 
 
 * Russia in Central Asia, p. 200. 
 
 t Something similar may be said with regard to prostitution in 
 Bokhara, for, whatever may be done secretly, the Muhammadan law 
 regarding its prohibition remains in force ; and a case having at the 
 time of my visit recently come to light of two parents selling their 
 daughter for an immoral purpose, the father's throat was cut, and 
 the mother shot, which in Bokhara is a common method of capital 
 punishment for offences of this class.
 
 54 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 I was well pleased thus to revisit a place that had 
 interested me exceedingly, six years before, as a frontier 
 outpost, whence one looked into the desert towards 
 Merv, and longed to go but dared not, there being then 
 no security for a foreigner's life. 
 
 Outside the citadel, instead of inside, as one would 
 expect, is arranged under a shed a very small park of 
 antiquated artillery, which the Charjui natives, I sup- 
 pose, used to fancy brought them abreast of the times. 
 So ignorant were they on my former visit, that on my 
 thinking to surprise the young Bek by describing our 
 hundred-ton guns and their enormous projectiles, he 
 replied, " Yes, ours are like them too." 
 
 This young Bek was a younger brother of the 
 present Emir. At my reception in 1882 he had got 
 himself up in a dandy turban and gorgeous robes, but 
 he lost his post at his father's death, and his successor 
 had now been summoned to court to take the place of 
 the Kush-beggi's son, whom I had seen when calling 
 on his father, and whom I had mentally dubbed the 
 greatest nincompoop in the kingdom. But this was 
 by no means the estimate put upon him in Bokhara, 
 for the new Emir had taken him to his cabinet as 
 Divan-beggi, or Minister of Finance. Colonel Tchary- 
 koff also spoke well of him, saying that he had been a 
 favourite with the people. 
 
 No small indignation, therefore, had been recently 
 aroused when, the Divan-beggi serving a warrant for 
 the sale of the goods of a man who had embezzled 
 money, the culprit shot the Divan-beggi w^ith two 
 bullets, who after lingering 20 hours died, but not 
 before he had expressed a wish that his murderer 
 might not be put to death. 
 
 But the Emir condemned the culprit, and handed
 
 FROM MER V TO THE OXUS. 55 
 
 him over to the dead man's relatives to do with him 
 what they Hked. This was, first, to break his bones ; 
 next, to drag him through the donkey market (some 
 said at the tail of an ass) ; thirdly, to behead him ; 
 and lastly, to cast his body outside the city to the 
 dogs. 
 
 On my present visit to Charjui I was received in the 
 usual reception room by the acting Bek and his staff, 
 robed in their gaily coloured khalats and white turbans, 
 and, after speaking of my former visit, and partaking 
 of light refreshment and sweetmeats, I returned 
 towards the outer gateway between lines of soldiers 
 and a native band. 
 
 Being anxious to revisit the prison, and remember- 
 ing that it was under a chamber at the gate of the 
 citadel, I stopped opposite the entrance and asked to 
 be allowed to go in. My gaining admission six years 
 previously was a great triumph, because at Bokhara 
 they had done their best to keep me from seeing their 
 prisons, and I then discovered at Charjui not only a 
 near approach to the " Black Hole of Calcutta," but 
 men wearing iron collars, through the ends of which 
 was passed a chain to secure them all together, as well 
 as a long beam, wherein the prisoners' feet were made 
 fast, placed across the centre of the chamber. 
 
 This beam I could not help thinking was anciently 
 an ordinary piece of furniture in prisons, similar 
 perhaps to that in which the Philippian jailer thrust 
 the feet of Paul and Silas (Acts xvi. 24), and I was 
 anxious on the present occasion to take a photograph 
 of it. 
 
 But the hot and fusty chamber, without windows or 
 ventilation, and measuring only six paces by four, was 
 too dark and the space too contracted to allow of
 
 56 
 
 CHJNESE CENTRAL ASIA 
 
 operating satisfactorily ; so, putting a bold face on the 
 matter, I asked that the prisoners might be brought 
 out into the yard, and the beam too, which was accord- 
 ingly done, for the police-master looked afraid to 
 refuse. Then I sent to the bazaar for refreshments, 
 
 CEMETERY, AND MODE OF KMXl ILiJ.N I.N i;nKlIARA AND KllU'A. 
 
 which the prisoners partook of before they were posed 
 and photographed, much to their astonishment, but on 
 terms they evidently approved. 
 
 In addition to the chamber already described, I 
 found, on this visit, another on the opposite side of 
 the citadel gateway, circular in form and measuring
 
 FROM MERV TO THE OX US. 
 
 57 
 
 four paces across. In the former place were four 
 prisoners chained by the neck together ; in the hitter 
 were eight, one of whom had been confined for a year, 
 others for a longer period, together with a boy of 
 13, whose tale was a pitiful one. 
 
 It appeared that his father had struck him, and after- 
 wards the son, finding his parent asleep, retaliated by 
 dealing him a blow which proved fatal. The young 
 parricide had already been in confinement for nearly a 
 
 . J 
 
 OPENING OF THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE OXUS AT^CHARJUI. 
 
 year, but I could not make out what they intended to 
 do with him. 
 
 On passing the gallows they told me that, previous 
 to the advent of the Russians, they used to hang from 
 five to six hundred Turkomans a year, but that this 
 state of things had now passed away.* 
 
 * Among sundry photographs kindly given me by Colonel Tcharj'- 
 koff is one of the gallows at Khiva, not as when I was there, in front of 
 the Khan's palace, but in a cemeteiy, with a felon supposed to be
 
 5^^ 
 
 CHTNESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Before leaving the Amii-daria railway station, or 
 depot, as they called it, I attempted a photograph of 
 the curious vehicle in which we were to go forward 
 to Bokhara. We had come by payment as far as the 
 line was available to the public, and the ceremony of 
 opening the bridge had taken place only a few weeks 
 previously, but the rails were placed and trucks were 
 running for another 80 miles. 
 
 BRIDGE OVER THE OXUS, 6,230 FEET, 
 
 Accordingly, Prince Khilkoff assigned me, free of 
 charge, a wooden hut or maisonette, with slanting roof, 
 built on a wheeled platform, and introduced, if I mis- 
 take not, by himself, from his experience in railway 
 
 suspended. His foot, however, is suspiciously near a mud wall, on 
 which it looks as if the man might be posing for the photographer ; but 
 whether it be so or not, the picture illustrates the primitive character 
 of the Turkistan gallows, consisting simply of two posts and a cross 
 beam.
 
 FROM MERV TO THE OX US. 59 
 
 making in America. It consisted of two chambers 
 about 10 feet long by 9 wide. In each room was a 
 bedstead, a table, and two candlesticks. The walls 
 were lined with striped cotton, the windows and door- 
 ways were curtained, and there was a lavatory inter- 
 vening, so that all that was needed was the Russian 
 samovar and a lunch-basket to enable one to travel 
 as many miles as one pleased. 
 
 sT IN THE WORLD. 
 
 It was in this fashion we crossed the Oxus, whose 
 bed is here more than two miles wide, with many 
 sandbanks,' and occasionally islands pastured by cattle ; 
 whilst so changeable was the course of the current 
 that a place measuring 20 feet deep at the time of the 
 erection of the bridge, and chosen as the spot for 
 steamers to pass, had now silted up to a depth of two 
 feet only.
 
 6o CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 The bridge is, I suppose, the longest in the world — 
 so long thrit, when standing at one end, the other is 
 not visible, especially on such a day as we crossed, 
 with sand in the air blown by a strong east wind, and 
 when the train — going very slowly, it is true — took 
 26 minutes to go the entire length of the rail- 
 ings. The bridge is constructed lightly of wood, and 
 is not intended to be other than temporary. Tubs 
 of water with pails attached, in case of fire, are placed 
 upon it at intervals, and on the bridge itself occurs the 
 one thousandth verst post from the Caspian. 
 
 Immediately east of the river we passed over culti- 
 vated land and through trees to Farab, our first 
 stopping-place, where there was a garden laid out, but 
 no station built ; and this was the usual condition of 
 things till we reached the stopping-place for Bokhara, 
 where, after a heavy rainfall at night, I made my first 
 acquaintance with Central Asian mud, into which, 
 from its slippery character, I fell. 
 
 An enterprising Armenian, or Jew, if I remember 
 rightly, had built at the station a small inn ; and here 
 I was called upon by the station-master. Colonel 
 Popoff, and the local engineer, Ivanoffsky, who had 
 heard about me from General Annenkoff, and 
 suggested that I should sleep the remaining hours of 
 the night, and in the morning they would see me 
 started for the town.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BOKHARA. 
 
 Drive to the town, 6i. — B\'llovv-guests and repeated experiences; 
 Madame Klemm's hospitality, 62. — Russian ladies in Bokhara, 63. — 
 Espionage and suspicion of natives ; Visit to bazaar and Kalan 
 Mosque ; Photography allowed but suspected, 64. — House of the 
 Ishan and maniacs, 65. — Picture-taking under difficulties ; Visit to 
 Jewish synagogue, 67. — Morning prayers and circumcision, 68. — 
 Jewish oppression in Bokhara, 69. — Visit to city prison, 70. — 
 Lepers' quarter, 72. — Audience with the Emir, ^2,. — "A bargain's 
 a bargain " ; Political influence of Russian Residency, 77.— Rides 
 about the town, 78. 
 
 WHEN the carriage arrived for the nine miles' 
 drive between the station and the town of 
 Bokhara, I recognised it as the caleche in which, six 
 years previously, I was drawn by two artillery horses 
 from Kitab to Karshi. I recognised, too, one of the 
 postillions, but not the line of country through which 
 we now drove, on a beautiful spring morning. It 
 presented a very different aspect from the parched 
 appearance of the Khanate as I had last seen it 
 in autumn. 
 
 On arriving before the grim and sombre-looking 
 walls and towers of Bokhara, we were taken to what 
 was formerly the harem or women's apartments of the 
 house assiq-ned me in 1882, which the Emir had now 
 lent for the Russian Residency, pending the building
 
 62 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 of a suitable dwelling for the Political Agent near the 
 railway station. 
 
 The rooms I occupied before, in the principal court, 
 were now inhabited by Colonel Tcharykoff, and in the 
 same court were the treasury, guarded by Cossacks, 
 and the apartments of M. Basil Oskapovitch Klemm, 
 Secretary-dragoman to the Political Agency at Bo- 
 khara, and his family, with whom were staying Madame 
 Klemm's mother and sister, Madame Olga and Mdlle 
 Aphekhtine, on a visit from Moscow. 
 
 There was also lodging on the premises a Russified 
 native officer and interpreter named Mirbadaleff, whose 
 brother I met at Petro-Alexandrovsk. To complete 
 the list of visitors must be added a Spanish gentleman 
 and his wife, of whom mention had been made by the 
 Governor at Baku as coming after me, who passed 
 under the name of Juan de Chelva, from Valencia, 
 but who were said to be none other than the brother 
 of Don Carlos of Spain, and his wife, the Duchess of 
 Montpensier. 
 
 An American fellow-traveller once, inviting me to 
 come and stay at his house, added, " We will take 
 you in, you know, boots and all"; and in this fashion, 
 on my first visit to the Khanate, from the moment of 
 crossing the frontier, I was regarded as the Emir's 
 guest, and supplied with lodging, servants, food, and 
 raiment, and all that was necessary for myself and 
 attendants. 
 
 Something of the same sort was observed on this 
 second visit, though I could not at first make out 
 whether I was a guest of the Emir or of the Russian 
 Residency. The lunch brought daily to my room 
 was of native preparation, but in the evening Madame 
 Klemm entertained us at dinner ; and, considering
 
 BOKHARA. 63 
 
 the difficulty of getting variety of food for European 
 palates, and serving it in anything like Western 
 fashion, in the midst of a city where foreigners were 
 so few, it was not an undeserved compliment the 
 duchess paid one evening to our hostess in observing, 
 " Coiuineiit on mange bien, Madame, chez vous ! " 
 
 This paucity of Europeans in the town contributed 
 largely towards making prisoners of the ladies of the 
 Residency, for at first their appearance in the bazaar, 
 unveiled, drew together a crowd to admire or to stare, 
 as the case might be, and this was intensified when 
 Mdlle Aphekhtine appeared on horseback with a lady's 
 saddle. 
 
 Accustomed, like all Muhammadans, to degrade 
 their wives into drudges or toys, it seemed to the 
 natives a bold thing for women thus to appear in 
 public ; and that these sentiments were not those of 
 the vulgar only, came out on the day of the opening 
 railway fete, when the Residency was decked out 
 with flags and carpets, and the nobles of Bokhara 
 were invited to dine with Russian officers and their 
 wives, perceiving which, one of the Bokhariots, high 
 in dignity, remarked that he thought the Russian 
 ladies were not kept sufficiently in subjection ! 
 
 On the birth of Madame Klemm's first baby there 
 was much rejoicing and passing of compliments and 
 presents, and the young boy was forthwith dubbed 
 a " bek " in honour of having been born in " Bokhara 
 the Noble"; but I could not gather that, even with 
 the best of Russian desires to that end, there could 
 be maintained anything like family intercourse or 
 intimacy between Muscovite and Bokhariot ladies, 
 so great was the ignorance of the latter, and so little 
 did they understand each other's customs ; added to
 
 64 CHINESE CENTRAL AS/A. 
 
 which the natives were intensely suspicious that be- 
 neath every proffered kindness there lay concealed 
 a snare. 
 
 To me these indications of suspicion were not new, 
 for so rampant were they at the time of my previous 
 visit, that our deeds and words, and taking of notes 
 especially, were reported to the Emir — an undoubted 
 fact, because some of my retainers one day heard 
 two of the spies reading over what they intended 
 to report. On this second visit I was less tightly 
 in their grasp, but I recognised one of our old spies 
 among three native officials who remained on the 
 premises nominally, and to a considerable extent 
 really, to look after the Emir's guests, but also, of 
 course, to espy. 
 
 On the day after our arrival the Kush-beggi, or 
 Prime Minister, sent a Karaul-beggi to show me the 
 bazaar, where things were going on as of old. From 
 the bazaar the Karaul-beggi took me to the Kalan 
 Minaret, said to have been built by the x'\rabs in 
 the ninth century, and to the Great Mosque adjoin- 
 ing, out of which I had formerly been hurried in fear 
 lest I should be set upon as an unbeliever, whereas 
 now I was allowed to examine everything at leisure, 
 and even to photograph the Mihrab, or sanctuary 
 towards which Muhammadans pray, and the Sakka- 
 kkana, or place for drinking water. 
 
 Had I brought a camera six years before, its use 
 would undoubtedly have been forbidden, but now they 
 had seen some of the Russians practising their " black 
 art." This had to some extent softened prejudice, so 
 that when in the mosque one of the natives was about 
 to object, the Karaul-beggi overruled that I should be 
 allowed to proceed. On another day, however, one
 
 BOKHARA. 65 
 
 old simpleton, and a great obstructionist on my first 
 visit, after seeing me take a photograph of a tomb in 
 the cemetery, thought the proceeding so mysterious 
 and uncanny that he declared next day it had caused 
 him a sleepless night ! 
 
 I photographed this place of sepulture because the 
 cemeteries of Bokhara and Khiva give the best illustra- 
 tion that I have seen how those possessed of devils 
 (which in Bokhara would mean the insane) had their 
 dwellings in the tombs.* These tombs are built of 
 clay, the ends presenting the form of a triangle with 
 the sides bent out. Beneath this the corpse is laid, 
 often on the surface of the ground, divested of all 
 clothing, except a turban, and the tomb plastered up. 
 In course of time, however, the heat of summer causes 
 the clay to crack, and, the ends having fallen, disclose 
 the dry bones and skull within. Thus is formed a 
 place wherein friendless maniacs, turned loose to 
 provide for themselves (as I heard they sometimes 
 were in Bokhara), might easily take refuge. 
 
 I had heard on my previous visit of the barbarous 
 manner in which the insane were kept and treated, 
 being beaten whilst prayers were read over them from 
 the Koran, and then picketed, like horses, to posts in 
 the yard of a mullah called the Ishan, but I did not then 
 succeed in witnessing it. This house of the Ishan, 
 therefore, was one of the places I asked now to be 
 taken to see. 
 
 It was an ordinary native dwelling, presided over by 
 a sort of mullah-doctor, who was treating^ his insane 
 patients as " possessed of the devil," and was dealing 
 largely in charms for all comers, consisting of extracts 
 from the Koran, placed in receptacles to be worn on 
 
 * Matthew viii. 28. 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 CHINESE CENTRA L A SI A . 
 
 the afflicted part of the body. He sat in his room 
 near a window, and outside was a Httle crowd of 
 ignorant women, many of them said to be childless, 
 who had come to consult this man in their troubles 
 and pay for his nostrums. 
 
 This was sad enough, but the sight of the maniacs 
 was pitiable ; the case of one man especially, Akhmet 
 Kul, from Karshi, who had been there six months, 
 and, although chained by the ankles, kept violently 
 jumping and dancing about. Unlike some of the 
 others, when I gave him money or sweets he threw 
 them into the air, and appeared decidedly combative. 
 Near him, chained to the wall, was a youth who had 
 been there ten days only. 
 
 " What is the matter with him ? " I asked. 
 
 " Oh !" said they, " he has a devil." Whereupon I 
 took from his legs the chains, which they allowed me 
 to purchase. 
 
 Passing through a doorway, I found myself in a 
 stable in which was a donkey, and, seemingly as little 
 cared for, two maniacs, one of whom was jumping 
 and crying, the place looking indescribably miserable, 
 and filthily dirty. Sitting outside in the sun, but 
 chained, was an Afghan, and another man of unknown 
 nationality who was evidently vain of his appearance, 
 for, before a small looking-glass, he was continually 
 combing his long and plentiful hair and beard. There 
 were others on a loft who had been there three months, 
 but some only 15 days, and in all cases their stay was 
 intended to be temporary. 
 
 Of course I wanted to photograph this sad and 
 strange, but instructive scene, for it connected itself in 
 my mind with further characteristics of those we read 
 of as possessed with devils. I accordingly began to
 
 BOKHARA. 67 
 
 put Up my apparatus, the Ishan not expressing any 
 objection. 
 
 Some of his subordinates, however, did not Hke it, 
 but being too timid to stop me, and thinking perhaps 
 to escape responsibiHty themselves, let loose the 
 Ka'rshi maniac, who came dancing before the camera, 
 crying out, as interpreted to me, "We don't want to 
 be photographed ! we don't want to be photographed!" 
 Upon this I desisted, and, by permission, returned a 
 few days afterwards to accomplish my purpose. 
 
 On this second occasion there were ten patients, 
 and Akhmet Kul, a man of middle age who told me 
 he was three years old, made no objection to having 
 his portrait taken, showing the charm he wore on his 
 shoulder, which seemed to be the only thing they were 
 applying for his recovery. Whether he had been 
 beaten I have no record ; some were so treated, and 
 some, they said, beat themselves. 
 
 I paid a third visit to the Ishan's house on my last 
 Sunday in Bokhara, thinking to give the poor creatures 
 a dinner of pilau, which being announced to the old 
 obstructionist, he said, rightly or wrongly, the needed 
 quantity o^ pi/an could not be had in the bazaar at so 
 short a notice. "Very well," I said, "then we will 
 give them bread and sweets, as before," which accord- 
 ingly was done, much to the satisfaction of the patients ; 
 and the Ishan gave me, I suppose as a compliment, 
 one of his charms or slips of writing.* 
 
 On our third day in Bokhara, accompanied by one 
 of the Emir's officials, I revisited the Jews' synagogue, 
 
 * The text, kindly translated for me by Sir Henry Rawlinson, reads, 
 "In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Great and True," after 
 which it appears to continue, " A charm by the truth of the Gospel of 
 Jesus, and what God made to descend upon Jesus. Mary was daughter," 
 etc., the remainder being illegible.
 
 68 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 anxious to thoroughly overhaul a number of manu- 
 scripts and disused rolls of the Law which, six years 
 before, were stowed away in dust and disorder in a 
 loft. But the spirit of church restoration had been 
 abroad — the loft was removed, and the old rolls were 
 now arranged in order in niches in the walls and in 
 cupboards. 
 
 On asking for the most ancient, a Torah, or copy of 
 the Pentateuch, was shown, said to have been given by 
 Abdurrahman Kalan, the Israelite patron or founder 
 of the synagogue, four or five hundred years ago. 
 Just before my previous visit a woman in Bokhara had 
 parted with a manuscript I was shown at Moscow on 
 its way to London, and which, when sold to the British 
 Museum, turned out to be of importance both for 
 textual criticism and for illustration of the art of Jewish 
 illumination — to be pronounced, in fact, the most 
 richly illuminated Hebrew manuscript of the Old 
 Testament extant. 
 
 On applying a few tests on this second visit, as to 
 the form of certain letters, I could not make out that 
 this oldest copy in the synagogue would be regarded 
 by an expert as very ancient, or perhaps remarkable, 
 though the writing was larger than usual, and carefully 
 penned. 
 
 On the next morning at sunrise I was taken again 
 to the synagogue to witness a circumcision. Many 
 men were assembled wearing phylacteries and prayer 
 shawls or scarves, called locally sisid, but in Hebrew 
 talith, some of which were ornamented with strips of 
 silver and gold. The congregation sat on the ground, 
 but sprang to their feet at the repetition of the Kodes/i, 
 or " Holy, Holy, Holy! " and from time to time they 
 turned towards Jerusalem.
 
 BOKHARA. 6y 
 
 After the usual daily morning prayers, which last for 
 about three-quarters of an hour, two chairs were brought 
 into the midst of the congregation near a stone lectern, 
 said to be 400 years old, and covered with cloths of 
 silk. The officiating rabbi or priest then took in his 
 hand a silver rod, called the rod of Elijah, and the 
 child was brought in by the father amid shouting and 
 recitation of prayers by the congregation. A prayer 
 was said by the rabbi, after which the infant, held by 
 two aged men, was circumcised according to the law. 
 
 The usual offering given to the priest on such 
 occasions is from four to ten shillings, or more per 
 haps from the rich. To what extent, and in what 
 numbers, their rich men exist is not easy to tell at 
 a glance, since many years of oppression and extortion 
 have made them careful to hide their wealth. 
 
 In Bokhara the Jews still labour under many re- 
 strictions. They may not wear a garment of silk, for 
 instance, with a belt and a turban, but are compelled 
 to wear a cotton khalat and black calico cap, and to be 
 girded only with a piece of string. Again, they may 
 not ride a horse in the city, and in the fields are made 
 to dismount from an ass before a mounted Muham- 
 madan, who, if he choose, may smite a Jew, but the 
 Jew must not retaliate. 
 
 The boys, many of whom, like their mothers, were 
 extremely good-looking, at first were terrified at me 
 if only I patted them on the head. Meanwhile they 
 showed themselves well disposed towards me, some 
 of them remembering my former visit, especially one 
 boy to whom I had given a Hebrew New Testament. 
 Moreover, true to their character, the Jews were not 
 above turning a penny where possible. The rabbi 
 sold me a small manuscript roll of the Book of Esth(!r ;
 
 70 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 and coins and precious stones were brought for my 
 selection, as also old embroidery. Some of the last 
 I purchased, and now value highly. 
 
 JEWS OF BOKHAKA. 
 
 I expressed a strong desire to see also the Zindan 
 or city prison of Bokhara, which they asked me not to 
 photograph. It was a wretched place, of which they 
 might well be ashamed, consisting of two rooms, not too
 
 BOKHARA. 
 
 71 
 
 large for four persons, but into which they had crammed 
 47. The first room was ten paces long, the ceiling 
 almost within reach, and contained 25 prisoners, one 
 poor fellow crying because sick, and apparently broken- 
 hearted. The second chamber was six paces square, 
 without boards or ceiling, the domed roof opening to 
 the sky, and containing 22 prisoners, of whom six were 
 Persians. 
 
 There was no furniture in the rooms, except a piece 
 or two of matting on the bare earth, a water vessel, 
 and the most wretched sanitary arrangements. They 
 said the man longest there had been imprisoned 
 18 months ; and it is proper to remember that im- 
 prisonment as such, for a term of years, for instance, 
 is not a recognised form of Bokhara punishment, but 
 men are put in prison until their cases can be dealt 
 with and disposed of in a summary fashion, which 
 may be anything between a thrashing and being put 
 to death. 
 
 Joseph, my servant, had brought an armful of bread, 
 which I would not entrust to the keepers, but dis- 
 tributed myself; and on going again on a subsequent 
 day for a similar purpose I perceived, in the centre of 
 the chamber, open to the sky, a hole covered over with 
 earth and sticks, which I learned was the entrance to 
 the bottle-shaped dungeon, into which prisoners could 
 be lowered by cords. 
 
 Here it was, I make no doubt, that the English 
 Colonel Stoddart was at first placed by Nasr-ullah, 
 the present Emir's grandfather, and afterwards re- 
 moved to another prison within the palace, where he 
 and Captain Conolly were said to have been persecuted 
 by sheepticks. 
 
 However that may be, I had heard from Colonel
 
 72 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Tcharykoff that, before he came to the Residency, it 
 was hinted to the new Emir that such abominations 
 could not be allowed in a city inhabited by a repre- 
 sentative of the Czar, in deference to which desire of 
 his friends the Russians the Emir had covered up the 
 underground dungeon, and released, or otherwise dis- 
 posed of, more than lOO prisoners confined therein 
 at the death of his father. 
 
 I brought away a souvenir of the Zindan in the 
 form of a hand-drum such as is used by the 
 master of a hawking party. There it was beaten 
 by the Zindan watchman walking round the walls 
 at night. It was given me by the jailer, into 
 whose apartments we went when looking at the 
 kitchen, near to which was the tomb of a mullah of 
 repute. 
 
 Another place I thought it might be a charity to 
 visit was the lepers' quarter, which before at Karshi 
 they refused to allow me to see, nor did I subsequently 
 get more than a passing glimpse of it, and that by 
 stealth, at Bokhara. I now said that I wished to give 
 a dinner to the lunatics, the prisoners, and the lepers ; 
 and we rode out to a village where were reported to 
 be 200 persons, or houses of the infected. They 
 were not congregated in any one building, so that 
 all we could do was to gather a few together, ask 
 for their head-man, and give him some money to 
 distribute. 
 
 I heard of no hospital of any kind in Bokhara, 
 though Dr Heyfelder, on the railway staff of General 
 Annenkofif, when resident in the city, had given the 
 natives much medical assistance, and made many 
 friends thereby. He told me, quite feelingly, that 
 the Divan-beggi, when shot, sent for his assist-
 
 BOKHARA. 73 
 
 ance, but he was too far off to arrive in time to be 
 of use.* 
 
 It is not customary in Bokhara that visitors be 
 admitted to the presence of the Emir until they have 
 remained in the city a few days, at the least three it 
 was said on my former visit, and during that interval 
 they would not, at Shahr-i-Sabz, let me go off the 
 premises. On the present occasion the staying within 
 was not exacted, but on the fifth day after my arrival 
 my Spanish fellow-guest and I were to be presented to 
 the Emir, who was staying in his summer palace at 
 Shirbadan, a few miles out of the city. 
 
 His Highness sent repeated invitations to M. 
 Klemm, desiring that he also would come. Accord- 
 ingly, we drove in a calcche through the streets, 
 preceded by a cavalcade of numerous outriders and 
 servants, and after them, to do honour to the occasion, 
 the Minister of Finance, lately Bek of Charjui. Added 
 to this the people along the route were en fete, 
 keeping the Muhammadan New Year, the festivities 
 of which had been postponed on account of the Emir's 
 absence in March. As we approached Shirbadan the 
 crowds increased, for they were expecting to scramble 
 for presents, and, in addition, soldiers were drawn up 
 to salute. 
 
 The palace, with a fairly good entrance approached 
 by four steps from the court, and covered with an 
 awning supported by two slender wooden columns, 
 stands in a garden of a hundred acres, and the 
 
 * This was the more remarkable when a surgical operation might be 
 necessary, because it was said that the Bokhariots will not submit to 
 amputation, thinking that, unless whole at the time of death, they cannot 
 enter heaven. I heard too that the bodies of Persian subjects in Russia 
 are not subjected to post-mortem examination, in deference perhaps to 
 the same superstition,
 
 74 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Reception Hall, with its pool of water in front, is 
 ornamented on the exterior with arabesque painting in 
 no way remarkable. It was otherwise with the ceiling 
 within, which had been painted only a year before, and 
 was, I think, the prettiest work of art we saw in 
 Bokhara. The room had glazed windows, testifying 
 to contact with Russia, as did also the three chairs 
 placed for the visitors and a fourth occupied by the 
 Emir ; but I remember no other furniture in the room, 
 which was richly carpeted. 
 
 I had been requested not to ask permission to take 
 his Highness's portrait, though I managed otherwise 
 to secure his photograph in full dress, wearing a richly 
 embroidered velvet khalat and trousers, with a sword 
 and a highly ornamented turban, and attended by one 
 of his ministers. On the present occasion he was less 
 gorgeously dressed, and displayed the insignia of four 
 or five Russian and Bokhariot orders. 
 
 It was pleasant for us that M. Klemm could speak 
 to the Emir direct in Persian, and thus kindly act as 
 interpreter. After sundry remarks of a formal cha- 
 racter, and passing of compliments, we attempted to 
 interest him with the recital of some of our travels. 
 But geography, if existent at all, occupies a poor place 
 in the Muhammadan curriculum, and it was some- 
 what difficult to find subjects for conversation of 
 mutual interest. I thought the present Emir, how- 
 ever, more intelligent than his father, and after a few 
 more speeches he invited us to walk in his flower 
 garden and take refreshment in an adjoining room. 
 
 This tea-room, as it was called, was said to be 50 
 years old. It was less brilliant than the one we left, 
 and here was spread for us the usual dostarkhan of 
 fruits and sweets and pilcm, of which they pressed us
 
 THE- EMIR OF BOKHARA AND HIb IXAM. iiLl:
 
 76 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 much to eat abundantly. Then we adjourned to the 
 gardens, which were in no wiiy beautiful to an English 
 eye. 
 
 After awhile we returned, and to our surprise found 
 awaiting us a number of presents that were quite 
 embarrassing. Mine consisted of a horse with tur- 
 quoise-mounted bridle, a silver- and spangle-em- 
 broidered saddle-cloth, and ten khalats or changes of 
 raiment. Two were of woollen stuff, one of them 
 real kashmir, which Paisley shawls are made to 
 imitate, and the other coarser ; a third was of gold 
 and satin damask ; a fourth of scarlet silk velvet ; a 
 fifth of striped satin ; and others of silk and cotton 
 native materials and mixtures. Besides these were 
 three khalats of inferior quality for my servant. 
 
 The presents given to my fellow-guest and to M. 
 Klemm resembled my own, and took me somewhat 
 aback ; for, remembering how kindly the late Emir 
 had entertained me, I had brought with me some few 
 presents I thought his son might appreciate. But M. 
 Klemm informed me they had altered the custom, so 
 that I expected not to receive since I was not allowed 
 to give, and afterwards I was further dissuaded on the 
 ground that presents were received by the Emir only 
 from the Russian Emperor, the Governor-General, 
 etc. 
 
 On our return to the Residency I was glad to keep 
 the robes of honour, but was not so clear what to do 
 with the horse, which, when the saddle-cloth was 
 taken off, proved a sorry steed, and to take it with me 
 was pronounced impossible. A dealer accordingly 
 was brought from the market who offered me 505'. as 
 its value, and I took the man at his price, thereby 
 giving rise on the morrow to a somewhat unusual
 
 BOKHARA. 
 
 77 
 
 exhibition of commercial dealing, for the Emir's officer 
 at the Residency, hearing the price quoted, insisted 
 that the man should give more, and I was offered some 
 few roubles in addition. 
 
 I judged it right, however, not to be outdone, and 
 said, " No, a bargain's a bargain. Had the man come 
 saying that he found the price given too much, he 
 would not have had money returned, and I do 
 not think that now I ought to receive more." This 
 remark they approved, and were content to abide by ; 
 but the incident reminded me how, continually, in the 
 bazaar and elsewhere, the Emir's men had asked the 
 price I gave for my purchases, which they do in 
 the case of strangers, it was said, in order to prevent 
 their being cheated. 
 
 All at the Residency were foreigners, but it was 
 interesting to see how important an influence they 
 wielded in the city, and how well the Resident and 
 his Secretary were suited to their posts. Colonel 
 Tcharykoff struck me as an able diplomatist, and 
 the Secretary as thoroughly industrious, and better 
 acquainted with Oriental languages than most Russians 
 I met. 
 
 Hence the people, whether Jews or natives, could 
 come with their grievances, which they frequently did, 
 hoping that the Russians would gain them redress. 
 Slaves sometimes came asking to be freed. Fathers 
 complained of the treatment of their daughters by the 
 Emir, and some of the discontented occasionally were 
 bold enough to ask that the Czar would take posses- 
 sion of the country. 
 
 It was not the policy of the Resident, however, to 
 interfere more than was necessary in the domestic 
 affairs of the Khanate, except when they related to
 
 78 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Russicin subjects ; and as for annexing the Khanate, 
 " Why," as one asked of me, " should they do that ? " 
 To administer the country in Muscovite fashion would 
 cost a great deal more than the taxes would pay for, 
 and if the Russians want anything done, they have 
 
 mm 
 
 COLLEGE OF DIVAN-BEGGI. 
 
 simply to nod to the Emir, and he does it. They 
 are much too wise, therefore, to annex Bokhara ; but 
 if need arises, it can, of course, be done at any 
 moment. 
 
 During our stay at Bokhara, I went sometimes for 
 a drive with M. Mirbadaleff, or for a ride with him
 
 BOKHARA. 
 
 79 
 
 and Mdlle Aphekhtine, which gave opportunities for 
 seeing the town and noticing the curious customs in 
 its narrow, old-fashioned streets. I visited some of 
 the Medresses or Colleges, of which that of the Divan- 
 beggi, with its pool in front, and shaded by mulberry 
 trees a century old, is one of the best. 
 
 A smaller one called Chuchugoim, near the Resi- 
 dency, was inhabited by 13 students only. One had 
 been there three years, and intended to stay much 
 longer, but was so poor as to be thankful for alms, 
 which Joseph asked on his behalf, saying that the 
 scholar could not beg. I gave, therefore, like a good 
 Mussulman for the nonce, and in accordance with the 
 teaching of the Koran, which prescribes giving not 
 only " to him who asks," but " to him who is ashamed 
 to ask " — a very good maxim for countries where 
 primitive manners obtain, and begging has not become 
 a trade. 
 
 M. Klemm, arriving one evening, brought intelli- 
 gence that General Annenkoff wished to see me, and 
 would arrive in two or three days ; but as during that 
 time he did not come, I judged it better to go forwards 
 towards Samarkand, examining on my way the railway 
 operations at the head of the line.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SAMARKAND. 
 
 Departure from Bokhara, 80. — Arrival at head of the hne ; Guest of 
 ' General Annenkoff, 81. — M. Rubenstein and ])r Heyfelder, 84. — 
 Drive to Katte Kurgan ; Custom-house ; A banquet antici- 
 pated, 85. — Departure by post-horses, 86. — Farewell to General 
 Anncnkoff ; Bridges prepared for railway, 87. — Approach to 
 Samarkand ; Guest with M. Tolpygo ; Dinner at Government 
 House, 88. — Condition of former acquaintances ; Sights revisited ; 
 Tamerlane's Mausoleum, 89. — Synagogue, and visits from Jews ; 
 Farewell to M. Tolpygo and Samarkand, 91. 
 
 WE left Bokhara a little before midnight on 
 April 22nd, after trying to sleep for an hour 
 or two at the station inn, this establishment being 
 impressed on my memory because it was the only 
 hotel to which the hospitality of the Russians allowed 
 me to go whilst passing through their territory east of 
 the Caspian. 
 
 We passed at Kuyuk Mazar, the first station, from 
 the cultivation of Bokhara to the uncultivated Steppe, 
 and early in the morning reached Malik, the next 
 station beyond being Kermine, the bekship of which 
 was usually held, as in the case of the present Emir, 
 by the heir-apparent to the Bokhara throne. Here 
 we caught our first glimpse of the Central Asian 
 mountains, and, after proceeding another 16 miles, 
 reached Zia-eddin or Ziat-din, one of the principal
 
 SAMARKAND. 
 
 towns of the bekship. After this we arrived about 
 noon, at a distance of 91 miles from Bokhara and 828 
 from the Caspian, at an open place called Tugai Robat, 
 which was for the moment the end of the line. 
 
 I was glad of the opportunity of being the guest of 
 
 ^' 
 
 AT TllK HIiAU OF THE LINE. 
 
 the General, of whom one had heard so much, and of 
 seeing his famous train of two-storied railway waggons, 
 a veritable movable village of 1,500 persons. Calling 
 upon his Excellency in his own waggon, which he had 
 inhabited for about three years, it was found to consist 
 of office and bedroom, lavatory, etc., for himself and 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 his immediate staff of officers, whilst in the upper story 
 was accommodation for servants. 
 
 This train was never allowed to be very far from 
 the head of the line, which meant, of course, that it 
 frequently moved, since, when the weather was good 
 and all went well, the rails were being laid at the rate 
 of four miles a day, the embankment being prepared 
 beforehand, and the metals brought alongside on a 
 
 A LOCOMOTIVE HABITATION FOR GENERAL ANNENKOFF, PART OF HIS STAFF, AND 
 
 SERVANTS. 
 
 narrow movable Decauville railway, as imported twice 
 a day on trains from the Caspian. 
 
 I stayed only a day at Tugai Robat, but had time to 
 see the principal features of the rolling community, 
 which necessitated, at its various stopping-places, the 
 erection of tents, the creation of a temporary " bazaar," 
 and a brisk trade with the natives of the locality. In 
 the evening I dined with the General's staff, almost all 
 of whom were very young.
 
 84 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Among the staff was M. Rubenstein, son of the 
 well-known musician of that name. The General bade 
 him help me forward on the morrow. Another officer 
 on the staff was Dr Heyfelder, to whom my name 
 was known through my books. He had published an 
 
 MAKING A CUTTING— ASSES TAKING AWAY THE EARTH IN PANNIERS. 
 
 excellent little work, Transkaspien mid seine Eisenbahn. 
 He was on the staff of Skobeleff at the taking of Geok 
 Tepe, and, being of an inquiring turn of mind, had 
 studied the people and things about him, and knew 
 Turkmenia well. I thought myself fortunate when he
 
 SAMARKAND. 85 
 
 proposed that on the morrow we should travel together 
 to Katte Kurgan. 
 
 M. Rubenstein arranged that one of the General's 
 carriages should be placed at our disposal, and in this, 
 with a troika of horses, we set out on what pro\-ed a 
 prett}' and interesting, but extremely dirt}-, drive. As 
 we proceeded alongside the embankment we h' ' - - - - r- 
 tunit)- of seeing a cutting here and there, in -e 
 
 labour of asses taking away the earth in panniers was a 
 feature not usual on English railways. For the most 
 part the ground to Katte Kurgan was leveL 
 
 \\ e passed the Custom-house on the frontier. M, 
 Klemm had kindly telegraphed on my account from 
 Bokhara that my baggage should not be stopped or 
 examined, and Dr He^-fe.der now told th; — - ' -'-at 
 my ser\'ant was iolo-^-r^jy in an arba. — .h 
 
 seemed ver}" simple : but I subsequendy learned that, 
 lack in g these favours, the passing out of Bokhara 
 into Russian Turkistan mi^ht have srivr" me some 
 little trouble and perhaps expense. 
 
 \\ e finished our drive of i S miles, and arrived eariy 
 in the afternoon at Kane Kurgan, where I was taken 
 :: be the guest cA Mr Engineer Y Dr 
 
 ru-}*felder introduced me als<3 :. _. — . _. :ue in- 
 habitants of this fi-nntier Russian town, which just now 
 was all in a ferment, expecting within a day or two 
 the first appearance or th-r train, when the coming 
 Oi General Annenkoz: W:^ to t^e ce-etrate-i with a 
 banquet. 
 
 The Generai had kindly expressed a wish that I 
 should be present at the grandest ' ^'d 
 cm a day fix-r' "~ the near rururc _: c.^ Jt 
 
 oi^ this I c:.^ -i out no hc-pe. nor in I 
 
 wait at Katte Kurgan for the minor lestivaL - -rd
 
 86 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 on Colonel Voisekovitch, the chief of the district, to 
 whom I presented M. Klemm's card, and asked for a 
 padarojna, or ticket to travel by post-horses to the 
 frontier near Kuldja. 
 
 I was too old a traveller by Russian post not to 
 know how many conveniences would be given or 
 denied me, according to whether I received an ordinary 
 traveller's ticket, or a crown padarojna such as is 
 usually reserved for officials, since the latter gives the 
 first claim to post-horses and sundry other advantages. 
 
 Remembering, therefore, the value of quoting a 
 good precedent, I produced an old crown padarojna 
 showing how I had been indulged on my former visit, 
 and was not a little pleased when the Colonel informed 
 me I should be so indulged again, and that I could 
 have my horses early on the morrow. 
 
 On driving next morning out of Katte Kurgan, we 
 left the tourist world behind, with its comfortable 
 carriages and cushions, for the sterner mode of pro- 
 gression in Russia implied by the word peric/adnoi, 
 or rough springless post-cart supplied to travellers 
 who have no tarantass or carriage of their own. 
 Arrangements had been made for me to have a taran- 
 tass farther on ; but as Samarkand was only 43 miles 
 distant, a large post-cart, good of its kind, was supplied, 
 into which my baggage was packed, myself seated 
 thereon, and Joseph with the driver perched on the 
 box. 
 
 We had not gone very far when we met General 
 Annenkoff, who had been obliged to leave Tugai Robat 
 on the day of my arrival, and was now returning. 
 Seeing my rough vehicle, he asked, half apologetically, 
 if I was comfortable, and on being answered in the 
 affirmative, he gave me his card to M. l^olpygo, another
 
 SAMARKAND. 
 
 87 
 
 of his engineer officers at Samariiand, with whom 
 I might lodge. 
 
 Having thus multipHed his kindnesses in favour of 
 a passing traveller, we parted — he to return for a 
 few weeks longer to his little carriage-home, and I 
 
 COiNSTKUCTluN OF A UKlUUiL NEAR SAMARKAND. 
 
 to continue my journey eastwards, gratified at having 
 met a man whose name will not soon be forgotten m 
 the history of railroad making. 
 
 We did not see much of the preparations for the 
 railway beyond Katte Kurgan, but were given to 
 understand that the last bridge was finished, the
 
 88 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 embankment made, and all in readiness for the sleepers 
 and rails. The number of small bridges required near 
 Samarkand was enormously increased, in passing over 
 cultivated land, by reason of the irrigation canals, 
 whereby the water is led from the Zarafshan. 
 
 We approached Samarkand by a road I remembered 
 well, with the military cantonment lying off to the 
 right, and shaded by numerous trees, such as the 
 Russians have planted by thousands both within and 
 without the capital. These excited the admiration of 
 Joseph not a little ; for though he knew Western Asia, 
 including Persia and Afghanistan, he had never seen 
 a town with streets so full of poplars, sometimes three 
 and four deep, growing beside watercourses, and 
 suggesting the delights of a Muhammadan paradise. 
 On reaching the house of Mr Engineer Tolpygo, it 
 was found to be a large building of one story, em- 
 bowered in tall trees, and having a covered portico or 
 platform admirably adapted for the outdoor meals that 
 the Russian loves, and in a hot place like Samarkand 
 in summer, exceedingly agreeable. Here a welcome 
 was accorded me, and a room placed at my disposal, 
 whilst my host, living cu garc^on, entertained me at 
 meals with some of his fellow-engineers. 
 
 I proceeded, within a few hours of my arrival in 
 Samarkand, to call on the Governor, General Yaphi- 
 movitch, I remembered well the approach to the 
 Government House, for it was there I stayed on my 
 previous visit, though not with its present occupant. 
 I soon found that I was no stranger, and dining there 
 the same evening, I met Colonel Poukaloff, who in 
 1882 had been chief of the town of Tashkend, and 
 reminded me of my inquiries and of the remarks then 
 made as to the possibility of crossing into Chinese
 
 SAMARKAND. 89 
 
 Turkistcin, a feat that neither he nor I then thouo-ht it 
 Hkely I should ever accompHsh. 
 
 The Colonel was now promoted to be Vice-Governor 
 of Samarkand, and I had heard of other acquaintances 
 who, in six years, had climbed the ladder a few steps 
 higher ; but things were not all on the bright side. 
 
 On calling next morning on the chief of the district, 
 George Arendarenko, I learned that Yakoob, who 
 accompanied me as interpreter to Khiva, was dead. 
 Also a gentleman who had shown me great attention 
 and kindness in one of the towns of Turkistan, had 
 got his official accounts wrong, and been under judg- 
 ment ; whilst another case more painful still was that 
 of a highly intellectual young fellow, with whom I had 
 stayed, and who struck me as extremely well educated 
 and gentlemanly, but who had succumbed to the 
 fascination of the card-table and wine-cup, and become 
 a moral and social wreck. 
 
 As for the two djiguitts who accompanied me from 
 Samarkand to the Oxus, one of them, Kolutch, was 
 gone for the moment to Kerki, whilst Fazul was now 
 told off to accompany me about the town. 
 
 I have described elsewhere a former stay in Samar- 
 kand, but there were certain places that one could not 
 do otherwise than re-visit, notably the Mausoleum of 
 Tamerlane. The building is too far gone for restora- 
 tion to anything like its original beauty, nor will its 
 present condition stand comparison with the antique 
 monuments of India and the care bestowed on them 
 by the Indian Government ; but on entering the tomb 
 of Tamerlane I found it swept and garnished, its 
 marbles polished, and the whole kept in a better con- 
 dition than in 1882 ; whilst by contrast with the dis- 
 graceful manner in which the natives had allowed this
 
 90 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 venerable pile of their ancestors to fall into neglect and 
 rum, the Russians have expended an amount of care 
 upon it that is fairly puzzling to the Muhammadans. 
 
 THE GUR-EMIK, OK MAUbULEUM OF TAMERLANE AT SAMARKAND. 
 
 On emerging from the Gur-Emir we passed up the 
 splendid avenue leading to the Rhigistan, an im- 
 provement, needless to say, of the Russians.
 
 SAMARKAND. 91 
 
 I visited again the synagogue of the Jews, and 
 found that they had a new one in course of building, 
 thereby showing the greater hberty they enjoy under 
 Russian rule than their brethren at Bokhara under the 
 Emir, who, like his father before him, has persistently 
 refused to allow them to build a new synagogue. 
 
 I told the Jews of Samarkand that at the close 
 of my journey in Bokhara in 1882, when writing to 
 thank the Emir for his kindness, I had asked him 
 to mitigate the oppressed condition of his Jewish 
 subjects, which they heard with satisfaction, and the 
 Rabbi invited me to his house for further conversation. 
 
 Later, on a Sunday morning, two Jews called on 
 me, showing a portrait of myself as clean and fresh 
 almost as when received from me six years before. 
 One of them had been reading the New Testament, 
 and the copy I had given to the other had been 
 handed down to his son. Thinking to apply a money 
 test to his sincerity, I offered a further copy of the 
 Hebrew New Testament for 20 kopecks, which he 
 immediately gave, and both seemed interested to see 
 me again. 
 
 On the Saturday after my arrival, M. Tolpygo 
 had to leave me for Katte Kurgan, of which I took 
 advantage to send by him a letter of thanks to 
 General Annenkoff for all his attention. 
 
 M. Tolpygo also laid me under other obligations 
 by his additions to my collection of photographs. 
 Further, the Governor volunteered to lend me a 
 tarantass wherein to travel to Tashkend ; so that, after 
 spending a good part of Palm Sunday with the Vice- 
 Governor, who took me after dinner to the Ivanoft • 
 Park, we left Samarkand on Monday morning.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TASHKEND. 
 
 Crossing- the Zarafshan to the bridge of Shadman-Malik ; Route 
 to Jizak, 92. — Across the "Hungry" Steppe to Chinaz, 9.^. — 
 Tashkend, 94. — Dinner with Governor-General Rosenbach ; Help 
 from Captain Blinoff, 95. — Easter services, and subsequent recep- 
 tion at Government House ; Lutherans' request for a service 
 and Easter communion ; Withdrawal of money from bank, 96.— 
 Arrangements for communication with Kashgar, 97. — Improve- 
 ments in Tashkend and purchases, 99. — Russian lady nurses, loi. — 
 An open-air bazaar ; Further visits to Government House, and 
 parting amenities, 102. 
 
 ALTHOUGH it was now the last day of April, 
 by which date in Turkistan the warm weather 
 has usually set in, we found it chilly at half-past six 
 in the morning when driving out of Samarkand. The 
 water of the Zarafshan was sufficiently low to allow 
 of its being forded, without having our baggage and 
 selves transferred into a tall arba, as had been the 
 case when I crossed before. Having gained the 
 northern bank, we turned aside to look for a few 
 minutes at the two arches of the ruined bridge of 
 Shadman-Malik. 
 
 We had before us a journey of 190 miles to 
 Tashkend, and it had been arranged that I should 
 sleep the first night at Jizak. My host was Colonel 
 Alexander Mikhailovitch Sunarguloff, a native who
 
 TA SHKEND. 
 
 93 
 
 did not speak French, in consequence of which 
 Captain Goujouss came to the rescue as interpreter. 
 On this my first day's travel for the season in a 
 tarantass proper, I had been incautious enough to 
 lay by my side a bag containing an india-rubber 
 washing basin, and Galton's Art of Travel. These 
 in the course of the journey had jolted out of the 
 vehicle, and inquiries were set on foot by my host 
 
 WELLS IN THE " HUNGRY " STEPPK. 
 
 for their recovery, but in vain. Happily it was my 
 only loss of the kind whilst posting, and, by the 
 kindness of friends, I was able^afterwards to replace 
 both the missing articles. 
 
 Next morning, early, we started to cross the 
 "Hungry" Steppe, passing in the course of the day, 
 and changing horses at, four stations, of which the 
 most remarkable was Murza- Rabat, Here stands an 
 old ruin of a caravanserai supposed to date from
 
 94 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 the sixteenth century. It is built of large square 
 bricks, and consists of a central chamber covered by 
 a dome, as are several smaller chambers adjoining.* 
 
 Towards evening we finished our 80 miles of 
 Steppe, and approached the Syr-daria river, crossed 
 by a large rude ferry-boat, and soon after dark 
 reached Chinaz. It would have been easy to post 
 the remaining 40 miles during the night, but I pre- 
 ferred to rest at the post-house. Next morning we 
 passed the station of Old Tashkend, drove along the 
 valley of the Chirchik, with snow mountains in front 
 of us, and soon after midday arrived at Tashkend. 
 
 In Tashkend there was obligingly placed at my dis- 
 posal a furnished house in Romanoff Street, wherein 
 are usually lodged embassies from Bokhara. This 
 was far more comfortable than what I remembered 
 of the local hotels, my small meals being provided 
 by the caretaker, his wife, and my servant, whilst 
 Prince Cantakouzine introduced me at the military 
 club, where I could lunch and dine, and meet officers 
 who were ready in various ways to advise and assist 
 in my projected expedition. 
 
 Calling the day of my arrival on General Rosenbach, 
 the Governor-General, in his modest and unpretending 
 palace, where so little state was kept up that the front 
 entrance was not used except on special occasions, I 
 found my coming expected and my name known, 
 thanks partly to Miss Hay, an English lady living 
 in the family, who had translated to them some of 
 my writings. 
 
 * It has no doubt afforded a place of refuge to many a caravan in 
 days when an escort was necessary in crossing the dreary waste. The 
 road is now perfectly safe from robbers, as are all the post-roads of 
 Russian Turkistan, thereby presenting a striking contrast to those I 
 subsequently travelled on in Asiatic Turkey.
 
 TASHKEND. 95 
 
 The General invited me to dinner the same evening, 
 and at once expressed his wilHngness to help me in 
 everything I asked, not excepting even my return, 
 if necessary, over the Terek Pass into Ferghana. In 
 fact, his Excellency seemed in no way inclined to 
 follow an exclusive policy in keeping Englishmen and 
 other foreigners out of Turkistan, 
 
 "Why should we?" said Madame, as we discussed 
 the subject at table. "We have nothing to hide or 
 be ashamed of foreigners seeing here, but rather some- 
 thing to be proud of!" whereupon I put in a good 
 word for Mr St George Littledale, who I knew was 
 just about to ask permission to pass through Turkistan 
 to the Russian Pamirs for a season's shooting of wild 
 sheep, and on whose behalf I had written to M. 
 Vlangali. Subsequently the General's sincerity was 
 proven, as I judged on receipt of a telegram from 
 Mr Littledale in one word, which the telegraph clerk 
 in Kuldja spelt " Komming." 
 
 I perceived much appreciation by the Governor- 
 General of English people and things, and it was 
 amusing on a subsequent visit to discover that his 
 sister was known to me by reputation, and had been 
 living within a mile or two of my home at Blackheath. 
 
 On the day after our arrival an officer named Blinoff 
 called, whose duty it seemed to be to look after the 
 material comforts of guests, which he did thoroughly, 
 and sent to me a M. Feodoroff, who took me to see 
 M, Klemm's tarantass, wherein I was to go forward 
 to Kuldja, the vehicle being first put in thorough 
 repair. 
 
 I had arrived, however, in Passion Week, and the 
 near approach of festivities did not promise well for 
 my getting away quickly, though, on the other hand.
 
 96 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 I was glad to have reached the capital, wherein to 
 witness for the first time a Russian Easter, 
 
 On Good Friday evening I attended, in the cathedral, 
 the Viiinos, or ceremony of the entombment, and was 
 present also at a gorgeous spectacle in the same 
 building on Easter Eve. 
 
 I had been specially invited to go from the church 
 to the Government House, where was held a select 
 official reception, and where I met again Colonel 
 Tcharykofif, from Bokhara, in court costume, with 
 many others, who, after conversation and walking 
 about for an hour, sat down to an ample Easter 
 supper, and towards three in the morning made their 
 way home. 
 
 Meanwhile I had been asked by Colonel Lilienfeld 
 if I would not give the Lutherans a service, they 
 having no resident pastor, and several of them being 
 desirous to partake of an Easter communion. But 
 my German was weak, English was useless, and, 
 though able to speak, I had never attempted to 
 preach, in French. This last seemed, however, to 
 be the only way out of the difficulty, and as it came 
 before me in the way of a plain duty, I resolved 
 to try, and gave them both service and sermon in the 
 house of a M. Pfennig. 
 
 An important transaction, for me, in Tashkend 
 was the withdrawal from the State Bank of roubles 
 forwarded there, as the iiltinm tlmle in this direction 
 of the banking world. How to carry my money had 
 been a puzzle from the outset. For civilised regions 
 Messrs Brown, Shipley, & Co. supplied a single letter 
 of credit, by means of which I could draw upon their 
 correspondents any amount up to a certain sum 
 named ; and this was preferable to the usual way of
 
 TASHKEND. 97 
 
 carrying a number of circular letters for ^10 each, 
 which, when numerous, became bulky. 
 
 As for the little-known regions whither I was 
 proceeding, I had gathered from Mr Carey's paper, 
 read not long before at the Royal Geographical 
 Society, that he exchanged rupee notes at a discount 
 in parts of the Tarim valley, and I accordingly 
 purchased as many of these as just then could be 
 found in London, but vainly inquired in the great 
 city for any one who could give me a letter of credit 
 for Chinese Turkistan ; and upon asking if the General 
 Post Office could inform or assist me, they replied 
 that the department possessed no information what- 
 ever as to the places I mentioned, since they were 
 quite beyond the recognised region of regular postal 
 communication. It seemed not unreasonable to hope 
 that some of the merchants in St Petersburg could 
 furnish a letter of credit upon Kashgar, but it was 
 not so. 
 
 At Junker's bank they advised taking to Turkistan 
 Russian gold coins. Perhaps they had some to sell, 
 for they quoted as a price nearly two roubles paper 
 for one of gold. Fortunately for me, I did not take 
 their advice. To have done so would have been a 
 blunder, and costly to boot. With the pride pardon- 
 able in an Englishman, I had thought that her 
 Majesty's countenance on a clean Jubilee sovereign 
 could not fail anywhere to command respect, and 
 I had taken 50 ; but that proved a delusion. 
 
 Another adviser in St Petersburg said that the 
 people of Chinese Turkistan were unaccustomed to 
 gold coins, and that lumps of brute silver were the 
 proper thing. This was true, but to have turned my 
 sterling into lump silver, even had it been possible 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 at the Russian capital, would have added more than 
 three hundredweight to my baggage ! 
 
 In doubt, therefore, I telegraphed to Kuldja whether 
 one should bring Russian gold, silver roubles, or paper 
 roubles, and was told the last. The condition of the 
 Russian money market was just then in my favour, 
 for there was a panic on their exchange, and, whilst 
 gold had advanced in price, and in quantities was not 
 even to be had, paper fell 2d. below what I had given 
 for the rouble in England, and enabled me to purchase 
 more, at about li". 8^. each. 
 
 Accordingly, with some thousands of these in my 
 pocket, my London letter, 50 sovereigns, some rupee 
 notes, and a London cheque, I determined to try again 
 in Moscow and Tiflis for the needed letter of credit 
 on Kashgar. But Moscow proved no better in this 
 respect than St Petersburg ; and at Tiflis, where my 
 cheque was changed for more paper roubles, I found 
 the only way to avoid carrying the money about me 
 was to place it in the State Bank to be transferred to 
 Tashkend, payable at call. 
 
 This was a temporary lessening of responsibility, 
 which returned, however, on receiving my deposit in 
 notes of TOO roubles each, which a St Petersburg 
 adviser had specially urged should, according to 
 Chinese taste, be clean and new. 
 
 Among various persons upon whom I called in 
 Tashkend was M. Pomerantzoff, at the Observatory, 
 who showed me some of his instruments and gave me 
 local barometrical and thermometrical observations. 
 I saw, too, Brigadier-General Levashoff, who was 
 acquainted with the Kuldja district, and gave in- 
 formation respecting Sungaria. 
 
 He deemed that my route, as then projected from
 
 TASHKEND. 99 
 
 Kuldja to Kashgar, might take four months and cost 
 ^600 ; whilst another adviser, who had been a good 
 deal on the Chinese frontier, put the time at three 
 months and the cost at ^200, thus leaving an ample 
 margin between the two estimates for the teaching 
 of experience. 
 
 I called likewise on the Princess Vziemskiy to see 
 her sister, Miss Petrovsky, just finishing her education 
 at Tashkend, and about to leave for her father's house 
 at Kashgar by way of Osh, in Ferghana. Up to this 
 point there was a regular postal service, letters for Kash- 
 gar being forwarded once a month by a djiguitt, who 
 made the journey in eight or ten days, except in April 
 and May, when the flooded rivers were impassable. 
 
 The Governor-General promised to write to Colonel 
 Deibner, in command at Osh, to forward my letters 
 and telegrams to Kashgar ; also to arrange that I 
 might from that place, and if needed, re-enter Russian 
 territory. 
 
 I have not thought it necessary to say much about 
 Tashkend itself, because it has been already treated 
 of in my Russian Central Asia. Speaking generally, 
 marks of improvement were visible in many quarters, 
 specially in the new bazaar, recently built. 
 
 I was able to procure therefrom some embroidery 
 worked by Central Asian women, and such as they 
 love to spread about the house when assembled for 
 drinking tea and smoking the ckilini, or pipe. To see 
 such parties is not permitted, of course, to the English 
 visitor of the male sex, who has to be content in such 
 matters with what he can see of old women who go 
 about unveiled, or with such furtive glances at female 
 faces as may be gained among the lower classes, wash- 
 ing perchance at the side of a stream, or engaged in
 
 lOo CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 household employment near their homes. I secured, 
 nevertheless, photographs of native women as they 
 appear in the street and in private.* 
 
 When visiting the hospitals for natives on my first 
 journey to Turkistan, it was pointed out that the native 
 
 COSTUJIES or CENT 
 
 X IN THE STREET. 
 
 * I heard from Miss Hay, who supplied me with a miniature suit of 
 female attire, that the younger women are very Jezebels in the use of 
 paint and powder, making their coloured eyebrows meet above the nose, 
 and plaiting the hair in numerous small braids. Over the head is worn 
 a white handkerchief, above it a black kokoshnik, or head-dress, and 
 over these, when out of doors, a thick black horsehair veil, which is the 
 only thing visible in the region of the face over the few inches left 
 uncovered by a large khalat, or mantle, enveloping all from the crown 
 of the head to the feet ; whilst beneath that garment are seen the boots, 
 frequently of scarlet, into the top of which are tucked wide drawers.
 
 TA SHKEND. 
 
 women were utterly averse to coming to the instructions ; 
 but this time I was glad to hear from the Governor- 
 General that he had enlisted the help of Russian lady 
 nurses, for which he was rather disposed to claim credit 
 
 A WOMAN OF CENTRAL ASIA AT HOME. 
 
 as of something new in the history of philanthropic or 
 missionary effort in Asia. 
 
 On being appealed to at the General's table as to 
 whether we had not the like in India, I was able to 
 answer generally in the affirmative, but not so definitely, 
 I am ashamed to say, as I ought to have been able
 
 I02 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 to do, seeing I am a life-member of the Church of 
 England Zenana Missionary Society, which has more 
 than a hundred female missionaries in the field. 
 
 It was a step in the right direction, however, to find 
 Russian women beginning thus to take up what is so 
 essentially woman's work amongst her native fellow- 
 subjects in Central Asia, and one hopes for greater 
 things hereafter. 
 
 Madame Rosenbach presided at an open-air y"^/^ or 
 bazaar held during our stay in Tashkend, on behalf of 
 some charitable object, and on the following day, with 
 the General, showed me their garden, in the cultivation 
 of which they took much pleasure, having introduced 
 with success English strawberries. 
 
 This gave opportunity, as on other occasions, for 
 further conversation with the Governor-General, in 
 the course of which I mentioned to him what I had 
 seen of the horrors of the Bokhariot prisons, and 
 ventured to express the hope, as I had clone to 
 Colonel Tcharykoff, that if they saw their way they 
 would do something when opportunity offered to 
 ameliorate the prisoners' condition. 
 
 Thus a fortnight slipped by before all was in order 
 for our travelling forward. My newly-mended tarantass 
 was then packed, the Governor-General kindly tele- 
 graphed my coming to the chief of the district at 
 Chimkend, and on Thursday, May 17th, M. Bartsch, 
 the agent of the Bible Society, came in the early 
 morning to see me start. Madame Rosenbach also, 
 mindful of my weakness for fruit, sent down as a 
 parting present a dish of delicious strawberries sur- 
 rounded with roses — a real treat. 
 
 Thus ended my halt in Tashkend, the longest I had 
 yet made since leaving London,
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FROM TASHKEND TO ISSIK-KUL. 
 
 Departure from Tashkend ; Arrival at Chimkend, 103. — Passing through 
 Aulie-Ata ; Previous visit remembered at stations beyond, 104. — 
 Region of *' Ming-bulak " ; Out of General Government of Turkistan 
 into that of the "Steppe"; Telegrams to and from General 
 Kolpakovsky ; Arrival at Pishpek, 105. — Should I visit Issik- 
 Kul ? 106.— Start with a Colonel ; Arrival at Tokmak, and excur- 
 sion to the Burana Tower, 107. — Recent discovery of Nestorian 
 cemeteries, 109. — Two graves opened, no. — Traces of surround- 
 ing habitations ; Tokmak cemetery ; Inscriptions and decipher- 
 ment, 112. — Departure from Tokmak; The Buam defile ; Crossing 
 the Chu to Kok-Mainak, 114. — Northern chain of the Tian Shan ; 
 The Ala-Tau and Alexander ranges; Basin of Issik-Kul, 115. — 
 Description of the lake ; Road along its northern shore ; A narrow 
 escape; Arrival at Kara-Kol, 116. 
 
 ON setting out from Tashkend for a posting journey 
 eastward, the weather was now perfection, not 
 too hot, and without dust, whilst the road was suffi- 
 ciently hilly to give variety of pleasing landscape. I 
 noticed this especially in the extensive view from 
 Bekler-Bek, where we crossed the watershed between 
 the valleys of the Keles and the Aris, and where I 
 remembered well the old medresse, now turned into a 
 Russian post-house. 
 
 Two stations beyond was Chimkend, which we 
 reached after 14 hours of travel, and where Colonel
 
 I04 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Blagovidoft', the Uyezdi-nackalnik, or chief of the 
 district, had kindly prepared a bed for me ; but I pre- 
 ferred after supper at his house to push forward, 
 posting, as the local manner is, through the night. In 
 so doing we passed out of the basin of the Syr-daria 
 system into that of the Chu and minor streams which 
 run down from the Alexander Mountains into the sandy 
 desert west of Lake Balkash. 
 
 We had a lovely view of the mountains all the next 
 day. The range was still snow-capped, presenting a 
 very different appearance from what it did in the autumn 
 of 1882 ; whilst the abundance of water fructified the 
 steppe with the poppy and other flowers, and brought 
 forth pasture for vast herds of cattle not yet driven to 
 the mountains by the heat of summer. Thus by posting 
 all day we accomplished about 120 miles in 24 hours, 
 and drove at night into Aulie-Ata, with nothing worse 
 than breaking the hood of the tarantass against the 
 gatepost of the station yard. 
 
 Aulie-Ata might be called the capital of the Kirghese, 
 since they form so large a proportion of its inhabitants. 
 The place had increased considerably since my previous 
 visit, and now was all ablaze with illuminations during 
 the Muhammadan fast of Ramazan. I did not stay, 
 however, hoping that I might reach Pishpek on Satur- 
 day evening and rest there on Sunday. 
 
 The fourth station beyond .Aulie-Ata was Malda- 
 baevskaia, where, on my previous visit, a horse kicked 
 a poor yemstchik, or postillion, and broke his leg, 
 whereupon my interpreter, like a good Samaritan, set 
 the bone, and we left the man with some pence in 
 charge of the postmaster to be taken care of. The 
 present whereabouts of the patient I could not learn, 
 but at another station, Akir-Tiube, the incident seemed
 
 FROM TASHKEND 70 ISSIK-KUL, 105 
 
 to be remembered by one of the men, who added that 
 th^ yemstckik had since died. 
 
 We were now passing through the historical region 
 of Ming-bulak, or the land of a "thousand springs" 
 mentioned by mediaeval travellers in Central Asia, 
 where the season was not so advanced as we had found 
 it at Tashkend. The nights were rather cold, and 
 though we had entered the second half of May, I was 
 not too warm sleeping in my fur-lined ulster. Besides 
 this, it did not improve matters that I had to get out 
 of the tarantass at several stations to pay the fare, 
 Joseph's Russian being almost nil, and his Uzbeg not 
 always understood by the postmaster. 
 
 At Merke, 104 miles from Aulie-Ata, we had passed 
 out of the General Government of Turkistan into that 
 of the Steppe, over which rules General Kolpakovsky, 
 Remembering the kind reception this gentleman had 
 previously given me, and with a lively hope of favours 
 to come, I telegraphed from Tashkend to his Excel- 
 lency, giving the date when I expected to leave, and 
 intimating that I might like to make a ddtour to Issik- 
 Kul ; and in that case asking his assistance at Pishpek, 
 where the road turns off to the mountains. 
 
 On the next day came a telegram from the General, 
 according me a welcome to Central Asia, and saying 
 that he had asked the Governor of Semirechia to help 
 me towards Issik-Kul, Kuldja, and Kashgar. In 
 accordance with this I telegraphed on Saturday after- 
 noon from Merke to Colonel Pushchin, the chief of 
 the district at Pishpek, to say that I was coming, and 
 then set out once more to post all night. 
 
 Arrived at Pishpek early next morning, we were 
 speedily inquired for by Colonel Pushchin, upon whom, 
 after a few hours' sleep and breakfast, I called, and
 
 io6 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 was introduced to his mother, who spoke German, 
 and to a brother-officer, Gedyuonoff, who talked 
 French, 
 
 The Colonel said he had sent a messenger to Kara- 
 Kol, the seat of administration, 250 miles distant, at 
 the extreme east of Lake Issik-Kul, to make special 
 arrangements whereby I should pass from thence to 
 Vierny, and he was now ready to change xr^y padarojna 
 accordingly, and to accompany me for a few days' 
 journey. This was all very kind, but was a little more 
 than I had asked, since I had not finally decided to go 
 thus far out of my way. 
 
 Before leaving England I had asked for hints and 
 suggestions from that prince of Central Asian geo- 
 graphers, the late Colonel Sir Henry Yule, whom I 
 was privileged to number among my literary friends, 
 and who looked over for me some of the proof-sheets 
 of my Russian Central Asia. He replied that he had 
 not many things to advise, but suggested my seeing 
 as much as possible of the Tian Shan Mountains and 
 Lake Issik-Kul. 
 
 In St Petersburg they told me there are but few 
 specimens of fish or fauna from this region in the 
 museums of Europe, and they spoke of the desirability 
 of my getting more ; added to which, M. Oshanin had 
 told me that he had once proceeded from Pishpek to 
 Kara-Kol by post, and thence, by hire of private horses, 
 to Zaitefska, and so forward by zemstvo or municipal 
 post to Vierny, for which last stage, however, it was 
 necessary to have an okriti list, or official permit. 
 
 It was, therefore, on the possibility of my wishing 
 to make this novel ddtoiir that I had telegraphed to 
 General Kolpakovsky that I might like to go to Issik- 
 Kul. What, then, was now to be done ?
 
 FROM TASHKEND TO ISSIK-KUL. 107 
 
 From information gathered on the way, it had been 
 ascertained that my baggage could not reach Vierny 
 for several days, and that it was undesirable for us to 
 arrive there much beforehand, because Vierny had not 
 yet recovered from the effects of an earthquake which 
 had^turned the people out of their houses into tents, 
 and destroyed the hotel. 
 
 Also the Colonel mentioned amongst the interesting 
 points of the proposed journey that I might photograph 
 an ancient tower near Tokmak ; and when to these 
 considerations it was added that all the necessary pre- 
 parations had been made, it seemed to me that I could 
 not do better than take advantage of time and oppor- 
 tunity to proceed by this longer and more difficult, 
 though, as I hoped, more interesting and profitable, 
 route to Vierny. 
 
 After continuous travel of three days and nights it 
 would have been pleasant to rest ; but the Colonel's 
 business required haste, and after entertaining me at 
 dinner, he suggested that we should start the same 
 evening, and sleep 40 miles distant, at Tokmak. 
 
 We set out accordingly in our two vehicles at dusk, 
 all going well until, about midnight, my Jehu drove 
 into a ditch, where we stuck so fast that neither 
 coaxing nor whip would get us out. We had therefore 
 to wait until the Colonel sped forward to the station 
 and sent back help, after which we reached the Russian 
 village of Tokmak, and slept in a semi-official rest- 
 house. 
 
 Early next morning we started for an excursion of 
 eight miles southwards, over a plain, to the Burana, a 
 small stream running from the mountains into the Chu. 
 Near to this was the Burana Tower, of burnt bricks, 
 nonagonal at the base, but circular above, with six
 
 io8 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 ornamental bands of bricks laid in arabesques, though 
 not coloured or in the form of letters. 
 
 The tower had no chamber within. I stepped round 
 the base in 44 paces ; but a peasant among the com- 
 pany, who professed to have measured it, said the 
 tower was 84 feet round and 210 feet high, though I 
 should think the latter an exaggeration. Some 15 or 
 20 feet above the ground was a doorway, with a lintel 
 of rotten wood, leading by a staircase to the top, up to 
 which eminence, when I was about to take a photo- 
 graph of the tower, one of the natives climbed, to be 
 immortalised, as the Colonel told him, in a never-dying 
 picture. 
 
 No one on the spot could give information as to the 
 origin of the structure. Some attributed it, like other 
 great and unknown things in Turkistan, to Tamerlane, 
 and said that the Kirghese had found here gold coins 
 which had been sent to the Archaeological Commission 
 at St Petersburg, For my own part, it reminded me 
 of very similar towers I had seen, without gallery, finish, 
 or finial at the summit, among the ruins of Old Khiva, 
 as well as a later attempt to build one of like character 
 at Modern Khiva,* 
 
 At the time of my visit a discovery had recently 
 
 * For illustrations of these minarets, see Russian Central Asia, 
 vol. ii., pp. 291, 306, 343, and vol. i.,p. 586. There is no lack of slender 
 minarets in Central Asia, as in Samarkand, to say nothing of the one 
 already alluded to at Bokhara ; but all of these are, if I mistake not, 
 smaller in girth than those of the two Khivas and this one at Tokmak. 
 Is it that the larger ones are more ancient, and the slender forms, with 
 projecting gallery at the top, a supposed later improvement ? Those 
 at Ancient Khiva are not probably less than seven centuries old, since 
 it was in 1220 Kunia Urgenj was destroyed by the sonsof Jinghiz Khan, 
 and, so far as one can judge by the present state of the brickwork, I 
 venture to think this tower at Tokmak quite as old, if not older ; and we 
 know there was a city in this locality at least 500 years earlier. 
 
 In the seventh century the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsiang passed
 
 FROM TASHKEND TO ISSIK-KUL. rog 
 
 been made of Christian cemeteries near Tokmak and 
 Pishpek, which give us dates and suggest the former 
 populousness of these locaHties. A pamphlet entitled 
 Christian Mo^mnients in Semirechia was given me by 
 Mr Nicholson when passing through St Petersburg. 
 This pamphlet Lieutenant Cromie has helped me by 
 translating, whence it appears that the description 
 therein of the cemetery near Pishpek is written by 
 M. Pantusoff (upon whom I called in Vierny, and who 
 supplied me with rubbings of some of the tombstones). 
 Professor D. A. Chvolson, a well-known Russian 
 scholar, has supplemented the description by remarks 
 on the inscriptions discovered, as well as by a short 
 account of Nestorian Christianity in Central Asia. 
 This will no doubt interest antiquarian readers, as 
 well as throw a little light on the early spread of 
 Christianity in these parts. 
 
 The cemetery at Pishpek, extending over eight 
 acres, is situated about seven miles from the present 
 village, and two miles from the mountains, near the 
 road to the Solyan defile, on an eminence sloping to 
 the north-east. No remains have been found of an 
 inclosure or ditch, nor, with the exception of two clay 
 ruins, are there indications of a church or belfry. The 
 
 through Tokmak, which seems to have continued a place of importance, 
 since, later on, it gave its name to the Khanate of Kipchak ; and both 
 Schuyler and Howorth regard the Sultans of Tokmak, of the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries, as synonymous with the Shahs of Kharezm — 
 that is, Khiva (see ^(zh.xiyX&r'siTurkistan, vol. ii., p. 126, and Howorth's 
 Mongols, vol. ii., p. 287). If, then, in the thirteenth century, Old Khiva, 
 having such public erections, was in any way subordinate or inferior to 
 Tokmak, one might naturally expect to find in the leading city of the 
 Khanate such a minaret as this, erected probably by the Muhammadans 
 for worship. A similar tower is mentioned by the Chinese traveller 
 Tch'ang Te in 1259, in the city T'a-la-sze, or Talas (Schuyler, vol. i., 
 P- 399)> which Bretschneider, after Schuyler, seems disposed to place on 
 the river of that name somewhere about Aulie-Ata.
 
 no CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 greater portion of the cemetery has now been ploughed 
 up, and the part remaining, which consists of small 
 mounds, probably family graves, would most likely 
 have shared the same fate had it not been difficult of 
 access. 
 
 Lying about on the surface, but in some cases now 
 buried, are numerous oblong stones (with inscriptions), 
 usually portable and weighing less than 40 lbs. — uncut 
 cobblestones of hard rock, evidently waterworn. A 
 few have been artificially polished previous to their 
 being engraved. Most are of grey granite, but a few 
 of grey sandstone, and two of breccia, these last being 
 the only large stones discovered in the cemetery, and 
 measuring about a yard long and three-quarters of a 
 yard in width and thickness. 
 
 On the elevations not yet ploughed the graves are 
 in straight rows, with long mounds, and excavation 
 shows that all the graves were so placed on the level 
 ground. The grave-stones are laid flat in a westerly 
 direction with the inscribed side upwards, whereas on 
 the higher ground they now lie in heaps, slightly 
 embedded in the earth. The number of grave-stones 
 found is 611, but many more are buried.* 
 
 * With a view to further examination, a grave was opened under one 
 of the largest stones, seemingly in its original position, and sunk into 
 the earth fully two-thirds of its own thickness. In an easterly direction 
 from this stone, immediately under the turf, lay flat two rows of square 
 burnt bricks, each measuring 150 square inches ; and, about three feet 
 lower, under the friable earth with which the cavity had been filled, was 
 a gable roof over a steened vault of sun-dried, straw-made bricks, the 
 roof meeting in the centre at an angle of 45°. This roof was constructed 
 over the lower half only of the vault, whilst over the head was a mill- 
 stone, or slab, laid fiat, and supported on thick pieces of juniper, now 
 rotten. 
 
 The grave was 6 feet deep, 3 feet wide at the top, and 21 inches at 
 the bottom. The corpse lay with feet towards the east, and the face 
 towards the north. The bones of the right hand lay on the pelvis ; the
 
 FROM TASHKEND TO ISSIK-KUL. iii 
 
 Between ^y'^ and 40 miles distant from this Pishpek 
 cemetery, and a mile from the tower on the Burana, 
 another Christian cemetery has been discovered, from 
 which I was shown two of the grave-stones. They 
 resembled those sent by M. Pantusoff to the Imperial 
 Archaeological Commission. He gives the measure- 
 ment of one as 13 inches long by 11 inches wide, and 
 weighing 33 lbs. 
 
 Those I saw had each only one Maltese cross in- 
 cised thereon, without anchor, ornament, or smaller 
 crosses ; but in other cases is frequently written an 
 inscription in Syriac characters, which it puzzled 
 M. Pantusoff to find any one in Semirechia to read. 
 
 Professor Chvolson, however, has come to the 
 rescue, and the following are specimens of the trans- 
 lations he has made, not, however, without difficulty, 
 
 left hand was raised to the head with its bones under the skull. Pieces 
 apparently of fir planks were found in the grave, not seemingly the 
 remains of a coffin, but fragments placed for some purpose above, 
 below, and around the corpse. 
 
 In order to secure a better specimen of a skull, a second grave was 
 opened, 14 feet south from the first. As before, the outline of the grave 
 was well marked by burnt bricks under the turf, the cavity was filled 
 with friable earth, and over the head of the vault were found three 
 stones. A steened vault of sun-dried bricks with bones was found at 
 the same depth as before ; but the receptacle for the corpse was con- 
 structed differently. 
 
 Thus the grave, 6 feet 6 inches long, was dugout to a width of 3 feet, 
 and, at the depth of 5 feet, was narrowed on either side by projections, 
 below which, in the centre, was formed a receptacle so narrow that the 
 corpse would seem to have been forced into it, whilst on each side, cut 
 out of the stiff clay, was a ledge or shelf containing the remains of a 
 body. The skeleton in the centre, with hands at the sides and face 
 towards the north, measured 5 feet 6 inches, and the two others 5 feet 
 each in length, these last having the hands apparently over the pelvis 
 and the faces upwards. In one of the side sections of this family grave 
 were two carnelian "false pearls," but no sign of wood, dress, or 
 other ornaments. Nothing has been discovered near the cemetery 
 save square burnt bricks, but near the site where the stones were found 
 are traces of a small artificial cairn.
 
 112 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 owing to the impurity of the Syriac affected by Turki 
 words : — 
 
 No. I. In the year 1 169 (858 of the Nestorian era). 
 This is the tomb of Menchitenesh, a be- 
 Hever.* 
 
 2. In the year 1222. The boy Tekin. (Tekin 
 
 is a Turkish name.) 
 
 3. (At Tokmak.) 1578 (the year of the Hare, 
 
 4th year of the Turkish twelve-summer 
 cycle). This is the tomb of Shahmalik 
 Perio-deuta, the son of George Almuts. 
 
 4. In 1600 (the year of the Bull). George, 
 
 the priest-superior of the church. 
 
 7. 1618. This is the grave of Julia, a graceful 
 
 girl, betrothed to John, leader of the choir. 
 
 8. 1627 (the year of the Eclipse or Dragon). 
 
 This is the tomb of Shelikha, the re- 
 nowned interpreter of Scripture and 
 Preacher, who filled all the monasteries 
 with light, the son of Peter the expounder. 
 He was celebrated for wisdom, and his 
 voice was sonorous as a trumpet. May 
 our Lord unite his enlightened spirit to 
 those of just men and the fathers. May 
 every lustre be his portion ! 
 
 II. 1638. This is the tomb of John A . . . . ki 
 Akpasha, son ofTsaliva, archpriest of the 
 church. 
 
 19. (At Tokmak.) The house of rest of Keritlug 
 George. 
 
 * Chvolson observes that Menchitenesh is a Turkish name, which 
 seems to show that at this date some of the Turks had become Chris- 
 tians. The date is doubtless counted from the era of the Seleucidae, 
 311 B.C., as was usual with the Nestorians.
 
 FROM TASHR'KND TO ISSIK-KUL. 113 
 
 The discovery of these epitaphs in regions where 
 most EngHsh people have httle idea that Christianity 
 ever penetrated, will interest not a few, if only by way 
 of showing the similarity of human nature and Chris- 
 tian epitaphs all the world over ; for how much does 
 the last epitaph, for instance, remind one of that of 
 Dean Alford at Canterbury, DeversoTumi viatoris 
 Hierosolymain proficiscentis — " The way-side resting- 
 place of one travelling to Jerusalem " ! * 
 
 But I must hasten forward from the Burana Tower, 
 whence this archceological excursus began. Having 
 returned to the village and obtained post-horses, we 
 drove along the valley lowlands, having the Chu on 
 our right, and on either hand in the distance mountain 
 ranges still sprinkled with snow — the Ala-Tau to the 
 left, and the Alexander range to the right. We met 
 on the road, in carts, several Dungans, from the Hi 
 valley, and after driving 18 miles reached Staro- (or 
 Old) Tokmak. 
 
 Then crossing the Little Kebin river, near the 
 entrance to the Kastek Pass, we drove south-east to 
 the Chu, which we crossed by a bridge not far from its 
 confluence with the Great Kebin, the banks of both 
 rivers here being rocky and precipitous. Beyond this 
 point the road became hilly, and it looked ominous of 
 hard travel ahead, when at the next station, Djil-Aryk, 
 they gave five horses, though paying for three. 
 
 * These epitaphs have a further interest to the linguist and palaeo- 
 grapher in showing the old forms of Syriac employed in Central Asia by 
 the Nestorians, who gave an alphabet and instruction, be it remem- 
 bered, to the Uigurs, or inhabitants of Chinese Turkistan, of whom we 
 shall have to speak hereafter. These discoveries, moreover, may 
 perhaps help us better to fix the sites of some of the ancient cities 
 mentioned by mediaeval travellers in Asia, for the identification of 
 which such men as the late Sir Henry Yule, Dr Bretschneider, and Sir 
 Henry Howorth have done so much. 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA 
 
 We now entered the celebrated Buam defile, nearly 
 50 miles long, the name of which, according to some, 
 is derived from a Mongol word bomo, signifying " a 
 rift," or, as some prefer, " a pathway over precipitous 
 crags bordering a river." Both are true as regards 
 the facts, and we soon found ourselves toiling up an 
 ascent that needed all the strength of our five horses, 
 and then descending with locked wheels a narrow 
 road, and that sometimes of bare rock over a cornice 
 without rails or safeguards, overhanging one precipice 
 after another, at the foot of which roared the Chu. 
 
 Late in the afternoon we approached a fine bridge 
 thrown across this river, where repairs were being 
 superintended by Mr Engineer Kapustin, who was 
 camping close by, and who gave us some tea. Shoot- 
 ing seemed to be his principal pastime, and in his 
 lonely condition it was not unnatural that he should 
 desire us to stay, which the Colonel did, whilst I 
 pressed forward on a fairly level road on the east bank 
 of the Chu, through magnificent scenery, varied by a 
 few trees, such as the wild pistachio, growing amidst 
 what seemed to me a new flora of lilies and irises, to 
 Kok-Mainak, where it was arranged we should stay. 
 
 We were now in the very heart of the Buam defile, 
 which bisects the most northerly chain of the huge 
 mass of Central Asian niountains called the Tian 
 Shan. Towards the east stretches the Trans-Ilian 
 Ala-Tau, consisting of two long and lofty parallel 
 chains, known as the northern and southern. The 
 northern ridge presents an uninterrupted mountain 
 chain, rising in its central portion to the limits of 
 perpetual snow, with an average height of 8,600 feet, 
 but its highest peak, Tal-Cheku, attains an elevation 
 of i5>353 fe^t. The southern range, called Kungei
 
 FROM TASHKEND TO ISSIK-KUL. 115 
 
 Ala-Tau, has a mean elevation of 8,825 feet. Towards 
 the west from the Buam defile stretches the Alexander 
 range, at the foot of which we had travelled all along 
 from Aulie-Ata. 
 
 The post-station at Kok-Mainak stood quite alone, 
 and on rising next morning and taking a turn outside, 
 the silent solitude was oppressive. The postmaster, 
 too, unless I am mistaken, was living alone as a 
 bachelor, though his guest-room was singularly neat 
 and comfortable, made ready perhaps for the reception 
 of his district chief and the English traveller. 
 
 Colonel Pushchin did not accompany me farther, 
 but after early breakfast sped me forward 16 miles to 
 the southern end of the Pass, where was, or ought 
 to have been, the station Kutemaldy ; but the earth- 
 quake of the previous year had shaken down the 
 post-house, and a tent only was pitched for the 
 accommodation of travellers. We were now fairly 
 out of the Pass into the basin of Lake Issik-Kul, 
 along whose entire northern side for 115 miles we 
 were to have the happiness of driving — a gratification 
 that has fallen to the lot of very few English travellers. 
 
 Our road to the next station lay about a mile from 
 the water, which in some places is as much as eight 
 miles from the mountains, and we passed over some- 
 times meadow-land, sometimes sedge, but rarely 
 through forest growth of any kind. Bushes appeared 
 only at the mouths of mountain torrents, and then 
 consisted for the most part of oblipikh covered with 
 narrow silver-coloured leaves, and dwarf trees of haw- 
 thorn, barberry, and various kinds of water-willow. 
 We passed a picket of Cossacks, changed horses at 
 Tura-Aigir, and towards evening arrived at Choktal, 
 where the good-natured postmaster gave us a roasted
 
 ii6 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 wild duck, and whence we determined to post on 
 through the night. 
 
 The shores at first continued flat, or sloped gently 
 towards the water, but in the small hours of the morning 
 I perceived that we had come to a stupendous hill, 
 which caused the horses to jib, nearly backing the 
 tarantass over a break-neck declivity. 
 
 This caused me, contrary to my custom, to get out 
 and walk, whereupon the animals again becoming 
 unmanageable, they or the driver turned their heads, 
 and, greatly to our alarm, rushed down from nearly 
 the top of the hill, I following and shouting that the 
 whole concern would be dashed to pieces. Much to 
 our surprise, however, the yemstckik, or driver, on 
 reaching the bottom, did not stop, but turned and 
 again charged the hill with perfect fury, my servant 
 Joseph and I following, until at last the animals halted, 
 and I drew breath to give thanks for what I regarded 
 as a merciful deliverance. 
 
 From Ui-Tal, a picket post-station, we had a pretty 
 drive, and in the afternoon arrived at our destination, 
 Kara-Kol, seven miles from the lake, and a distance of 
 251 miles from Pishpek.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FROM ISSIK-KUL TO VIERNY. 
 
 A previous traveller to Issik-Kul ; Scenery of Kara-Kol, 1 1 7. — Attentions 
 from Colonel Vaouline ; Arrangements of Chief of the District on 
 my behalf, 118. — Change of plans, 119. — The Kara- Kirghese ; their 
 districts, origin, and costume, 120. — How far Muhammadans ; 
 Missions among them of Russian Church, 121. — Kirghese modes 
 of treating disease ; Fish, for specimens, 124. — Passing through 
 Pishpek, 125. — The Chu river and the Aral depression ; Our 
 wheel fallen to pieces, 126. — Arrival at Otar, and repair of 
 tarantass, 127. — Arrival at Uzun-Agatch, and escort to Vierny, 128. 
 
 ON driving into Kara-Kol we were to a certain 
 extent breaking new ground, since Mr Delmar 
 Morgan was the only English writer who had pushed 
 on to this out-of-the-way place, which may be compared 
 in winter to Siberia, and in summer to the Engadine. 
 From November to the close of February the little 
 town is visited by violent storms, and the snow lies 
 more than four feet deep. Spring brings abundant 
 rains and frequent fogs, whilst in summer, from May 
 to July, the heat goes up sometimes to 122°, notwith- 
 standing which the climate is healthy and agreeable. 
 
 Kara-Kol lies at an elevation of nearly 6,000 feet, 
 amid charming scenery, at the foot of a magnificent 
 mountain range called the Terskei Ala-Tau, which 
 extends all along the southern shore of Issik-Kul
 
 ii8 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 and continues eastward right up to Khan Tengri, 
 the monarch of the region, which may be seen from 
 Kara-Kol towering to a height of 24,000 feet^a virgin 
 peak, awaiting the attentions of some knight of the 
 Alpine Club. 
 
 Directly east of Kara-Kol is the Tasma range, over 
 which passes the postal pack-road to the Tekes valley. 
 At the time of our visit these mountains presented a 
 splendid panorama of snow-clad peaks ; but I did not 
 hear that mountain-climbing, pure and simple, was 
 much in fashion. 
 
 Calling on the Uyezdi-nacha/uik, I found that he had 
 been kind enough to place a house at my disposal, 
 with a Cossack in attendance ; but finding the abode 
 rather out of the way, and foreseeing that my stay 
 would be short, I preferred to put up at the post- 
 house, where I could better get provisions, make 
 sundry repairs, and have my tarantass put in order. 
 Here Colonel Vaouline, whom I fortunately met in 
 the street, kindly came to my assistance, sent to me 
 the battalion smith, and helped in other ways. 
 
 In the evening I went to a little party gathered at 
 the house of the nachalnik, and met amonof the oruests 
 Colonel Korolkoff, with whose brother, the Governor 
 of Ferghana, I had stayed in 1882 in Samarkand. 
 
 I found, moreover, that the nachalnik had arranged 
 for horses to take me forward, but learned to my dis- 
 appointment that my only way of proceeding thence 
 to my destination was by going over the Santash Pass 
 in the snow mountains (where there was, no shelter 
 or even tent wherein to spend the night) to Jarkend, 
 and thence doubling back 200 miles to Vierny. 
 
 This was a great disappointment, first because I was 
 not equipped for camping out, and next, having been
 
 FROM ISSIK-KUL TO VIERNY. 119 
 
 under the impression that I could get down to Vierny 
 by the road somewhat to the east of the lake, which 
 reaches the plains at Chilik in the Hi valley, the idea 
 of going so far out of the way as Jarkend was out 
 of the question. Had we been on horseback matters 
 would have been easier, since there are other bridle- 
 paths, but with a tarantass there was no alternative but 
 to return to Pishpek, which accordingly I determined 
 to do. 
 
 Less than 24 hours sufficed for a night's rest, and 
 to replenish our larder, thanks partly to the good 
 people at the post-house, who cooked for us three 
 chickens at the cost of a rouble ; whilst a good-natured 
 policeman, told off to guard me and mine, and who, 
 though excused from watching by night, made his 
 reappearance at sunrise, helped us in sundry minor 
 arrangements, so that before the sun was high we 
 were ready to start. 
 
 About ten miles from Kara-Kol we crossed the 
 Jergalan river, which runs into Issik-Kul at Jergalan 
 Bay. Here may be seen encamped in summer the 
 Kara-Kol garrison, whilst scattered about are the tents 
 of the nomad Kara-Kirghese. 
 
 On my previous visit to Central Asia, a friend in 
 Vierny had been anxious that I should see something 
 of these nomads, but I then succeeded in visiting only 
 the Kirghese of the plains called Kazaks, about whom 
 I afterwards wrote three or four chapters in my Russian 
 Central Asia. On the present journey I saw only the 
 Kara-Kirghese, and upon them I have certain comple- 
 mentary observations to make, partly from what I 
 saw and partly on the authority of Dr Seeland, Chief 
 of the Army Medical Department, whom I met at 
 Vierny.
 
 I20 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 The Kara-Kirghese dwell northward, for the most 
 part in the mountainous districts of Issik-Kul and 
 Tokmak, but many are found also in the southern 
 portion of the Tian Shan on Chinese territory. They 
 spread eastward to the Muzart Pass ; westward, among 
 the mountains of Ferghana, to Samarkand ; and be- 
 sides those dwelling on the independent portions of 
 the Pamirs, I met on my way to India a few dwelling 
 as far south as the Kilian Pass. 
 
 When or whence the Kara-Kirghese settled in their 
 present homes is unknown. In certain places the 
 Kalmuks preceded them, but it is noteworthy that all 
 about the Issik-Kul valley have been found vestiges, 
 such as hatchets, lamps, spearheads, and sickles, point- 
 ing to an ancient people further advanced in civilisation 
 than either Kirghese or Kalmuk. Neither of these 
 works in copper or brass, and their agriculture is only 
 of yesterday, so that seemingly they had formerly no 
 need of the sickle, whilst the bricks and money dis- 
 covered all point to another stratum of society, an 
 Altaic origin being usually attributed to the Kirghese 
 because of their language. 
 
 I had several opportunities of observing their dress, 
 or, I might add, the want of it, for many were very 
 ragged, and the children ran about naked. Next the 
 skin is worn a long shirt of wool or cotton, and stock- 
 ings of felt ; then wide trousers of cotton or leather, 
 over which is put a long kkalat, like a dressing-gown 
 with long sleeves. They have boots of leather, with 
 goloshes ; the shaven head is covered with a tibeteika, 
 or skull-cap, which in turn is covered with a fantas- 
 tically pointed hat of felt, or a busby of sheepskin. 
 When travelling in winter, the busby is replaced by 
 a malakhai, or pointed hood lined with sheepskin and
 
 FROM ISSIK-KUL TO VIE R NY. 121 
 
 furnished with a flap or curtain covering the neck and 
 shoulders. 
 
 The costume of the women in many respects re- 
 sembles that of the men, with one marked difference, 
 however, of head-dress, which in the case of the 
 married woman is an enormous bonnet or series of 
 bandages of white cotton, covering everything — the 
 sides of the face, the neck, the shoulders, and even 
 part of the back. The women's hair is plaited into 
 small braids, from which dangle at the end coins 
 among the rich, but with the poor various metallic 
 ornaments, some of them being exceedingly grotesque, 
 as, for instance, odd keys and a broken brass tap, 
 which I saw suspended from the tresses of a fair one 
 at the western end of Issik-Kul. 
 
 The Russian Missionary Monastery at the eastern 
 end of the lake directed one's thoughts, of course, to 
 the religious condition of the Kara-Kirghese, amongst 
 whom it is placed. They call themselves Sunnite 
 Muhammadans, but in general are indifferent and 
 ignorant of doctrine. They pray according to Mus- 
 sulman fashion, and observe the fasts, but not too 
 exactly. Their mullahs are few and ignorant, knowing 
 only certain prayers learned by heart from the Koran, 
 and their mosques are fewer. 
 
 On the other hand, the Kirghese firmly believe in 
 an invisible world. To them the tops of the mountains 
 are peopled with spirits ; sickness is the work of the 
 devil, and the intervention of invisible beings in the 
 affairs of men is accepted without question. With 
 a mixture of Pagan and Mussulman beliefs, they 
 venerate here and there objects of extraordinary cha- 
 racter. Thus, in the Issygaty defile, near Tokmak, is 
 an enormous stone of unknown origin with a human
 
 122 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 figure rudely cut on one side ; whereon every Kirghese, 
 in passing, thinks it obHgatory to place, as an offering, 
 a piece of tallow. 
 
 Their respect for cemeteries and tombs amounts 
 almost to a religion by itself The corpse is usually 
 placed in the grave, sitting, with the face towards the 
 east ; but occasionally there is dug for it a secondary 
 chamber in one of the walls of the principal tomb ; 
 and over it is built sometimes a monument of clay or 
 stone. The Kirghese come frequently to say their 
 prayers at these cemeteries, which are well looked 
 after, though without appointed guardians. 
 
 On my first visit to Turkistan, Archbishop Alexander 
 at Vierny informed me they were about to begin a 
 mission of the Orthodox Church to the Kara- Kirghese 
 of Issik-Kul ; and after seeing the little monastery 
 there in 1888, I turned with interest to the report of 
 the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod for 1887, to 
 read what had been done. All that could be gathered, 
 however, was that, in consequence of the recent earth- 
 quake at Vierny, building operations at the new Mission 
 Monastery had been suspended, and a determination 
 arrived at to rest content for the present with the 
 existing church, which sufficed for the small monastic 
 community. 
 
 From a report of the Altai and Kirghese Mission 
 in the eparchy or diocese of Tomsk for 1888, I learn 
 that the Bukonsk station among the neighbouring 
 Kirghese was then five years old, and that 23 in- 
 dividuals had been baptised during the year, including 
 a family of five persons, the good effects of which 
 had appeared in a diminution of drunkenness, though 
 names' days and marriage feasts still gave occasion 
 for excess.
 
 FROM ISSIK-KUL TO VIERNY. 123 
 
 From this young mission had gone out a psalmist, 
 or precentor, Stephen Borisoff, to a small settlement 
 called Great Narim, on the head-waters of the Bukh- 
 tarma, in the district of Ust Kamenogorsk, where, 
 whilst acting as teacher at the Cossack School, he 
 also occupied himself as missionary to the surrounding 
 Kirghese. The Cossacks of the settlement are said 
 to be devout, and to have rejoiced greatly when, their 
 church being consecrated in 1888, there were baptised 
 on the same occasion six Kirghese. Since then, on 
 Sundays and Holy Days, the morning service and 
 afternoon devotional readings are said to have kept 
 the church full all day. 
 
 From a report of the Orthodox Missionary Society 
 for [889, it appears that the Russian Church Mission 
 to the Kirghese in the Tomsk eparchy had a teaching 
 staff of two priests, a precentor, and an interpreter 
 under Bishop Macarius, living at Biisk.* The report 
 says also that translation into the Altai languages of 
 liturgies, etc., has been continued, but I find no special 
 reference to the Kirghese. 
 
 Some of the missionaries, it appears, practise medi- 
 cine a little, and even the precentors and teachers in 
 the catechists' school have been taught to vaccinate ; 
 whilst to the Dean's house at Biisk is attached a 
 hospital with a feldsche7^,\ who goes when needed to 
 
 * The few particulars given of this Tomsk mission are so mixed up 
 with details of the 12 stations in the Altai Mission that it is not easy to 
 discriminate between the two, but one paragraph says that the members 
 of both missions, numbering i bishop, 13 priests, 3 deacons, 9 precen- 
 tors, 23 male and 4 female teachers, and 3 interpreters, travelled in the 
 course of the year 16,266 miles, and gained as converts 516 heathen 
 and 14 Muhammadans, the latter of which I suppose may be Kirghese. 
 
 t Literally a barber, or one who lets blood, but in practice a surgeon's 
 assistant who picks up a certain amount of rudimentary knowledge in 
 attending on a surs:eon.
 
 124 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 the mission settlements and accompanies the Super- 
 intendent on mission journeys. 
 
 After driving past the Issik-Kul Monastery, we 
 arrived at Preobajensk, where a man came out to 
 ask medical advice on behalf of his daughter, which 
 I was obliged to decline the honour of giving, though 
 perhaps I could have prescribed as well as some of 
 their Kirghese doctors, who are great believers in 
 " like cures like" and the use of symbolical and 
 sympathetic measures. 
 
 Thus, for an obstinate attack of yellow jaundice, 
 they wear on the forehead a piece of gold, or, better, 
 cause the patient to look at it for a whole day, or 
 if a piece of gold be lacking, which is generally the 
 case, they substitute a brass basin. 
 
 A singular remedy is adopted against dyspnoea, or 
 fainting, which they call " mountain sickness." This 
 they represent to themselves under the form of a 
 young lady, before whom they utter to the patient 
 the most obscene and disgusting expressions, thinking 
 thereby to shock the lady's modesty and drive her 
 away.* 
 
 At Preobajensk also, on the outward journey, a 
 number of Kirghese boys and men turned out in force 
 and waded into the stream to catch me specimens of 
 fish, which they brought with great glee to the tarantass. 
 
 * As illustrative of treatment by symbol, it may be mentioned that if 
 the malady reside in the lungs or liver, they give the patient the cor- 
 responding parts of an animal to eat, as, for instance, the roasted eyes 
 of an ox to cure ophthalmia ! Again, the treatment of intermittent fever 
 and difficult parturition by fright are still more remarkable. 
 
 In the latter case, if the child does not appear with becoming celerity, 
 the sage women press the mother, a strong man being occasionally 
 called in to help. Sometimes, however, they put the patient upon a 
 horse, which they cause to gallop about ; or, worse still, they resolve to 
 frighten out the devil (for of course the disorder can be due to no one
 
 FROM ISSIK-KUL TO VIERNY. 125 
 
 And now at Ui-Tul, the neighbouring station, a number 
 of children, remembering my former inquiries for small 
 fish, and hoping no doubt for kopecks, brought me a 
 further collection, and, thus supplied, we posted on all 
 through the day and night, and at an early hour in the 
 morning reached Choktal. 
 
 From Choktal we posted to Tura-Aigir, and, towards 
 the western end of the lake, we turned aside from the 
 post-road to a few Kirghese dwellings on the shore. 
 Entering one of these tents, I found a number of 
 lambs and kids taken in for shelter, whilst without 
 were some of their skins stretched in the sun and 
 covered apparently with lime, the whole arrangement 
 indicating great poverty. They seemed to have no 
 objection to my photographic operations, which I 
 finished, and then, having taken a last look at the 
 beautiful lake, we drove to Kutemaldi, posted again 
 over two stages with five horses, and arrived at Pishpek 
 early on the following morning. 
 
 I should have greatly preferred to have gone from 
 Tokmak by the old mountain road over the Kastek 
 Pass, followed, I take it, by the travellers of the middle 
 ages ; but it was said to be all but unusable for a 
 tarantass, and with no postal accommodation, so that 
 the only alternative was to proceed by the longer road 
 made by the Russians in the plains. 
 
 Accordingly, after stopping a few hours at Pishpek, 
 
 else) and make him give up his prey. For this purpose the woman is 
 led in front of the tent, supported by the arms, and there suddenly 
 rushes out before her a troop of horsemen brandishing their nagaikas, 
 or whips, and uttering screams and noises diabolical. 
 
 These items of medical information are given on the authority of 
 Dr Seeland, after which his remarks are not surprising that such 
 remedies sometimes end in the death of both mother and child, though 
 he says the Kirghese women generally bear children with less difficulty 
 than Europeans.
 
 126 CHIXESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 and taking lunch with Colonel Pushchin, we started 
 for Vierny, and made our first halt at Constantinovsk, 
 where a Russian New Testament was shown to me by 
 the starosta, or keeper of the post-house, who seemed 
 to remember my coming six years before. At this 
 place, too, we crossed by a bridge for the last time the 
 Chu, one of the important rivers of Central Asia, and 
 frequently mentioned by early travellers,* 
 
 From Constantinovsk we continued over a spur of 
 the northern Ala-Tau range, which here, as it sinks 
 into the plain under the appellation of the Koi-Jarligan 
 Mountains, forms a water-parting between the Chu 
 and Hi valleys. We had reached a level road, when 
 soon after midnight our yemstchik uttered a cry, and 
 Joseph, on getting out of the tarantass, asked me to 
 do so too, whereupon I saw one of our hind wheels 
 not merely broken, but resolved into its component 
 parts. I suggested, therefore, that the driver should 
 endeavour to borrow a wheel from the station ahead. 
 
 * The Chu rises south-west of Issik-Kul, and flows within about three 
 miles of the western end of the lake, sending thither at times some of 
 its waters through a small stream, the Kutemaldi ; but Ashton Dilke, 
 and Schuyler after him, seem to think that at some period of the world's 
 history, when the level of Issik-Kul was higher, the lake overflowed 
 into the Chu, which continued its course through the steppe to the 
 Syr-daria, and so onwards to the Oxus, and finally into the Caspian. 
 Also both Schuyler and Kostenko speak of the Sea of Aral as having 
 once occupied a far greater area than at present. 
 
 I mention this last only to say that it is not confirmed by the recent 
 investigations of Mr Bateson, who in 1886 and 1887 journeyed among 
 the lakes of Western Central Asia for the purpose of making observa- 
 tions on their fauna, and who, in a paper read before the Royal Society, 
 says : " For these reasons it seems that, though the Aral Sea has 
 retired within recent times from such an area as would be covered by 
 it if its level were about 15 feet higher than it now is, yet it cannot be 
 shown that it has continuously receded from an area much larger than 
 this " {Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 
 vol. 180, pp. 297-330).
 
 FROM ISSIK-KUL TO VIE R NY. 
 
 127 
 
 It seemed wisest to take matters philosophically, 
 and to turn in and sleep, which I accordingly did. In 
 due time the yenistchik came, and by early morning 
 we arrived at Otar. 
 
 We had now on the south the Ala-Tau Mountains, 
 whilst northwards, stretching away for about ten miles 
 
 THE SOURCE OF THE KOPA. 
 
 east and west, was the Kopa valley, through which, 
 when there is water enough, runs the river of the same 
 name, having its head-streams in the Kuldja Bashi 
 Mountains, and flowing into the Kurtu river, and so 
 onwards to the Hi and into Lake Balkash. 
 
 There was no resident smith at Otar, but there was
 
 128 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 a prison dtape, where happened to be resting for the 
 day a batch of exiles on their way to Siberia. Amongst 
 them were two Orenburg Cossacks, who for a small 
 price were as well satisfied to mend our wheel as we 
 were thankful to be released from our difficulty. 
 
 I much enjoyed the rest by the way, and did not 
 start till evening, when, late in the night, there came 
 on such a storm of wind and dust, with a little rain, 
 that the station-master at Sam-Su almost implored me 
 not to go forward. We stayed accordingly for a few 
 hours, and early next morning arrived at Uzun-Agatch, 
 a village of 1 13 houses occupied by Russian emigrants. 
 
 The majority of the houses were of unburnt brick, 
 and had suffered badly from the recent earthquake at 
 Vierny, 35 miles off At Uzun-Agatch is a stream, 
 flowing from the Ala-Tau range, whence I secured some 
 specimens of fish, usmaiz, piscari, and marinka, and 
 then posted on to Kiskilensk, our last station for 
 changing horses. 
 
 At Kiskilensk the postmaster had received a letter 
 from the authorities about me, in deference to which 
 he mounted his horse and rode before us for 16 miles 
 into Vierny.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 VIERNY AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE. 
 
 Vierny pleasantly situated, 129. — Eye-witnesses' description of earth- 
 quake, 130. — Houses of burnt brick most damaged ; Destruction 
 around town; Mud streams from the mountains, 131. — Losses of 
 life, 132. — Removal of inhabitants; Author taken to Governor's 
 temporary abode ; Lodged in M. Gourdet's new house, 133. — 
 Money sent to Kashgar, 134. — Anniversary of earthquake, and 
 Memorial Chapel ; Seismic record of earthquake shocks, 135. — 
 Baggage delayed ; Remissness of Russian Society for Trans- 
 port, 137. — Douceur given and misappropriated, 138. — Arrival of 
 baggage ; Luggage forwarded to Jarkend, 139. 
 
 WHEN, In 1882, I descended from Western 
 Siberia, through the monotonous steppes of 
 Semipolatinsk, the praises of Vierny had been sung as 
 beautiful for situation and the joy of the land, and not 
 altogether undeservedly. As we drew near, the town 
 was seen lying about a dozen miles only from the foot 
 of the Trans- Hi Ala-Tau Mountains, which lift their 
 summits to the snow-line, whilst two peaks, Almaty 
 and Talgar, attain respectively to 14,000 and 15,000 
 feet. 
 
 Vierny was founded in 1854, by Cossacks, who built 
 their houses of wood, which, with a view to the pre- 
 servation of the forests, was subsequently forbidden. 
 The later erections were of brick, for the most part 
 
 VOL. L 9
 
 130 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 sun-dried, and the broad and straight streets, crossing 
 at right angles, were bordered with trees — willows, 
 poplars, elms, and Robinia pseudacacia — so that they 
 presently assumed the appearance of park-like avenues, 
 whilst the palaces of the Governor and Archbishop, 
 the Cathedral, the Governor's garden with its pavilion 
 and flowers, the public schools and government offlces, 
 together with a population of 25,000 souls, combined 
 to render this capital the pride of Semirechia. 
 
 But on June 9th, scarcely a year before my second 
 visit, the city was visited by an earthquake, of which 
 the local effects remaining were only too visible on 
 every hand, and intensified the account given me by 
 my hosts. Monsieur and Madame Gourdet, who were 
 in the town at the time of the disaster. 
 
 The first shock, lasting about five seconds, came, by 
 way of warning, at a quarter to five in the morning, 
 and was accompanied by a rumbling noise as of a 
 heavily laden train passing under the town northwards 
 — that is, from the mountains towards the open Steppe. 
 Everybody was aroused, and most persons dressed ; but 
 my host going out of doors, and seeing it to be a 
 lovely morning, with things looking as usual, and 
 thinking that, as on former occasions, the shock would 
 not be repeated, returned to bed. 
 
 Within another ten minutes, however, there came 
 a second shock, stronger and more lasting than the 
 first, which shook and ruined the whole neighbour- 
 hood. Indoors, the plaster of ceilings and walls fell, 
 first in morsels like hail, and soon, to the noise repeated 
 and increased underground, was added that of falling 
 tiles and bricks. For those in bed there was this time 
 no chance of dressing, and my hosts had scarcely 
 reached the exterior in their nightdresses, when the
 
 VIERNY AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE. 131 
 
 massive Dutch stoves, the ceilings, the arches of doors 
 and windows tumbled in with a crash, and filled the 
 rooms with debris. 
 
 For some seconds the trembling ceased, but only to 
 be renewed with fresh force, under which the walls 
 began to fall and buildings to crack, whilst on all sides 
 was heard the crash of tumbling houses. The town 
 was covered with a cloud of dust so thick as to prevent 
 any one seeing farther than from 30 to 40 steps, and, 
 to add to the confusion, the frightened animals — oxen, 
 cows, dogs, and horses — rushed pell-mell through the 
 streets, making their way instinctively towards the 
 Steppe. 
 
 This violent agitation lasted for about three minutes, 
 almost without ceasing, after which the shocks became 
 weaker and shorter, and by half-past five my host was 
 able to dress and look about the town. 
 
 The houses appeared to have suffered in proportion 
 to their solidity. Those least damaged were the 
 buildings of wood, then the houses of sun-dried brick 
 and clay, whilst structures of burnt brick fared worst 
 of all. 
 
 It was not, however, in the town alone, but for a 
 radius of 30 miles from it, that the earthquake was felt. 
 In many instances the ground opened in chasms, some- 
 times hundreds of yards in length and several fathoms 
 in width. Out of these rents burst forth streams of 
 mud and water, whilst on the sides of the neighbouring 
 mountains many and huge landslips took place, the 
 sites of which were plainly visible at the time of my 
 visit. 
 
 An idea may be formed of the masses dislodged, 
 when I add that the Ak-Sai defile — which appears to 
 have been about the centre of the disturbance — was
 
 132 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 choked with mud to a depth of 70 feet, over a breadth 
 as wide as the Thames at London Bridge. Perhaps 
 the most striking landslip of all was that of half a hill, 
 which, with its forest of firs still standing, majestically 
 slid down towards the plain. 
 
 It may be readily supposed that these " hydro- 
 chemical modifications of the crust of the earth," as 
 Messrs Oshanin and Gramenitsky call them,* caused 
 great damage and loss of life. In Vierny and its 
 neighbourhood were 328 victims, 180 occurring in 
 the town. In the Kiskilensk defile five men, digging 
 chalk, were buried under it ; and a Kirghese caught 
 by a landslip was carried by it for about two miles, 
 he springing the while from spot to spot to avoid 
 falling between the disrupted masses. Less happy 
 was the attempt of a Russian in the same neighbour- 
 hood. Taking his wife on his back, and two children 
 in his arms, he ascended a slope some distance out 
 of the way of the rolling mass ; but, exhausted by the 
 effort, he fell, and all were buried together. 
 
 A Cossack was riding in a defile when a landslip 
 occurred and caught his horse by the legs, whereupon 
 the rider jumped off and ran up an adjoining acclivity, 
 but only just in time to see his horse disappear en- 
 tirely. Too often the people, on coming out of their 
 izbas and seeing the advancing mass, set off running 
 towards the plains and were overtaken, whereas one 
 poor woman, with a child in her arms, had the presence 
 of mind to mount the hill above her house, and was 
 saved ; only, however, to see her family of five persons 
 buried a few steps below. 
 
 Thus the city of Vierny, with its brick houses to 
 
 * See translation, by Miss Hay, in Proceedmgs of the Royal Geogra- 
 phical Society, 1888, p. 638.
 
 o
 
 VIERNY AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE. 133 
 
 the number of 1,840, was ruined, and the higher-class 
 people rushed for accommodation to the 840 humbler 
 wooden houses, of which only 30 were two-storied, 
 and whose owners retired in prospect of high tempo- 
 rary rents. Besides this, the Governor requisitioned 
 from the Kirghese nomads of the province scores, 
 if not hundreds, of felt tents, so that a considerable 
 proportion of the population dwelt for a while under 
 curtains, and things were still in a disorganised con- 
 dition when we arrived on May 29th. 
 
 Our outrider from Kiskilensk conducted us first to 
 the house inhabited temporarily by General Ivanoff, 
 the Governor of Semirechia, who had been expecting 
 me some days, and had kindly arranged a dinner-party 
 for the preceding evening, previous to his necessary 
 departure, a few days later, on a tour of inspection. 
 My journey to Issik-Kul, however, had deprived me 
 of this pleasure, and also of staying with his Excel- 
 lency, who, rather than leave me in his empty house, 
 had asked M. Paul Gourdet, with whom I was already 
 acquainted, to entertain me. 
 
 M. Gourdet is a Frenchman by birth, but has lived 
 many years in Russian Turkistan, as well as some 
 time in England. He is on the staff of professors at 
 the local gymnase, or government school, and he also 
 holds the appointment of architect of the town. It 
 was natural, therefore, that he should have lost as little 
 time as possible in getting a house again over his own 
 head. 
 
 Into this he and Madame Gourdet had just settled, 
 and since he was kind enough to place his study at my 
 disposal, I found myself in excellent company and far 
 better quarters than I could have expected in a city 
 hardly as yet out of ruin. My luggage, however, had
 
 134 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 not arrived, and therefore I had but to use the delay 
 in making further preparations, in addition to which 
 I set my servant and some of the natives to collect 
 specimens of the local fauna. 
 
 I have intimated that I drew my deposit of paper 
 roubles from the last bank we passed at Tashkend, 
 since doing which I had been carrying my fortune, 
 not, indeed, in my face, but at my waist. This, Sir 
 Robert Morier had told me at the capital, would be 
 nothing less than putting a premium on robbery. 
 I might have replied that it was only to gentlemen 
 of approved character like his Excellency to whom 
 I confided such secrets, besides which there was 
 nothing else to be done ; and I was getting along 
 with tolerable equanimity. 
 
 When, however, news reached me from Miss Hay 
 of the murder of Mr Dalgleish on the very road over 
 which I was to travel, it struck me as highly desirable 
 to send on to Kashgar as much of my money as 
 I could spare, so that if I reached there robbed and 
 spoiled there would be a fund awaiting me. It was 
 possible to send from Vierny to Narin any number 
 of rouble notes by post and insure them to the full 
 amount, but other packets could be insured at the 
 rate of \os. per cent, to an amount not exceeding 
 500 roubles each. 
 
 Two parcels, therefore, were made up of rupees and 
 one of roubles, and all three insured. Beyond Narin 
 the Governor kindly came to my assistance by 
 promising to arrange with Colonel Larionoff there, 
 to have the packets forwarded six or eight days 
 beyond, by Cossacks, with the monthly letters to M. 
 Petrovsky, the Russian Consul at Kashgar. 
 
 During our stay in Vierny occurred the anniversary
 
 VIERNY AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE. 135 
 
 of the earthquake, duly inaugurated by another slight 
 shock, and locally observed by the consecration of a 
 small memorial chapel or oratory, built in one of the 
 avenues of the town. The slight shock alluded to 
 was one of a series that had been going on all through 
 the year, recognised only too surely by those who had 
 passed through the great calamity, but unperceived by 
 me. Thus I learned at breakfast on June 9th that 
 about one o'clock in the morning there had been a 
 shock sufficiently severe to rouse the servants out of 
 their beds.* 
 
 I did not see much of Russian Church matters or 
 military affairs during my stay, being too busy about 
 my overdue baggage, which had been causing me 
 
 * M. Gourdet, who had kept a seismic record for the previous 12 
 months, told me that after the fatal half-hour on May 28th (old style) 
 there were, from 5 to 9 a.m., continued shocks every 2 or 3 minutes, 
 accompanied by loud subterranean noises; from 9 to 12, shocks about 
 every 5 minutes ; and at 1.50, 2.35, and 4.0 tremblings that shook down 
 pieces of walls. At 4.30 came a violent, destructive shaking which 
 lasted 7 or 8 seconds, and caused walls to fall, so that many persons 
 who were getting out their furniture were killed or wounded. 
 
 All through the night of the 28-29th shocks were repeated at intervals 
 of 5, 10, and 30 minutes, and on the 29th between 5.0 and i.o occurred 
 10 shocks. On the 30th were recorded 10 shocks; on the 31st, 8 ; on 
 June ist, 7 ; and so on, with the exception of June 7th and 18th, shocks 
 up to ID daily all the month. 
 
 In July the number per day decreased, but there were only 7 days 
 during the month when there was nothing to record. Subsequently, 
 shocks were felt on 15 days in August, 18 days in September, 4 days 
 in October, 7 in November, 14 in December, 18 in January, 3 in 
 February, 7 in March, 3 in April, and so on up to Easter Sunday, after 
 which they seem to have ceased till the anniversary of the earthquake. 
 
 According to my latest information from M. Gourdet (February 1891), 
 " The earthquake does not forget us, and from time to time we get 
 splendid shaking. On June 30th, 1889, we had a shock lasting 12 
 minutes almost as strong as that of 1887. We are now accustomed 
 to these shocks, and do not fear them since the new houses are built of 
 wood. This year we have had two or three shocks that may be called 
 good ones, and about a score of little ones not worth mentioning."
 
 136 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 delay all along the road from Bokhara. Nineteen 
 packages, as already stated, were sent from England 
 by sea to Batoum, and when Batoum was a free port 
 merchandise intended for Persia or China passed 
 through, I suppose, easily enough. But now " nous 
 avons changd toiU cela," and letter and telegram 
 awaiting my arrival at St Petersburg informed me 
 that to get my goods through the Batoum Custom- 
 house, especially in the absence of their owner, 
 without unpacking and the closest scrutiny, required 
 nothing less than the mandate of the Minister of 
 Finance at the capital. 
 
 Here M. Sabler was of great use, and took me first 
 to the Minister, M. Vishnegradsky, and then to the 
 Chief of the Customs ; with the result that, partly, 
 I think, in deference to the charitable mission I was 
 undertaking, and partly, perhaps, to the good recom- 
 mendations at my back, an exception was made in my 
 favour, and the Chief telegraphed to his subordinates 
 that 1 8 of my cases were to be sealed and allowed to 
 pass on their way unopened and without payment of 
 duty ; the remaining package, which was my lunch- 
 basket, being examined as usual. 
 
 This was a great concession, and I proceeded 
 promptly to arrange in St Petersburg with the 
 Russian Society for Transport that they should for- 
 ward the 1 8 cases a distance of 2,300 miles, from 
 Batoum to Vierny, which was their nearest depot to 
 Kuldja, at the rate of 305". j^er cwt, with insurance 
 at 13^". ^d. per cent., and that the time employed in 
 transit should not exceed six weeks. 
 
 On two occasions previously my heavy baggage had 
 been taken forward in time by slow transit to the 
 Urals and even Tiumen, the first town in Siberia,
 
 VIERNY AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE. 137 
 
 by the brothers Kamensky ; but they had no office 
 in Vierny, and I was Hmited to the Russian Society, 
 which I fondly hoped would keep to its engagement, 
 or at all events be not more than a fortnight late, 
 which my arrangements permitted as a margin. 
 
 On reaching Batoum I found that Mr Peacock had 
 kindly sent forward the packages. The lunch-basket 
 was still in his care, and when I heard to what treat- 
 ment it had been subjected I shuddered at the thought 
 of what might have happened to the rest. It appeared 
 that two phlegmatic and precise custom-house officials 
 had inflicted thereon nothing less than a visitation that 
 lasted off and on for about three mortal hours. 
 
 There must, of course, be something uncanny about 
 a basket that called for a telegram from St Petersburg, 
 and accuracy was just then the order of the chief 
 of the day. Accordingly, everything was thoroughly 
 searched, weighed, valued, and entered ; but, with all 
 their exactitude, fluids were spilled and things not 
 put back properly. And I know not what might 
 have happened to the thousand and one knick-knacks 
 of the larger cases, the scores of bottles of medicine, 
 photographic negatives, and well-nigh innumerable 
 presents for the natives ! 
 
 Mr Peacock handed me the receipt wherewith to 
 claim the goods and pay for their carriage at Vierny, 
 and upon our arrival at Baku on March 30th the goods 
 were said to have been sent forward on the 3rd of the 
 month. So far all was well, though matters began to 
 look suspicious when, on inquiring next at Charjui on 
 April 9th, it appeared that the packages had reached 
 the end of the railway only on March 18th, and had 
 been sent forward three days later on camels to 
 Bokhara. From Bokhara it was said they would
 
 138 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 proceed to Tashkend on arbas, and thence to Vierny 
 by Russian telegas, or waggons. 
 
 To my great disgust, however, on reaching Bokhara 
 on April T4th, I found that the goods had been de- 
 spatched only a week previously on camels, and that 
 they would take 20 days to reach Tashkend ; further, 
 that there was no means of communicating with the 
 carriers or spurring them on, since they were not 
 going by the telegraph route, but across the Steppe. 
 It was useless to fret or to hurry forward, so we 
 spent several days in Bokhara and Samarkand, and 
 reached Tashkend to learn that the caravan was 
 expected in three days. 
 
 It was disheartening, however, to be told that 
 another 30 days would be needed for transit to 
 Vierny. Could nothing be done to accelerate matters ? 
 I asked of the agent, who, by-the-by, had seen me 
 six years previously at Petro-Alexandrovsk, and 
 seemed disposed to be friendly and helpful. He 
 led me to believe that under pressure 15 or 16 
 days might suffice. Also that, if I would pay a 
 douceur of 'xps. for the hire of extra horses, he hoped 
 to get the goods to Vierny by May 25th. This I 
 paid, and as soon as the baggage had left Tashkend 
 we quickly followed, made the d^tojirto Issik-Kul, and 
 reached Vierny to find, as already said, my baggage 
 not come. 
 
 The first news received was that it had left Pishpek 
 on June 4th ; then, three days later, that delay had 
 been occasioned by the death of one of the carrier's 
 horses ; and presently what seemed to be the truth 
 eked out, that the dishonest Kirghese carrier, having 
 received the extra money, slipped it into his purse, 
 and handed over the job to a brother of the craft, who,
 
 VIERNY AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE. 139 
 
 hearing nothing of the extra speed required, took his 
 time. 
 
 On the 8th four packages were said to have arrived, 
 and a horseman was sent out into the Steppe to ex- 
 pedite the rest, whereupon the agent showed me a 
 letter said to have come from Tashkend, and pretend- 
 ing that I had promised to pay for a messenger into 
 the Steppe if the goods did not arrive in time, I 
 denied having made any such promise, and claimed 
 that the amount of the doitceur should be refunded, 
 whereupon the agent wrote what he called an "act," 
 setting forth the belated arrival of the goods, and this 
 was countersigned by the agent, M. Gourdet, myself, 
 and the head of police, as an instrument wherewith 
 I was to threaten vengeance, claim damages, etc., etc., 
 the end of the matter being that when the goods 
 reached Vierny they had been thirteen weeks on the 
 road instead of six. Needless to add, I have received 
 back none of the douceur. 
 
 A local carrier was now found who undertook to 
 transport to the Chinese frontier at Jarkend the 18 
 packages, and nine others added, in all weighing 60 
 poods, or nearly a ton. For doing this he was to 
 receive 65 kopecks per pood, and to be only eight 
 days on the road. He started on the day after the 
 arrival of the goods at Vierny, and we quickly followed. 
 
 In many respects our stay in Vierny had been a 
 pleasant one. M. Gourdet was full of information, 
 and Madame of hospitality. Both were helpful in 
 enabling me to make preparations of various kinds, 
 to say nothing of hints and suggestions whereby many 
 hundreds, not to say thousands, of specimens of the 
 fauna were collected, of which last more hereafter.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FROM VIERNY TO THE CHINESE FRONTIER. 
 
 Departure from Vierny, and meeting an Englishman at Ilisk, 140. — A 
 gang of Siberian exiles ; False statement as to their chains, 141. — 
 Altitude of Ilisk, 142. — Crossing bridge ; Geology of the road ; 
 Need of sound wheels ; Road to Jarkend, 143. — Hospitality pro- 
 vided, 144. — Introduction to a rich native ; Offers of service from 
 Prjevalsky's guides, 145. — Arrangements for money, and modes 
 of conveyance ; Purchase of cart and horses, 146. — Kindness of 
 Yuldasheff; Departure from Jarkend, and review of Russian 
 favours, 147. — Driving towards the frontier, and warnings as to 
 being stopped, 148. — Advised to approach from Peking, 149. — 
 Deprived of interpreter, 150.— Cossacks for escort, and "success 
 number one " ; Site of ancient Almalik ; Martyrdom of mediaeval 
 Christians ; To and at Suiting ; Arrival at Kuldja, 151. 
 
 WE left Vierny early on the morning of June 1 3th, 
 driving across the Steppe about 150 miles, 
 along the course of the Almati, and gradually descend- 
 ing 1,000 feet to the river Hi, which gives its name to 
 the station of Ilisk on its western bank. It was of no 
 use attempting to arrive at Jarkend much in advance 
 of our luggage, because the place was said to be small 
 and without an inn. 
 
 At Ilisk, therefore, we stopped for a day to collect 
 specimens, and met a fellow-countryman named John 
 Norman, the first Englishman we had seen, if I 
 remember rightly, east of the Oxus. 
 
 Near the Ilisk post-house is an titape, where we saw
 
 FROM VIERNY TO THE CHINESE FRONTIER. 141 
 
 our last batch of exiles on their way to Siberia. Some 
 had half-shaven heads, signifying that they were 
 criminals of the worst category, including murderers, 
 homicides, etc., and some had chains on their legs ; 
 but I do not remember seeing any handcuffed.* 
 
 A CONVICT WITH HALF-SHAVEN HEAD. 
 
 * The leg-chains reminded me of a passage in the novelette Called 
 Back, which roused much anti-Russian feeling in England a few years 
 since, and has often been reproduced on the stage. The author says : 
 " We passed many gangs of convicts plodding along to their fate. 
 Ivan told me that most of them were in chains. This I should not have 
 noticed, as the irons are only on the legs and worn under the trousers " 
 {Called Back, by Hugh Conway, pseudonym for the late F. J. Fargus, 
 p. 129). 
 
 Now, I have had ample opportunity of examining scores, not to say 
 hundreds, of Russian leg-chains, and at this moment I have an ordinary 
 set, with a prison suit, in my own possession. I once put them on and 
 was photographed, and engravings made therefrom, but with the face 
 altered, have gone over the world in the pages of my own books, as 
 well as those of various periodicals (see Through Siberia, p. 155 ; 
 Leisure Hour, March 1881 ; Harper's Magazine, May 1888). 
 
 From these pictures it will be seen that the chain, 30 inches long, 
 fastened to each ankle, could not be worn under the trousers. Yet the 
 humane author (who by-the-by had never seen Russia, much less Siberia) 
 adds: "Poor wretched beings, my heart ached for them !" And so, 
 doubtless, has that of many of his readers, but quite needlessly, for 
 these chains worn under the trousers are pure fiction.
 
 142 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Settino- out from Ilisk in the evening, we crossed a 
 portion of the Turkistan plains, 500 feet above Lake 
 
 CHAINS AND SUMMER COSTUME OF blULKIAN I'KIbUNEK. 
 
 Balkash and 1,300 feet above sea-level, to which 
 point I call attention only to observe that we did not
 
 FROM VIERNY TO THE CHINESE FRONTIER. 143 
 
 again dip to so low an altitude until, after crossing 
 three at least of the very high mountain ranges of the 
 world, we descended six months later to the plains of 
 India. 
 
 Our road, after leaving the loess and culturable 
 formations about Vierny, lay across a region of river 
 and lake deposits which continued beyond our first 
 station and some five-and-twenty miles east of the Hi, 
 Then we began to ascend over crystalline limestone 
 and argillaceous schists, as well as porphyries and 
 quartz-felsite, up to a height of 4,000 feet above sea- 
 level, to the post-station of Altyn-Immel. 
 
 Here necessity obliged us to stay once more for the 
 repair of the tarantass, the loan of which had been a 
 great accommodation, I had, it will be noticed, to 
 learn over as^ain the lesson tauofht me in Siberia 
 — namely, the importance of seeing a vehicle put 
 thoroughly in order before starting on a posting jour- 
 ney. This was supposed to have been done in 
 Tashkend at a cost of 30^., but 8^-, more had to be 
 expended after a three days' run to Pishpek. 
 
 The stony road through the Buam Pass enabled 
 one to appreciate to the full the wisdom of M. Bartsch, 
 the Bible Society's Agent in Tashkend, who said that 
 when going to Kara-Kol he took a post telega, and left 
 his tarantass, having regard to its wheels, at Tokmak. 
 This unfortunately I could not do, and, in consequence, 
 we had to stop for repairs at the top of the Pass, again 
 at Kara-Kol, and once more, in returning, at Kutemaldi, 
 where also the shaking: was found to have damasfed 
 not only the wheels, but to have knocked holes in the 
 bottoms of my spirit cases, jam tins, and fish cylinders. 
 All this involved, not only expense, but loss of time, 
 and the worst had not yet happened, for on returning
 
 144 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 to Pishpek the near forewheel was pronounced un- 
 sound and was put in dock for five hours, whilst within 
 twelve hours afterwards occurred the incident already 
 recorded, when one of the hind wheels fell to pieces. 
 Six shillings and the Cossack prisoners helped us out 
 of this disaster, and then twenty shillings more were 
 expended at Vierny for the general improvement of 
 the concern, the said improvement lasting less than 
 four-and-twenty hours ; for, according to my notes, one 
 of the wheels was pronounced " out of sorts " and we 
 were detained a few more hours at Altyn-Immel. 
 
 This, however, I am thankful to say, was the last 
 hindrance of this sort, and we now crossed the Pass, 
 continuing over geological formations similar to the 
 high regions just described, and then descending and 
 crossing for 30 miles over river and lake deposits 
 nearly to the station of Konurolen. Here again to- 
 wards evening we made our way amongst rugged hills 
 composed of the rocks already mentioned, and others 
 in addition belonging to the Tertiary and Jurassic 
 systems, and including diorite, diabase, and porphyrite. 
 Thus, after posting through the night, on the morn- 
 ing of Saturday, June i6th, we reached Jarkend. 
 
 The Nachalnik of Jarkend (or Yarkend, as the 
 natives call it) was away on inspection duty, but my 
 coming was anticipated, and two rooms in the post- 
 house had been placed at my disposal, with a policeman 
 at the door in attendance. There was also told off 
 to be with and to help me a young officer named 
 Dmitrieff who had been degraded to the ranks and 
 sent hither into exile, but the cause of his banishment 
 I did not then inquire into particularly. 
 
 Upon calling upon Madame Natalie Paulovna 
 Seletsky, the Nachalnik s wife, she asked me to dine
 
 FROM VIERNV TO THE CHINESE FRONTIER. 145 
 
 at her house daily during my stay, for which purpose 
 she sent her carriage and ponies to fetch me and 
 M. Dmitrieff, who acted as interpreter. I met also at 
 the Nachalnik's house the police-master, named Berg, 
 who was attentive and helpful in making arrangements 
 for and sending off to Kuldja my luggage, which, 
 with two men — Redjap and Erbudu — arrived in even 
 less than the time specified. 
 
 The chief thing that prevented my pushing forward 
 at once was the temporary absence of a certain Sart 
 merchant, named Vali Akhoun Yuldashefif, to whom 
 I had been warmly commended in writing by M. 
 Gourdet, and who had been described to me as one 
 who during the insurrection supplied corn to the 
 Chinese army, owned a flour-mill in the Kuldja valley, 
 had business houses all along the road to Kashgar, 
 could give me money drafts, procure me horses and 
 guides, change my Russian money, and in fact do 
 everything, so that he seemed a most desirable person 
 to know and to have as a patron in Chinese Turkistan. 
 Moreover, it was said that my official letters, and my 
 recommendation from the Governor-General Kolpa- 
 kovsky, would be sure to enlist the hearty co-operation 
 of this local potentate and millionaire. 
 
 On the day of our arrival there came one Tokhta 
 Akhoun and offered his services to me, saying that he 
 had been one of Prjevalsky's guides. Next day 
 appeared Abdul Abbasid, in the employ of Vali 
 Akhoun, and who said he was receiving 18 roubles 
 a month and all found. He could prepare skins of 
 animals, had acted as Prjevalsky's interpreter, and 
 was willing similarly to accompany me for 30 roubles 
 a month and 50 down. But as his only European 
 language was Russian, I declined his offer, and as the 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 police-master advised me against Tokhta Akhoun, I 
 decided to take neither. 
 
 The third day came without the appearance of 
 Yuldasheff, but his brother, as well as the manager 
 of his business, called on me. From them I gathered 
 that they could do far less in the way of money 
 arrangements than I had hoped, but they could in 
 exchange for i , 1 60 paper roubles give an order-] on 
 Suiting for a pood of yavibs, or lumps, of silver, which 
 amount accordingly I purchased. It was not so easy 
 to decide as to what was the best method of convey- 
 ance ; and opinions varied greatly as to whether I 
 could travel from Kuldja to Kashgar in a tarantass.* 
 
 Some advised native arbas, or carts with huge 
 wheels, but without springs ; and several, out of pity 
 for my bones, suggested that one should be fitted with 
 network stretched across a few inches above the floor, 
 whereon I might sleep comfortably. 
 
 Others advised the purchase of horses, which, they 
 said, were cheaper at Jarkend than at Kuldja, a state- 
 ment afterwards denied at Kuldja. I confess to 
 having been fairly puzzled what to do for the best, 
 especially as the purchase of horses was not at all in 
 my line ; but finally I bought an arba rigged up with 
 netting, and three big draught horses, a Kirghese cob 
 for Joseph, and a saddle-horse for myself, the whole 
 for £2^. Nor must one think lightly of these animals, 
 
 * The Talki defile and its numerous bridges was alleged to be the 
 chief difficulty. It was said that M. Balkashin, once Russian Consul 
 at Chuguchak, had travelled that way in his tarantass, but he was 
 escorted by a body of Cossacks, who, if the carriage fell into a ditch, 
 could lift it out. Besides, it was doubted whether the Chinese smiths 
 would be able to repair a vehicle to which they were unaccustomed, and 
 the novelty of the carriage would attract attention. I decided, there- 
 fore, that it would be better for the missionary aspect of my work to 
 abandon the tarantass.
 
 FROM VIERNY TO THE CHINESE FRONTIER. 147 
 
 for I venture to say that my own, which the police- 
 master professed to sell me as a great favour, would 
 have fetched in London double the amount I paid for 
 the cart and all the horses put together. 
 
 On the fourth day I was informed that Yuldasheff 
 had returned, and calling upon him in his semi- 
 Russian, semi-Chinese furnished house, he seemed 
 disposed to be useful. He even put off on my account 
 a journey he intended to make, promised me letters 
 of introduction to Turfan, Kurla, Kuchar, Aksu, and 
 Kashgar, and engaged to provide me trustworthy men 
 if I telegraphed from Kuldja. 
 
 He also urged my stay till the morrow, in which 
 case he would provide for my tarantass a troika of 
 horses, send with me his manager, who was going 
 to Suiting, and arrange that my arba and horses 
 should be despatched to Kuldja. Next morning, 
 accordingly, the tarantass was re-packed for departure 
 from my last Russian town, at the end of a journey 
 through the Empire of 5,000 miles in 115 days, but 
 50 days of actual travel. 
 
 The many kindnesses everywhere offered me will 
 already have struck the reader. They began at Wir- 
 ballen in passing me unquestioned through the 
 Custom-house. At St Petersburg the authorities 
 denied me nothing, and allowed my goods to pass 
 through Batoum, as I have said, without examination 
 or payment of duty. Then began steamboat and 
 railway favours — a compartment placed at my con- 
 venience to and from Uzun Ada, and a whole 
 carriage from Merv, to say nothing of the little 
 house on wheels with free carriage beyond the Oxus, 
 and lodging in the houses of two of the engineers 
 at Katte Kurgan and Samarkand.
 
 148 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 The Pfovernors and officials were not less kind in 
 affording me an amount of hospitality quite unexpected 
 and entirely unasked on my part, taking me in some- 
 times as guest in private houses, as at Charjui, 
 Bokhara, Jizak, Chimkend, and Vierny, and at others 
 accommodatino^ me in oruest-houses, as at Tashkend, 
 Kara-Kol, and Jarkend, and this so fully that, with the 
 exception of the little inn at Bokhara station when 
 awaiting trains, I did not go to one hotel between the 
 Caspian and our point of leaving the Russian 
 dominions. 
 
 Nor must I forget dinners at Tiflis, Askhabad, 
 Charjui, Samarkand, Tashkend, Vierny, and Jarkend ; 
 telegraphic and written communications from the 
 Government at the capital to the authorities along our 
 route, as well as despatches from the Governor-General 
 and Governors in Asia to their subordinates at Merv, 
 the Bokhara customs, Chimkend, Pishpek, Narin, and 
 Vierny ; and, finally, horsemen and messengers sent 
 hundreds of miles on my account over the mountains 
 to Kara-Kol and Kashgar. 
 
 Indeed, if it is our duty to " speak of people as we 
 find them," I had the most superlative reasons for 
 speaking well of the Russians, and for bowing my 
 thanks as we drove out of the station of Jarkend. 
 
 I wished to start at seven in the morning, but delays 
 of one kind and another kept us for six hours. Then 
 we set out with Yuldasheffs manager to drive 24 miles 
 to the river Khorgos, which here forms the boundary 
 between Russia and China. This we did in about 
 three hours without mishap, though a hitch occurred on 
 coming to the last Cossack picket, where Yuldasheffs 
 manager for some reason was detained, and not allowed 
 to proceed.
 
 FROM VIERNY TO THE CHINESE FRONTIER. 149 
 
 This was decidedly awkward, for, though I could 
 command a score or two of words in Russian, I knew 
 not one in Chinese, and it seemed no joke to be left to 
 cross the frontier alone, especially as I had been assured 
 in England that I should not be allowed to enter China 
 from the west. 
 
 My advisers from the outset, beginning with Mr 
 Ney Elias, had recommended approaching Chinese 
 Turkistan from Peking. The proper way, they said, 
 was to go to the Tsnng-li-Yamen, or Foreign Office, 
 and ask for a passport to the interior, which passport 
 in my case, Sir Thomas Wade thought, they would not 
 give ; whilst for an Englishman to enter from the west 
 was a thing unheard-of, and, he thought, would not be 
 allowed. 
 
 In keeping with this was a note received by a friend 
 from an under-official at the Chinese Legation in 
 London, who said there was but one way the thing 
 could be done. He advised that I should go to Peking, 
 and call upon the British Minister there, begging him 
 to send a despatch to the Tsung-li-Yaiuen, acquainting 
 them with all my wishes, explaining and stating fully 
 what places and districts I should like to visit ; and then 
 the Tsung-li- Yainen would grant the necessary pass- 
 port, and the local authorities in the different places 
 through which I might pass would be responsible for 
 my protection, but otherwise it would not be safe to 
 go far into the interior. 
 
 This was not encouraging, and Mr Hudson Taylor, 
 notwithstanding all his faith and hope, wrote : " The 
 more I think of your present plans, the more I fear 
 their failure. The absence of such a passport as you 
 could only procure personally at Peking will, I fear, 
 keep you back."
 
 150 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Again, a member of the British Embassy at Peking, 
 who happened to be in London, said that the corre- 
 spondence for procuring such passports passed through 
 his own hands, and he urged the absolute necessity 
 of my having the document from Peking, because 
 without it I should be turned back ; and when I 
 showed him, perhaps a little triumphantly, the passport 
 I had received, he recognised it as valid in form, but 
 shook his head, saying, " I am horribly afraid that 
 when you get to the frontier they will ignore it, and 
 refuse to let you pass." 
 
 After all these monitions I had thought it desirable 
 to strengthen my position, as advised, by asking 
 another letter from the Chinese Minister at Berlin. 
 I had accepted also at Jarkend, as a second string to 
 my bow, a Russian document or passport enabling 
 me to travel in China, and I had, besides, my British 
 passport and London letters ; but, even thus furnished, 
 to go and knock at a remote back door of the Empire, 
 kept by a few ignorant Chinese soldiers, to whom 
 none of my party could speak a word of their language, 
 looked rather formidable. 
 
 I accordingly produced my Russian letters, and 
 asked the officer to lend me a couple of Cossacks for 
 an escort to Kuldja. A few minutes sufficed for their 
 preparations, and with these in advance I charged the 
 p^ai fang, or gateway, built on or near the bridge 
 spanning the Khorgos. 
 
 What the Cossacks said or did I know not ; but the 
 great doors, with " warders," or painted dragons, flew 
 open, my tarantass rolled majestically through, without 
 my being stopped, or, so far as I remember, asked for 
 my passport, and in five minutes we were calmly 
 driving through the fields of the Flowery Land and
 
 FROM VIERNY TO THE CHINESE FRONTIER. 151 
 
 among the Celestials, quizzing their pigtails and feeling 
 on excellent terms with ourselves and the world in 
 general. This was success " number one " in China. 
 
 Passing over a flat, cultivated country, lit up by the 
 declining sun, we passed, at ten miles from Khorgos, 
 a place called Alimptu, the modern representative, as 
 some say, of the ancient Almalik, so often mentioned 
 by mediaeval travellers. This agrees with what Dr 
 Bretschneider has written ; and M. Pantusoff told me 
 at Vierny that he thought the ruins existing near the 
 modern Chinese town of Lao-tsao-ghoo to be those of 
 Almalik. 
 
 It would be highly interesting if another cemetery 
 could be discovered here, as at Pishpek and Tokmak, 
 for we know that once there were Christians at 
 Almalik, both of the Nestorian and Roman Churches. 
 
 I myself, at the moment, expected to pass the spot 
 again on my way to the Talki defile, and it was my 
 intention to have stayed, if possible, to investigate the 
 ruins ; but for the present we sped forward past the 
 town of Chimpanzee to Suiting. 
 
 Suiting (pronounced Soo-ee-ting, and spelt also 
 Suitsing, and meaning, I was told, " a spring of 
 water") is called by the Russians Suidun. The 
 Russian capital was at Kuldja, where their Consul still 
 resides ; a superior post-house only, with large garden 
 attached, being kept up at Suiting. At this post- 
 house, where lived the only Europeans in the place, 
 we arrived at midnight. Here we slept till morning, 
 and then pushed on with our Cossacks the remaining 
 26 miles through a thickly populated country, and 
 arrived on the afternoon of June 21st at Kuldja.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MANCHURIA, MONGOLIA, SUNG ARIA. 
 
 China within and beyond the Wall ; Outer China girdled by mountains ; 
 Former extent of China's dominion ; Character of surface, 153. — 
 Political divisions of Outer China, 154. — Manchuria; its boundaries, 
 dimensions, mountains,, and rivers ; its provinces, government, 
 and population, 155. — Our knowledge of Manchuria, and whence 
 acquired ; Nomad tribes, their Shamanism, and partial conver- 
 sion, 156. — Manchuria colonised by Chinese ; Manchu, the court 
 and official language of China ; Efforts to Christianise Man- 
 churia, 158. — Mongolia; its dimensions and climate, 160. — Divisions 
 and towns of Mongolia; Kiakhta, and tea route; Inhabitants of 
 Mongolia, 161. — The Mongols, lamaists, 162. — Missionaries' trans- 
 lation of Bible still in use ; Baptisms by Russian missionaries ; 
 Missions to southern Mongols, 163. — A difficult but open field, 164. — 
 Sungaria ; its depressions a highway to and from the Turkistan 
 plains; Three districts of Sungaria, 165. — Chuguchak ; its troops 
 and trade, 166. — District of Kara-kur-usu ; its lakes and towns; 
 The imperial high road to Hami, 168. — History of the Sungars, 
 and their approximate extermination ; Sungaria repeopled by various 
 nationalities, 169. — Translation of Scriptures into Kalmuk ; Another 
 field for missionary effort, 170. 
 
 ARRIVED at Kuldja, we were really in China, 
 though only midway between Moscow and 
 Peking. So little, however, is this generally realised 
 that more than one friend, pointing to Kuldja on the 
 map, has asked me, " Do you mean to say that China 
 extends all out there?" Let me, then, observe that 
 the Chinese Empire may be divided into China within,
 
 MANCHURIA, MONGOLIA, SUNGARIA. 153 
 
 and China beyond, the Wall. China within the Wall, 
 or China proper, is known more or less to every one, 
 and of its 18 provinces I need say little here. 
 
 China beyond the Wall is girdled by mountains. 
 Thus, beginning northwards at the Sea of Okhotsk 
 with the Yablonoi Mountains, and continuing west- 
 wards in a semicircle, we have a succession of ranges 
 — the Saian, the Altai, Tian Shan, Tsung-Iing, and 
 Himalayas — which bring us by a fairly continuous 
 frontier line of 6,000 miles to Yunnan, the south-west 
 province of China proper. 
 
 In her palmy days, and at various other times, the 
 power of China extended not only to the ridges of all 
 these mountains, but overflowed in some cases, as in 
 the south, to Nepal and Butan, and westward down 
 into the plains as far as the Caspian. In Bokhara I 
 found traces of this remote dominion, for, on asking 
 who built the city walls, they were traditionally 
 ascribed to the Chinese ; whilst another statement, in 
 praise of the melons of Khiva, informs us that they 
 used to form part of the tribute taken all across Asia 
 to the Emperor at Peking. 
 
 The rule of China long ago retired from the Trans- 
 Caspian plains, and the dividing line between Iran and 
 Turan, or Turks and Chinese, has been shifted from 
 time to time ; but China appears for many centuries to 
 have considered as her own, whether the whole was 
 enjoyed for the moment or not, all the territory within 
 the above-named mountains. 
 
 The general slope of this vast region, as indicated 
 by the course of its rivers, is towards the Pacific, 
 though many streams are confined to land-locked 
 basins and do not reach the ocean. The surface of 
 the region consists, for the most part, of enormous
 
 •154 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 deserts, and a number of lofty tablelands, such as are 
 possessed by no other empire in the world, whilst here 
 and there only, and chiefly on the skirts of the moun- 
 tains, are tracts of arable land. 
 
 It is a noteworthy circumstance that the southern 
 side of the mountains is always bare and scarped, 
 presenting to the eye a chaos of overturned rocks, 
 heaped one upon another. Only the side facing the 
 north is covered with bushes, or presents gentle slopes 
 of soil that may be cultivated. Near the valleys are 
 seen, here and there, crooked and stunted poplars and 
 willows, whilst the majority of the inhabitants spend 
 their lives in dire poverty, the like to which is 
 unknown in civilised countries. Even where the soil 
 is good, the harvest is always uncertain, because rain 
 seldom falls before the end of June, and then only for 
 three weeks. At all other times a shower is a welcome 
 exception. 
 
 The Chinese themselves, according to Wells 
 Williams, divide their empire beyond the Wall into 
 Manchuria and the Colonies ; understanding by the 
 Colonies, Mongolia, Hi (now Sin-Kiang, or New Pro- 
 vince, comprising Sungaria and Chinese Turkistan), 
 Koko-Nor, and Tibet. Accordingly, I proceed to speak 
 briefly here of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Sungaria. 
 The remaining colonies will be noticed hereafter. 
 
 Manchuria comprises the most easterly portion of 
 the high tableland that runs across the centre of Asia. 
 Its northern limits, first defined at the Treaty of 
 Nertchinsk in 1688, extended to the Sea of Okhotsk, 
 and continued along a line westwards, which embraced 
 what are now the Siberian provinces of the Amur 
 and part of the Trans- Baikal ; whilst on the east 
 Manchuria extended to the Pacific.
 
 MANCHURIA, MONGOLIA, SUNGARIA. 155 
 
 Later, in 1858, the Russians managed to wrest from 
 the Chinese, during their trouble with England and 
 France, all Manchuria north of the Amur — a territory 
 larger than the whole of France — together with the 
 seaboard east of the Ussuri ; so that now the province 
 of Manchuria is bounded on the north and east by 
 the Amur and its affluent the Ussuri, on the south- 
 east by Korea, and on the south by the Yellow Sea. 
 On the west, towards Mongolia, it has no such 
 prominently defined natural boundaries ; but beginning 
 from the north, the west frontier follows the course of 
 the Argun, and then takes a south-easterly direction, 
 along the rivers Nonni and Sungari, to what was once 
 the Palisade, or barrier of stakes. 
 
 Chinese Manchuria measures approximately 800 by 
 500 miles. The province includes three principal 
 mountain chains, which serve to give variety to its 
 surface of sandy wastes, rich arable lands, grassy 
 steppes, and extensive forests. Of its two rivers, 
 the Shara-muren, flowing into the Yellow Sea, is of 
 little use for navigation ; but the Sungari, flowing into 
 the Amur, forms a highway by which numerous fleets 
 of junks make their way from town to town. 
 
 Manchuria is divided into three provinces, Shinking, 
 Kirin, and Tsitsihar, the capitals respectively being 
 Mukden, Kirin-ula-hotun, and Tsitsihar-hotun. The 
 country is ruled by military boards and generals at the 
 garrisons. Every male above the age of 18 is enrolled, 
 according to his birth, under one of eight standards. 
 The population of Shinking has been estimated, ac- 
 cording to Williams, at twelve millions, of Kirin at 
 less than three millions, whilst Tsitsihar is to a large 
 extent an uninhabited mountainous wilderness. 
 
 Of a large part of Manchuria we know almost
 
 156 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 nothing, and before the advent of the Russians we 
 knew less. When, at the time of the Crimean War, 
 these first descended the Amur in numbers, their troops 
 were accompanied by men of science, to whom we 
 owe our first ghmpses of this part of Manchuria. 
 Some of their information reached the EngHsh pubHc 
 in the volumes of Atkinson, who described, but never 
 saw. The Upper and Loiver Amoor. 
 
 Later, there appeared in the United States two 
 volumes on the Amur by the Americans Collins and 
 Knox, after which it fell to my lot to be the first 
 English traveller to describe from personal observation 
 the entire length of the river, as also the Ussuri. 
 Since my voyage the reverse journey has been made 
 in winter, on the ice, by Mr L. F. Cowing, as detailed 
 in Five Thousand Miles in a Sledge across Siberia. 
 
 Certain parts of Southern Manchuria adjacent to 
 China were described by Fleming and Williamson. 
 In 1882 two French travellers — M. de Mailly-Chalon 
 and the Baron Benoist-Mechin — made a remarkable 
 journey through Southern Manchuria to Vladivostock, 
 and the latest book on the region is that of Mr James, 
 called The Lon£- White Moiuitain. 
 
 The Manchus, or Mandjoors, after whom the 
 country is named, were originally nomads who, in 
 1644, conquered the "middle kingdom" and placed 
 the present dynasty on the Chinese throne. When 
 ascending the Upper and Middle Amur I saw certain 
 tribes — for instance, the Solons, Manyargs, and 
 Orochons — who still wander along the river banks; 
 but the majority of the Manchus are now settled, 
 and are rapidly becoming absorbed by the nation they 
 conquered. 
 
 The nomad tribes most distant from China proper
 
 158 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 are still Shamanists, who believe in evil spirits and 
 in the necessity of averting their malign influence by- 
 spells and magic rites, as I found to be the case with 
 the Gilyaks and Goldi, on the Lower Amur and 
 Ussuri ; but I met a Russian missionary on the Amur 
 who in 23 years had baptised 2,000 natives, of whom 
 403 were Orochons and 1,501 were Goldi. 
 
 He thought that all the Gilyaks in his district were 
 baptised, which might well be the case, seeing that 
 formerly natives were baptised by Russian missionaries 
 in crowds without their understanding much of what 
 was being done, though this missionary said in his 
 own case he had required them first to know certain 
 prayers. 
 
 In Chinese Manchuria the Government commenced 
 its colonisation of the country by establishing military 
 stations, and banishing thither convicts, as well as 
 criminals and political exiles. A great many Chinese 
 Muhammadans also are expatriated thither, and have 
 their own mosques and schools, all assisting to make 
 the population of Manchuria of a very mixed character 
 as to origin, language, and religion. 
 
 So largely are the Chinese colonists taking posses- 
 sion of the land that the Manchu language might 
 have been extinct before this, but for its being that 
 of the reigning family. This has caused it to become 
 one of the classic languages of the empire, so that 
 all high functionaries need to acquire it, since it is the 
 language of the court, and of state documents in some 
 parts, for my passports and official papers at Kuldja 
 were written in Turki, Chinese, and Manchu.* 
 
 As for efforts to Christianise Manchuria, they were 
 
 * This, however, I am told by M. de Deken is exceptional, for that 
 in China, as at Liang-chow, where there is a strong Manchu garrison,
 
 MANCHURIA, MONGOLIA, SUNG ARIA. 159 
 
 begun, according to Mr Ravenstein,* in 1838, by 
 Roman missionaries, one of whom, M, de la Bruniere, in 
 1845 descended the Amur, alone, to the Gilyaks. He 
 went on shore, and at the White Village was murdered. 
 
 When passing the spot more than 30 years after- 
 wards, the bay was pointed out to me where he met 
 his death, I came across a man whose father, he 
 said, had told him about the missionary, and an 
 elderly Russian officer who affirmed that, going to 
 the place in the early years of Russian occupation, the 
 people still had in their possession the missionary's 
 crucifix, watch, and spoons, which the Russians bought. 
 
 After my distribution of Scriptures along the Amur 
 in 1879, I heard of a colporteur being subsequently 
 sent over the same ground by the American Bible 
 Society, but I suspect that both he and I touched only 
 the Russian population. 
 
 In the south of Manchuria, the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society have a depot at Newchwang, under 
 the direction of Mr Robert Turley, who, with his 
 colporteurs, has circumambulated a large portion of 
 the country, his sales being chiefly, I think, among 
 Chinese. 
 
 At Hsi-wan-tze, eight days north of Peking, there 
 are, M. de Deken tells me, a bishop and sixteen 
 Belgian missionaries, with nine Chinese priests ; and, 
 farther east, north of the barrier of stakes, at Gehol, 
 Hei-hsui, etc., there is another bishop with eleven 
 Belgian missionaries and seven Chinese priests. 
 
 There are also Scotch and Irish Presbyterian 
 
 all the state papers are in Chinese, and the Manchu military chiefs 
 stationed there no longer know their national language, but speak 
 Chinese only. 
 
 * Through Siberia, p. 612.
 
 i6o CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 missionaries at Newchwang, Mukden, Kirin, and some 
 few other stations, but none of the Church of England. 
 There still exists, therefore, an extensive field for 
 missionary effort in this little-known country. 
 
 We now pass westwards to Mongolia, which is first 
 in order of the Chinese colonies, and covers an area 
 nearly as large as China proper. 
 
 It consists of an elevated plain, at an altitude of 
 4,000 feet above the sea. The climate is excessively 
 cold and dry, and the soil, except in the acclivities of 
 the mountains, unfit for agriculture, though there are 
 sufficient grass-lands, especially in the north, to sup- 
 port the flocks of the nomad inhabitants, who number, 
 it is estimated, about two millions. 
 
 The character of the inhabitants of Mongolia, M. 
 de Deken tells me, is made up of excellent qualities 
 and abominable defects. Advancing westwards, the 
 people become more warm-hearted, until among the 
 Mongol nomads is attained the height of simplicity. 
 
 More noteworthy still is the difference between east 
 and west as to temperature, soil, and vegetation. At 
 the barrier of stakes the mean temperature of summer 
 attains 77', and they harvest indigo, cotton, poppy, 
 rice, and superior tobacco, renowned as of Kuang- 
 tong ; whereas in Central Mongolia the soil barely 
 produces a little wheat, oats, buckwheat, and millet. 
 Winter lasts in Central Mongolia for eight months, 
 with a thermometer in December and January at 
 31° below zero.* 
 
 * This last remark is confirmed by a table of isothermal lines drawn 
 up by M. Fritsche, director of the Russian Observatory at Peking, 
 wherein the line falls in proportion as it advances towards Central 
 Mongolia, and rises at the frontiers, this table bemg drawn up from 
 daily observations taken from 25 observatories between the latitudes of 
 Yakutsk and Bangkok. 
 
 I
 
 MANCHURIA, MONGOLIA, SUNGARIA. i6i 
 
 The principal divisions of Mongolia, according to 
 Williams, are four : — i. Inner Mongolia, lying be- 
 tween the south of the Gobi and the Wall, having 
 no common capital. Each tribe is governed by its 
 chief, and the whole by the Foreign Office in Peking. 
 2. Outer Mongolia, between the north of the Goloi 
 and the Altai Mountains. This is subdivided into 
 four khanates, and governed by four Khalkhas Khans 
 under two Manchu residents seated at the common 
 capital, Urga. 3. The country about Koko-Nor — that 
 is, north-east of Tibet — administered under a Manchu 
 resident, and having for its capital Sining, in Kansu. 
 4. The dependencies of Uliassutai, lying north-west- 
 ward of the Khalkhas Khanates, consisting of Kobdo 
 and Ulianghai, ruled by an Amban and chieftains, and 
 having Uliassutai as the capital. 
 
 Towns in Mongolia are few and far between. 
 I have mentioned nearly all of them, but may add 
 Kiakhta on the Russian frontier.* 
 
 As for the inhabitants of Mongolia, they may be 
 
 * Kiakhta is about 200 miles north of Urga, whither most of the 
 MongoHan trade routes converge. It is the chief station on what was, 
 and to some extent still is, the great tea highway between Kiakhta and 
 Kalgan, the latter at one of the gates in the Great Wall. This route 
 was opened by the Treaty of Argun in 1858, soon after which it was 
 travelled by Mr Wylie, of the British and Foreign Bible Society. My 
 neighbour at Blackheath, Mr Howell, in 1863, crossed from Shanghai 
 to Kiakhta in company with Mr Michie, who wrote the Siberiaii Over- 
 land Route fro7n Peking to St Petersburg. 
 
 Mr Michie was followed by three English writers — in 1869 by Mr 
 Athenry Whyte, in 1875-6 by Professor John Milne, and in 1877 by 
 Captain W. Sheppard — after whom came the late Mr Gilmour, of the 
 London Missionary Society, whose journey to Kiakhta was spoken of 
 as recent when I was there in 1879. Since this date the journey has 
 been made by Mr Harry de Windt, who crossed Mongolia in August 
 1887 and published From Peki7ig to Calais by Latid, and by Mr 
 Julius Price, who travelled in 1891 From the Arctic Ocean to the 
 Yellow Sea. 
 
 VOL. I. 1 I
 
 1 62 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 roughly divided into — i. The Buriats in the north-east, 
 through a portion of whose country I drove from 
 Kiakhta, when traversing the Trans- Baikal ; 2. The 
 Kalmuks in the west — that is to say, of Sungaria and 
 the Hi and Tekes valleys — with whom I came in daily 
 contact during a portion of the present journey, and 
 to whom may be added the Ulianghai tribes of the 
 Upper Yenesei basin, a race somewhat akin to the 
 Samoyedes ; 3, The Khalkhas of the centre, which 
 in the north are the most numerous and widely 
 spread ; whilst south of the Gobi, towards the east, 
 are the eight tribes of the Tsakhars, governed by 
 a tutztng, or lieutenant-general, residing at Kalgan ; 
 and west of them, in the fluvial peninsula formed by 
 the Yellow River outside the Wall, are the Ordos, 
 or Ortus. 
 
 The Mongols are usually spoken of as Buddhists, 
 but they have so far departed from the teaching of the 
 founder of that faith, and are so unlike the Buddhists 
 of south-eastern Asia and Ceylon, that I prefer to call 
 the Mongols Lamaists. Their sovereign is the Grand 
 Lama of Tibet, to whose capital at Lassa they make 
 frequent pilgrimages. 
 
 At Urga dwells another high priest and inferior 
 incarnation called the Kutuktu, to whom the tribes 
 of that region owe religious fealty, and by whom they 
 are kept in subjection. For this assistance in the 
 government of the country the Chinese pay the 
 ecclesiastics and ruling princes (whom it reserves the 
 right of deposing) yearly subventions, varying, accord- 
 ing to Reclus, from ^30 to ^800, according to their 
 rank ; and thus the natives are said to be not a little 
 lama-ridden and oppressed. 
 
 At the time of Jinghiz Khan the Mongols were
 
 MANCHURIA, MONGOLIA, SUNGARFA. i6j 
 
 Shamanists, as are still some of the Buriat tribes 
 remote from Tibet in the Trans- Baikal. Early in the 
 present century the London Missionary Society was 
 allowed to send to the neighbourhood of Kiakhta, to 
 the Buriats under Russian rule, English missionaries, 
 who translated the whole of the Bible into Mongolian, 
 and established a small school at Selenginsk. 
 
 They were compelled, however, to retire in 1840 by 
 an tikase dismissing all foreign missionaries from the 
 Russian dominions, under the pretext that the Synod 
 wished to do all the mission work for the pagans of 
 the Empire. Some of the scholars trained by the 
 English were subsequently baptised by Russian 
 missionaries ; and when calling (as I crossed the 
 Trans-Baikal) upon one of these, who was working 
 among the Buriats, I found in his possession many 
 of these Buriat Scriptures. 
 
 I learned that, with the Buddhist Buriats, the 
 Russian missionaries found work difficult ; but with 
 the Shamanist Buriats it was more promising. The 
 missionary was able to tell of 300 Buriats baptised 
 during 1878, east of the Baikal, and more than 1,000 
 to the west. All this is on Russian territory. 
 
 The late Mr Gilmour, of the London Missionary 
 Society, and author of Among the Mongols, for some 
 years made summer tours from Peking among the 
 tribes in the south-east, where he was followed by 
 a Mr Parker, a missionary of the same Society ; and 
 at Kuldja I met Belgian missionaries, who had come 
 from the stations whence work was being carried on 
 among the Ortus Mongols. In the Ortus the Roman 
 missionaries devote themselves almost entirely to the 
 tribes of the Alachains. The staff included, M. de 
 Deken informed me (in 1892), a bishop, who is Vicar
 
 1 64 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Apostolic, with fifteen Belgian missionaries and two 
 Chinese priests. With these exceptions, however, 
 I know of no other missionaries of any denomination 
 working in Mongolia proper. 
 
 The nomadic habits of the people present great 
 obstacles to the establishment of schools or getting 
 the people together, as I learned from the aged Mr 
 Stallybrass, who was one of the pioneers to the Trans- 
 Baikal in 1817. 
 
 The Belgian missionaries have met with the same 
 difficulty, M. de Deken informs me, among the Ortus 
 nomads, for whom they have tried, and partially suc- 
 ceeded, in forming exclusively Christian centres, and 
 even entire towns, such as the walled town of Porro- 
 balgason, which contains 160 Mongol families. 
 
 Accordingly, one would suppose that a strong mission 
 might be profitably established at Urga, whence its 
 members could itinerate, and smaller missions of a 
 similar character at Uliassutai and Kobdo, in all of 
 which it would be most desirable that physic should 
 go hand in hand with divinity. 
 
 Passing farther west, we come now to Sungaria, 
 which one writes with hesitation because the name is 
 not strictly scientific. It lingers only as a geographical 
 expression, indicating the region that was once the 
 centre of the kingdom of the Sungarians, or Mongol 
 " tribes of the left wing " — that is, the Kalmuks. 
 Towards the north-east it is divided from the pro- 
 vince of Kobdo by the Great Altai Mountains, but 
 directly east it possesses no natural boundaries to 
 divide it from the Khalkhas of Mongolia. To the 
 north-west lie the Russian provinces of Semipolatinsk 
 and Semirechia, and on the south lies the easternmost 
 extension of the Tian Shan. The region calls for
 
 MANCHURIA, MONGOLIA, SUNG ARIA. 165 
 
 separate mention by reason of the configuration of its 
 surface and its history ; and in reference to the former, 
 Reclus very well puts it that '* Sungaria is the broad 
 gateway leading from the Chinese to the Western 
 World." Here it is that the three depressions in the 
 mountains which environ Western Mongolia occur, 
 and by means of which access is gained from the 
 Turkistan plains to the Mongolian tableland. 
 
 The northern opening lies through the valley of the 
 Black Irtish, and presents an easy route over the 
 Steppe at an elevation of scarcely 2,500 feet above 
 the sea. Through the southern opening passes a 
 road from Lepsinsk to Urumtsi ; whilst between these 
 two openings is a third passage, narrower, but more 
 frequented. It goes by the town of Chuguchak. 
 
 Through these depressions the devastating hosts of 
 the Mongols advanced westwards, and should a railroad 
 ever be laid from Moscow to Central China, it will 
 probably pass from the lowlands of Russia to the 
 highlands of Mongolia through Sungaria. The im- 
 perial road of the Chinese coming in this direction 
 from Kansu, after skirting the north of the easternmost 
 branch of the Tian Shan, descends to the Hi, through 
 the Talki Pass, farther south than Chuguchak. 
 
 Wells Williams divides Sungaria into the three 
 districts of the Hi valley in the south, Kara-kur-usu 
 in the middle, and Tarbaratai in the north. In North- 
 ern Sungaria there are no towns of any considerable 
 size. Reclus mentions the two military stations Bulun 
 Tokoi and Tulta, but the busiest mart in this part of 
 the country is Chuguchak, or Tarbagatai. 
 
 Here was stationed a Russian Consul in 1882, 
 There are also two Chinese residents, with high 
 powers, to oversee the trade across the frontier ; but
 
 1 66 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA, 
 
 their duties are of inferior importance to those of the 
 officials at Urga, where is maintained, it is said, a 
 force of 2,5co Manchu and Chinese troops. 
 
 Chuguchak is one of nine fortified places under the 
 control of a commandant at Kuldja ; and not far 
 distant is Durbuljin, where the Chinese have Kalmuk 
 mercenary troops, some of whom, to judge from a 
 photograph in my possession, are armed with modern 
 rifles and bayonets ; whilst in another are seen Chinese 
 or Manchus, at the same place, at sword exercise and 
 bearing huge shields, a yard or more in diameter. 
 Chuguchak is said to contain about 600 houses. Its 
 trade consists chiefly of domestic animals and cloths. 
 
 MAMllU SOLUIKKS AT SWORD l>i<ILL
 
 MANCHURIA, MONGOLIA, SUNG ARIA. 
 
 167 
 
 South of the Tarbagatai district is that of Kara- 
 kur-usu, remarkable for its system of lakes extending 
 eastwards, of which the largest are named Sairam, 
 Ebi, and Ayar. Of towns in this district there are 
 certain military stations, such as Jinho (or Djin-ho), 
 Shiho (or Hsihou), Kara-kur-usu, and Manas, peopled 
 to a large extent by exiles, and situated for the most 
 part along the imperial high road. 
 
 The traveller who would pass this way to North-west 
 China from the Hi valley, which he can do on wheels, 
 ascends the Borokhoro range by the zig-zag tracks and 
 48 bridges of the Talki Pass, to the eastern shore ot 
 Sairam- Nor, the beauties of which have been described 
 
 Al nURBULJIN, NEAK CHUG L'CllAK.
 
 1 68 CHINESE CENTRAL AS/A. 
 
 by Mr Delmar Morgan, as also previously by Mr 
 Ashton Dilke. Of this Pass I was able to procure 
 several photographs characteristic of this most pictur- 
 esque portion of Sungaria, Lake Sairam, for example, 
 presenting the appearance of a vast crater surrounded 
 by wooded hills. 
 
 After skirting the shores ot the lake at an altitude 
 of 5,900 feet, the road descends and passes Jinho and 
 Kara-kur-usu, leaving to the left Shiho with its gold 
 washings, coal-fields, salt-beds, and naphtha lake, and 
 continues to Manas, a fertile district in which coloni- 
 sation is said to be advancing. From Manas the road 
 bifurcates, one branch continuing north of the Bogdo 
 Tian Shan range, through the towns of Guchen 
 (Ku-cheng, or old city) and Barkul, the other con- 
 tinuing to Urumtsi, situated in a depression of the 
 range, and then crossing and running south of it. 
 Both roads unite again at Hami. 
 
 Of the Hi valley, or southernmost district of what 
 we are calling Sungaria, I need write little here, since 
 I have devoted five chapters to it in my Russian Central 
 Asia. Something must be said, however, of the in- 
 habitants who gave their name to the region generally, 
 and whose history is remarkable. 
 
 Early in the eighteenth century the Sungars suddenly 
 acquired great power, and established themselves over 
 nearly all the elevated region of what is now Russian 
 and Chinese Central Asia, but more especially from 
 Hami to Lake Balkash. They captured even the 
 sacred city of Lassa, and exacted tribute from Yarkand 
 and Kashgar, with Tashkend and other places in 
 Western Turkistan. 
 
 Against this people the Chinese sent two armies, 
 both of which were defeated. Afterwards they sent
 
 AIAXCHURIA, MOXGOLIA, SUXGARIA. 169' 
 
 a third and victorious army, whose leader, determined 
 to make short work and guard against further trouble, 
 slew every inhabitant of the country, to the number. 
 some say. of 600.000. and others, a million ; thus 
 leavinor Suns^aria in I7;6 an uninhabited waste. 
 
 However, about halt a century betore this a tribe 
 of the Sungars. more definitely known as the Torgout 
 Kalmuks, had migrated, owing to tribal quarrels, to 
 the region of the \'olga. where they had lived under 
 Russian sway, but were now in\-ited by the Emperor 
 of China to return to the lands ot their toretathers. 
 They did so in 1771, and were settled in Tarbagatai 
 and Kobdo, in Karashar. in Chinese Turkistan. and in 
 the Hi valley. 
 
 Also Chinese and Manchu troops, emigrants, and 
 exiles, as well as the neighbouring nomad tribes and 
 Turkish asfriculturists. were sent and encouraged to 
 come into the vacant territorv. Thus Sunraria became 
 quite an olla podrida of races, languages, and religions. 
 
 The Kalmuks are Lamaists. the Turkish peoples are 
 Muhammadans. and the Chinese probably Confucians, 
 or perhaps Buddhists, but not generally, I think, of the 
 same wav of thinking as the Kalmuks. The onlv 
 attempt that is now being made, so tar as I am aware, 
 to Christianise the two millions of people, as estimated, 
 of Sungaria. is by a small Roman mission in Kuldja, 
 to which I shall presently refer in connection with my 
 sojourn in that town. 
 
 Some attempt was made towards the evangelisation 
 of the Kalmuks of the \'olga, and a portion of the 
 Scriptures was translated into their language, but I 
 am not aware that any results t'rom this have extended 
 to their present camping grounds. 
 
 In 1882 I had the privilege of distributing the first
 
 \yo CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Chinese and Kirghese Scriptures in the Ih valley, and 
 the Bible Society's ygent in Tashkend has since visited 
 Kuldja ; but as regards permanent work, I would point 
 out that here again, in Sungaria, are extensive and 
 unoccupied fields awaiting the missionary. 
 
 And now, having attempted to give some idea of 
 Manchuria, Mongolia, and Sungaria, which may be 
 regarded as making up the northern portion of China 
 beyond the Wall, I shall return to my narrative, 
 which has brought us just within the Chinese frontier.
 
 CHAPTER Xlll. 
 
 CHINESE OFFICIAL PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 Lodgings at Kuldja, 171. — Book-post parcels not opened by Censor, 
 172. — Packages from Russian Consul; Visit to M. Uspensky, 173. — 
 Changed appearance of Kuldja under Chinese, 175. — Arrival of 
 horses, 176. — Paucity of public buildings; Call from Lutheran 
 postmaster, 177. — Letter from the Tsiaji-Tsmtt ; Exxursion to 
 Suiting, 178. — Appearance of Suiting, 179.— Chinese inn ; Intruding 
 natives and distracting noises, 181. — Called to breakfast with Kah ; 
 A score of dishes, 182. — Chinese table etiquette and conversa- 
 tion, 184. — Return call from Kah ; his Manchu agility ; Audience 
 with the Tsian-Tsiiui, 185. — Presents to Tsia7i-Tsiitn and Kah ; 
 Calls from and upon Mattie, a former acquaintance, 186. — Presents 
 from Tsian-Tsiuu , including a sucking-pig; Disgust of Muham- 
 madan innkeeper ; Return to Kuldja, 187. 
 
 MY coming to Kuldja had not only been expected, 
 but provided for, and a lodging hired in what 
 was pronounced the best quarter in the town. Let no 
 one suppose, however, that this signifies apartments 
 palatial, but rather an empty room in a native house — 
 large indeed, and airy, with glazed windows, and walls 
 recently whitewashed in my honour, but without floor- 
 ing, and the bare earth only partially covered with 
 matting of rushes. 
 
 Here, then, was a clear case for spreading of felts, 
 and erecting for the first time my camp chair, table, 
 and bedstead, on the last of which were extended an
 
 172 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 air-bed and pair ot sheets. Some trunks and boxes 
 placed here and there served for sideboards and divans 
 whereon to place provisions and seat guests ; whilst 
 for meals our host lent a large round table, about six 
 inches high, around which we might squat or lie on 
 the ground. 
 
 Having on the way called at the Russian post office, 
 I received handfuls of letters and armfuls of book- 
 packages ; for it had been ascertained before leaving 
 England that to carry extra luggage from the English 
 to the Russian capitals, a distance of i,6oo miles, 
 would cost 8</. per lb., whilst book packages could be 
 sent by post to Kuldja, a distance of 4,600 miles, 
 at the rate of 4<'/. per lb. I had felt, therefore, in 
 conscience bound to patronise largely the postal 
 arrangements of his Imperial Majesty. 
 
 The only drawback seemed to be, that as the Censor 
 is supposed to read all foreign books coming to Russia, 
 with the power of rejecting those he disapproves, I 
 might find on arrival certain volumes to be wanting. 
 They could not tell me, strange to say, at the General 
 PostOfiice in London, what became of books disallowed 
 by the Censor ; for though they had in their office any 
 number of newspapers sent back as " Reftis^,'' they had 
 not a single instance of a book thus treated. 
 
 When calling, therefore, in St Petersburg on General 
 Besac, the Postmaster-General, for an open letter, 
 such as I had been provided with on previous 
 journeys, and with which I was once more kindly 
 favoured, I asked also whether my printed matter had 
 safely passed the ordeal, and was informed that books 
 posted from London to Kuldja, which is beyond the 
 Russian frontier, would not be opened in passing 
 through St Petersburg. Those addressed to the
 
 CHINESE OFFICIAL PRELIMINARIES. 173 
 
 capital I had already received ; and to this may be 
 added that now, on my arrival, not one of my two 
 score of books and book-packages was missing. 
 
 Another economy in the cost and trouble of carriage 
 had been discovered in St Petersburg in the Parcels 
 Post, established many years before ours in England, 
 whereby boxes or parcels of books, examined by the 
 postal authorities before closing, and not exceeding 
 I cwt each, could be sent from the capital to Kuldja 
 for ^d., and other articles for 6^d., a Russian lb. 
 
 Accordingly, I had purchased at the depot of the 
 British and Foreign Bible Society such Scriptures as 
 I needed in Persian, Kalmuk, and some few other 
 languages, which the Rev. W. Nicholson, their agent, 
 always so kind and helpful, had just forwarded, together 
 with certain provisions, medicaments, etc., to Kuldja, 
 the six cases wherein the foregoing were contained 
 weighing about 5 cwt. 
 
 These were consigned to the care of the Russian 
 Consul, to whom my arrival quickly became known. 
 The six cases were soon sent, also the 27 boxes and 
 parcels which had been delivered on the previous 
 evening from Jarkend, and the whole stacked in my 
 room, giving the establishment very much the appear- 
 ance of a warehouse at one end, and a compound dining, 
 drawing, dressing, and reading room at the other. 
 
 With the baggage came also a message from the 
 Consul that he had been summoned to meet his 
 Governor-General at Jarkend, and, having to depart 
 next day, begged that I would visit him in the 
 morning. 
 
 Consequently, I called betimes to pay my official visit 
 to M. Victor Romanovitch Uspensky, whom I found 
 surrounded by his staff, M. Nicholas Bornemann,
 
 174 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Dragoman-Secretary to the Consulate, and several 
 interpreters. Fortunately for me, M. Bornemann 
 spoke both French and English. 
 
 Having presented the letter from the Foreign 
 Minister at St Petersburg, and shown my other 
 Russian credentials, I stated what I wished to do and 
 where I wanted to go, and intimated that I had a 
 letter from the Chinese Legation in London to present 
 to the principal Chinese authority in the Hi valley. 
 
 This official, called the Tsian-Tsiun, it was replied, 
 was living in Suiting, where we had touched on our 
 way ; but a letter, written in Manchu, should be sent, 
 stating that I was in Kuldja, and asking for an 
 audience. Meanwhile everything that was possible to 
 further my wishes should be done speedily. Nothing 
 could have been more kind or helpful, and glasses 
 of refreshing tea were then brought in, over which to 
 discuss affairs. After this I returned to my lodging to 
 breathe and look about me. 
 
 Since my visit in 1882 Kuldja had been retroceded 
 to the Chinese, who had transferred the seat of govern- 
 ment to Suiting ; and, the Russian tchinovniks and 
 troops having been withdrawn, the consequence was 
 that the town was too large for its inhabitants. The 
 former place of encampment for the Russian soldiers 
 was left desolate, and numbers of houses, which 
 before were full to overflowing, were now empty and 
 crumbling to decay. 
 
 Of course I went to revisit the Taranchi, or native 
 Turkish quarter, the flat, earthen roofs of which afford 
 so uninteresting a prospect when seen from a height, 
 though the dulness is relieved here and there by trees 
 and verdure. The Taranchi market looked less 
 crowded than of old, though one saw numerous
 
 CHINESE OFFICIAL PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 '75 
 
 donkeys and oxen laden with straw and fodder, or 
 saddled for riding ; sheep exposed for sale ; and their 
 owners, clad in khalats and sheepskin or tibeteika 
 headgear, lounging about to talk, or idly lying on the 
 carpeted housetop to smoke and contemplate the bustle 
 below. 
 
 It is perhaps hardly fair to compare Kuldja under 
 
 TARANCUr MARKET AT KULDIA. 
 
 the Russians with Kuldja under the Chinese, since it 
 is no longer the capital. Certainly the town has un- 
 mistakably deteriorated. The Russian Governors in 
 Turkistan appear to take more or less interest in the 
 education and development of the natives, whereas the 
 remarks made to me, on the spot, of Chinese man- 
 darins in general, were to the effect that their one 
 object is to enrich themselves as speedily as possible.
 
 176 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 and, provided this is done, all else may go "to the 
 dogs." At the same time I ought to add that I saw 
 examples, and was told, of public testimonials being 
 presented to certain mandarins whose administration 
 seemed to have been acceptable to the people. 
 
 On the next day, Saturday, arrived our five horses 
 and new cart, which necessitated the addition to my 
 staff of a groom, one Amin Agha, who tendered his 
 services in that capacity, and offered also to act as 
 postillion in driving a cart to Kashgar. Amin was not 
 a handsome man, and had lost the greater part of his 
 nose. Nevertheless, Joseph prophesied that he would 
 make a good servant, as he had been employed by the 
 great Vali Akhoun Yuldasheff, and was known to the 
 Russian Consul's servant. Besides Taranchi he spoke 
 Persian, which no doubt endeared him to Joseph, and 
 a little Russian, by means of which I could exchange 
 with him a word or two. It was said, moreover, that 
 he knew something of Chinese, having been born in 
 Kashgar ; and, since Joseph would have the man 
 under his command, I judged it better to take my 
 factotum's advice, and give him a trial. 
 
 The purchase of my horse, and my lack of technical 
 knowledge of such matters, have been mentioned ; also 
 I paid amply at Jarkend for barley and fodder for 
 the route. Nevertheless, the horses arrived in poor 
 condition ; of corn, I suspect, they had had little 
 enough. One of the men, however, was so good as 
 to advise that the animals should be fed at once, and 
 it looked very much as if they had been left to pick 
 up what grass they could by the roadside. 
 
 Joseph ordered them to be immediately given as 
 much fodder as they could eat, which they did 
 ravenously, but not at great expense, for clover cost
 
 CHINESE OFFICIAL PRELIMINARIES. 177 
 
 only a halfpenny a bundle, of which four sufficed a horse 
 for a day, together with 10 lb. of barley, at a further 
 outlay of 3^^. To this ^\d. must be added 2\d. a day 
 for each horse for standing room, which amount the 
 landlord further increased on the arrival of my team 
 by raising my rent. One of the horses was speedily 
 condemned as not being strong enough for the journey 
 I contemplated, and I was advised to sell him ; whilst 
 a second turned out to be so vicious as to allow no one 
 to go near him. 
 
 The rest, on being brought out for an afternoon 
 canter, answered well as saddle-horses, and we visited 
 the town suburbs, and, among other places, the native 
 cemetery, where most of the tombs were crumbling to 
 pieces. It was, in fact, very hard to find, in or about 
 Kuldja, anything of a monumental character worth 
 looking at. The tombs of the Khans are merely 
 oblong structures of brick, with a little carving or 
 moulding on the exterior, the interior being filled 
 with earth. Even the entrance to the Taranchi 
 Mosque is only mud-built, and is very poor in com- 
 parison with similar buildings farther west. 
 
 On Saturday M. Bornemann paid me a formal call, 
 as did also M. Immanuel Romanadt, the director of 
 the Postal Telegraph Office. The latter was a 
 Lutheran, and had heard from friends at Tashkend 
 of my holding a service there. At Kuldja they had 
 neither Lutheran minister nor Russian priest, and he 
 asked that on the morrow I would hold service and 
 administer the Lord's Supper to himself and his wife, 
 as well as baptise, during my stay, their baby — all 
 which I did, saying the Communion Service as best I 
 could in German and French. The baptism was per- 
 formed a few days later, according to the English rite, 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 and the child's name sent to be registered at the 
 English Church in Moscow. 
 
 On Monday two visitors came from the Consulate, 
 the Manchu secretary in the morning bringing me 
 some visiting cards, or slips of crimson paper, about 
 eight inches by three, bearing my name in Chinese — 
 the equivalent of Lansdell in the language of the 
 Celestials being, I was told, " Lalin-sse-dur-7'he !' 
 
 In the evening came a letter from Dzunli Djun Wo 
 Dzui Kar-chun Yi, President Commissioner of Russo- 
 Chinese affairs at Suiting, saying that the Tsian-Tsiun 
 would receive me at my convenience. This meant a 
 little excursion of 50 miles there and back, and a 
 sojourn of a few days at the Chinese capital. 
 
 Taking my own cart and saddle-horses, as well as 
 provisions, we set out on Thursday for Suiting. 
 Travelling by arba was new to me, and, though dread- 
 fully slow, was not so uncomfortable as might have 
 been anticipated. I was glad, however, to exchange 
 it occasionally for the saddle. 
 
 On leaving Kuldja we passed by the old Russian 
 telegraph station, adjoining which were other houses 
 built by Europeans, but now falling to pieces, and 
 presenting typical instances of the ruin and decay 
 visible over a large part of the town. Here and there 
 the Chinese had erected new houses, in their own 
 fashion, and we passed by one of them in the suburbs. 
 
 There were also two or three tea-houses that served 
 for halting-places, but, for the most part, the journey 
 was through an uninhabited district ; whilst, as a proof 
 that travelling by night was a trifle dangerous, there 
 were stuck up on poles, at various places along the 
 road, small cages, each containing the head of a 
 brigand.
 
 CHINESE OFFICIAL PRELIMINARIES. 179 
 
 Not long before we reached our destination, there 
 was visible down in the valley, a few miles distant 
 from the low hill we were crossing, a large rectangular 
 area surrounded by a lofty and well-built wall. This, 
 I was told, was the work of the Chinese, who, mindful 
 of the slaughter of their fellow-countrymen during the 
 Dungan rebellion, had taken the precaution of fortify- 
 ing a position before inhabiting it. I have a suspicion, 
 however, that the walls indicated the " New Kuldja " 
 of the maps, which was destroyed about 1867, when 
 the insurrectionists fell to killing each other. 
 
 Arrived at the capital. Suiting was found to be a 
 much larger and more thoroughly Chinese town than 
 the present Kuldja. It is surrounded by a high wall, 
 which I remember they were strengthening in 1882, 
 and has brick-built gates, a fortress, and many streets, 
 also some few buildings and shops outside the walls. 
 Under Russian rule in 1878 it contained 1,260 houses, 
 with a population of 2,700 males and 1,300 females. 
 
 Since that date I should say the population has in- 
 creased considerably, especially the Chinese portion 
 and the official class. The bazaars are numerous and 
 well stocked with merchandise, as were also the markets 
 with vegetables and fruit ; and there were said to be 
 plenty of inns, to one of which — a new one, and there- 
 fore supposed to be preferable — I and my party were 
 taken. 
 
 This was my first experience of a Chinese inn, and 
 it made the flesh creep. Passing through a wide 
 doorway, we entered a square courtyard with rooms on 
 two sides, and occupied in the centre and on a third 
 side by horses, carts, and drivers. The removal of 
 such trifles as foul straw and manure was deemed 
 superfluous, and through this I had to wade towards
 
 i8o CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 the door of a room, and there wait till the coal in it 
 
 THE DISCOMFORTS OF A CHINESE INN AT SUITING — PREPARING A ROOM FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 was swept into a corner and what looked like a 
 brewing apparatus removed.
 
 CHINESE OFFICIAL PRELIMINARIES. i8i 
 
 There was no flooring, not even of bricks, and no 
 furniture, but at the end of the room was a kang, or 
 platform of loose boards, over what appeared to be 
 an ash-pit, though the cinders no doubt represented 
 the remains of fires for winter heating. Over this 
 receptacle for rubbish of various kinds I was to sleep 
 and eat. 
 
 The servants and fellow-guests of the inn came, of 
 course, to look at the foreigner, and if I presumed to 
 close the door, it simply meant to shut out the light 
 and send the crowd to the window, through the paper 
 panes of which they could poke their fingers and so 
 make spy-holes. One man insisted upon entering, 
 whereupon one of my party asked him what he 
 wanted. 
 
 " Cannot I come into a room," said he, " in my own 
 country ? " — a question my attendant did not argue, 
 but again asked him what he wanted, and so got rid 
 of the intruder ; but on sitting down to read and write 
 I was again surrounded. 
 
 Added to these little annoyances there was continued 
 through the night the tinkling of horse and mule bells, 
 whilst at early dawn began the incessant hammering 
 of a flour-mill working next to my room. This went 
 on all day, and what with the stench of manure, 
 distracting noises, windows unglazed, and inquisitive 
 visitors, my lodging proved to be the worst I had 
 ever had. 
 
 Yet I was assured, and subsequent experience con- 
 firmed it, that not only was this inn the best in the 
 town, but above the average of Chinese inns elsewhere. 
 It gave me a taste, therefore, of what itinerating 
 missionaries and travellers in the interior have to 
 put up with.
 
 1 82 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 My card was speedily sent to the proper office to 
 announce our arrival, whereupon there came a request 
 that I would call next morning on Kah-lee-ooin-ee 
 (or, according to a later version, Kah-i-chang), the 
 Commissary of Russo-Chinese affairs, with an invita- 
 tion that I would not eat my breakfast beforehand, 
 but take it with him. This general invitation was 
 brought by a messenger overnight, and on the morrow 
 another messenger came to say it was nine o'clock, 
 and bidding me to come forthwith.* 
 
 I did so in a rough Chinese cart, answering to 
 our cab, and was met by servants at the outer gate, 
 through which we passed and crossed a court, to be 
 received at the door of the apartments by our host. 
 He appeared to be of Manchu, or Mongol, or perhaps 
 mongrel origin, but was hearty in manner. 
 
 After leading me into an ante-room and placing me 
 in a position of honour, the ante-repast began with 
 yellow tea and fruit. Then we adjourned to the next 
 room for a more serious gastronomic encounter, four 
 persons being seated at a small table, perhaps a yard 
 square, with about half a dozen saucers thereon. 
 
 These were added to up to the number of 20 save 
 one, arranged in 5 rows of 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, after which 
 4 more were brought and placed in order on the top 
 of the others. Now, as I had been on doctor's diet, 
 and had not been allowed a decent meal for some 
 time, and meat only once for nearly a week, I was 
 of ready appetite, and am bound to say I thoroughly 
 enjoyed the feast. 
 
 Some of the dishes were extremely nice, notably the 
 
 * Reminding me of a certain man who made a great supper and 
 invited many, and sent his servant at supper-time to say to them that 
 were bidden, "Come." (Luke xiv. i6, 17.)
 
 CHINESE OFFICIAL PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 183 
 
 little shreds of roast mutton, excellently seasoned, such 
 as I learned ever after to call for with confidence at 
 Chinese inns. On the other hand, the chicken was 
 
 BREAKFAST WITH THE COMMISSARYI OF RUSSO-CHINESE AFFAIRS AT SUITING. 
 
 made uneatable, and the eggs on this occasion I am 
 bound to say were inexpressibly nasty. The taste 
 for them as eaten in China had need to be acquired,
 
 1 84 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 no doubt, for I had been told at X'ierny of the 
 wonderful pains and expense at which Chinese gour- 
 mands preserve their eggs till they are black and 
 putrid, and of which they are as proud, when many, 
 many years old, as an English squire of his crusted 
 port. 
 
 I have, moreover, a vague impression, which for the 
 moment I cannot verify, that I somewhere tasted these 
 ancient delicacies, and found them good, but on the 
 present occasion my note-book condemns them utterly. 
 The rissoles of pork sausage were tasty, and so were 
 the French beans, peas, the hearts of cabbage stalk 
 cut in slices, and the Mandarin oranges preserved 
 in syrup. 
 
 We helped ourselves to these delicacies as we 
 pleased, but our host every now and then, with his 
 chopsticks, placed on the plate of one or other of 
 his three guests a choice morsel, which, mercifully, 
 it was not a matter of unbending etiquette that one 
 should eat. It was polite, of course, occasionally to 
 return the compliment, and help him to tid-bits with 
 one's knife and fork. 
 
 The conversation did not dwell too exclusively on 
 my journey, for this was regarded as a preliminary 
 meeting only — to such an extent indeed that when 
 at the close I offered presents, my host said he could 
 not accept them at the first visit. He added, however, 
 that the Tsian-Tsuin was ready to do for me all he 
 could, and w^ould give me audience to-morrow. 
 
 In China it would seem that they like to do their 
 politeness early, and, to return my visit, Kah came 
 next day at six in the morning. His cart, or carriage 
 perhaps I ought to say, was driven through the dirty 
 yard close to my door, in leaving which I saw him
 
 CHINESE OFFICIAL PRELIMINARIES. 185 
 
 perform an athletic feat that fairly surprised me. Kah 
 was no longer young — fifty and eight he said was the 
 tale of his years — and he had attained to a rotundity 
 which, though in China held to be synonymous with 
 happiness, is hardly conducive to agility. 
 
 When, therefore, he had to surmount the three feet 
 or so between the ground and the floor of his vehicle, 
 I expected to see a footstool brought, on which he 
 might gravely step. Instead of that he approached 
 the vehicle, and without ado sprang from the ground 
 into his seat, and tucked his legs under with a grace- 
 fulness that left nothing to be desired. This feat was 
 equalled by a Manchu afterwards sent with me, who, 
 standing one day at his horse's shoulder and talking, 
 turned round and, without touching mane or bridle, 
 leaped from the ground clean into the saddle. 
 
 Shortly after this visit I went to Kah's house. 
 He took me into the fortress for an audience with 
 Seh-Tsian-Tsiun — the first word being his name (which 
 in full was Sse-teng-nge) and the remaining two his 
 title, which I was told is a high one and equivalent 
 to Governor, 
 
 His civil jurisdiction extended over the Hi valley, 
 whilst the local military affairs were then directed, if 
 I mistake not, by Chang-tu-ting, or the General. I 
 recognised the dwelling as that in which I visited a 
 former Tsian-Tsiiin in 1882 ; but I found the present 
 officer more genial and intelligent, and not so ignorant 
 of Western ideas. 
 
 He received me with much ceremony and asking 
 of formal questions, after which I showed my passport 
 and presented my letter from the Chinese Legation in 
 London. That letter, he said, invited him to give 
 me further documents. I next intimated my desire
 
 1 86 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 to travel by the imperial high road to Urumtsi, and 
 thence westwards and round Chinese Turkistan, 
 through Aksu, Kashgar, and Yarkand to Khotan. 
 This, he kindly said, should be arranged, and the 
 necessary papers got ready in four or five days, by 
 which time I should have to revisit Suiting, on the 
 way to the Talki Pass. 
 
 I then offered several presents, meaning that he 
 should take them all, but was told afterwards that 
 it was customary to display one's offerings in order 
 that a selection might be made, there being a sort 
 of tacit understanding that the recipient returns the 
 value of what he takes. In the present instance, 
 the Tsian-Tsmn seemed by no means greedy of 
 gifts. He appeared pleased with a plume for his 
 horse's martingale, which I had intended for the 
 Emir of Bokhara ; and I pressed upon him also a 
 telescope, a pair of coloured spectacles, and some 
 oleograph pictures. 
 
 Some light refreshment followed, and we returned 
 to the house of Kah, who, after his chief had led the 
 way, was now ready to receive as presents a field- 
 glass, a set of oleograph pictures, watch-chain, and 
 compass, and for his family a flageolet, pocket micro- 
 scope, and needle-case. 
 
 Later in the day came an interpreter, one Mattie, the 
 secretary or adjutant of the Tsian-Tsmn, bringing his 
 master's card. He remembered my coming six years 
 before, still possessed my photograph which he then 
 received, and now seemed disposed to be helpful. 
 
 On the next morninof I visited Mattie in his own 
 house, and learned more of his influence, for whereas 
 nine of his fellow-assistants after serving five days 
 were allowed to go home for ten, he was too im-
 
 CHINESE OFFICIAL PRELIMINARIES. 187 
 
 portant to be spared by the Tsian-Tsiun for a single 
 day. He had, he said, a cousin, or brother, Foo-Shan, 
 an interpreter to the Russian Consul at Kashgar, for 
 whom he would give me a letter ; and he also knew 
 Jun-Wang, a great personage among the Torgout 
 Kalmuks at Karashar. 
 
 On the same morning the Tsian-Tsiun sent Mattie 
 again, saying that as my stay was to be so short he 
 could not prepare me a banquet, but sent, nevertheless, 
 some provision for the way — namely, a sheep and four 
 live chickens, a couple of ducks, and a sucking-pig roast, 
 two dishes of pastry, and two sacks of rice and fine 
 flour, all of which he desired me to accept. 
 
 The bringing of these presents by the Tsian-Tsiun s 
 servants, and repeated visits of government officials. 
 increased my consequence at the inn; but the landlord, 
 who was a Dungan or Chinese Muhammadan, was 
 reported as greatly disgusted at the pig being brought 
 upon his premises. Our Chinese servant, who had 
 inadvertently put the unclean animal upon a tray, was 
 afraid I should have to replace it with a new one. 
 
 Fortunately, the landlord took a business view ot 
 the matter, and subsequently evinced a great desire 
 when I called for my flour and rice to have the honour 
 of entertaining so great a man again. Meanwhile the 
 ducks were eaten, the pastry, I fancy, given away, and 
 poor piggie, since none of my party wished to taste 
 him, was sold at the nearest Chinese eating-house. 
 The innkeeper was requested to sell the sheep, and 
 to keep the flour and rice till called for. 
 
 On Monday morning we set out for Kuldja, feeling 
 that progress had been made; but we were glad to 
 get back to our Turkish lodging and baggage.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 r REPARATIONS AT KULDJA. 
 
 My impedimenta, 188. — Food, physic, and clothing, 189. — Furniture, 
 books, and instruments, 190. — Presents; Visit from a blind 
 native, 192. — Call on Roman missionaries, 193. — Their assistance 
 sought by Chinese ; 111 effects of child-marriage, 194. — Shelter given 
 to the girl by missionaries ; Names added to roll of adherents ; 
 Chinese quarter of Kuldja and magistrate's procession, 195. — 
 Instruments of punishment, 196. — Intended route changed, 197. — 
 Interpreter into Chinese unwilling to proceed, 198. — Withdrawal 
 of interpreter into Turki ; Perplexing, but subsequently proving 
 well ; Objections to route via Urumtsi ; Consideration as to moun- 
 tain roads, 199. — The Muzart Pass, 200. — A caravan leader willing 
 to attempt it ; How affecting main object of journey ; Where to 
 find interpreter? 201. — Another excursion to Suiting, 202. — Chinese 
 temple and theatre, 203. — Change of route sanctioned and 
 arranged for, 204. — Return to Kuldja ; Interpreter sent for to 
 Kashgar, 205.— My Tatar hostess, 206. — Farewell visit to Suiting 
 and Chinese officials, 207. 
 
 THE number of my packages in Kuldja now 
 amounted to about 50, and their weight to 
 nearly two tons. Perhaps the reader might like to 
 peep at these impedimenta, which for convenience 
 shall be classified under the heads of Food, Physic, 
 Clothing, Furniture, Books, Maps and Stationery, 
 Instruments and Arms, and Presents, the last including 
 publications for distribution. 
 
 Of Food not much was taken from England save 
 essence of coffee, which I rarely used, compressed tea,
 
 PREPARATIONS AT KULDJA. 189 
 
 Liebig's extract, meat lozenges, anchovy paste, marma- 
 lade (to render palatable indifferent bread-and-butter), 
 and biscuits. In addition to these were purchased in 
 Russia condensed coffee and cocoa with milk, com- 
 pressed vegetables, extract of Russian berries called 
 khikva, recommended to me by Prjevalsky for drink- 
 ing in tea, and essence of lemon for the same purpose ; 
 also effervescing drinks for the teetotal Muhammadans, 
 a few sweetmeats for children, curry powder and jam 
 as adjuncts to rice ; and lastly, flour, baking powder, 
 sugar, butter, and cheese. 
 
 Under the head of Physic were included the drugs 
 said to be needful for stocking a small medical mission 
 for upwards of a year. These were contained in five 
 cases, and Messrs Allen and Hanbury's invoice alone 
 numbered 80 items. Another case contained about a 
 dozen medical appliances, the gift of Messrs New- 
 berry Brothers, of King Edward Street. To these 
 must be added 14 dozen spectacles, a set of ophthalmic 
 instruments, kindly given by the late Dr Grimke, 
 four or five small cases of surgical instruments, and 
 a magnetic machine, together with the medicaments 
 obtained at St Petersburg. 
 
 As for Clothing, I had to provide against every 
 degree of temperature between the Arctic cold of 
 mountains 20,000 feet high and the heat of the plains 
 of India — from a fur-lined ulster, that is, to a vest of 
 gauze — whilst in quality my wardrobe had to range 
 from a peasant's sheepskin jacket for the road, to 
 court dress for St Petersburg or the Viceroy's palace 
 at Calcutta. 
 
 Added to this, it was desirable to have for my com- 
 panions a small reserve in case of emergency, and as 
 presents a few articles of English underclothing, such
 
 190 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 as woollen vests, said to be much valued by Chinese 
 mandarins. The items in my journal under the head 
 of clothing number 90. 
 
 By Furniture is meant various requisites for camp- 
 life, or dwelling in an unfurnished room. This in- 
 cluded a tent, bedstead, air-bed and bellows (presented 
 by Canon Erskine Clarke), bath, metal and india- 
 rubber pails, a hammock (kindly given by Madame 
 Rosenbach), waterproof sheet and air-pillows, table, 
 chair, and toilet necessaries, canteen, frying-pan, fire- 
 shovel, and spirit cooking apparatus. 
 
 To the culinary portion of this outfit the servants 
 did not take kindly, but preferred a huge copper kettle 
 and an open saucepan, with tripod, large enough to 
 boil a sheep. To the foregoing must be added a 
 lantern, and half a hundredweight of candles and soap. 
 My personal effects were packed in four bullock trunks, 
 portmanteau and fitted bag, waterproof linen bag, and 
 a hold-all. Besides these must be mentioned two 
 saddles with fittings, and all the horse requisites from 
 fodder and nosebags down to spare shoes and nails — 
 the items under the head of furniture being 82. 
 
 Books for reading was a serious question in the face 
 of a contemplated absence of two years amongst 
 people to whom one could not speak, and in regions 
 beyond the range of travellers' guide-books. I took, 
 therefore, the best topographical works available, 
 whether from Russian, Chinese, or Indian sources, a 
 few books for the Tibetan and Turki languages, and 
 some technical treatises on anthropology, medicine, 
 surveying, and photography. 
 
 The only book I allowed myself, not bearing in 
 some way on my work, was a small Chandos edition 
 of Shakespeare (which, by-the-bye, I never once found
 
 PREPARATIONS AT KULDJA. 191 
 
 time to open), notwithstanding which the number of 
 my reading books stood at Httle short of a hundred 
 volumes, and they weighed, I suppose, nearly twice as 
 many pounds. 
 
 As for Maps, I had a copy made on six sheets of 
 canvas of a large MS. of Mr Carey's route round 
 Chinese Turkistan ; also Walker's Turkistan in four 
 sheets, A.K.'s route in Tibet in three sheets, a large 
 geological map of Turkistan by Romanovsky and 
 Mushketoff, another of Khorasan made and pre- 
 sented by Colonel Stewart, some large-scale maps 
 of the Trans-Caspian region as well as of the Upper 
 Oxus and Sungaria, procured in Russia, and others 
 by Stanford and Stieler of India, China, and the 
 Inland Missions ; to say nothing of smaller maps 
 in periodicals, and for occasional presents. The 
 entries under this head numbered 39, and of stationery 
 only two less. 
 
 In connection with Stationery I could not get out of 
 my head the fate of two travellers who preceded me 
 to Chinese Turkistan — Schlagintweit, who was put to 
 death, and Shaw, who was kept virtually a prisoner 
 for many weeks. It seemed probable that I should 
 in any case be stationary for several months in the 
 winter, and therefore I provided many manuscript 
 books, diaries, note-books, and journals, that, whether 
 in prison or out of it, I might busy myself in writing, 
 most of this material being forwarded to Kuldja by the 
 fourpence-a-pound arrangement. 
 
 As for Instruments and Arms, they will be alluded to 
 more fully when speaking of collecting specimens of 
 fauna, and of photography. Here it may suffice to 
 indicate the possession of a few surveying and 
 meteorological instruments, binoculars, and telescopes,
 
 1 92 CHINESE CENTRA L A SI A . 
 
 with some carpenter's tools, bringing up the number of 
 items to 108. 
 
 The h'st of Presents was of 109 varieties, but these 
 must be regarded as a form of exchange. It is of 
 Httle use to offer a nomad a shilHng if he has nowhere 
 to spend it, and the reading of Mr Carey's wanderings 
 had shown me that he failed sometimes to get pro- 
 visions from the nomads for money, whereas broad- 
 cloth or tea would have effected his purpose. 
 
 I was fortunate enough before starting to make the 
 acquaintance of Mr Carey's brother, who showed me 
 the list of articles he had sent out for presents. Thus 
 guided, and on the introduction of my friend Mr 
 Stapley, of London Wall, to a wholesale house in the 
 City, I was able to get a considerable store of useful 
 articles in cutlery, cheap jewellery and watches, optical 
 instruments, fancy stationery, photographs, flageolets 
 and musical boxes, and toys. 
 
 The publications for distribution shall be mentioned 
 hereafter, but it may be readily believed that the 
 unpacking and re-arrangement of the foregoing in 
 Kuldja gave me plenty of occupation, besides which I 
 had sundry visits to receive and calls to make. One 
 ancient inhabitant, a blind native, having heard of the 
 coming of the English traveller, brought something to 
 show me which he evidently deemed mysterious and 
 almost priceless. It was borne by a young man in a 
 box wrapped in a handkerchief 
 
 On being opened, the box was found to contain a 
 wooden figure, the remaining space being filled with 
 rice to prevent breakage. The said wooden figure, 
 1 1 inches long, was a fair representation of a man with 
 a flat Mongol face, and this the owner would have us 
 believe had grown in the ground in its present shape.
 
 PREPARATIONS AT KULDJA. 193 
 
 He would like to be favoured with an explanation by 
 the learned traveller. The learned traveller suggested 
 carving, and opened his knife to examine the image. 
 
 The old man, hearino^ this, was horrified, and besfOfed 
 him to desist. Whether he really wanted explanation, 
 or expected to be offered thousands of roubles for his 
 treasure, I am uncertain ; but on the matter being 
 mentioned to a Chinese servant on the premises, he 
 said that similar objects were sometimes discovered 
 in Kansu, and were looked upon as presaging great 
 misfortune to the persons by whom they were found. I 
 am afraid the old man thought me lacking in appre- 
 ciation of his treasure, for which I did not even make 
 him an offer. 
 
 On my previous visit to Kuldja I had found 65 
 Chinese Roman Catholics, who had been deprived of 
 their missionary and his priestly functions for 1 7 years. 
 They were still holding on, however, and asked me 
 for a service, which I gave. My visit was still remem- 
 bered, and since then missionaries from the Ortus 
 country had arrived, to whom I was taken to be 
 introduced. I found two priests only — M. de Deken, 
 a Belgian, and M. Steenemann, a Hollander — their 
 superior being expected to arrive shortly from Europe 
 with more missionaries as recruits.* 
 
 I did not gather that the number of adherents had 
 much increased, being still less than a hundred ; but 
 their chapel was so enlarged that I should not have 
 recognised it. A photograph of the congregation was 
 given me, with M. de Deken seated in the centre. I 
 
 * The staff, M. de Deken informed me in 1892, consisted of a 
 superior with the authority of a Vicar Apostolic, and four missionaries, 
 having also a station and permanent residence amoni,^ the Kalmuks on 
 the banks of the river Kash. 
 
 VOL. I. i;
 
 194 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 dined with the missionaries, and received much kindness 
 at their hands, in the way of interpretation, and help 
 in making local purchases. I was, therefore, the more 
 glad to ask their acceptance of some copies of the 
 Gospels in Kalnuik for a small mission I understood 
 they had in the upper part of the Hi valley, as well as 
 to help the expected recruits in the study of the 
 language. I added also some maps, fancy biscuits, 
 and quinine. 
 
 They found it very desirable, it seemed, to know a 
 little of medicine, since they were not infrequently 
 applied to in cases of Chinese women who had 
 attempted suicide by an over-dose of opium. In such 
 cases they invariably administered a dose of strong 
 coffee, and with success in most cases. Nor were 
 these the only cases in which their interference was 
 sometimes sought, since during our stay they were 
 sheltering one of their female adherents from a man 
 who claimed her as his wife. 
 
 It was an instance of child-marriage. The woman 
 was the daughter of a most respectable Chinese 
 Christian, who was acting as secretary at the Russian 
 Consulate. This man, who remembered my first 
 coming, and now did some Chinese writing for me, 
 had betrothed his child to a boy who was then a 
 professing Christian, but had since lapsed and become 
 a disreputable character. Her parents did not now 
 wish to give him their daughter. Unfortunately, 
 however, in China the law of child-marriage obtains, 
 and, provided the agreement be duly registered, the 
 contract holds when the parties come of age. 
 
 In the present instance the affianced husband 
 threatened to come with a rabble, worthless as 
 himself, and take the girl by force, in anticipation
 
 PREPARATIONS AT KULDJA. 195 
 
 whereof, and with the sanction of another odious law 
 in China, he had sold his wife to a mandarin. The 
 missionaries, therefore, had been asked to interfere, 
 and were giving the girl asylum, so that the mission- 
 house was in a minor state of siege. It was hoped 
 the girl might be smuggled away ; and the case 
 perhaps throws light upon the charge I have heard 
 brought against Roman missionaries in China gener- 
 ally, that they interfere in politics. If so, one cannot 
 but sympathise with their efforts to avert from their 
 adherents the effects of such legislation. 
 
 I cannot, however, extenuate another practice among 
 Roman missionaries that has come under my notice, who, 
 when mothers bring to them sick children for medicine, 
 ask whether the parent would not also like a good 
 prayer said over the child. Consent, of course, is 
 given without knowing what is to be done, the child 
 is baptised, and an additional name entered on the 
 register, which, even if in keeping with the opus- 
 operatwn view of the sacrament, is hardly consistent 
 with Christian straightforwardness. 
 
 The Roman mission-house is situated on the out- 
 skirts of the town. The road to it goes through the 
 Chinese quarter, in which is a Buddhist temple with an 
 entrance of brick, through an arched gateway carved 
 at the top and ornamented with dragons. There is also 
 a Chinese bazaar, with abundance of running water 
 near and numbers of ducks, with which the Chinese 
 are delighted. In this quarter I made acquaintance 
 with several features of Chinese life and manners that 
 were new to me. 
 
 On my second day in the town there passed through 
 the streets the local magistrate, preceded by his retinue, 
 the foremost of whom carried gongs or musical instru-
 
 196 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 ments. Next came lictors with whips to clear the way, 
 and executioners carrying their instruments of punish- 
 ment. Then came several secretaries and attendants, 
 one of them carrying a sort of umbrella which had 
 been presented as a mark of appreciation by the people; 
 and, lastly, the great man himself, in a little bird-cage 
 sort of cart, the procession being closed by one or two 
 mounted guards. The instruments of punishment 
 attracted my attention, and set me longing for additions 
 to my prison curiosities. 
 
 Upon communicating my wishes to M. Bornemann, 
 and requesting that he would ask for a set on my 
 behalf, he replied, " Oh, no, no ; that is not the way 
 here! If you merely ask, you may wait long enough : 
 the better way is to command." Whichever he did, 
 in a day or two there were ready for me three Chinese 
 batons or staves and a whip, facsimiles of those in local 
 use. The largest of the staves was about the length 
 of a broom-handle, but rather thicker, and spatulated 
 at one end. 
 
 It is used for administering from 60 to 100 blows 
 on the thighs of soldiers and the worst of criminals. 
 The smallest instrument is perhaps half the length of 
 the foregoing, and lighter, and is used for spatting 
 men on the hands, or beating women (on the abdomen 
 when not pregnant) with from 10 to 50 blows. The 
 weight of these staves was prescribed, it was said, with 
 great nicety by Chinese law ; and, in addition to 
 beating with these large or small rods, three other 
 kinds of punishment were mentioned — namely, tem- 
 poraryand permanent exile, and execution. Temporary 
 exile was said to last from one to four-and-a-half years, 
 whilst permanent exile implied moving the offender 
 from 2,000 to 4,000 li or more from home.
 
 PREP A RA TIONS A T KULDJA . 197 
 
 In this matter of the staves and similar local matters 
 M. Bornemann was very serviceable ; and not many 
 days after our return from Suiting I had to ask his 
 assistance again with the Chinese authorities, in pro- 
 spect of a change of route, brought about as follows. 
 
 I have intimated that from the outset Mr Hudson 
 Taylor was kind enough to offer that one of the China 
 Inland Mission agents should accompany me as inter- 
 preter, and the first meeting-place thought of was 
 Hami. When, however, a letter was given me from 
 the Chinese Legation in London to the Governor- 
 General at Urumtsi, it seemed better for purposes of 
 translation to make that place the point of meeting, 
 which was accordingly done, and plans laid for me to 
 arrive there by June ist. 
 
 I have explained how delay of baggage made me 
 a month behind, in consequence of which my inter- 
 preter, not finding me at Urumtsi, had come forward 
 to Kuldja, arriving a day or two before me. Circum- 
 stances, however, with him had altered, so that within 
 a few hours of our meeting he told me that he had 
 given up all hope of getting into Tibet, and intimated 
 that he would like to return to Kansu, instead of 
 going to Kashgar. 
 
 He said that a little war had broken out between 
 British India and the Tibetans, and that to attempt 
 to enter the country now was to fly in the face of 
 Providence ; which seemed, I confess, not altogether 
 unreasonable. Next, as he came along, he had been 
 inquiring as to the number and character of the Chinese 
 inhabitants of Kashgar and the neighbouring towns ; 
 had learned that they were comparatively few, and 
 chiefly soldiers, who were not of a reading class, and 
 therefore not likely to profit much by our distribution
 
 198 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 of the Scriptures. He had accordingly made up his 
 mind at Urumtsi, before meeting me, that it was 
 inexpedient for him to go, as he thought my Turki 
 interpreter would suffice. 
 
 This information concerning the military character 
 of the Chinese population afterwards proved correct ; 
 but, as a third reason, he went on to state that, since 
 he originally expressed his willingness to go, his family 
 circumstances had changed, and that he did not wish 
 to be absent another winter. If, therefore, after this, 
 I still determined to go to Kashgar, he would accom- 
 pany me to Urumtsi, and thence continue his way 
 homewards, leaving me to turn westwards. 
 
 This I determined at first to do, and had asked 
 letters of the authorities at Suiting ; but before they 
 arrived a fresh obstacle had arisen. I have said in 
 my introduction that I had a correspondent who, I 
 hoped, might accompany me as Turki interpreter, 
 giving the mission the benefit of his medical skill. 
 He was at that time in Tashkend without employment, 
 being unqualified to practise for lack of a Russian 
 diploma ; and in answer to my letter proposing terms, 
 etc., he promptly telegraphed " Yes." 
 
 But between this and the date of our meeting the 
 circumstances of both of us had altered. He had 
 migrated to Kuldja, and was established in what he 
 considered a good practice ; whilst I , after an interview 
 with Prjevalsky in St Petersburg, and a letter from 
 Mr Carey, to which I shall allude presently, foresaw 
 that I should not need to winter in Chinese Turkistan, 
 and that my journey round the valley must be too 
 rapid to allow of working a medical mission. When, 
 therefore, after w^hat passed between me and my 
 Chinese interpreter, to which I need not refer in detail.
 
 PREPARATIONS AT KULDJA. 199 
 
 my expected Turki interpreter asked to be released 
 from his engagement, I consented. 
 
 This step subsequently proved a right one, and not 
 to be regretted ; but there is no hiding the fact that for 
 the moment I was in a corner, and that an anxious one. 
 Apparently circumstances were against me ; in reality 
 they were in my favour. I had now to consider very 
 carefully and prayerfully what was to be done. To go 
 back could not be thought of By what route, then, 
 forward ? 
 
 The possibilities of proceeding by one of the moun- 
 tain roads had already crossed my mind soon after 
 reaching Kuldja, first on hearing that the high road 
 was infested by robbers — a not very serious hindrance, 
 since the authorities had promised me an escort. 
 Worse, however, was the rumour that, owing to the 
 lateness of the season, the melting snows on the moun- 
 tains had swollen the rivers and rendered some of 
 them impassable, so that we might be detained for 
 days, and even weeks ; and this was a very serious con- 
 sideration for one already a month behind, who fore- 
 saw that he must hurry round Kashgaria if he was to 
 escape over the mountains before the passes were 
 blocked. The resignation, however, of my Turki inter- 
 preter put a quietus on the route via Urumtsi, for to 
 try and make my way during a three months' journey 
 thence to Kashgar without an efficient interpreter 
 either into Chinese or Turki was out of the question. 
 
 The remaining routes from Kuldja to Chinese 
 Turkistan were three : first, that by which Prjevalsky 
 proceeded, up the Hi valley and over the mountains to 
 Karashar. Another way was to return to Jarkend and 
 proceed to Issik-Kul, and thence over the Bedal Pass 
 to Ush-Turfan ; or the more frequented path f irther
 
 200 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 west by Narin to Kashg-ar. But this meant leaving 
 un visited nearly all the towns of Northern Kashgaria. 
 
 The third and shortest route was up the Tekes valley, 
 and over the Muzart, or Ice Pass, to Aksu, and of this 
 I knew only the statement of Kostenko that no 
 European had ever gone its entire length ; and that, 
 according to native statements and a Chinese geo- 
 grapher of the last century, the Pass was depicted as 
 something frightful. 
 
 No Asiatic of note, that I am aware of, had crossed 
 it since Hiuen Tsiang, the Buddhist monk of the 
 seventh century, who described the mountains as steep, 
 dangerous, and reaching to heaven, with snows piled 
 up since the creation ; where the eyes were blinded 
 with glare, and even fur garments penetrated by icy 
 coldness, the pot being cooked as well as the sleep- 
 ing mat spread on the very ice itself, and by reason 
 thereof 12 or 14 of his company, besides cattle, were 
 starved and frozen to death. 
 
 Hence it seemed to me doubtful whether, supposing 
 I decided on the Ice Pass, I should find any one to 
 accompany me ; but when, at a christening feast in 
 the house of M. Romanadt, M. Uspensky told me he 
 thought he knew a man who would go, I replied, half 
 defiantly, that I should like to see him. 
 
 Accordingly, on the same day, one of the Consul's 
 interpreters brought to me a certain Osman Bai Yusup 
 Ali, or the last two words Russianised into Yusupayeff, 
 a native of Marghilan, in Khokand, a fine, handsome 
 man of perhaps 40, who, during the rebellion under 
 Yakub Khan, had been commander of 100 men. 
 
 He, in answer to my question whether he had 
 crossed the Muzart, said he had done so more than 
 20 times. Upon my speaking of the difficulties of the
 
 PREP A RA TIONS A T KULDJA . 20 1 
 
 ice, he replied that the only thing he feared just then 
 was the swollen rivers during June, July, and August, 
 but he was willing to make the attempt. 
 
 It was, of course, an important consideration with 
 me, how this change of plan would affect the main 
 object of my mission, and careful consideration seemed 
 to show that it need do so less than at first sight might 
 appear. The American Bible Society had sent from 
 Shanghai, to my intended Chinese interpreter, three 
 boxes of Scriptures for me, or, in case we failed to meet, 
 to be distributed by himself One box was left at his 
 house for lack of room in his cart, another was left at 
 Urumtsi to be called for on the return journey, and 
 the third brought forward and partially distributed 
 during my first visit to Suiting. 
 
 Of the Scriptures brought from the East, about 
 nineteen-twentieths were Chinese, and therefore suit- 
 able for Urumtsi and the towns on the northern road 
 where the Chinese populations predominate, whilst of 
 Scriptures brought by me, four-fifths were in Western 
 languages, and therefore needed for the Turkish in- 
 habitants of Chinese Turkistan. 
 
 Accordingly, I suggested to the interpreter that if in 
 returning he would distribute his books along the 
 towns north of the Tian Shan, and perhaps make 
 a dc'tonr southwards to Karashar to distribute some 
 among the Kalmuks (for which purpose I had copies 
 to spare), whilst I, beginning at Aksu, with my Turkish 
 and Chinese books, went all round the valley to Khotan, 
 then we should separately cover almost all the ground 
 we had thought to go over in company. 
 
 But what was I to do for an interpreter ? To find a 
 man who spoke Turki, or even Chinese and Russian, 
 might not be so difficult — M. de Deken knew a
 
 202 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Kalmuk who spoke Taranchi, Chinese, and Russian — 
 but to get, at Kuldja, a Turki or Chinese who spoke 
 EngHsh or even French was a very hard matter. 
 
 I would fain have persuaded M. Bornemann to 
 accompany me to Kashgar, or, say, to Aksu, on the 
 assumption that he needed a holiday ; and he would 
 gladly have come, but he had buried in the grounds of 
 the Consulate his first child, and now another was 
 shortly expected, and he could not leave home. I 
 knew of a European, last heard of at Kashgar, who 
 spoke the necessary languages, but how to communicate 
 with him quickly enough was a puzzle. 
 
 In fact, the whole affair taxed my faith and ingenuity 
 not a little. I should not have dreamed of penetrating 
 Chinese Turkistan unless, before leaving England, or, 
 at farthest, European Russia, I had seen my way to 
 efficient interpreters. But Gideon's army had to be 
 lessened, and so had my forces to be reduced. I had 
 a secret confidence that, my interpreters being taken 
 away, another would be provided, and it presently 
 appeared that all had been wisely predestined, though 
 the interval of uncertainty was to me a painful trial of 
 faith, and for three days made me ill. 
 
 Thinking over the matter very carefully on the 
 morning after seeing Osman Bai, I remembered 
 three persons to whom I might telegraph — namely, 
 M. Oshanin of Tashkend and M. Gourdet of Vierny, 
 both of whom would about this time be free from 
 their scholastic duties ; and, thirdly, the young soldier 
 who had interpreted for me at Jarkend. To each 
 of these I sent a telegram, and once more started 
 for Suiting, to lay my change of plans before the 
 authorities. 
 
 I was lodged on this occasion at the Russian post-
 
 PR EPA RA rrONS A T KUL DJA . 203 
 
 house, which had a fine large garden with first-ripe 
 apricots, and a running stream deHghtfijl fiDr bathing. 
 Some Chinese Roman Catholics of the place called 
 on us, which involved a return visit to some of 
 their houses, I saw likewise what seemed to be 
 the principal religious building of the town, and, on 
 asking its purpose, was variously answered that it 
 was a temple and a theatre. Perhaps it was both, 
 for the heathen Chinese are great believers in the 
 alliance of Church and Stage, build them close 
 together, and frequently turn from one to the 
 other. 
 
 Before the p'ai fang, or roofed gateway, were 
 erected two masts, usually seen before yamens or 
 mandarins' offices, with something like bird-cages 
 towards the top — emblems, I believe, of authority — 
 but within these gates the temple itself was rather 
 insignificant. The only noteworthy features about 
 it were the yellow tiling, such as one sees in abun- 
 dance in Peking, and the carved ridges and eaves of 
 the roof 
 
 Calling upon Mattie on the evening of our arrival, 
 I presented him with a M^atch and chain, which seemed 
 to stimulate his interest in my affairs, and next morn- 
 ing he brought the paper now ready for my route via 
 Urumtsi. Notice, he said, had been sent all along the 
 road to have soldiers ready for my escort, and it would 
 cause some difficulty, he implied, to reverse this, but 
 he hoped that a change of route might be arranged 
 for ; and I offered, if necessary, to pay for messengers 
 to countermand orders. 
 
 We heard no more on that day, or the next ; but 
 the day after we breakfiisted again with Kah, Mattie 
 also being a guest. On this occasion Kah mixt^d a
 
 204 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 dish of macaroni for me, and helped his guests 
 generally with his fingers. Another instemce of 
 Chinese manners was the calling for a large swan's 
 quill — his toothpick — after which he rinsed his mouth, 
 and told me that he gave me such a good reception 
 because I was so well and worthily recommended. 
 
 Whether my change of route excited suspicion I 
 do not know, but I was closely questioned on the 
 subject. Kah's astonishment had been a good deal 
 excited, I perceived, on our present visit, at two men 
 being able to come from the opposite ends of the earth 
 and meet at a given time at Kuldja. Moreover, the 
 Chinese authorities are not very fond of foreigners 
 prying about in the interior, as INIr Carey had fre- 
 quently found when wishing to diverge from the 
 highway in Chinese Turkistan. 
 
 I feared, therefore, at first that difficulties might be 
 raised. The Tsian-Tsiun seemed to know little about 
 the newly proposed route, and professed to be doubtful 
 of my safety. But here niy good friend Kah came to 
 the rescue, saying he would be responsible for that, 
 seeing the nomad Kalmuks were under his jurisdiction 
 as far as the glacier, up to which point should be 
 provided for me at seven stations a tent, brick tea, 
 and mutton daily ; whilst, beyond, he would despatch 
 one Tch'ai Kuan, a controller, to ask the authorities 
 there to send men to meet me, and he added that 
 I should perhaps meet him coming back. 
 
 In addition to this kindness, he volunteered a favour 
 of which I thought not lightly, to send a letter to 
 Kashgar for me to the Russian Consul to aid in 
 getting an interpreter, saying that I was a stranger, 
 and must be helped as far as possible. There was, 
 in fact, but one drawback to all these kindnesses,
 
 PREPARATIONS AT KULDJA. 205 
 
 and that only one of delay. I was informed that, 
 when in about five days my papers were ready, I 
 must again come to Suiting formally to thank the 
 Tsian-Tsiun, and to be escorted out of the town 
 with drums beating and banners flying. 
 
 We therefore returned to Kuldja, where, in answer 
 to my telegrams, I found that my interpreter at Jarkend 
 was willing to go, and suggested my asking permission 
 of Governor-General Kolpakovsky. When at Jarkend 
 this young soldier had told me he was exiled thither 
 ''pour tme petite fatUe'' \ but when at Kuldja I learnt 
 that this petite faute was Nihilism, it seemed so ex- 
 tremely improbable that he would be allowed over 
 the frontier, whence he might invite the authorities 
 to catch him again if they knew how, that I thought 
 it useless to trouble General Kolpakovsky in the 
 matter, but wrote at once a full letter to M. Petrovsky 
 at Kashgar, asking him to send -the man I wanted, or 
 if not him, then if possible another, to meet me at 
 Aksu, or, better still, on the southern side of the 
 Muzart Pass. 
 
 Final arrangements were now taken in hand. 
 Wheel traffic on the Muzart route was out of the 
 question, and my native cart was therefore sold, 
 with the vicious horse — both at a loss, of course — to 
 Abu Kadair, the Russian Aksakai, whose house, as 
 that of a rich native, I visited outside the town. 
 There we saw two birktds, or eagles, trained for 
 hunting, one of which had cost him ^10. My 
 tarantass was handed over to the postal authorities, 
 who, in deference to my letter from the Postmaster- 
 General, undertook to forward the vehicle free of 
 cost to Samarkand, putting the post-bags inside and 
 using: it as a mail-cart.
 
 206 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 I despatched also by post some of my books no 
 longer needed and more specimens to Batoum, to 
 be forwarded to England, and was helped not a little 
 in the packing of boxes by my landlord's son, who 
 was in weakly health, fond of carpentering, and was 
 greatly delighted at a present of tools. 
 
 A TATAR WOMAN. 
 
 My landlord was a Nogal Tatar, whose wile could 
 read. I talked from time to time with her, and saw 
 something of her son's wife, also an inmate of our 
 premises, but without children. I gave several pieces 
 of jewellery to the two women, and the elder, on 
 leaving home for a visit before my departure, as
 
 PREPARATIONS A 2 KULDJA. 207 
 
 she bade me farewell, expressed great satisfaction 
 at having entertained an Englishman. 
 
 On the Sunday following came a message from 
 Mattie that my passport was ready, written in 
 Chinese, Manchu, and Taranchi, as also two soldiers 
 and two Kalmuk and Manchu interpreters, and I 
 was desired to come to Suiting at once. We started, 
 therefore, at five o'clock next morning, taking some 
 quinine I had promised Mattie, who, next day, 
 breakfasting again with Kah, gave me a letter of 
 introduction to his relative at Kashgar. 
 
 I asked Mattie's and Kali's acceptance of some 
 Kalmuk Scriptures, and I had before offered to the 
 latter some hosiery and jewellery, in return for which, 
 I suppose, he now gave me two tins of tea and two 
 boxes of sweets. After this it transpired that I was 
 to be excused the drum-and-flag arrangement, and 
 I left with four men attendants for Kuldja. 
 
 This was not quite the last I saw of the Chinese 
 officials, for, on the next day, Mattie came to Kuldja 
 with the Tchyan, or adjutant, from the General Chang, 
 about whom more anon. He now sent me a present 
 of two pieces of satin, two tins of tea, and a fan. I 
 was then free to start again.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FROM KULDJA TO THE PASS OF CHAPCHAL. 
 
 Caravan travel by horses ; M. Bornemann and his linguistic abili- 
 ties, 208. — Caravan leader and negotiations ; Text of contract, 210. — 
 Departure from Kuldja, 212. — Swollen condition of river; Escort 
 of four, 213. — Jing's pretensions ; Whipping the ferryman, 214. — 
 The Hi, and how crossed ; Bivouac, and departure next morn- 
 ing, 215. — Personnel of caravan, 216. — A Sibo village ; Solon 
 colonists, 217. — Reception at Kalmuk encampment, 218. — Shooting 
 grouse, and ride to Damarchi ; Taranchi inhabitants, 219. — Hospi- 
 tality at Damarchi ; Ride along the Uzun-Tau Mountains, 220. — 
 Arrival at gorge of Chapchal, 221. 
 
 CARAVAN travelling by horses was new to me, 
 and in making arrangements I was obliged to 
 throw myself once more on the kindness of M. Borne- 
 mann, to whose house Osman Bai, my caravan baski, 
 or leader, was summoned. Osman spoke Turki, 
 Persian, and, it was said, a little Chinese. 
 
 How many languages more M. Bornemann spoke I 
 have never discovered ; but, when paying him a visit 
 one morning, he called my attention, by way of illus- 
 trating the polyglot character of the place, to the fact 
 that the seven persons there chanced to be in his room 
 at that moment each represented a different nationality 
 and spoke in a different language — namely, English, 
 Belgian, Russian, Chinese. Manchu, Nogai Tatar, and
 
 FROM KULDJA TO THE PASS OF CflAPCHAL. 209 
 
 Kalmuk — all residents in Kuldja, I suppose, except 
 myself and the Kalmuk, who was a Torgout Khan, 
 come in from a remote part of the district. He was 
 well dressed, but not so superbly arrayed as another 
 Kalmuk Khan whose photograph I possess, and named 
 Van, in Baratola, north of Sairam-Nor. I fancy M. 
 
 VAN, A KALMUK KHAN, WITH HIS SUITE, AT BARATOLA. 
 
 Bornemann could converse with them all ; and, in fact, 
 he seemed to be a thoroughly capable man, working as 
 hard as if the welfare of the whole Consular establish- 
 ment depended upon him. 
 
 ^ He helped me to question Osman Bai, according to 
 whom it seemed that the journey from Kuldja to Aksu 
 was a matter of 1 2 days, travelling light ; but with 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 baggage it was about 18 days. If each horse carried 
 only 2 cwt, it might be done in 15 days; but with the 
 maximuni of 2 J cwt each, then 20 days would be re- 
 quired. His first price was 20s. for each horse. He 
 w^ould be responsible for keeping the baggage dry from 
 rain, but not from being wetted in crossing rivers, nor 
 for loss if washed away. 
 
 Upon being asked whether, if I wished it, he would 
 continue the journey to Kashgar, he assented, but 
 desired to put in a clause to the effect that he should 
 not be required personally to enter the town of Aksu. 
 This aroused suspicion, and M. Bornemann, after a 
 good deal of cross-questioning, elicited that Osman 
 owed many debts, and feared to show himself in the 
 town, lest his horses should be seized for payment. 
 
 In such an event what would become of my baggage ? 
 M. Bornemann, however, anticipated no danger on that 
 score, and said that for such men to be in debt was 
 quite usual ; and, having discovered that one of Osman's 
 principal creditors was the Russian Aksakal at Aksu, 
 added that a letter should be written to this man to 
 protect me from annoyance. M. Bornemann then 
 wrote the letter, which he delivered to me, and drew 
 up an excellently framed contract, in Russian and 
 Turki, for the caravan basJii and me to sign.* 
 
 * This 7th day of July, 1888, I, the undersigned Sart of Andijan, 
 Osman Bai Yusupayeff, have made this contract with the EngUsh 
 traveller Doctor Lansdell, as follows : — 
 
 1. I, Osman Bai, engage to convey Dr Lansdell, with his servants 
 and baggage, from Kuldja to Aksu in 15 days, exclusive of those days 
 on which Dr Lansdell may wish not to travel. 
 
 2. I engage to provide 15 horses required for the baggage, which 
 weighs I J ton. 
 
 3. On the journey I engage, at my own cost, to provide what is 
 necessary for myself, three assistants, and my horses. 
 
 4. I further engage, during the journey, to protect from injury, rain, 
 or other accidents the said baggage.
 
 FROM KULDJA TO THE PASS OF CHAPCFTAL. 211 
 
 Osman promised to be ready in three days, and 
 thought that a convoy of two or three Kalmuks from 
 the Chinese authorities, if not absolutely needful, was, 
 at any rate, desirable, for the sake of prestige. He 
 also readily agreed to my resting on Sundays, or, in 
 fact, when I liked, and said there was so much pasture 
 on the way that it would be unnecessary to take corn 
 for the horses. 
 
 Joseph, however, did not approve of my animals 
 being thus treated, and purchased 3J cwt of barley, 
 and for himself and fellow-servant 200 loaves or cakes 
 of native bread ; also for me ten chickens at 'X,\d. each, 
 and a quantity of fresh white bread, from the one man 
 in the town who could make it — the last of its kind 
 I was destined to see for many a day. To these were 
 added some onions, and, thanks to an official in the 
 Post Office, some potatoes. 
 
 At last, on Thursday, July 26th, came the day of 
 departure. I called to say good-bye at the Post 
 
 5. In case of the death of any of my horses, I engage to replace the 
 same immediately. 
 
 6. For custody and transport of the baggage, I have agreed to accept 
 for each horse, from Kuldja to Aksu, i8j. — that is, £\t^ 10s. in all. 
 
 7. If Dr Lansdell should be satisfied with me during this journey, I 
 will engage to convey him, his servants and baggage, from Aksu to 
 Kashgar, in 16 days, for payment at the rate of four //«;;^' silver for each 
 horse. 
 
 8. Dr Lansdell is bound to give mc his final decision not later than a 
 day and a half's journey on this side of Aksu. 
 
 g. If I should undertake to convey Dr Lansdell from Aksu to Kash- 
 gar, this agreement is to be binding for that journey also. 
 
 10. On signing this agreement I have received 75 roubles ; 25 roubles 
 more are to be paid to me on arriving within a day and a half's journey 
 from Aksu, and the remaining 35 roubles on arriving there. 
 
 The Andijan Sart Osman Bai Yusupayeff being unable to write, I, 
 Diamatin Tadjitovitch, have signed for him at his personal request. 
 
 This 8th July, 1888, the Imperial Russian Consulate certifies the 
 above, etc. — {^Signed and sealed) V. Uspensky,
 
 212 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Office and the Consulate, and also bade farewell to 
 my intended Chinese interpreter, who was on the 
 point of starting for Kansu, and to my other intended 
 interpreter, whom the European inhabitants were well 
 pleased should remain behind. 
 
 Indeed, they had looked upon me all along as some- 
 what of a sheepstealer for wishing to take away the 
 only medical man they had within 80 miles, and their 
 appreciation of the doctor was shared by his Chinese 
 and Turkish patients. My landlord was amiable in 
 settling up, not exacting in his charges, and in return 
 for my European presents gave me a Chinese body- 
 girdle or purse, together with his dog " Kara Beg," or 
 " Black Prince," which had become attached to us, and 
 might, I thought, be useful to sleep in my tent. 
 
 The landlord's son evinced kindly feelings on my 
 departure, and mounted his horse to make one of a 
 cavalcade to conduct me out of the town, as did also 
 several of the native inhabitants, including, I think, 
 some of the interpreters at the Consulate. The caval- 
 cade was joined also by M. Steenemann and M. de 
 Deken, the latter mounted on a war-horse which 
 formerly belonged to General Kaufmann, and could 
 still, for not too long a spurt, go splendidly. 
 
 M. de Deken would fain have made a holiday of 
 it, he said, and accompanied me as far as the glacier, 
 but in the absence of his ecclesiastical superior did not 
 like to leave M. Steenemann alone.* 
 
 It was about noon when I " placed my foot in the 
 stirrup," as Tamerlane used to say, and went forth to 
 
 * M. de Deken has since made a more famous journey through 
 Karashar, and past Lob-Nor, into Tibet towards Lassa, and thence 
 through Western China to Tongking, in company with M. Bonvalot 
 and Prince Henry of Orleans.
 
 FROM KULDJA TO THE PASS OF CHAPCHAL. 213 
 
 encounter the difficulties of an unpremeditated route 
 into Chinese Turkistan. Osman Bai's horses were 
 at grass on the other side of the river, to which 
 the baggage was to be taken in carts, whilst our 
 cavalcade took a roundabout way of some two hours. 
 
 I cannot speak, as we made our way across the 
 grassy valley, of gilded domes flashing in the sunlight, 
 or of cathedral spires or minarets growing dim in the 
 rear, unless it be the minaret of the Dungan Mosque, 
 which, Muhammadan though it be, is built in purely 
 Chinese style, and for a photograph is the finest build- 
 ing in the town. 
 
 The waters of the river being swollen by the melting 
 snow of the neighbouring mountains, the usual place 
 of crossing was not available, nor, when we arrived, 
 was the ferry-boat visible. We had, therefore, to 
 scramble down a bank, perhaps 40 feet high, and 
 patiently wait in the shade. 
 
 I may now introduce to the reader my escort of 
 four. Two of them, Koo-Kah (Chief) and Tcho-gah, 
 were guards, and armed, the former being reputed a 
 mighty hunter, and therefore of prospective use in 
 procuring game. A third, Tor-jee, was a tall, stout, 
 good-natured, broad-faced, ethnological nondescript, 
 at home in Chinese, Taranchi, Solon, Sibo, and 
 Kirghese ; whilst the fourth, though the smallest in 
 stature, was, in his own opinion certainly, the greatest 
 of all. This Jing-jee-tai spoke Manchu, Chinese, 
 Kalmuk, Sibo, Solon, Taranchi, and Kirghese — in fact, 
 "a man of seven tongues." 
 
 The first two were servants of Kah, the last two 
 hailed from the Tsian-Tsiun, Jing being on his per- 
 sonal staff, and of such importance, he would have me 
 to understand, that he rarely left his master's presence-
 
 214 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 For ordinary travellers, he said, two or three Kalmuks 
 were told off, and there was an end of it ; but in the 
 present instance the Tsiau-Tsiun had said that this 
 English traveller was a very great man, and that Jing 
 accordingly should accompany him ! 
 
 In keeping with his pretensions Jing soon began 
 to show his authority, and after we had been waiting 
 about three hours, I heard a great shouting from the 
 top of the cliff above. Presently the ferry-boat arrived, 
 out of which they dragged the ferryman near to where 
 I was sitting, Jing the while vociferating loudly and 
 making a great to-do. Next the boatman was ordered 
 to lie down and be beaten, which the lubberly fellow 
 immediately did. One man sat on his head and 
 another on his feet. Then Jing told off one of his 
 men as lictor, and to kindle his enthusiasm administered 
 one or two cuts across his back, after which the 
 delinquent boatman received the allotted number of 
 stripes. 
 
 All this was " Greek" to me, until it appeared that 
 the boatman had not come so quickly as he ought when 
 called by Jing. But he was not killed, within a great 
 many inches, for the lash of the whip fell well beyond 
 the culprit's back on to the ground. He seemed, 
 moreover, on getting up to be little hurt, and my 
 impression is that the whole thing was got up by Jing 
 as a demonstration of his zeal on my behalf. The 
 ferryman at all events seemed to have regained his 
 equanimity when I gave him a present on reaching 
 the other side of the river. 
 
 The width of the Hi at Kuldja is variously stated at 
 500 and 700 feet, the latter being the width of th(* 
 Thames at low- water at London Bridge. But the 
 breadth evidently varies greatly according to the season,
 
 FROM KULDJA TO THE PASS OF CHAPCHAL. 215 
 
 and crossing the stream now was a very different 
 matter from doing so in September 1882 ; so that I 
 doubt whether London Bridge, if placed at our dis- 
 posal, would have taken us more than halfway over. 
 Kostenko gives the depth of the river at Kuldja from 
 3 to 30 feet, and its velocity from 2 to 4 miles per hour. 
 
 All these conditions were now, I suppose, at their 
 highest, the summer heat having set in, and we pre- 
 pared for crossing as for a voyage. The baggage and 
 the saddle-horses were brought on board, whilst the 
 sumpters swam across attached to the boat. There was, 
 first of all, a certain amount of towing up-stream, the 
 tow-ropes being fastened to the stumps of the horses' 
 tails, which the men of the place did not seem to 
 think cruel. Then we rowed into mid-stream, and 
 were carried by the torrent a long way down-stream to 
 the opposite bank. 
 
 What with waiting for the ferry and embarking and 
 disembarking baggage and horses, the day was now 
 far spent, and Osman Bai proposed that we should 
 bivouac in the grassy meadows alongside the river, he 
 always having an eye, as I afterwards found, to food 
 for the horses. 
 
 The escort declared themselves bound to go forward 
 a few miles distant to their appointed station, though 
 they agreed, if I wished to go no farther, to come 
 again early in the morning. I elected, therefore, to 
 stick to the baggage and spend the first night on the 
 bank of the Hi within sound of its waters, a small tent 
 being improvised just large enough to shelter me ; the 
 rest slept in the open. 
 
 Before sunrise next morning— that is, soon after 
 three o'clock — the men were astir, and so was I at 
 4.15, to observe the temperature in my tent to be 70°.
 
 2i6 CHINESE CENTRAL AST A. 
 
 By seven o'clock they had finished shoeing 17 horses, 
 after which packing and loading 65 parcels took up 
 two hours more, and then we made a start. 
 
 Seeing a man going off in the opposite direction, I 
 learned that he had accompanied Osman Bai thus far 
 to help him gratuitously in shoeing the horses, and 
 was now returning to Kuldja. This I thought a 
 neighbourly act, gave him a present, and then, all 
 outsiders having departed, turned to look at the 
 persomicl of my caravan. 
 
 " Your humble servant " was dressed in a drab drill 
 suit, leathern leggings, and black felt hat. His saddle, 
 new from Long Acre and made to order, had holsters, 
 — left, for a small biscuit-box and enamelled bottle for 
 cold tea ; right, a revolver and space to spare for small 
 etceteras. Behind my right leg was suspended, in a 
 case made by Joseph, a double-barrelled gun, and 
 behind the left leg a saddle-bag with waterproof coat 
 and a book to read ; whilst behind the saddle was 
 a valise, in which could be carried telescope, field- 
 glasses, clinometer, and sundry other instruments and 
 necessaries. 
 
 Next in rank came Joseph, dressed in European 
 costume, with rifie on shoulder and revolver in belt, 
 of both of which he was proud. Stowed away on and 
 about his saddle were numerous travelling requisites 
 and little comforts for me, which he knew well how to 
 pack and carry. 
 
 Third came Amin Agha as groom. He had signed, 
 or rather put his mark (something like a cross-bow), to 
 an agreement to accompany me to Kashgar at the 
 rate of 30.?. a month and his food, which was about 
 three times the amount he would receive whilst sta- 
 tionary in Kuldja, without subsistence. Amin was
 
 /^
 
 ^ 
 
 /^;,
 
 FROM KULDJA TO THE PASS OF CHAPCHAL. 217 
 
 dressed like a Taranchi, save that he wore a new and 
 rather Chinese-looking hat. He was mounted on his 
 own horse, fairly laden with etceteras before and 
 behind. 
 
 We three for a long distance kept in the rear. 
 Osman Bai, with his brother and two assistants, 
 Tokhta and Ismail, were dressed as Sarts, and had 
 two extra horses beyond the 15 agreed upon, so that 
 they could take turns in riding. 
 
 Then came the four men of my escort, and, lastly, 
 an old man, a shoemaker, who, hearing that I was 
 going to Kashgar, had some days previously offered 
 his services for the road, which had been declined. 
 He was now said to be going on his own responsibility, 
 and, for safety, to have joined my caravan. Now I 
 had been warned against such hangers-on as not being 
 always quite honest, and was at first disposed to dismiss 
 him ; but Joseph pleaded that the man had on the 
 previous evening made himself useful at little odd jobs, 
 whereupon it was agreed that " the mullah," as he was 
 called, should be hewer of wood and drawer of water 
 to my men, in return for which he would have the 
 benefit of protection and sundry scraps of the servants' 
 food. 
 
 Thus we numbered in all 12 men and 27 horses. 
 
 After fording a branch of the Hi suf^ciently deep to 
 bring the luggage on some of the horses to within an 
 inch of the water, and advancing for perhaps an hour 
 away from the river, we marched through what I took 
 to be Khair-Sumun of the Russian maps, eight miles 
 south of Kuldja, a walled Sibo village, perhaps the 
 same — at least very like — that I visited in 1882, 
 
 The Sibos and Solons were military colonists from 
 Manchuria and Daouria, the Sibos being settled south
 
 2i8 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 of the river and the Solons on the north. My friend 
 Mattie was a Solon.* 
 
 This walled village was the station I presume we 
 were expected to occupy on the previous evening. 
 There was nothing in it to stop for now, so we merely 
 passed through it by the straight road from wall to 
 wall, and arrived about two o'clock, after a five hours' 
 march, at a valley, the name of which (if it had one) 
 was given me as Ghaljat. 
 
 Here there was a small Kalmuk encampment, with 
 an empty tent set apart for me. Two chiefs, with 
 buttons above their hats, came to pay their respects, 
 and presented a sheep for a feast in my honour. In 
 return they received two bricks of tea, or about double 
 value. Subsequently I went the round of the tents, 
 and distributed sweets to the children, a knife, key- 
 ring, beads, and needles. 
 
 Before leaving I also gave away copies of the four 
 Gospels in Kalmuk. I was not sure any of the people 
 
 * M. de Deken informs me that the Chinese Government, always 
 fearintr a revolt of the Manchus combined with the Mongols, have 
 exiled from the plains of Manchuria the Manchus, Solons, and Sibos 
 (Si-po or Hsi-po) to the Hi valley, whilst the Chinese Muhammadans of 
 Hi, after their last revolt, were transported to Manchuria. 
 
 The JNIanchus in Hi are divided into two classes. South of the river 
 they inhabit eight small towns, and are called Sibos. The Sibos speak 
 Manchu and the Sibo dialect, which is not understood by the other 
 class, the Solons, who live north of the river, and whose language 
 stands by itself, though possessing certain affinities to Mongol and 
 Manchu. 
 
 All are labourers, but bound to military service at the call of a general 
 from Peking. Many of their ancestors, when they arrived in Hi, were 
 Christians. "We know still," says M. de Deken, "two families, of 
 which the fathers, who had been baptised at Peking, made their 
 children promise to worship none but the true God." 
 
 As for the Manchus of the north — sometimes called Manchu Tatars — 
 — they are unapproachable, proud, and arrogant, and all claim to belong 
 to the Imperial family. It is from among them the great mandarins are 
 chosen.
 
 FROM KULDJA TO THE PASS OF CHAPCHAL. 219 
 
 could read, but I hoped the books might find their 
 way into the hands of some of their lamas. A few 
 of Mrs Grimke's illuminated text-cards in Kalmuk 
 received only scanty respect, and were in some cases 
 speedily crumpled and soiled. 
 
 All of the tents looked squalid and miserable, to be 
 accounted for perhaps by a rude spirit-still which we 
 got a glimpse of in one habitation. The ko2tiniss bag 
 standing near suggested the raw material. In another 
 tent were two sick men, one having a deformed knee, 
 for which we could do nothing. A little before seven 
 next morning we departed. 
 
 We had scarcely mounted when, within a few yards 
 of the encampment, I shot a leash of grouse, as fine, 
 I venture to think, as ever came from a Scotch moor. 
 Then we marched on in a south-westerly direction, 
 passing the tomb of a Mussulman saint, and in an hour 
 came to Kainuk, a village of 90 houses and 600 
 inhabitants, but formerly, under the Russians, more 
 populous. 
 
 Then, turning in an -easterly direction, we were 
 passing through another village, Damarchi, when our 
 men asked me to turn aside into the house of the chief 
 man. This we did, and learned that in the village 
 were 55 houses and 300 inhabitants, the people, as in 
 the last village, being Taranchis. 
 
 The Taranchis are of Turkish origin, and were 
 brought by the Chinese to the Hi valley from Kash- 
 garia. They are Muhammadans, but differ from their 
 co-religionists farther west in not keeping their women 
 so secluded. The Taranchi women wear Turkish 
 khalats opening down the centre of the front like 
 a dressinj^-ofown, whilst the Dunoan women — their 
 sisters in creed, though not in race — wrap themselves
 
 220 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 in robes of Chinese pattern that fold all across and 
 button at the side. 
 
 Both, if I mistake not, wear low, stiff cylindrical 
 hats with conical tops ; but these, I think, are for 
 summer or home wear, whilst others I saw were 
 perhaps for travelling or winter wear, of huge pro- 
 portions and made of fur. The women go about 
 unveiled ; but now and then I noticed, when my 
 Kuldja hostesses were receiving visits from their 
 female friends, that some arrived in the yard with 
 their skirts or khalats thrown over their heads. 
 
 The head-man of the village at Damarchi gave us a 
 kind reception and tea, and when I presented him with 
 a ring he offered a chowiy, or fly-brush, that had 
 attracted my attention, together with some unripe 
 apples. We stayed less than an hour, and then con- 
 tinued our easterly march along the plain till nearly 
 one o'clock. Damarchi was the last village we entered, 
 though there was another to the south, not far distant, 
 called Kan. 
 
 Meanwhile we had on our rlQ^ht one of the numerous 
 ramifications of the Tian Shan, running parallel to and 
 south of the Hi, and filling the space between that 
 river and the Tekes. This range bears the general 
 name of Uzun-Tau, or " Long Mountains." The upper 
 valleys of the Charin (which flows northward into the 
 Hi) separate this range from the Trans- Hi Ala-Tau ; 
 and the western portion of the range is called in turn, 
 looking eastwards, the Temurlik, Ketmen, Ak-Bur- 
 Tash, and where it approaches the Lower Tekes, the 
 Kara- Tag. 
 
 Over this portion we were to pass, and although, as 
 Kostenko says, the Kara-Tag does not reach the snow- 
 line, still its system is sufficiently high to make progress
 
 FROM KULDJA TO THE PASS OF CIIAPCHAL. 221 
 
 difficult over those passes which have not been improved 
 by art. The most noticeable of these are the Ketmen, 
 Suashu, Khanakai, Chapchal, and Sharbo-Guchi. The 
 last, at the eastern end of the ran^e, is the easiest, and 
 practicable even for carts ; but it is circuitous, and we 
 were to be taken by the most direct road through the 
 Chapchal gorge and over the pass of that name. 
 
 The northern slope of the Uzun-Tau range descends 
 in three terraces to the Hi, whilst the southern slope 
 separates into several branches, which lose themselves 
 in a flat plateau to form the south side of the Tekes 
 valley. 
 
 At one o'clock we turned abruptly at a right angle 
 into the hills, and in half an hour were wending our 
 way through a pretty defile by the side of a stream 
 with maple, willow, sycamore, mulberry, apple, and, 
 above all, apricot trees, at which last a general rush 
 was made. Here I picked my first wild apricots, 
 whilst Joseph prudently brought away a supply for 
 the morrow's dessert. 
 
 The hills on either side were bare, on the left 
 precipitous, and it took the horsemen three hours of 
 steady climbing before we reached, at four o'clock 
 and after nine hours in the saddle, the gorge of 
 Chapchal. Here was another Kalmuk encampment, 
 larger than the one we had left in the morning. On 
 the arrival of the baggage, two hours later, with 
 Osman Bai, who had not been this way before, we 
 prepared for spending the next day, Sunday, amidst 
 novel surroundings.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE TEKES VALLEY. 
 
 First Sunday in camp, 222. — Lodging in Kalmuk tent, 223. — Breakfast 
 7tie]iu, 224. — Review of month, 225. — My servant Joseph, 226. — Lack 
 of efficient interpreter, 227. — Altitude and temperature of Chapchal ; 
 Visit to Kalmuk tents, 228. — Pass of Chapchal ; Defile of Sua- 
 Chow; Geology of Uzun-Tau, 229. — Altitude of Pass, 230. — 
 Descent to Booghru ; Cattle of the Kalmuks, and dogs, 231. — 
 March from Booghru and butterfly hunt, 233. — Manchu larking on 
 horseback ; Caution against spirit-drinking, 234. — Arrival at Khana- 
 kai, 235. — Taking photographs ; Departure to the Tekes ; its rise 
 and course, 236. — Impracticable ford at Geelan and detour to Narin- 
 Kol ; Welcome at Russian picket, and help of Cossacks, 238. — 
 Fording the Tekes, 239. — Another night on river bank ; Awakened 
 by Lama's prayers ; Departure for Muzart defile, 240. 
 
 OUR first Sunday in camp was in many ways 
 interesting. A messenger had been sent in 
 advance to announce our coming, and at Chapchal, as 
 elsewhere, we found a tent erected. The Kalmuk 
 tents resemble those of the Kirghese, already spoken 
 of, except that I do not remember at any station 
 occupying one of which the felt was not torn, and that 
 not because they gave the visitor of their worst, since 
 none of them appeared to be housed any better. 
 
 Usually my tent was found pitched in a clean 
 place on grass at some little distance from, though 
 within hail of, the encampment, and there was some-
 
 THE TERES VALLEY. 22.3 
 
 times a rug or piece of felt within. Joseph began 
 furnishing by covering the floor with two large pieces 
 of felt ; next, four bullock trunks were brought in, and 
 when placed side by side made a platform just large 
 enough for the air-bed and pillow. Thus bestowed it 
 was less easy at night for personal effects to be stolen. 
 Close to my head, and sometimes partly under it, was 
 placed my fitted bag containing papers and valuables, 
 and near at hand the fire-arms. 
 
 When making a stay (but not for a single night) it 
 was more comfortable to open my bedstead, a capital 
 one for lightness, and adaptable as a lounge by day. 
 Mr St George Littledale, whose experience of tent 
 life is greater than mine, feared that I should find this 
 camp bedstead too fragile for rough wear or uneven 
 ground ; and perhaps he was right, but I found it useful 
 when occupying a room, and the same remark holds 
 good, to a certain extent, of a folding chair and table. 
 
 They were of "Paragon" make, the legs doubling 
 up after the fashion of a camp stool, and the table-top 
 rolling up like a sheet of thick cardboard. Though 
 frail, with care they travelled with me safely for 
 thousands of miles, but were not in very frequent use. 
 The saddles were also usually brought into the tent, 
 and that most necessary article of commissariat, the 
 lunch-basket. 
 
 I gave so good a report to Messrs Langton & Son 
 of the behaviour of their lunch-basket which accom- 
 panied me, almost uninjured, through Siberia and 
 round the world, that on the present occasion, and in 
 sympathy with my expedition, they fitted up and 
 presented me with a new basket for three persons, 
 valued for the Custom-house at ^5. 
 
 This proved a great comfort, and could the reader
 
 224 CHINESE CENTRAL ASfA. 
 
 have peeped in at the door of our tent in the Chapchal 
 Gorge at breakfast-time, he would have seen the little 
 table covered with a white damask cloth with red 
 edges, enamelled plates and dishes filled with white 
 bread, butter, eggs, the remains of last night's mutton, 
 grouse. Peak & Frean's biscuits, apples, and wild 
 apricots ; whilst in the lunch-basket on the ground 
 were condiments of various sorts, jam and marmalade, 
 — a breakfast, in fact, than which many a Londoner had 
 not a better. Truth compels me to add, however, that 
 this luxurious level was not maintained, and things 
 were very different before the end of the journey. 
 
 Some have asked me how we managed for bread. 
 So far back as Vierny it had been said that we should 
 be unable, over the frontier, to procure either white 
 bread or flour, European candles, sugar or cheese, to 
 say nothing of butter fit to eat. It seemed desirable, 
 therefore, to think betimes what should be done for 
 these things during a period of several months, should 
 those prognostications prove true. Orders were 
 accordingly given for the purchase of 120 lbs. 
 (Russian) of flour for <^s. <^d. ; 52 lbs. sugar for 26.?. ; 
 40 lbs. of candles for 24^-. ; and 100 lbs. of bread and 
 rusks for 22s. 6d. 
 
 Into the bread my Siberian experience suggested 
 the putting a small quantity of butter, and making the 
 loaves about the size of halfpenny buns.* Though 
 the loaves became hard as bricks, yet when six 
 months old, and after enduring all the degrees of 
 temperature between the plains of Russia and of India, 
 they were still, if not delicious, at least eatable. 
 
 * These were packed in two tea-chests covered with cowhide, that had 
 served for bringing caravan tea across Mongolia, and now made strong, 
 light, and cheap cases for carriage by pack animals.
 
 THE TEKES VALLEY. 225 
 
 But this was not my real reserve, for Joseph 
 fortunately could make bread. Putting a spoonful of 
 carbonate of soda into a cup of water and stirring it, 
 he added two spoonfuls of kali-bitartaric. With this 
 home-made baking-powder he worked up the flour 
 and put it quickly into the oven, the said oven being 
 a frying-pan with an iron cover. The product was a 
 species of scone, quite eatable for a couple of days, 
 though not so nice when dry. 
 
 As for butter, it was to be had in Vierny both cheap 
 and good — 31 lbs. for \c)s. 6d. — and we thought to 
 preserve it in tin boxes made and soldered down by 
 the local whitesmith. But here my 'prentice hand did 
 not succeed, for the soldering seemed to impart an ill 
 savour to the butter, so that it could be used only for 
 cooking. But Joseph again came to the rescue, and 
 by shaking up cream, which he could usually procure, 
 always managed to keep my table supplied. 
 
 Hence, on rising from breakfast in Chapchal Gorge, 
 I felt on improved terms with mankind in general, and 
 my present surroundings in particular. I was able 
 calmly to review the anxieties and worries of the past 
 month, and was thankful to feel that they were in the 
 rear. 
 
 I have said that they were all wisely predestined. 
 What I meant was this. At an early stage of my 
 preparations in London I happened to be calling on 
 Colonel Stewart, who, hearing of my possible departure 
 for Central Asia, said that he could recommend me 
 a servant, a Persian from the Strangers' Home for 
 Asiatics in East London, where the Colonel was 
 charitably keeping him. I had thought, however, for 
 economy's sake, I could manage without a servant as 
 far as Kuldja ; and to take a man 5,000 miles before 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 2 26 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 his services were absolutely needed seemed doubtful 
 policy, so that I did not jump at the proposal. 
 
 A short time afterwards, on my way to hear Mr 
 Carey's paper at the Royal Geographical Society, as I 
 left the train at Charing Cross, Colonel Stewart was on 
 the platform. 
 
 " Have you thought any more of that servant?" he 
 asked, whereupon I mentioned the drawback of taking 
 him so far before he was wanted. 
 
 "Very well," replied the Colonel, " I am anxious to 
 get him back to Persia, and am willing to pay his 
 passage to Constantinople, if you will take him." 
 
 "Send him down, then, to Blackheath," 1 replied, 
 "and let me see him." 
 
 Joseph shortly appeared on a dark muddy day in 
 December, and I suppose his swarthy skin rather 
 alarmed the Rhoda of my establishment, for it was 
 afterwards reported that she murmured to her mistress, 
 " I hope master isn't going to take that man along 
 with him." 
 
 But Joseph had some good antecedents On the 
 Afghan Frontier Commission he had served Sir West 
 Ridgeway, whose testimony in brief was, " Not brilliant, 
 but trustworthy." The Chaplain at the Home gave 
 him a good character ; and so in due time Joseph and 
 my baggage were shipped to Batoum, at a reduced 
 fare and free freight, thanks to the good offices of my 
 friend Mr Pembroke, of the firm of Galbraith, Pem- 
 broke, & Co. 
 
 When I reached Batoum, the first person to meet 
 me was Joseph. He had been receiving pay since the 
 beginning of the year, and now expressed concern that 
 he had thus far been able to give me so little in return. 
 "But now," said he, "you shall see how well I will
 
 THE TEKES VALLEY. 227 
 
 serve you " — a promise which, Oriental though he was, 
 he nobly redeemed. 
 
 His capabilities developed and his value increased 
 in proportion as we got away from civilisation. In the 
 hotels at Tiflis and Baku he was not required ; but, the 
 Caspian crossed, he began to be handy in Bokhara, 
 still more so in Tashkend, and when the baggage was 
 reached, and horses added to the expedition, he adapted 
 himself to the situation admirably. 
 
 Mr St George Littledale, whom Joseph afterwards 
 accompanied across the Pamirs, wrote in his testimonial, 
 "He can mend anything, from a pocket-handkerchief 
 to a piece of saddlery." True to this, on opening my 
 saddlery bag, it was found that the packers in Long 
 Acre had omitted the crupper, whereupon Joseph 
 either made a new one, or adapted one locally bought, 
 and then slung to my saddle a capital leather case, 
 which he judged necessary and had made for my 
 gun. 
 
 I cannot pretend, however fluent may have been 
 his Persian, that his English was other than feeble — 
 several degrees, in fact, below that of a second-class 
 interpreter — yet this was the provision made for me, 
 and the only instrument I had to depend on, in making 
 the plunge into Chinese Turkistan. Had he fallen ill 
 or left me, I must have run aground, and in writing to 
 England a statement of affairs up to date, I confided to 
 no one but Mr Hudson Taylor how precarious was 
 my situation. Having penned that epistle, and held 
 with Joseph something like a Sunday morning service, 
 I proceeded after lunch to take a turn round the 
 camp. 
 
 We were now probably from 5,000 to 6,000 feet 
 above sea-level. After the heat of the valley, which
 
 2 28 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Prjevalsky had specially decried to me, and which 
 certainly exceeded anything I had been accustomed 
 to, the rest and slightly cooler air of the mountains 
 were refreshing. 
 
 The temperature in my little tent on the bank of the 
 Hi at eight in the evening had stood at 78", and by 
 the next morning at four had come down only 8'" ; also 
 during the first night at Chapchal there was a difference 
 of only 12° between the maximum and minimum 
 temperature, whilst on the Sunday night the mercury 
 did not rise above 73°, and it fell to 57°. In Kuldja I 
 had slept in a room under a sheet only ; by the river 
 side and partially undressed, under one fold of a shawl ; 
 but at Chapchal, after undressing completely, I lay in 
 the tent between sheets, under a double shawl and my 
 fur-lined ulster, and was not too warm. 
 
 Our surroundings too at Chapchal were exceedingly 
 
 pretty. On either side were lofty hills, and on the 
 
 slope below us 22 Kalmuk tents. I went the round 
 
 of these, and found a box of sweetmeats efficacious 
 
 in paving the way to the affections of the children, 
 
 and through them, of course, to their mothers, so that 
 
 - I was allowed to examine their trinkets and jewellery, 
 
 and such objects of ethnographical interest as attracted 
 
 attention. To one woman I gave a fashionable London 
 
 hair-pin in exchange for an instrument of primitive 
 
 make, which she used instead of a comb for parting 
 
 the hair. 
 
 Speaking generally, all things looked squalid and 
 poor, there being no signs visible of nomad affluence. 
 The chief man of the encampment, to whom I gave 
 a brick of tea and a knife, was called On-Bashi (the 
 Turki title of an officer commanding ten soldiers), and 
 when, on my arrival, he came to salute me, he went
 
 THE TERES VALLEY. 229 
 
 down on all fours to make the Chinese kotow, putting 
 his head to the ground. There was also a lama in the 
 camp, to whom I gave a book. 
 
 On leaving the Gorge of Chapchal, we had two 
 hours of steep climbing to the Pass of that name ; 
 and from one of the turns in the defile, where it 
 joins that of the river Sua-Chow, a fine view is to be 
 had on a clear day of the Hi valley, framed on the 
 north by the Borokhoro Mountains, and spread out 
 below with a sharpness of detail resembling that of a 
 map in relief, and deeply furrowed in two directions 
 by the course of the Hi and that of the Kash tributary, 
 somewhat east of Kuldja. 
 
 The banks of the Hi are diversified with villages, 
 as if floating amid waving verdure, and animating the 
 landscape when brilliantly lit up by the sun. The 
 valley has an obvious slope from north to south, and 
 here we took our leave of the Hi proper, the second 
 of whose head waters is the Kunges, running parallel 
 to the Kash, and receiving on its western bank first 
 the Tsagma, and then, about 70 miles above Kuldja, 
 the Tekes. Into the Tekes valley we were in a few 
 minutes to look down. 
 
 The defile of Sua-Chow, whence the above-men- 
 tioned view is seen, wears a strange and fantastic 
 garb, the soil being coloured with shades of red, blue, 
 violet, green, and orange. 
 
 Looking at the geology of this district by the aid 
 of Romanovsky and MushketofT's map, it would appear 
 that we passed, between Kuldja and the spot whence 
 we turned into the mountains, over formations capable 
 of cultivation, and loess. After this the road rises 
 gently for about ten miles over river and lake deposits, 
 and then on to rocks, first of the Tertiary series, and
 
 230 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA 
 
 then of the Jurassic and Triassic systems. Among 
 the Jurassic are indicated three deposits of black 
 and brown coal, two of them, one on each side of 
 the road, being worked. 
 
 Still ascending, we passed over a narrow band, there 
 about three miles wide, but running the whole length 
 of the range, of palaeozoic rocks (mountain limestone, 
 etc.). In the vicinity of the Chapchal gorge one 
 crosses also a band, extending uninterruptedly along 
 the whole length of the Uzun-Tau, of massive crys- 
 talline rocks, with outcrops, near the summit, of 
 dolerite. The foregoing strata include a band of 
 rocks of the azoic group. 
 
 This band crops out at the summit all along the 
 range, and consists of crystalline limestone, phyllite, 
 etc., over which we rode at the top of the Pass, and 
 then descended over a similar series, but of course in 
 reverse order, into the fluvial and lacustrine deposits 
 of the Tekes valley. 
 
 Mention should also be made, as occurring in the 
 Uzun-Tau, besides coal, of gold, silver, lead, copper, 
 iron, manganese, rock-salt, and mineral oil, the last 
 being found in the lower formations of the Hi and 
 Tekes valleys. 
 
 As we approached the summit of the defile there 
 was abundance of grass and numerous fir-trees, and 
 from the absence of these at the actual top, Kostenko 
 infers that the Pass may be 9,000 feet high, but it 
 appears in my Russian map as 6,500. 
 
 Here at the summit of the Pass, which it took us 
 two hours from the camp to reach, was raised an obo, 
 consisting of five heaps of stones with poles, whence 
 might dangle and flutter tails of yaks or horses, and 
 pieces of calico inscribed with Tibetan or Mongolian
 
 7 HE TEKES VALLEY. 231 
 
 writing. In the country of the Buriats I have seen 
 on similar spots sweetmeats and copper coins scattered 
 about, but not so here; though on arriving at the place 
 my Chinese attendants all dismounted, each to add 
 a few stones more to the heaps, and to make their 
 obeisance in Chinese fashion ; perhaps also to say a 
 prayer, but of this I am not sure. It was not easy 
 to get from them information on the subject, though 
 they told me that these were graves of two celebrated 
 lamas, " who lived 30.000 years ago ! " 
 
 The descent from the Pass on the south is more 
 convenient than the ascent on the north, owing to the 
 ground falling gently, as well as to the absence of 
 large stones. The verdure and beauty of the defile 
 increased rather than diminished, being enhanced by 
 various specimens of fir-trees, their lower branches 
 resting on the ground as on an English lawn, and 
 their spires rising to a considerable height. 
 
 After six hours' marching we reached, about two 
 o'clock, our stopping-place called Booghru, a small 
 sheltered valley by the side of a clear and swift 
 stream. Here was a camp of eight tents and many 
 cattle, some of the owners ot \vhich had come out 
 to meet us, bringing kottiniss and spirit. These they 
 invited us to quaff reclining on the grassy pile. But 
 south of the Pass a drizzling rain had come on, and 
 we preferred to hasten onwards to cover, where we 
 arrived slightly wet ; my waterproof overcoat being 
 here first called into requisition since leaving London, 
 five months previously. 
 
 The cattle in this camp consisted of horses, cows, 
 and sheep, the last being of the fat-tail breed, and 
 affording excellent mutton. The Kalmuks of the 
 Volga keep camels also, of which we saw none in the
 
 232 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Tekes valley, nor, so far as I remember, of asses. 
 The excellent condition of the cattle was accounted 
 for by the abundant pasture, and it was not at all 
 difficult to believe that worn and battered horses of 
 the inhabitants of the Kuldja valley, on being sent 
 to the mountains after winter work, soon became so 
 fat and sleek as to be unrecognisable. Most of the 
 Kalmuks kept dogs to guard their tents, but of very 
 poor breed, and, like most Asiatic dogs I have met, 
 seemingly devoid of affection. 
 
 At the previous station we had been obliged to part 
 with our " Kara-Beg." So long as the princely animal 
 was lording it in his own yard at Kuldja, barking at 
 strangers and not unfrequently biting them, he appeared 
 to be a brave fellow. But when tied to the cart and 
 made to walk to the Hi, he was very much crestfallen, 
 and apparently exhausted. On the morrow we had to 
 cross an arm of the river, and he stood on the bank, 
 cried like a baby, and had to be dragged or carried 
 across. Again, on his third day out he became so 
 wearied and footsore, that he arrived at Chapchal 
 Gorge with swollen feet on horseback. 
 
 It became plain, therefore, that he was not the dog 
 for a long march. Nor was he a " carpet knight," 
 albeit his name of " Black Prince." At Kuldja he 
 used to present himself at my open door, and wag 
 his tail for scraps, but never presumed to pass the 
 threshold ; and if, with a view to closer friendship, 
 I once or twice dragged him in to eat a morsel, he 
 seemed frightened at treading on felt, and speedily 
 retired to the yard, which he evidently regarded as 
 his proper domain. 
 
 Accordingly, Kara- Beg did not promise to be of 
 much use in my tent as a bodyguard, and the question
 
 THE TERES VALLEY. 233 
 
 arose as to what to do with hini. When starthig from 
 Chapchal, Joseph made for him a pannier arrangement 
 in which to ride ; but to this the beast so strongly 
 objected that we gave him away in exchange to a 
 Kalmuk woman, with a rouble as a doucetir, for another 
 dog less daintily fed, without superabundance of fat, 
 and accustomed to wander in the mountains. 
 
 Our old friend was something like a long-haired 
 sheep-dog. The new one, whom we named " Kuldja," 
 more nearly resembled a Scotch collie, and when led 
 off by a string speedily showed himself capable of 
 doing his 20 miles a day. He arrived at Booghru 
 without a sign of fatigue. 
 
 Next morning at eight, on the last day of July, 
 we left our pleasant dell and the flowing stream 
 (which I take to have been one of the head waters of 
 the river Khanakai, flowing down to the Tekes), and 
 under the direction of a guide made our way over 
 what was said to be a march of 70 li to Khanakai. 
 Our route took us in a south-westerly direction over 
 a secondary chain of low hills called Altyn-Tau (or in 
 some maps Alt-Tau), covered with splendid vegetation 
 and profusely strewed with flowers, among which 
 butterflies were flitting in all directions. 
 
 Some of these lepidoptera were large and beautiful, 
 and I thought rare ; so we improvised a butterfly 
 hunt, and the Chinese attendants, who handled the 
 nets like new toys, entered into the chase with zeal. 
 In their Chinese top-boots and queerly cut trousers 
 they rushed hither and thither, as if for dear life, with 
 hats blown off and pigtails flying, now toppling over, 
 and next lying down to pant for breath. Their prey 
 I at once killed and enclosed in envelopes, with due 
 record of date and locality. In this way we secured
 
 234 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 specimens enough to fill all the envelopes just then at 
 hand, and to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. 
 This variation from the tedium of the march was 
 relished by the men. 
 
 Afterwards we had a gallop to overtake the baggage, 
 in the course of which Jing and his fellow-interpreter 
 took to racing and larking on horseback in a fashion 
 that showed them to be excellent horsemen. I was 
 glad, of course, to see them in such high spirits, and 
 desirous also to keep them on good terms with one 
 another; but it was plain that in their case, as with 
 children, playing and quarrelling were near neighbours. 
 I had begun also by this time to get an insight into 
 their characters. Jing's countenance reminded me 
 strongly of the hypothetical descent of man from the 
 ape, and I mentally christened him " Monkey-face." 
 
 Only that morning he had been to me to complain 
 that one of his comrades, who had been drinking 
 spirits, had struck him, and, what was highly deroga- 
 tory to a gentleman of his degree, had kicked over his 
 tea. This was a matter too serious to be passed over. 
 The delinquent was summoned to appear before me. 
 He turned out to be none other than his portly, good- 
 natured fellow-interpreter Tor-jee, who appeared, 
 looking very sheepish. 
 
 That worthy's love of strong water was evident 
 more than once in the course of the journey. When 
 asked whether the charges were true he pleaded guilty, 
 but said they were playing, whereupon I lectured him 
 upon the evils of spirit-drinking, and told him to do so 
 no more, lest I should have to report him to the 
 Tsian-Tsiuu for punishment. Upon this he meekly 
 promised obedience, and "Monkey-face" seemed 
 satisfied.
 
 THE TEKES VALLEY. 235 
 
 After starting from Booghru, our guide regaled us, 
 after 20 li of travel, with koumiss which was innocent 
 enough ; but when there came out four men to meet us 
 from Khanakai bringing spirits also, I not only de- 
 clined to drink, but warned my men against doing so, 
 and Tor-jee in particular, who contented himself with 
 a sip. 
 
 On reaching Khanakai, after a march of eight 
 hours, we found an encampment of 21 tents in the 
 midst of a wide plateau, being that, I presume, called 
 by Kostenko the " Altyn hollow," with the long snow- 
 capped Muz-Tag range on the south, and on the north 
 the bold lofty mountain tops, not snow-capped, over 
 which we had passed. In the lofty regions of Central 
 Asia, the moisture is precipitated nearly every summer 
 day, and as it came on to rain in the afternoon I had 
 to reprove Osman Bai for allowing the baggage to 
 arrive rather wet, and threatened him with liability for 
 damage to the goods. 
 
 This was the only occasion I had of complaint, and 
 on the morrow he and the others suggested, there 
 having been during the night much rain and tempest, 
 that we should not start till the sun came out. The 
 waters of the Tekes, it was alleged, would be too much 
 swollen to allow of our fording the stream, and I 
 therefore listened to their advice, which subsequently 
 expanded into stopping the whole of the day. 
 
 It was well that we did so, since violent thunder- 
 storms occurred, with very large hailstones, so numerous 
 as to whiten the ground, whilst the rain poured in 
 torrents. The effect of these storms amidst this 
 mountain scenery was extremely grand, and served 
 to account for the uneducated natives connecting such 
 phenomena with the spirits of the mountains.
 
 2;,6 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Our Stoppage at Khanakai gave opportunity to take 
 a few photographs and to see more of the customs 
 of the Kahiiuks, in going the round of the tents, and 
 purchasing of one woman a head-covering something 
 like, but smaller than, the biretta-shaped hats worn 
 by the Volga Kalmuks. The Kalmuks of the Volga 
 appear also to use as ornament for their head-dresses 
 the Astrakhan lambskin, of which, however, I saw no 
 representatives among their sisters of the Hi valley. 
 
 The rain brought with it comparative cold, so that, 
 at Booghru, sleeping in a fur coat, I was none too 
 warm, and on the second night at Khanakai the 
 maximum temperature did not rise above 55^ and 
 the minimum was 43 . Next day we were delighted 
 with lovely weather, and rose at three, so as to have 
 plenty of time for crossing the Tekes. 
 
 So fully, however, did the horses appreciate the 
 excellence of the pasture that five of them took a long 
 time to catch, and we did not start till six. The cool 
 air of the mountains was invigorating, and we had not 
 gone far before the abundance of butterflies, flitting 
 among the flowers on every hand, invited another 
 hunt, which relieved our march of eight hours. At 
 two o'clock we reached the river Tekes at a place 
 called Geelan, 
 
 The Tekes emerges from the main mass of the Tian 
 Shan at the high group of Khan Tengri, within 50 
 miles of Issik-Kul, and flows at first through a deep 
 rocky gorge, which separates the principal mountains 
 from their spurs. These spurs are called by the 
 natives Kara-Tau. 
 
 The river, after piercing these mountains and 
 winding round the high and stony Tash-Tube, or 
 Tekes- Bash (about 10,000 feet), flows more quiedy,
 
 THE TEKES VALLEY. 2;,; 
 
 though Still rapidly, eastward to Uch-Karkak, about 
 30 miles west of the Russian frontier, where it passes 
 into a wide valley. There it receives on its southern 
 bank at least a dozen streams — named on the Russian 
 map — flowing down from the Muz-Tag range, whilst 
 northwards of the 16 streams marked on the Uzun- 
 Tau, the Khanakai is the only one whose waters are 
 not absorbed before reaching the Tekes. 
 
 The Tekes, in its course north-easterly to the 
 Kunges, flows through Chinese territory for about 
 130 miles, or the length of the Thames, its entire 
 length from the Khan Tengri being about 200 miles, 
 and its width where it joins the Kunges 350 feet, as 
 mentioned by Prjevalsky in August 1876. It is 
 fordable in several places, and Kostenko gives the 
 "point of passage" as 700 feet wide and 3 feet deep, 
 with low and firm banks, the bottom being also firm 
 shingle. 
 
 This corresponds (speaking from memory) with 
 what we found on arriving at Geelan, save that the 
 stream, swollen by snow and rain, was deepened to 
 nearly a fathom. As a precautionary measure I had 
 suggested sending on a messenger to ask that a tent 
 should be erected on the northern bank, in case we 
 should not be able to cross. This was done, and ten 
 Kalmuks were in waiting to carry the baggage over. 
 
 So far, well ; but when I perceived that they found 
 it necessary to undress completely, and that, in cross- 
 ing, the water covered the backs of their horses, I was 
 alarmed for the baggage, and, when Osman Bai came 
 up, asked what he proposed to do. Each package 
 was to be placed, it seemed, on a man's head — which, 
 in the case of the larger ones, would need his two 
 hands to keep it steady — and in that fashion he was
 
 238 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 to ride through the swift stream ; a suggestion being 
 made that, in the case of the heaviest parcels, their 
 contents should be lessened. 
 
 " Thank you," said I, " that won't do for me ! Is 
 there no other plan ? " The only alternative was to 
 ascend the stream to another ford, but that was 
 in Russian territory, whither my Chinese escort was 
 unwilling to go, and where it was said papers would 
 be needed for crossing the frontier. 
 
 I was not afraid of coming to grief for lack of 
 Russian passports, and on my promising to go to 
 Kalmuk stations, two of my men, who, in prospect 
 of entering Russian territory, had talked of going back, 
 consented to proceed. I slept, therefore, that night 
 in the tent, and left Geelan next morning about seven 
 in a westerly direction towards the Russian frontier in 
 the neighbourhood of Narin-Kol. 
 
 Immediately on the banks of the river the soil was 
 alluvial, with two deposits of oil, but to our right as we 
 rode along were hills with rocks of the Tertiary system. 
 Butterflies again were captured, though not in such 
 numbers as on the higher ground. We also saw 
 partridges and other birds. 
 
 The ride, however, seemed very long and trying to 
 the temper, whilst, to make matters worse, none of the 
 party appeared to know exactly where we were going. 
 At last, after a march of some six hours, there was 
 observed on a cliff above the river, with habitations 
 and stables below and the Russian village of Narin- 
 Kol in the distance, a tent, said to be the Russian 
 Tekes picket, to which I at once rode forward. 
 
 The tent was found to be inhabited by a few 
 Cossacks, commanded by a corporal, who, on reading 
 my papers, at once received me cordially. I was
 
 THE TERES VALLEY. 239 
 
 getting tired and a little out of spirits, and lay down 
 in their sleeping-place, whilst they entertained me hos- 
 pitably with black bread and soup, and such things as 
 were prepared for their midday meal. The corporal, 
 with a view to correct behaviour, asked my tchin, or 
 rank, and by what titles he should address me ; and 
 then, after refreshing us with tea, and giving me half 
 a loaf of bread that was newer, though coarser, than 
 my own, he sent two Cossacks to show us the ford 
 and help us over. 
 
 On our way to the river a thunderstorm came on, 
 and it rained in torrents. No shelter was to be had, 
 and we were obliged to stand on the river bank and 
 take our chance. A waterproof protected me pretty 
 well, but most of the others must have been wet to the 
 skin, the Cossacks included, who, when I commiserated 
 them, laughed good-humouredly and said, " Nichevo " 
 — *' It is nothing." 
 
 The storm past, and everything sopping with wet, 
 we had to get the baggage across. The river here 
 was not quite so deep as at the other ford, but reached 
 even now half-way up the horses' barrels, and I had 
 much fear lest the packages should dip in the water, 
 which in some cases would have spoiled their con- 
 tents. 
 
 Osman Bai promised to be careful, and as an extra 
 incentive I promised him and each of his men a 
 special present if they got everything across dry and 
 undamaged. Neither they, the Cossacks, nor the 
 convoy spared themselves. Packing the baggage 
 high on the saddle, the men stripped and walked 
 through the stream again and again on each side of 
 the horses, and so brought everything over. 
 
 At last they had to get me across, and to accom-
 
 240 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 plish this they put two thick pack-saddles on a big 
 horse, so that I was seated about a foot above the 
 animal's back, and then with Cossacks on each side 
 to keep the barin * steady or catch him if he fell, the 
 party waded across and safely reached the other bank. 
 Whether we were now on Russian or Chinese soil I 
 am uncertain — I think Chinese — but there was no 
 friendly Kalmuk tent erected, and the nearest camp 
 being some miles distant, and the day far advanced, it 
 was proposed to bivouac once more on the banks of 
 the Tekes. Accordingly, Joseph rigged up, for the 
 first time, my palatka, or summer tent, and the men 
 apparently soon forgot their troubles round a fire. 
 
 Our party had been reinforced at Chapchal by a 
 merry and communicative lama, who wanted to go 
 a few days' journey with us. He put himself 
 en evidence next morning at sunrise by shouting aloud 
 a number of long Buddhist exclamations or prayers. 
 This man had evidently imbibed the sentiment which 
 I think I have met somewhere, connected with 
 monastic early rising in writings on Buddhism, that 
 " prayer is better than sleep." At all events he did 
 his best to make us think so by rendering it impossible 
 to continue our slumbers. 
 
 After breakfast, I dismissed the Cossacks with 
 thanks and presents, and let them return to the Tekes 
 picket, whilst we set our faces in the direction of the 
 Muzart defile. 
 
 * Russian for " squire."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 UP THE MUZ- TAG AlOUNTAINS. 
 
 Orography of Tian Shan system, 241. — Abundance of glaciers, but few- 
 rivers, 242. — Sources of our knowledge of the Tian Shan ; the 
 Muz-Tag range, 243. — Fording the Urten Muzart, 244. — Absence 
 of Kirghese ; Entrance to Muzart defile; A quiet Sunday, 245. — 
 Remains of stone fort; Starting-point of Shepeleff; Kostenko's 
 route, 246. — Departure from Shattoo ; Inscription on granite rock ; 
 Forest zone of birch, fir, etc., 247. — Beauty of path, 248. — Butterfly- 
 hunting on horseback, 249. — Arrival at Udungei ; Chinese picket, 
 and Kalmuk tents ; Kalmuk food, 250. — Osman Bai's orthodoxy as 
 to food, 251. — Departure to Khan -Yailak, 252. — Visit to last Kalmuk 
 tent ; Comparison of koumiss of Orenburg and farther east, 253. — 
 Kalmuk photographs and anthropological remarks, 254. — Dress, 
 numbers, and administration, 256. — Russian education of Kalmuks ; 
 their intellectual capacities, 257. — Buddhist objects of worship; 
 Kalmuk women, marriage customs, and morals, 258. — Features of 
 nomad life ; Chinese picket, 259. — ^Willingness of Jing and Tor-jee 
 to proceed ; other two attendants sent back, 260. 
 
 BEFORE describing our journey up the Muzart 
 defile of the famous Muz-Tag range, a few 
 words may appropriately be said of the vast oro- 
 graphical system of which it forms a part, and to 
 which reference has already been made under the 
 name of the Tian Shan Mountains. This system is 
 1,500 miles long, or the distance from London to St 
 Petersburg, and is the largest of those in Asia sloping 
 towards the north. 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 The chain begins eastwards, in a rocky crest, and 
 running south-westwards is joined by a second, a third, 
 and many other ranges, which, as they advance west- 
 wards, open out more or less fanwise, the several ranges 
 being connected by intervening plateaux, and continuing 
 to preserve somewhat of a parallel direction. Towards 
 the centre the plateau is 250 miles wide, whilst to the 
 westwards the ridges or folds become reduced in 
 number, and sink into the plains about Tashkend 
 and Samarkand. 
 
 The area covered by this mass is estimated by 
 Reclus at 400,000 square miles — as large, that is, as 
 the whole of France and the Spanish peninsula — and 
 it covers, therefore, considerably more ground than all 
 the mountains of Europe put together. And whereas 
 the Englishman who ascends Mont Blanc takes pride 
 in procuring a certificate of his exploit, let those who 
 aspire to higher things know that greater distinction 
 awaits the climber of one of the peaks of the Tian 
 Shan, which is more than half as high again as the 
 Franco-Italian monarch ; whilst for smaller climbers 
 there would be no difficulty in finding in the Muz-Tag 
 alone half a dozen peaks overtopping by at least 3,000 
 feet the apex of the Alps. 
 
 Again, the number of glaciers in the Tian Shan is 
 remarkable, for they are estimated at not less than 
 8,000, and of course the extent of the snowfields is 
 proportionately large. But though so amply covered 
 with glaciers and snow, the Tian Shan gives rise to 
 fewer rivers of importance than does the secondary 
 range of the Altai, farther north, whence flow the 
 Obi, Yenesei, and Lena. Moreover, of the rivers 
 flowing from the Tian Shan, not one reaches the 
 ocean. The Syr and Amu run into the Sea of Aral,
 
 UP THE MUZ-TAG MOUNTAINS. 243 
 
 the Hi into Lake Balkash, the Tarim into Lob-Nor, 
 and numberless others are lost in, or dried up with, the 
 small lakes of the steppes. 
 
 Down to the middle of the present century we knew 
 little of the Tian Shan, and of that little much was 
 wrong. M. Semenof, in 1855-6, led the way into the 
 Ala-Tau range north of Issik-Kul, and he has since 
 been followed by Russian explorers and surveyors, 
 who have mapped the whole country and extended 
 their triangulations southwards to the Pamirs, to meet 
 those of the Indian surveyors working northwards. 
 General Kostenko, in his admirable work on Turkistan, 
 has brought together the varied information gathered 
 by Russian explorers of the Tian Shan, which he 
 describes so fully as to give a detailed though brief 
 account of nearly 40 of its mountain ranges. 
 
 Of these ranges one of the finest and most lofty, 
 with vast glaciers, is the Muz-Tag, signifying in Turki 
 the " ice range." Of this we first caught sight after 
 crossing the Chapchal Pass, the huge mass rising up 
 like a wall beyond the valley of the Tekes, and 
 extending from as far eastwards as the eye could 
 reach towards the enormous Khan Tengri group, 
 26 miles west of which the range is broken by the 
 Muzart gorge. It is through this difficult gorge that 
 Asiatics have passed southwards from time to time 
 between the Hi valley and the basin of the Tarim. 
 
 The appearance of the range struck me as parti- 
 cularly beautiful on the lovely morning we descended 
 from Khanakai ; and on our way up the valley one 
 never tired of the snow-crested horizon on the left. 
 On the morning we struck camp on the bank of the 
 Tekes I tried, during the four hours they were getting 
 ready, to photograph the view, but had no success.
 
 244 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Then, starting at eight o'clock, we first made our 
 way across a bog — one of the few I saw in Central 
 Asia ; two of my convoy, with Tor-jee and the lama, 
 having gone off to an encampment to [)rocure, 1 
 suspected, a few drops of refreshment. 
 
 They reappeared bringing a Kalmuk to pilot us 
 across the wide but shallow stream of the Urten 
 
 BAGGAGE TENT AND " PALATKA " AT KHANAKAI. 
 
 Muzart, near its junction with the Tekes. The 
 passage was so easy, the water not reaching the 
 stirrup, that I suspected the volunteer guide had an 
 eve to his own advantao^e rather than ours.* He 
 seemed much delighted with the present of a two- 
 penny whistle. 
 
 * I notice, however, that Kostenko speaks of the Aksu (another 
 affluent joining the Tekes, a little farther east) and the Muzart as
 
 UP THE MUZ-TAG MOUNTAINS. 245 
 
 Before remounting, on the west bank of the river 
 we had another butterfly hunt, and quickly caught 50, 
 After this we rode for some hours through magnificent 
 meadow-lands towards the foot of the mountains, and 
 in the afternoon turned into the hills to a place Osman 
 called Shattoo, at the entrance of the Muzart defile. 
 
 Here, on a lofty terrace, perhaps 100 feet or more 
 above the river, was pitched for me a solitary Kalmuk 
 tent, whilst on the opposite bank, in meadows at a 
 lower level, were the encampment and the cattle. 
 Why the river, there unfordable, was thus placed 
 between us did not appear. The usual sheep was pre- 
 sented and killed ; but my convoy, instead of staying 
 with us to eat it, went higher up the stream and crossed 
 to their camp, there to visit, it was said, some of their 
 lady friends, and, in any case, leaving me and my party 
 to spend a quiet Sunday. 
 
 Accordingly, I rose next morning, after a long and 
 restful sleep, to take in our surroundings. To the 
 south were visible abundant pastures and enormous 
 forests of fir, clothing the sides of the mountains about 
 half-way to the summits, which were bare, and not yet 
 clear of snow. Alongside the Kalmuk tent provided 
 for me Joseph had erected the palatka as shade for 
 the servants, whilst farther to the left was the modest 
 shanty of Osman Bai and his assistants, who delighted 
 to be so situated that they could lie under canvas and 
 watch their horses grazing. 
 
 A few minutes' walk behind our tents rose a terrace, 
 
 difficult to ford. He mentions also that the valley of the Upper Tekes 
 is deserted except in July, when it is enlivened by a tribe of Kara- 
 Kirghese called Bogins, and along the central Tekes, he says, Kirghesc 
 of the Atbanof tribe wander. Whether this continues in those parts of 
 the valley now handed back to China I am doubtful. We neither heard 
 nor saw anything of Kirghese in the Tekes valley.
 
 246 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 on the top of which I found the somewhat dilapidated 
 remains of a stone-built fort or barrack, supposed at 
 first to be a Chinese picket, but too well built for that. 
 I subsequently came to the conclusion that it had been 
 the site of a Russian military post. It was now used 
 as a dwelling-place by the neighbouring Kalmuks in 
 winter. 
 
 At the timeof Yakub Khan's insurrection, he ordered 
 that all caravans proceeding from Kashgaria to the Hi 
 valley should go by the Muzart Pass. He also sent a 
 force of men to improve it, and established a picket on 
 the southern side. The Russians, therefore, fearing 
 that the object of Yakub was the conquest of the pro- 
 vince of Kuldja, kept a watch on his movements, and 
 when, in May 1870, the Taranchis who guarded the 
 Pass had attacked five Russian Kirghese, the Governor- 
 General of Russian Turkistan directed the Pass to be 
 occupied. 
 
 I suppose this Shattoo was the position of the Tian 
 Shan detachment, whence Shepeleff set out in the 
 autumn of 1871 (after the Russian annexation, during 
 the previous spring, of the Hi valley) to explore, chain 
 in hand, the gorge to the summit.* 
 
 * Kostenko appears to call it " Muzart Picket," giving its distance 
 134 miles from Kuldja. His route seems to have varied from mine, and 
 to have crossed the Hi at a different point, passing through the village of 
 Kan, and, by crossing the Tekes at the lower ford, to have avoided the 
 angle we made by going to the Tekes picket. We took 54 hours of 
 caravan travel, which gives, reckoning at three miles an hour, a distance 
 of 162 miles; but probably Kostenko's reckoning is more accurate. 
 
 By way of illustrating the difficulty of getting accurate figures from 
 the Chinese, I may add that the convoy gave Joseph the distance as 
 680 li, or 235 miles. Williams says : " The // is usually reckoned at 
 1 825 "55 feet English, which gives 2-89 li to an English mile. This is 
 based on the estimate of 200 li io a degree, but there were only 180 //' 
 to a degree before Europeans came. Thus its length is increased to 
 2028'39 f^^t, or 2'6 //to a mile, which is nearer the common estimate."
 
 UP THE MUZ-TAG MOUNTAINS. 247 
 
 Leaving our camp on Monday morning, and riding 
 in a south-easterly direction, in a few minutes we were 
 joined by our truant convoy, and came to a large 
 stream called the Lesser Muzart, Bowing from the 
 south into the Urten Muzart.* Near the junction of 
 the two streams are said, by Kostenko, to be traces 
 of a Chinese redoubt. 
 
 Here also stands a vertical granite rock, apparently 
 in situ, about six feet high and as many broad, having 
 on one side an inscription, the letters of which are 
 about six inches high. Kostenko speaks of the letters 
 as unknown forms, and therefore of great antiquity ; 
 whilst Schuyler, alluding, I presume, to this stone, says 
 he was informed it had upon it a human face roughly 
 drawn, and a long inscription supposed by his informant 
 to be Tibetan. 
 
 I have no recollection of seeing either the face or 
 the Tibetan characters. Joseph pronounced the in- 
 scription to be Arabic, the initial words reading, 
 "There is but one God," etc. He thought he could 
 make out the date 573 a.h. (i 176 a.d.), but the letters 
 were too weathered to allow of his discerning more. 
 
 After examining this stone we speedily entered the 
 forest zone of the gorge. On a low bank near the 
 junction of the two streams is a small birch grove. 
 Kostenko points out that its trees do not resemble the 
 Russian birch, but are more slender and pliant, though 
 very tall, having cinnamon- coloured bark, with fine 
 leaves but few branches. 
 
 Throughout the whole extent of the forest belt of 
 
 * This stream I take to be that mentioned by Shepeleff as rising in a 
 group of mountains separated from the rocks bordering on the gorge 
 by a considerable ravine, out of the middle of which rise the three lofty 
 rounded bosses, rather than peaks, of the Saikal.
 
 248 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 the gorge, the birch-tree is seldom met with, but as 
 we passed along I noticed the mountain ash very much 
 like the Russian species, though the tree most frequently 
 met with was the silver fir, sometimes growing out 
 almost at a right angle from the steepest of slopes, yet 
 raising its head vertically and gracefully, the bend 
 in the trunk being noticeable only at the root. The 
 leaves of the Muzart fir, like those of the Central Asian 
 species, are generally soft and short. They grow 
 thickly on the twig, and this hangs downwards with 
 the weight. Downwards, too, hang the violet-coloured 
 cones on their long stems. 
 
 I do not know of other trees in the Muzart forest, 
 but of the larger shrubs and flowers {e.g.y meadow- 
 sweet, etc.) my journal records the barberry and wild 
 currant, hawthorn-trees of considerable height, the 
 common juniper, and the tiiya-kuiruk, or " camel's-tail " 
 — -which is widely distributed and abundant in the 
 higher forests, especially towards the limit of trees. 
 At a lower level this tuya-kim'uk is found with a stem 
 14 feet high and 2 inches thick, its upper part being 
 thickly covered with leaves and thorns. 
 
 Our road from Shattoo was the prettiest of any 
 we had seen since leaving Kuldja, and, after wading 
 through the Lesser Muzart, we entered a narrower 
 passage of the defile, the path meandering now along 
 terraces, and then passing through natural meadows 
 bounded by forest or hill, and bright with a great 
 variety of flowers. 
 
 Here we saw some very large butterflies. Upon 
 receiving the nets the Kalmuks initiated a new depar- 
 ture, and, true to their equestrian instincts, hastened to 
 the chase on horseback. This gave opportunity for 
 some very fine riding, in comparison with which polo
 
 UP THE MUZ-TAG AIOUNTAINS. 249 
 
 on a level sward is child's play. The ground was not 
 only very rough with rocky ddbris from the mountains, 
 but also the many trees and bushes in all directions 
 had to be carefully dodged, as the butterflies flitted 
 here and there. 
 
 Monkey-face and Tor-jee greatly distinguished 
 themselves on this occasion, bringing me again and 
 again their nets to be emptied, and grinning with 
 delight when I cast into the net a few biscuits by way 
 of reward. In this way 50 lepidoptera were added 
 to my collection, and henceforward Jing and Tor-jee 
 usually did their butterfly-hunting on horseback. 
 
 Continuing our route, the path lay for a considerable 
 distance along the left bank of the Urten Muzart, 
 winding picturesquely, now along narrow cornices, on 
 slopes of the mountains not as yet very high, occasion- 
 ally through clumps of firs resounding with the chirping 
 of birds, and from time to time over plateaux, whence 
 we gained transitory glimpses of the fine panorama 
 that awaited us. 
 
 The beauty of the route was unmistakable, and the 
 only drawback worth mentioning was the number of 
 large and small stones which now and then obstructed 
 the road. But even these were of interest, since 
 among the various kinds of rocks fallen from the 
 mountains there stood erect here and there huQfe blocks 
 of marble, like monuments and memorials of nature's 
 workmanship. 
 
 Sometimes we forded narrow streams such as the 
 Mai-boulak, running down to the bed of the Muzart, 
 and occasionally crossed crazy bridges — notably two, 
 about four miles from the entrance of the gorge, thrown 
 across projections in the cliffs and hanging over a 
 yawning precipice, at the foot of which roared the
 
 250 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Muzart. Another of the streams thus entering the 
 Muzart is the Tosti. At the confluence the valley 
 widens to more than half a mile, and is dominated by 
 the gigantic snow-clad peaks of the Tian Shan, a noble 
 range. 
 
 After six hours' riding we came to a fine open valley, 
 where we camped for the night at a place called 
 Udungei, near to a tumble-down Chinese picket, built 
 of logs like a Russian izba, and capable of accom- 
 modating about 50 men. It is these urtcn, or pickets, 
 or huts, that give their name to the stream, along which 
 they were built and maintained formerly by the Chinese 
 for the supply of horses and the convenience of mes- 
 sengers between Aksu and Hi. Now they seem to be 
 of little account. 
 
 We found, however, at Udungei a camp of Kalmuks, 
 again at some distance from the tent pitched for me 
 on the open sward. The view around us became 
 increasingly beautiful. Looking westwards, we had 
 mountains on either side, with trees below those on 
 the left ; whilst nearer and below the hills, on the right, 
 ran the silver stream of the Muzart, with the Kalmuk 
 tents on its bank. Before we started next morning I 
 took photographs, and looking eastwards had in the 
 foreground the horses being laden, a forest of firs 
 beyond, and the head of the valley bounded by some 
 of the higher mountains, towards which we were to 
 proceed in the course of the day. 
 
 At Udungei they brought us, in addition to the 
 usual sheep, abundance of butter and milk in various 
 forms, as well as, if I remember rightly, some attempts 
 at bakemeats, which were interesting as varieties of 
 Kalmuk food. The remarks of Dr Seeland on the food 
 of the Kirghese of Semirechia would, I presume, apply
 
 UP THE MUZ-TAG MOUNTAINS. 251 
 
 pretty nearly to the Kalmuks of Sungaria, since both 
 are nomads and neighbours, but with the difference, so 
 far as my observation went, that the Kalmuks are the 
 poorer.* 
 
 Among drinks both Kirghese and Kalmuks have 
 tea, which reaches them in the form of twigs, coarse 
 leaves, and dust, pressed into the shape of bricks, or 
 thick tiles rather, measuring perhaps 8 by 5 by i inches. 
 This they boil in a large saucepan with milk and flour, 
 salt, millet, and a piece or two of fat, making a decoc- 
 tion which at my first attempt, near Kiakhta, was 
 anything but to my taste, though I acknowledge that 
 when subsequently favoured with a cup by the Rani of 
 Sikkim, near Darjeeling, it was fairly palatable. 
 
 To my own servants I gave Russian tea, which, 
 with sugar, was highly appreciated ; and as they had 
 likewise plenty of bread and mutton, to say nothing of 
 occasional tid-bits from my tent, they fared sumptuously 
 every day. This helped to make things go smoothly. 
 
 Osman Bai put on a show of great orthodoxy at 
 the first Kalmuk camp by declining to eat any of the 
 offered sheep, because he said it had been killed by an 
 infidel Kalmuk. When assured that it was slaughtered 
 
 * "As for meat," he says, "the Kirghese eat little. Oxen and 
 horses are not superabundant, and a rumpsteak of horseflesh, though 
 the delight of a gourmand, is a rarity. The meat ordinarily consumed 
 is mutton. Since, however, the Kirghese of Semirechia possess on an 
 average only six sheep per man, of which three must be spared for 
 breeding, it follows that there is left only eight ounces of mutton per 
 man per day, whereas such is the appetite of these nomads that one of 
 them will easily eat four pounds at a meal ! Only the rich, therefore, 
 can have meat daily ; and of the masses the base of their food is 
 millet and other cereals, and various forms of milk diet, notably, in 
 summer, a'iran, or soured milk, and kon/niss, or milk of mares ; whilst 
 in winter, when these cannot be had, their place is taken by gruel and 
 cakes of flour."
 
 252 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 by a Muhammadan Taranchi, he still declined, saying 
 that he had not seen it done. Afterwards, therefore, 
 in deference to his prejudices, I directed that the daily 
 sheep should be slain by a Muhammadan, so that 
 Osman might partake of the feast. 
 
 This somewhat mollified him, and when, later on, 
 I gave him half a pound of tea, his scruples so far 
 gave way as not only to permit him to accept it with 
 thanks, but to add, " May God love you ! " My 
 servant asked him why he made such a fuss about 
 the mutton, and yet could drink an infidel's tea and 
 sugar. He replied that Joseph argued like a mullah ! 
 and when, in the course of conversation, something 
 was said as to the possibility of our shooting a deer on 
 the journey, he wished me to be informed that in such 
 a case he would eat a portion, if it were killed by me. 
 
 At four miles from Udungei, which we left at 
 eight o'clock, the Muzart receives two streams from 
 the south and west called Maralty, and at 20 miles 
 from the entrance of the gorge we had to cross the 
 Muzart and follow the right bank of the river through 
 a valley which expanded to more than a mile in 
 width. 
 
 There the river divides into several channels, and 
 the road follows for about five miles a flat foreland of 
 the eastern slope, bearing the name of Khan-Yailak, 
 or " the summer pasturage of the Khan." It reminded 
 me of a saying of the Kalmuks, about the upper 
 valleys of the Yulduz, "A fine place for gentlemen and 
 cattle." 
 
 It would be difficult to find a spot with more abun- 
 dant pasture, whether for the horses of the Kalmuk 
 Khan, who, according to one story, was obliged to 
 keep animals here for official messengers, or for Chinese
 
 UP THE MUZ-TAG MOUNTAINS. 253 
 
 cattle, which, according to another story, were sent 
 here for the summer. The view, moreover, was the 
 most imposing I had thus far seen in the gorge, for 
 above and beyond the valley arose three majestic peaks 
 of the Tian Shan, their snowy whiteness set off by the 
 blue sky above and the verdure below.* 
 
 As we rode along we presently saw some Kalmuk 
 children catching butterflies, which was certainly 
 unusual ; but, on reaching their tent, it was explained 
 that they had heard at the previous station of the 
 English traveller, and were catching them for him. 
 Into this tent, which was the last belonging to the 
 Kalmuks that we saw, we turned aside to rest, and to 
 study further this little-known people. 
 
 The wife brought forth koumiss, and spirit said to 
 be made from it. What the latter was like I cannot 
 say, but the koumiss I came to like on occasion, 
 though I tasted none among the Kalmuks or Kirghese 
 comparable with that produced from the Bashkir mares 
 near Samara and Orenburg. f 
 
 I am afraid that I was not so diligrent as I ou^ht to 
 
 * In this locality, in October, Shepeleff' s party noticed smoke coming 
 out of the ground at a spot where they had no reason to suppose a fire 
 had been lighted. "The clods of dark-brown earth," he says, "we 
 took up smoked, and continued to smoulder even when we stamped 
 them under foot in the snow. Specimens having been subsequently 
 submitted to analysis at St Petersburg, they were said to be composed 
 of a mixture of clay, sand, and carbonate of lime, impregnated with 
 organic substances such as are found in 'humus,' and minute crystals 
 of pyrites — in other words, alum-bearing earth." 
 
 t Near Orenburg Dr Carrick has a large establishment for conden- 
 sing mares' milk for infants' food, where the mares are kept and milked 
 with the regularity and precision of a well-appointed English dairy. At 
 Samara are establishments for the koiuniss cure, where corks fly out of 
 " magnums " with the report of a cannon, and one drinks the beverage 
 foaming like champagne, and almost envies the poor invalids whose lot 
 it is to drink a dozen bottles a day. 
 
 But, farther east, where the milk is collected in vessels of doubtful
 
 2 54 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 have been in taking photographs of the Kalmuks ; but 
 my remissness has to some extent been remedied by 
 the kindness of Prince Roland Buonaparte. He has 
 been good enough to give me a set of photographs, 
 taken for his anthropological series, of Kalmuks of the 
 Volga and Astrakhan steppes. 
 
 These are stated on his photographs to be of " pure 
 race," but if so, and speaking from memory, the 
 portraits of the Volga Kalmuks before me look more 
 European in feature than most of the people I saw in 
 the Tekes valley. The average Mongol has a flat 
 face, with prominent cheek-bones and small slit-like 
 eyes obliquely placed. 
 
 M. Ujfalvy, whose anthropological description of 
 the Hi Kalmuks is the best I know, speaks of their 
 " lips as colourless, set in a strange, almost idiotic, and 
 sad smile." The hair is straight, coarse, and in- 
 variably black, and, on the Tekes, is worn by the 
 men in a queue, and by the women in two long thick 
 plaits, whereas the Kalmuks of the Volga, both men 
 and women, appear to wear the hair much as do the 
 Russians. 
 
 So also with regard to the women's dresses. In the 
 west these are somewhat Europeanised, whilst their 
 sister^s eastwards wear garments, not indeed quite 
 Chinese, but such as give their outer dress the 
 appearance neither of the Turki khalat nor of the 
 
 cleanliness and put into a leather bottle that from one season to another 
 is never washed out — a little of the sour milk of yesterday being left at 
 the bottom to turn the new milk of to-day — it is not difficult to imagine 
 that either fancy or fact sometimes adds a rancid taste to the noble 
 liquor, which the Kalmuk deems to be fit alike for gods and men. The 
 spirit made from it is, of course, intoxicating, but ordinary koumiss 
 appears to contain only about as much alcohol as ginger-beer made 
 with yeast, 
 
 1
 
 A GROUP or MONGOLS IN CHINESE TURKISTAN,
 
 256 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 lady's garb of China proper ; whilst the women's 
 hats of felt worn about Kuldja resemble a Mongol 
 hat I bought in Kiakhta, and are not very unlike 
 the turban-shaped felts worn in England about 30 
 years ago. 
 
 When writing about the Kalmuks of the Hi valley 
 in Russian Central Asia I obtained much information, 
 seemingly original, from a pamphlet by M. Ostroumoff, 
 who states their numbers in 1876 as 9,600 males and 
 6,400 females. To these must be added, I presume, 
 the Kalmuks about Chuguchak, Kobdo, and Karashar. 
 
 For administrative purposes they are divided into 
 sumuls, or squadrons (each of 200 tents), which are 
 supposed to constitute Chinese irregular cavalry. 
 Each S7unul is under the direction of a lama, called 
 a gelein, who is priest, doctor, and sorcerer ; and a 
 laic, called a zang\ who is concerned with the military 
 and judicial affairs of the community. 
 
 I am not aware that anything is done, now that 
 Kuldja is Chinese once more, for the education of the 
 Kalmuks. In 187 1 a school was opened in Vierny 
 for the children of recently baptised Kalmuks, and, 
 at a public examination in 1875, the progress of the 
 pupils not only gave satisfaction to their benefactors, 
 but surpassed expectation. 
 
 The school, however, had been discontinued at the 
 time of my first visit to Vierny, and though on my 
 second visit I heard of Kalmuks still living there, to 
 whom I sent subsequently from Kashgar through the 
 Governor some copies of the Gospels in their vernacular, 
 I heard nothing of any schools on either the Russian 
 or Chinese side of the frontier. 
 
 During the last century the Kalmuks would appear 
 to have lived along the whole course of the Tekes,
 
 UP THE MUZ-TAG MOUNTAINS. 257 
 
 to judge by the ruins of swndes, or monasteries, still 
 remaining in several places. One of these is marked 
 on my Russian map on the river Sumbe, near the 
 Russian picket we visited. Another, called Ak- 
 burkhan, is near the spot where we struck the 
 Tekes, and a third ruin about 15 miles farther 
 west ; but we heard of only one monastery now 
 existing, which lay too far out of my way, in the 
 lower part of the valley. 
 
 As for the intellectual capacities of the Kalmuks, I 
 would refer again to what Dr Seeland says of their 
 neighbours the Kirghese. Their memory for persons, 
 places, and things that immediately strike the attention, 
 is more powerful than that of persons more civilised ; 
 whilst recollection of sounds and forms of language is 
 weaker, and abstract conceptions are to them extremely 
 difficult. 
 
 Young scholars learn quickly, needing but three 
 months to be taught how to read and write Kirghese, 
 and to learn enough Russian to enter the gymnase 
 requires but a year only. They learn mathematics 
 better than languages ; other branches of education 
 are difficult ; only ten per cent, show any aptitude 
 for drawing. Later on, education does not progress 
 so rapidly. As they advance towards their teens, 
 they become idle and inattentive. 
 
 It sometimes happens that scholars at the gymnase 
 of Vierny, or cadets in Orenburg, finish their course 
 with distinction ; but to imagine that the Kirghese only 
 need education to raise them to the level of civilised 
 nations, Dr Seeland thinks, would be a mistake. The 
 experiment has now been tried for half a century at 
 Omsk and Orenburg with only moderate results. The 
 scholars manifest no enthusiasm to continue their studies 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 at the universities or academies. Once become 
 officers or translators, they do not continue their 
 reading, and a great many forget the Russian they 
 have learned and go back to their primitive manner 
 of living. 
 
 The foregoing is still more true, I think, of the 
 Kalmuks, for whom the little Buddhism they possess 
 does less intellectually even than a meagre Muham- 
 madanism does for the Kirghese. As I entered the 
 tents of the various encampments we visited, I usually 
 asked to be shown the bitrkhans, or objects connected 
 with religious worship, such as images, prayer-wheels, 
 amulets, etc., which they would let me see, but would 
 not allow me to purchase. I do not remember seeing 
 religious objects of intrinsic worth. It may be that 
 they feared to produce anything valuable, lest it should 
 be pounced upon by the officers with me ; but I am 
 disposed to attribute their absence to the real poverty 
 of the Kalmuks with whom we came in contact. 
 
 The women appeared to have a hard time of it, 
 though much freer to come and go than their Muham- 
 madan sisters. A Kalmuk girl on the Tekes is a 
 shepherdess, and soon becomes bronzed by exposure ; 
 whilst even those farther west at 15 and 18 look as old 
 as English women of 30. They are married early, by 
 arrangement between the parents, who for the nonce 
 turn their backs upon the girl, pretending not to see, 
 and the form is gone through by the bridegroom of 
 stealing his bride and carrying her off by force. 
 
 The knot thus tied is not tied very tightly, for she 
 is at liberty to leave her husband and return to her 
 relations ; and, if a widow, she may marry again after 
 a month's mourning. The morals of the people are 
 spoken of disparagingly, though I have nothing original
 
 UP THE MUZ-TAG MOUNTAINS. 259 
 
 to add one way or the other ; but the disparagement 
 may well be true, seeing that a very large proportion 
 of the males are lamas, and therefore celibates, so- 
 called, which results in immorality on the one hand 
 and polygamy on the other. 
 
 In the last tent we visited they gave us a warm 
 reception, and exhibited, it seemed to me, a favourable 
 example of nomad life. I saw no hay stored for 
 winter use. In autumn, probably, the people descend 
 to the lowlands — perhaps to cultivate a little land^ 
 though I came across no fields. There are, however, 
 traces of old irrigation canals in the Tekes valley ; 
 and Prjevalsky, on his way up the Hi valley, mentions, 
 near the Kash, lands temporarily tilled by the Kalmuks. 
 
 I observed no cats or poultry at any of the encamp- 
 ments we stopped at, and few traces of foreign mer- 
 chandise. The jewels were of silver, and those I 
 obtained were of home make, and showed little taste 
 or skill in design. The people seemed not quite to 
 understand the use of some of the finery which I gave 
 them, but were always pleased with cutlery ; large tent 
 and packing needles proved acceptable ; and bricks of 
 tea at once met with approval. 
 
 Starting once more, we continued to ascend, the 
 valley of the Muzart getting narrower as we approached 
 the principal chain ; also on the last terraces of the 
 Khan-Yailak the soil became rugged and swampy. 
 As we were approaching the upward limit of trees, 
 firs appeared less frequently, and the bushes of 
 " camel's-tail " were only from two to three feet high. 
 Presently we came to a black, tumble-down, smoky 
 timber shed — the last Chinese picket on the northern 
 slope of the range. 
 
 The place was little better than a ruin, but there
 
 26o CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 was standinof room for horses and accommodation of 
 similar quality for human beings ; whilst we found there, 
 I suppose awaiting us, two men, one of whom was a 
 post messenger on foot, the difficulties of travel over 
 the next stage being usually considered too great for 
 horses. 
 
 We had now arrived at the limit of our friend Kah's 
 jurisdiction. His two servants, Koo-Kah and Tcho- 
 gah, had talked of going back even at Geelan, but Jing 
 and Tor-jee had informed me that the Tsian-Tsmn told 
 them they might accompany me to Aksu if I wished 
 it. Jing had also made me a present of a Manchu 
 pocket-razor, lancet, and tweezers combined, and 
 volunteered his readiness to go with me all the way. 
 I wrote, therefore, to the Tsian-Tsmn, saying that 
 I should probably avail myself of his permission to 
 take his two interpreters with me to Aksu, unless we 
 found on the way that the Aksu authorities had made 
 such arrangements as to render this unnecessary. This 
 letter I inclosed to the Russian Consul at Kuldja with 
 two letters for England, asking him to be good enough 
 to translate the one and post the others, and handed 
 the packet that morning to Koo-Kah, with presents for 
 himself and his fellow. They were then free to return. 
 Subsequently Jing and Tor-jee seemed a little dis- 
 posed to wish not to go forward, Tor-jee had crossed 
 the Pass before, and knew its hardships, and in the 
 light of subsequent events I was not surprised at his 
 hesitation ; whilst Jing had raised the difficulty of 
 procuring a mount on his way back, since the docu- 
 ment by virtue of which, as I suppose, he had received 
 horses from the Kalmuks would have no force on the 
 other side of the mountains. 
 
 I said something about hiring one for him, where-
 
 UP THE MUZ-TAG AIOUNTAINS. 261 
 
 upon, in a roundabout way, he gave me to understand 
 his doubts whether it would be becoming in a gentleman 
 of his dignity to ride a horse that was only hired, 
 though the gift of such an animal, he intimated, would 
 solve the difficulty. Osman Bai undertook to send 
 two horses, if no one else would, for £ i from Aksu 
 to the first Kalmuk station ; and as each interpreter 
 said he could not go without the other, I undertook 
 to be responsible, if necessary, for their carriage back, 
 and said that I wished them to go forward. 
 
 They seemed also to be somewhat afraid, not know- 
 ing what I should write about them to their master, 
 but were pleased when I told them that thus far they 
 had given ample satisfaction, and that I intended so 
 to testify. 
 
 Hereupon it happened that Osman Bai had the 
 offer of a horse from a Kalmuk, which he asked me 
 to advance money to purchase ; so that with this 
 increase of cattle and a spare horse or two of m.y 
 own, we continued our way to a favourable halting- 
 place, whence to attack early next morning the 
 Muz-davan, or ice pass.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OVER THE MUZ-DA VAN, OR ICE PASS. 
 
 From Khan-Yailak to bed of Muzart, 262. — View of Archali-Karachat 
 glacier; Camp at Toghri-su, 263. — Stir at daybreak, 264. — Basin 
 receiving five glaciers, 265. — Photograph of the "White Moun- 
 tain," 266. — Kaulbars' remarks on Jalyn-Khatsyr glacier, 268. — 
 Ice-tables and stony roads ; View of mer-de-glace, 2^2. — Ice- 
 hummocks, crevasses, grottoes, and pinnacles ; Difficulties of 
 pack animals, 274. — Fall over precipice of horse and baggage ; 
 Mazar-bash ; former hermitage, and fort, 275. — Soldiers' pro- 
 visions and horses hauled up an ice-cliif, 276. — Scrambling down 
 the Muz-davan, 277. — Road over rocks and stones, 278. — From 
 Mazar-bash to Tamgha-tash ; End of glacier, and superb ice- 
 cavern ; Hiuen Tsiang's description, 279. — Frequent loss of 
 horses ; Good fortune of first European in completely crossing 
 the Pass, 281. 
 
 THE picket station at Khan-Yailak, reached on 
 August 7th, would have been the proper 
 place to sleep at ; but Osman Bai wished to push on 
 to the very edge of our difficulties, in view of the 
 severe exertions which he knew awaited him on the 
 morrow. 
 
 We descended, therefore, into the bed of the Muzart, 
 and presently made our way round the slope of a 
 moraine on a foot-wide pathway, along which my horse 
 had to pick his way very carefully. It seemed to me 
 at the time the most dangerous thing I had attempted
 
 OVER THE MUZ- DA VAN, OR ICE PASS. 263 
 
 on horseback, the loose stones threatening a sHp of 
 horse and rider into the stream below. 
 
 Presently we came to an affluent of the Muzart, 
 called the Archali-Karachat, and looking up to our left, 
 whence the stream rises, we saw a magnificent glacier 
 shattered by crevasses — very like the Rhone glacier. 
 When Shepeleff reached this spot in October 1871, he 
 found the snow five feet deep, but sufficiently firm on 
 the surface to bear his weight. The glacier is men- 
 tioned also by Poltaratsky, who reached this spot in 
 1867, as did Kaulbars in 1870. 1 have not seen either 
 of their accounts ; but, according to Shepeleff, they 
 think this glacier the largest on the northern slope of 
 the Muz-Tag range, and that it is connected with the 
 luer-de-giace, to be mentioned hereafter, on the southern 
 slope. Shepeleff gives its distance from the entrance 
 of the defile as 27 miles.* 
 
 Where the Archali-Karachat falls into the Urten 
 Muzart the gorge penetrates the main mass of the 
 range, and the forest region gives place to that of 
 glaciers. Here we clambered to a little patch of grass, 
 called by Osman Toghri-su, arriving at one o'clock, to 
 spend the night. We had no longer a friendly Kalmuk 
 tent, and my paiatka was therefore erected. Matters 
 were not improved by its coming on to rain. 
 
 Kostenko remarks concerning the Tian Shan in 
 general that during the summer months, on heights 
 from 4,000 to 5,000 feet, rain falls almost daily from 
 4 to 7 p.m., and seldom in the morning or at night. 
 On heights from 5,000 to 8,000 feet rain is said to 
 
 * In writing this chapter I have before me the accounts of both 
 Shepeleff and Kostenko ; and as they spent much more time in the 
 Pass than I, and examined it with professional eyes, I have frequently 
 used their descriptions, as better than anything I could give of my own.
 
 264 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 alternate with snow, which quickly melts. Above 
 9,000 feet, he adds, there is no rain, and the snow 
 which falls instead quickly disappears. 
 
 According to this we might have expected a fall of 
 snow, instead of which we were pelted with rain, which 
 came into my tent, and the men had to erect a shanty 
 for shelter at its side. Things were a little gloomy, 
 therefore, as night came on, and Osman Bai seemed 
 excited — old soldier though he was — as if on the eve 
 of a battle. 
 
 Usually my men were in no particular hurry to stir 
 in the morning, and sometimes it was I who had to rouse 
 Joseph and set things going again ; but on the present 
 occasion Osman was about before daylight, and, shout- 
 ing to his men, wanted me to hurry up with the rest. 
 The rain had passed, but not all the clouds, and as I 
 peeped out in the cold grey of dawn I saw we were 
 approaching some splendid mountains. 
 
 The view to the south-west was too tempting not to 
 be photographed, even at half-past four, whilst the 
 valleys were still in shadow, and the sunlight lit up 
 only the highest peaks. The central mountain on my 
 camera screen was snow-capped, and rose up thousands 
 of feet, whilst at the foot of the picture ran the Muzart, 
 through which we waded about five o'clock. Then we 
 climbed over a steep ascent of bare rock, higher and 
 higher, the road up to the top of the gorge following 
 now the right and now the left bank of the Urten 
 Muzart. 
 
 Presently we arrived at a bend in the gorge towards 
 the west, where it presents the appearance (as Kostenko 
 observes) of an elevated valley or oblong basin, about 
 three miles long and nearly a mile wide, bounded on 
 the north by a steep and rocky declivity of the snowy
 
 OVER THE MUZ-DAVAN, OR ICE PASS. 
 
 26: 
 
 range, whilst the main chain shuts in the basin on the 
 south. 
 
 Into, or towards this basin, five glaciers descend. 
 The first and largest of these comes from the east, and 
 is fed from several sources. The second glacier lies 
 
 SUNRISE ON A PEAK IN THE MUZART PASS, LOOKING SOUTH-WEST FROM TOGIIRI-SU. 
 
 north and south. Its area is comparatively small, tor 
 it descends only to about the middle of the slope. 
 The ddbris which has been brought down by it 
 reaches, however, to the edge of the basin. 
 
 The third glacier likewise moves from north to
 
 266 CHINESE CENTRAL AS /A. 
 
 south, but it descends much lower than the second 
 one, and the moraine material narrows the basin by 
 several feet. The western portion of the steep slopes 
 of the mountains in this locality has been formed, says 
 Kostenko, by broken rocks brought down by the 
 glacier. These, in the course of ages, have been 
 covered with soil, from which have sprung small clumps 
 of firs. 
 
 These represent the advanced point of forest growth 
 on the northern slope in the Muzart gorge ; for, 
 beyond it, neither trees nor even bushes are to be 
 seen, though, during the short summer, vegetation 
 appears in the form of rank grass and a few kinds of 
 flowers, amongst which violets are plentiful. 
 
 Here too, Kostenko adds, at the very hottest time 
 of the year the nights are cold and the mornings 
 frosty, though I observed that at three in the morning 
 of our leaving Toghri-su, my thermometer in the tent 
 registered a maximum during the previous night of 
 52° and a minimum no lower than 42°. 
 
 The fourth glacier descends into the valley we are 
 describing by a narrow cleft, along which there is a 
 road. This, however, suddenly changes its direction 
 towards the south ; whilst the fifth glacier, moving 
 from the west, shuts in the valley on that side, close 
 to where the Tura-su falls into the Urten Muzart. 
 Shepeleff climbed to the lower moraine of this glacier, 
 which he places at 30 miles from the entrance of the 
 gorge, the snowfield being not much elevated above 
 the valley of the Muzart. 
 
 We reached the above valley in about an hour and 
 a half, and I could not resist setting up my camera, 
 though in the shadow and with only a feeble sun, 
 whereby was obtained, however, a capital view, looking
 
 OVER THE MUZ-DAVAN, OR ICE PASS. 267 
 
 east, of a grand mountain, partially snow-covered, and 
 called by my men the White Mountain, with darker 
 peaks below, between two of which descended a 
 glacier, whose foot almost reached to the central 
 expanse of water at the bottom of the basin. 
 
 THE "white mountain" IN THE MUZART PASS, AS SEEN WHEN APrROACHlNG FROM 
 
 THE NORTH. 
 
 After crossing this valley, our road, as already In- 
 timated, turned sharply as in an elbow to the south, 
 threading a pass of the main range. From this bend 
 up to the highest point the distance is given by 
 Shepeleff as three miles. The road now becomes
 
 268 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 difficult and lies over precipitous crags, and is choked 
 with stones, between which the horse must pick his 
 way with caution — now across glaciers, below which 
 streams descend with deafening noise ; or perhaps no 
 track at all exists, and progress has to be made over 
 the almost perpendicular sides of the moraine. 
 
 For my own part I managed to keep the saddle, but 
 hereabouts, says Kostenko, " it is necessary to advance 
 on foot, or rather to creep along and cling with hands 
 and feet to the sharply projecting stones, pieces of 
 which become detached and clatter down into the 
 raging Muzart. On both sides of this gorge tower 
 gigantic cliffs— sharp-pointed, vertical peaks, or majestic 
 bluffs — over which cascades fall into the depths below. 
 Cornices of snow hang overhead, threatening to give 
 way and fill up the entire gorge. From time to time 
 fragments of the cliffs detach themselves and come 
 down with a crash, rebounding from the crags in their 
 descent into the abyss." 
 
 Kostenko's journey was in summer. Shepeleffs 
 description is a winter one. " Turning," he says, " at 
 a right angle towards the south, our view was extended 
 over a grand and magnificent picture. Before us was, 
 as it were, an immense cascade suddenly congealed, and 
 descending nearly to the spot where the Tura-su flows 
 into the Muzart. It was the grandest and most beau- 
 tiful of the glaciers we had thus far seen. It was 350 
 feet wide, taking up nearly all the opening of the 
 defile, and, proceeding from the east, turned abruptly 
 to the north. . . . 
 
 " Baron Kaulbars called it Jalyn-Khatsyr. It 
 appeared about a mile and a half in length, formed of 
 blocks of dark grey ice, heaped successively one upon 
 the other, and of boulders buried beneath the snow.
 
 OVER THE MUZ-DA VAN, OR ICE PASS. 269 
 
 The surface of the glacier presents clearly defined and 
 generally pointed outlines ; the ice of the higher beds 
 being of a lighter tint than that of the lateral and 
 lower, which are intermingled with sand and earth. 
 Seen in profile, the glacier presents the appearance of 
 an immense train, the piling up of the ice being most 
 considerable at the lower end, where it attains the 
 height of from 70 to 100 feet." 
 
 After riding for an hour from the spot whence I 
 took the photograph last mentioned, I attempted 
 another looking south, and bringing in the same 
 White Mountain and glacier as before, but with a dark 
 mass in the foreground to the left. 
 
 From the foot of the last pass on the northern slope 
 begins the reign of chaos, and the road is strewed 
 with the bleached skeletons of horses which have 
 succumbed. In summer, animals make their way a 
 little better than in autumn or winter, when the snow 
 fills up the interstices between the stones. At such a 
 time a horse is likely to fall and wrench off his hoofs. 
 
 Shepeleff speaks of his animals as suffering cruelly, 
 both as regards their bruises and also from the rare- 
 faction of the air. Of this latter, however, I have not 
 the least recollection at any part of the Muz-Tag 
 range, nor did I know what rarefied air meant until 
 reaching the higher passes of the Kuen Lun. 
 
 The route leading up to the crest of the Muzart 
 skirts the east of the Jalyn-Khatsyr glacier, and, 
 blocked more or less with large stones, winds along 
 the flanks of the lateral rocks. On the east is seen 
 the Urten Muzart, issuing from beneath the ice like a 
 slender thread, and forming the source of the river, 
 31 miles from the spot where it issues from the defile 
 into the Tekes valley.
 
 270 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 The crest of the Pass is saddle-shaped, and about a 
 third of a mile in length, presenting the appearance of 
 a little plateau sloping slightly towards the south, and 
 affording a superb view right and left of the magnificent 
 peaks of the Tian Shan. None of my predecessors 
 appear to have had in their possession a barometer, 
 whilst as for my own — an excellent aneroid graduated 
 up to 20,000 feet, and lent me by my friend and former 
 fellow-traveller the Rev, J. P. Hobson — the rough 
 travel, I suppose, of the tarantass had put it out of 
 order. Hence the exact height of the Muzart Pass 
 remains undetermined.* 
 
 Kostenko, arguing chiefly from the cessation of 
 vegetation, speaks of 1 1,000 feet as the altitude of the 
 Pass, whilst Shepeleff, taking the Tekes valley at 5,500 
 feet, adds 5,000 to the glacier before coming to the 
 last ascent, for which he further adds upwards of 
 1,000 feet, giving a total estimate of 12,000 feet above 
 the level of the sea. The measurement by chain from 
 the northernmost spurs of the Muz-Tag to the top of 
 the Pass he gives as 49 versts 420 sajens, or about 
 33 miles. 
 
 My last photograph on the northern side of the 
 crest was taken at eight o'clock, and was successful in 
 portraying clearly the outlines of one of the grandest 
 peaks we saw ; whilst in the foreground there lay a 
 huge mass of rocks, something like a fallen mountain 
 broken into a thousand pieces. 
 
 * R6clus quotes Regel as giving the height at ii,6oo feet, but if 
 Dr Kegel has written thus, it has escaped me. Reclus also mentions 
 Dilke as having crossed the Pass ; but neither in conversation with 
 Mr Dilke, nor in reading what he wrote upon his journey to Kuldja and 
 Issik-Kul, have I ever understood that he went over the Muzart Pass, 
 and I am inclined to think the names of Regel and Dilke are mentioned 
 in error.
 
 OVER THE MUZ-DAVAN, OR ICE PASS. 271 
 
 Taking these pictures of course delayed us (though 
 not the baggage), and involved the stoppage of Joseph, 
 who carried my camera on horseback, and another 
 who carried the tripod, together with the interpreters 
 and guides, who became a little impatient of this study 
 of the artistic under circumstances they could only 
 feebly appreciate. 
 
 Moreover, they did not know the way too well, and 
 probably desirednot to be lost in this region of chaos 
 and horror and many skeletons of horses, where the 
 only beings at their ease, apparently, were the ravens 
 and kites, which saluted us with their ominous cries, 
 and longed, no doubt, for the pleasure of picking our 
 bones. 
 
 On finishing the photograph just mentioned, I 
 perceived that a stranger, one Mullah- Khoja, had 
 joined our party, as if dropped from the clouds. He 
 had, he said, been in the mountains hunting, and soon 
 showed that he knew his way about better than the 
 rest of us, so that before long he proved a valuable 
 acquisition. 
 
 From the crest the road proceeds southwards, the 
 cliffs sometimes on the right and sometimes on the left, 
 whilst between them lies a hollow with a flat bed, along 
 which, in summer, streams trickle towards the south. 
 At half-past ten we came to what looked like the 
 lower part of a long attenuated glacier, which did not 
 occupy the whole breadth of the valley. The surface 
 was extremely uneven, and stood up like a miniature 
 range of ice-mountains, gradually melting, and causing 
 thereby a stream to run at their base. 
 
 In a sketch by a Russian named Kludoff, of which 
 I possess a photograph, this miniature ice-range is 
 called the Dorgfa g-lacier, and near it the artist has
 
 272 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 sketched what looks like an exaggerated mushroom, 
 or a table of rock supported on a pedestal of ice. 
 
 These ice-tables are well known to Alpine climbers, 
 and are formed by the surface of the glacier thawing 
 more slowly under a fallen rock than in uncovered 
 parts. Hence the "leg" is left, but only to thaw 
 flankwise till the stone falls and begins again to form 
 
 THE DORGA GLACIER IN THE MUZART PASS. 
 
 another table. I took a photograph of this miniature 
 ice-range, looking north, and then another in the 
 opposite direction, where the ice is less prominent, but, 
 from the multiplicity of rocks and stones, presents a 
 difficult country for horses, though less difficult than 
 some portions of the northern slope. 
 
 From a slight eminence, about two miles from the 
 highest point of the Pass, there is a view of a iner-de-
 
 OVER THE MUZ- DA VAN, OR ICE PASS. 273 
 
 glace, across which the roirte lies. The ice, stretching 
 towards the south, is confined between the main peaks 
 of the range and its branches. The upper portion of 
 this sea Hes east and west to the length of about four 
 miles. It then turns at almost a right angle towards 
 the south, and stretches in that direction for five miles, 
 its width throughout being upwards of a mile. Enor- 
 mous ice-waves and piles of ddbids and broken rocks, 
 lying in the most varied positions, present a picture of 
 terrible disorder. 
 
 In one part these waves and heaps are strewed with 
 rubbish of a smaller kind, and are overgrown by grass, 
 which swarms with myriads of black and grey spiders, 
 as well as small ants. But I was much struck with 
 the paucity of animal life seen on the day of crossing 
 the glacier, the only quadruped being a small rodent, 
 I think a souslik, to which Tor-jee immediately gave 
 chase, but to no purpose. 
 
 Continuing our journey, on either side are cliffs 
 rising like mountain walls, usually bare, and here and 
 there of reddish hue, as of granite. Scattered over 
 this sea of ice are innumerable specimens of coloured 
 marbles — of jasper, of agate, and a mass of other stones 
 with coloured veins of beautiful pattern. In places 
 the heaps of ice are free from fallen stones, and their 
 tops then glitter in the sun. Deep down in the layers 
 of ice flow streams which are heard but not seen. 
 Here and there the ice is cracked and* broken up into 
 crevasses or ice-wells, into some of which I would fain 
 have peeped ; but to approach them was perilous, since 
 a false step might entail a fall into an abyss. 
 
 The farther we advanced, the less we found of 
 ddbris and rocks, and the cleaner and clearer was the 
 ice ; but at the same time the road became more 
 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 difficult. We kept for a long time to the right of the 
 ice, and close to the mountains, where at first sight 
 there seemed to be soil for the horses to tread upon, 
 until, having occasion to dismount, I discovered that 
 the supposed soil was only a thin coating of dust 
 over ice. 
 
 To judge from Shepeleff's description, the picture 
 presented by this locality in autumn and winter is still 
 more striking and effective. He speaks of glacial 
 pinnacles from 500 to 600 feet in height (meaning, 
 I suppose, on the Dorga glacier), and of corridors 
 of ice with overhanging walls. The channels and the 
 lakes are frozen, and the newly-formed crystals of ice 
 take the most fantastic shapes. The ice-grottoes, 
 crevasses, and pits are veiled with snow as with 
 a fringe. Inside are roofs of icicles, and from below 
 ice-pillars, built as if for ornament and intended to 
 receive statues. 
 
 The surface of the waters in these places is frozen 
 so hard that it is impossible to break the icy covering, 
 and each blow yields only a metallic but musical ring. 
 At times beneath this glacial sea deep sounds are heard, 
 proceeding from internal rupture of the ice. Such 
 sounds alternate with the crash of falling rocks, or 
 the dull roar of avalanches of snow which fall to pieces 
 like scattering shells. 
 
 My photographic efforts had so far delayed us that 
 we had seen nothing for some time of the baggage. 
 At last, after about a couple of hours' ride from the 
 Dorga glacier, we saw the animals ahead, with Osman 
 Bai and his helpers painfully picking their way and 
 toiling among ice-hummocks and over crevasses, the 
 animals being helped over special difficulties one by 
 one. The party appeared on the left of the glacier,
 
 OVER THE AIUZ-DAVAN, OR ICE PASS. 275 
 
 whither by a roundabout way we had to follow, 
 crossing the uneven ice. 
 
 Nothing looked easier than for one's horse to slip, 
 and pitch his rider headforemost into a crevasse or 
 against an ice-hummock, so I dismounted. But this 
 was for the worse, since the horse proved the surer 
 footed. I had to remount, and ride with loose rein, 
 dangling my feet so that at the first sign of a slip 
 I might spring from the saddle. 
 
 In this fashion I was doing my best to cross the 
 glacier, following the lead of the old huntsman, when, 
 along with a great shouting, Joseph called out to me to 
 look at the baggage-horses filing along an ice-cliff, over 
 which one of them had fallen, baggage and all. This 
 seemed exciting enough to make one look up, but so dif- 
 ficult was the portion of the way I was just then creeping 
 over that I dared not allow my attention to be diverted, 
 and in due time we came to the scene of the accident. 
 
 The horse had gone too close to the edge of a 
 precipice, fortunately not very deep, and without 
 water at the bottom, so that, wonderful to say, it 
 was not killed, nor seriously hurt ; and as its load 
 happened to be only the two chests of bread and a 
 sack, no damage was sustained. Osman Bai, as we 
 came up, was soundly rating his men for carelessness, 
 after which we got ahead of the baggage-horses, and 
 by one o'clock reached a spot called Mazar-bash, five 
 miles from the crest of the Pass. 
 
 Here awaited us the most trying ordeal of the 
 whole route. Mazar-bash is situated on the eastern 
 side of the iner-de-giacc, where, for a portion of the 
 width, the ice was bro^-en off almost vertically, leaving 
 a cliff from 40 to ^ : feet high, down the face (-f which 
 we had by some means to descend.
 
 276 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Mazar-bash signifies the "head of the tomb" ; in 
 memory, I gathered, of a saint — I suppose a Bud- 
 dhist monk — who, possessed probably with the crazy 
 idea that he was to heap up merit by freezing him- 
 self to death, had pitched upon this horrible spot 
 for his habitation. He had, however, left enough 
 of the odour of sanctity about the place to afford 
 an occasion to my Buddhist attendants to offer their 
 devotions. 
 
 The first European, if I mistake not, to reach this 
 spot was Shepeleff, who found here a small square fort 
 which had been constructed three years previously on 
 a little plateau upon one of the mountain slopes. It 
 had a terraced roof defended by loopholes and battle- 
 ments, and was built of very hard Chinese baked 
 bricks, without a door, and entered through a hole 
 in the roof, to which one mounted through a loophole 
 by means of a ladder. 
 
 He found here 30 soldiers armed with matchlocks 
 and yatagans, and rejoicing in an allowance of two 
 khalats and a pelisse per annum, with a monthly pay 
 of eight shillings, usually six months in arrear. Scant 
 wages this, for the pleasure of living on a glacier ! 
 The soldiers, needless to say, were all infantry, since 
 there was no food for horses, to say nothing of the 
 difficulty of getting them there. 
 
 Notches were cut into the cliff of ice by which men 
 from below could mount, but provisions and fuel brought 
 from Tamgha-tash, the nearest picket southwards, 
 were hauled up with ropes, and in this fashion the 
 horses of caravans were let down when proceeding 
 to Aksu.* 
 
 * Kostenko says that caravans never returned in the opposite direc- 
 tion, because of the difficulty of pulling up the horses. I was a little
 
 OVER THE MUZ-DAVAiY, OR ICE PASS. 277 
 
 Shepeleff mentions as behind the fort several tombs, 
 which, if now existing, escaped my observation. They 
 are said to be alluded to in an itinerary by Ritter. 
 What had become of the fort at the time of my visit 
 I am not sure. I am under the impression they told 
 me that the Chinese, on regaining possession of the 
 country, had demolished it ; and as for getting down 
 the face of the cliff, we found two or three men who 
 said they had received orders to smooth my way, and 
 had been some hours at work. 
 
 Just then they were laying boughs of trees across a 
 crevasse, covering them with blocks of ice, and over 
 these, if you please, not only I but the horses were 
 to pass ! Small wonder that one of the beasts fell 
 in ; but Osman Bai was again successful in recovering 
 his horse without serious damage. 
 
 Needless to say I dismounted, and presently came 
 to the top of the cliff, down the face of which we were 
 invited to scramble. 
 
 It looked as if blocks of ice and ddhris had been 
 hurled from above, and perhaps the face of the cliff to 
 some extent broken away, and steps cut here and there; 
 but how to get down whilst maintaining the perpen- 
 dicular looked well-nigh impossible. 
 
 One man, however, took hold of my hand on either 
 side, and after sliding, stepping, slipping, jumping, and 
 all but falling half a dozen times, we alighted at last on 
 a spot a little less uneven than the rest, whence we 
 could survey the route whereby we had descended. 
 
 "Do you mean to say," I asked, "that the horses 
 have to come down there ? " to which reply was given 
 
 surprised, therefore, to meet, a few hundred yards north of this obstacle, 
 a trader who had managed to pull up his bagg'age and a few animals, 
 wherewith he was proceeding to Kuldja.
 
 2;8 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 in the affirmative, and I watched curiously to see how 
 the feat would be accomplished. 
 
 I do not remember seeing ropes attached, but my 
 own horse was taken by one man at his head, whilst 
 another held him back by the tail, and, thus steadied, 
 he was made to scramble and slide on legs or haunches 
 as he chose, till something like terra Jiruia was reached 
 at the bottom of the glacier. 
 
 The whole proceeding struck me as the most horribly 
 dangerous piece of progression I had ever witnessed, 
 or probably ever shall witness again ; and as Joseph 
 had succeeded in safely bringing my camera down, I 
 celebrated the occasion by taking a view of the Muz- 
 davan with our horses descending. Why it does not 
 figure in my book will presently appear. 
 
 There was no need for me to stay to see all the 
 horses and baggage descend ; so, after agreeing as to 
 the spot for spending the night, which Osman expected 
 to attain before dark, my suite and I rode forward, our 
 route hugging the mountains on our left, and having 
 the gradually contracting glacier on the right, whilst 
 beneath our horses' feet were rocks and stones, some 
 of them a yard thick, over and around which we had 
 to proceed. 
 
 Sometimes stepping-stones had to be placed against 
 elevations that the horses might ascend, which mine 
 on one occasion disdaining to use, took a standing 
 jump, to the surprise, though happily not the unseat- 
 ing, of his rider. 
 
 Joseph came off less fortunately, for perceiving that 
 he was to be thrown by, I think, his horse falling, and 
 remembering what store I set on the apparatus he was 
 carrying, he generously thought of my camera first and 
 his own bones afterwards, and allowed himself to be
 
 
 1
 
 OVER THE MUZ-DA VAN, OR ICE PASS. 279 
 
 thrown, camera upwards, on to a rock that bruised him 
 a good deal, so that he felt the effects for some days, 
 though happily no bones were broken. 
 
 Shepeleff was rightly informed that from Mazar- 
 bash to Tamgha-tash the route continued to present 
 serious difficulties. It is encumbered by a mass of 
 gigantic stones and fragments of rock fallen from the 
 neighbouring mountains, and deposited by the mer-de- 
 glace. Over these we had to make our way as best 
 we could for about two miles, which took fully three 
 hours, till we came to the southern end of the 
 glacier. 
 
 Late in the afternoon we passed a superb ice-cavern, 
 out of which a torrent issued. I judged the cave to be 
 from 50 to 100 feet high, with roof and walls broken 
 into a thousand curious shapes, and its weird splendour 
 was a fitting close to a day full of scenic marvels. 
 
 I am reminded, however, that it would be but the 
 beginning of wonders in the case of Hiuen Tsiang, my 
 worthy and only predecessor of note in this portion of 
 the Pass, since Kostenko says, " No European has 
 ever gone beyond the Mazar-bash picket." I am not 
 in the least surprised, therefore, that coming from the 
 south and filing past this cavern and scaling the ice- 
 cliff, suggested to Hiuen's imagination the need for 
 some very strong superlatives. 
 
 Accordingly he says, as translated by Beale, " The 
 mountain is steep and dangerous, and reaches to 
 heaven. From the creation the perpetual snow which 
 has collected here in piles has been changed into 
 glaciers which melt neither in winter nor summer ; 
 the hard-frozen and cold sheets of water rise mingling 
 with the clouds ; looking at them the eye is blinded 
 with the glare, so that it cannot gaze for long. . . .
 
 28o CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 " The icy peaks fall down sometimes and lie athwart 
 the road, some of them lOO feet high, and others 
 several tens of feet wide. On this account there is 
 extreme difficulty in climbing over the first, and 
 danger in crossing the others. Moreover, the wind 
 and the snow, driven in confused masses, make it 
 difficult to escape an icy coldness of body, though 
 wrapped in heavy folds of fur-bound garments. When 
 desirous of food or sleep, there is no dry place to be 
 found for a halt ; the only way is to hang the pot for 
 cooking, and to spread the mat for sleeping, on 
 the ice." 
 
 Hiuen Tsiang has been called the '| Asiatic Marco 
 Polo," and has been suspected of telling " Travellers' 
 Tales." Thus far, however, his words are true, after 
 which he or his Chinese editor, in the Records of 
 Western Countries, adds : — 
 
 " Frequently fierce dragons impede and molest 
 travellers with their inflictions. Those who travel 
 this road should not wear red garments nor carry 
 loud-sounding calabashes. The least forgetfulness of 
 these precautions entails certain misfortune. A violent 
 wind suddenly rises, with storms of flying sand and 
 gravel ; those who encounter them, sinking through 
 exhaustion, are almost sure to die." 
 
 Now, if my honourable predecessor in Muzart 
 literature instead of " dragons " had employed the 
 word ghosts or hobgoblins, then, though I would not 
 risk my reputation by going quite so far as to say that 
 I actually saw any of these supernatural appearances, 
 yet I would venture to add, if there were none in the 
 vast, mysterious cavern whereon we last set eyes, then 
 I can only say there ought to have been, so appro- 
 priate a dwelling-place did it appear, according to all
 
 OVER THE MUZ-DA VAN, OR ICE PASS, 281 
 
 the traditions of childhood, for a whole tribe of ogres, 
 demons, and genii of the mountains ! 
 
 To return, however, to sober criticism, Beale sug- 
 gests that the dragons and their inflictions may allude 
 to the sand and gravel storms, whilst as an alternative 
 rendering of the next sentence he would substitute 
 "ought not to carry calabashes nor shout loudly," 
 as if water freezing in and bursting the calabashes 
 might with the sound so caused, or by shouting, cause 
 the "snow piles" to fall. "Why red garments," he 
 adds, " should be interdicted is not so plain, unless 
 dragons are enraged by that colour." 
 
 It took the Buddhist pilgrim seven days to get clear 
 of the mountains. Twelve or fourteen of his party 
 were starved and frozen to death, whilst the number 
 of oxen, or yaks, and horses that perished was still 
 greater. 
 
 They told me at Mazar-bash, if I remember rightly, 
 that as many as y:y horses are sometimes killed there 
 in a month. It was, therefore, no small mercy to have 
 got off the glacier with a sound skin, and without 
 loss of cattle, and thus have been permitted to be the 
 first European to completely cross the Pass of the 
 Muz-davan. 
 
 Beyond it we were still to continue over undescribed 
 ground as far as Aksu.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DOWN THE MUZ ART VALLEY. 
 
 Tamgha-tash station unapproachable ; Waiting for baggage, and 
 supperless to bed in the open, 283. — A remarkable day, 284. — 
 Arrival next morning of Osman Bai ; Military insignificance of 
 Tamgha-tash, 285. — Departure southwards; A marble monu- 
 ment, 286. — Fine view from Balguluk ; Professor Bonney's note 
 on Romanovsky's geological map; Kungei Ala-Tau range; 
 Rocks east, south, and west of Issik-Kul, 287. — Shaping of 
 mountains, and suggested periods of earth movements, 288. — 
 Alexander chain compared with Swiss Oberland ; Complicated 
 orographical structure at Kara-Kol watershed, 289. — The Ferghana 
 mountains and their characteristic rocks extending to Pamirs ; 
 Geology of route southwards, 290. — Three lines of orographical 
 folding ; Continuation of author's route, 291. — Accident in fording 
 river ; Camera washed away ; Attendants' pursuit, and success in 
 recovering baggage, 292. — Arrival at Kailek, 294. — Breaking into a 
 post-station, 295. — To Tuprak ; An afternoon's shooting, 296. — Pur- 
 chase of an eagle, 297. — Joseph's taxidermical masterpiece, 298. — 
 Departure from Tuprak, and pursuit of partridges ; Narrow escape 
 from homicide ; Arrival at Muzart-Kurgan, 299. 
 
 WHEN we had quite descended from the glacier 
 and moraine we found ourselves within hail 
 of the picket of Tamgha-tash, or " stone seal," and 
 could see the building on the western side of the river. 
 This river came dashing out from under the ice in a 
 stream perhaps a hundred feet wide, and extremely 
 swift. It bears the name of IVIuzart, but is called 
 Muzart-nin-su, or southern, in contradistinction to the 
 Picket Muzart flowing northwards.
 
 DOWN THE MUZART VALLEY. 283 
 
 Tor-jee boldly plunged his horse in to cross, but 
 found the water too deep, so that he was obliged to 
 shout his communications to a man on the opposite 
 bank. By dismounting we could, no doubt, have 
 approached the station by the end of the glacier and 
 moraine ; but it was already late in the afternoon, and 
 we had to proceed nearly a mile farther to Tamgha- 
 tash, the spot predetermined by Osman Bai. 
 
 It looked as if we might ride along the eastern bank 
 of the stream under a cliff about 50 feet high, but the 
 old huntsman pronounced this impracticable, by reason 
 of water farther on. He then led the way on his little 
 horse, which scrambled like a cat up to the top of the 
 cliff, whither we had to follow. Then, after travelling 
 above the flooded banks, we descended to a sheltered 
 nook beneath the bluff, with the river a few yards in 
 front of us, there to wait for tent and baggage. 
 
 Waiting soon became monotonous. Sunshine had 
 ceased after midday, and, as twilight came on, rain 
 came with it, but not the longed-for Osman Bai. 
 " What could have happened ? " we all asked ; and I 
 sent back a man to reconnoitre, but he brought no 
 tidings, and it looked as if we should have to spend 
 the night as we were. If he had not descended from 
 the glacier before dusk, clearly he could not do so with 
 his horses in the dark. 
 
 There was nothing, therefore, to be done but to 
 bivouac supperless. Nor was there a stick of fuel 
 at hand, though much to be desired in the proximity 
 of glaciers, and with rain descending. Happily, a man 
 at the picket, knowing our necessity, by a long and 
 roundabout way brought us an armful of wood, and 
 Joseph found for me a narrow ledge under the bluff, 
 partly sheltered by the overhanging cliff from the rain.
 
 284 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Here he spread the felt from under his saddle, and 
 proceeded to do his best for my comfort. Rummaging 
 among his saddle-bags, he found a few spoonfuls of tea ; 
 but though we had fire, and water more than enough, 
 there was to hand neither saucepan nor kettle. 
 Suddenly I remembered that the maker of my 
 enamelled tea-bottle (of the pattern supplied to the 
 British troops in the Egyptian campaign) had said to 
 me casually, " You know you can put this bottle in the 
 fire without harming it "—whereupon we extemporised 
 a kettle, and Joseph produced an enamelled cup. 
 
 Next, I bethought me of the few biscuits left in my 
 holster, and, lastly, of a box of meat lozenges. These 
 provisions had, of course, to be shared with our fellows 
 in tribulation, and, knowing how far imagination goes, 
 even in matters of meat and drink, I proceeded to 
 descant upon the wonderful properties of the little 
 brown lozenges, seen now by my attendants for the 
 first time. I was not able to tell them the exact 
 number of pounds of beef condensed into the lozenges, 
 but they were to suck, and suck, and suck again, till 
 the whole was melted, and then to believe that they 
 had swallowed the efficacy of an undefined quantity of 
 meat without the trouble of cookery, of serving, and 
 of mastication. 
 
 Then, our too scanty supper over, I lay down for 
 the first time I could remember wanting a meal but 
 unable to get it. I could write no diary, but my note- 
 book reminded me that it was the only date in my life 
 that could be written by five out of six figures alike — 
 namely, 8/8/1888 — and I thought it had been verily a 
 day much to be remembered. 
 
 The wonder to me was that on any one of 20 
 occasions I had not broken my neck, so dangerous was
 
 DOWN 7 HE MUZ ART VALLEY. 285 
 
 the journey we had just been permitted to accompHsh ; 
 whilst to spend a night in the open without proper 
 wraps was likewise to me a new experience. 
 
 When tempted to grumble I recalled an episode in 
 the life of one who spent a night and a day in the 
 deep, in comparison with which my situation I thought 
 enviable ; and then, putting on my waterproof for what 
 little warmth it could afford, and hoisting an umbrella 
 against wind and rain, and with Joseph sitting at my 
 feet with his back to the bluff, wearied I fell asleep. 
 
 Sunrise brought light, and gladness too, when at six 
 o'clock Osman appeared, and to my great relief re- 
 ported the loss neither of beast nor burden. Darkness 
 had overtaken him on the moraine, and finding a little 
 spot tolerably clear of stones, he had bivouacked there, 
 and was now ready to continue his march without 
 stopping. 
 
 A tall black horse of mine, which carried the kitchen 
 necessaries and sundry provisions, was detached to 
 remain with us whilst a breakfast was hastily prepared, 
 pieces of meat, I remember, being cooked in native 
 fashion on skewers. After our meal we were to follow 
 and overtake Osman Bai. Meanwhile I thought the 
 spot should be delineated, so I took a photograph of 
 it, including an inscription I could not read on the rock 
 above where we slept. 
 
 At Tamgha-tash are, or were, two stations ; one 
 built by the Chinese, and the other by Yakub Khan, 
 who was so bent upon getting his little fortress erected 
 that they told me he came there in person, and 
 encouraged his followers by working with his own 
 hands.* 
 
 * Shepeleff thought that his placing soldiers here and at Mazar-bash 
 could be due only to fear and suspicion, though, it might be, the Khan
 
 286 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 From Tamgha-tash, at eight o'clock, we set out in 
 a south-easterly direction, continuing on the western 
 bank of the river through a grand valley with bare 
 mountains rising on each side. They gave me the 
 name of one on our left as Kalpak-tash, and it had on 
 its face, half-way up, the remnant of a glacier, whilst 
 farther on we saw another glacier and two arches, like 
 huge bridges thrown across a chasm, and connecting 
 the two mountains.* 
 
 In front of us was a mountain named Go-gil-ga, 
 with its head in the clouds. Behind was another known 
 as Kara-davan, blocking up the north end of the valley; 
 whilst all around were bare peaks, and little verdure 
 anywhere, except a few bushes bearing red berries. 
 
 The route was most difficult by reason of the large 
 stones, over which our horses had to pick their way. 
 This opinion seemed to have been shared by some of 
 our predecessors, who, towards the southern end of the 
 valley in the locality we are speaking of, had erected 
 a block of white marble, and cut upon it a Turki 
 inscription to the following effect, as translated by 
 Joseph : — 
 
 " He who comes this way once may be pardoned, as not knowing what 
 he is doing ; 
 He who comes twice is a fool ; whilst 
 He who comes a third time is hopeless as a kafir " (or infidel). 
 
 wished thus to afford assistance to caravans and travellers in this 
 inhospitable region. From a military point of viewShepeleff considered 
 Mazar-bash as of no real value, and that the better place for a military 
 post to guard the Pass was in the narrow part of the defile leading to 
 the picket of Tamgha-tash. 
 
 * Snow bridges in the Tian Shan, Kostenko says, are often met with 
 much below the glaciers — namely, at 5,000 feet or lower. They some- 
 times attain more than a mile in length and 100 feet in thickness. They 
 are formed out of the masses of spring avalanches, and therefore the 
 snow in them is mixed with rubble and pebbles brought down from the 
 surrounding crags.
 
 DOWN THE MUZ ART VALLEY. 287 
 
 Presently we came to a spot which the men called 
 Balguluk, whence, looking northwards, the valley pre- 
 sented a magnificent appearance, the river meandering 
 along its comparatively flat bottom, and a huge 
 mountain mass lying at right angles thereto, whilst 
 at the southern end was Mount Upga-tash rising to 
 the left, and Tugh-balshi in front. 
 
 But what struck me most of all in this locality was 
 the clearly defined and fantastic conformation of the 
 rocks, the principal varieties of which are indicated 
 on Romanovsky and Mushketoff's map * as granite, 
 syenite, and gneiss. 
 
 Riding for another hour brought us to a part of the 
 
 * This valuable geological map of Russian Turkistan seems to be 
 little known in England, and is not in the possession, I am told, even 
 of the Geological Society of London. Professor Bonney (who had not 
 seen the map until I showed it to him) has favoured me with the follow- 
 ing remarks, which scientists will appreciate, on the geology of the 
 Tian Shan, especially those portions of it over which I passed. With 
 the map lying before him he writes : — 
 
 " The mountain chain, Kungei Ala-Tau, which separates the basin of 
 Issik-Kul from the head of the great lowland (covered by post-Tertiary 
 deposits), evidently consists of two or three roughly parallel ranges 
 forming a series of folds. The basement rocks are crystalline, chiefly 
 granitoid and gneissoid, together with masses of "porphyries" and 
 felsites, and occasional dioritic rocks. 
 
 " This is very probably a group similar to that which in several 
 places forms the core of the Alpine ranges — namely, granites and other 
 rocks of igneous origin, but of great antiquity, to which a foliated 
 structure has been imparted by pressure. 
 
 " On this group rests, obviously with a great interval between them, a 
 group of not very highly altered rocks — crystalline limestones, phyllites, 
 quartzites, and conglomerates. These are indicated as older than 
 Silurian, and they are not improbably rather anterior to the Cambrian 
 system. On them, towards the eastern end of the chain, Devonian 
 rocks are resting, evidently unconformably, and these are followed by 
 Carboniferous, which are cither unconformable to or overlap the 
 Devonian. 
 
 " Until we have travelled some distance east of the lake, where 
 Jurassic rocks set in, we find nothing between the Carboniferous system 
 and the Tertiary series (which is not subdivided into systems) ; even the
 
 288 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 valley called Coombell, the rocks being light-coloured 
 on our right and dark on the left. In sheltered spots 
 
 last being absent over the greater part of the chain. They occur, how- 
 ever, on both sides of the basin of Issik-Kul, where they are frequently 
 overlain by post-Tertiary deposits. 
 
 "It is evident that the whole region has been affected by earth 
 movements of more than one date. As we carry our eyes westward 
 along the general strike of the rock masses, we are brought insensibly 
 into the vast mountain massif v^est of Issik-Kul (the basin of which 
 appears to be only a trough, broader than usual, in a series of folds), 
 and we see that the southern part, at least, of the Kungei Ala-Tau is 
 inseparable from the jnasstf of which the Alexander range forms also 
 a part. 
 
 " In this range we find that crystalline schists (mica, chlorite, talc, 
 etc.) set in between the phyllite-marble group and the fundamental 
 gneissoid group. They are not, however, invariably present, for the 
 former sometimes rests directly on the latter. 
 
 " It is therefore probable that, as a rule, the phyllite-marble group is 
 separated from anything below it by a considerable break, and was 
 formed at an age much nearer to Palaeozoic times than either of the 
 others. When it was being deposited, probably old land surfaces of 
 granite, gneisses, and schists already existed, and supplied the 
 materials of the conglomerates, quartzites, and phyllites. We may 
 expect to find that, as earth movements of pre-Carboniferous age have 
 left their mark in the Alps (where the chain, as a whole, is much more 
 recent), so they have here ; only in this case we may date them as pre- 
 Devonian. 
 
 " But .the shaping of the existing mountain chains must certainly be 
 post-Carboniferous. If we may assume that the evidence obtained 
 from the eastern end of the chain holds good for the rest, we may 
 af&rm this shaping to be post-Jurassic. Cretaceous rocks do not 
 appear to occur, but, so far as I can form an opinion, I think that the 
 mountain chain was developed before the Tertiary rocks were deposited, 
 though it is probable that some of these have been affected by impor- 
 tant movements. 
 
 " In short, so far as I can interpret the map, I should say that, as in 
 the case of the Alps, the mountain system of the Tian Shan was due to 
 more than one process of movement. Whether there is any connection 
 in time between the disturbances which have affected the European and 
 the Asiatic systems depends on the date assigned to the Tertiary 
 deposits on the latter, on which question the map gives no information. 
 In this region, however, it is probable that there was no such continuous 
 depression from the beginning of the Trias to the end of the Eocene 
 as there was in the Alps. But just east of the east end of Issik-Kul
 
 DOIVA^ THE MUZART VALLEY. 289 
 
 there were a few trees, but vegetation was scanty 
 everywhere — a striking contrast to the luxuriant ver- 
 
 Jurassic rocks occur, forming an elongated mass, and covered directly 
 by Tertiary deposits. 
 
 "As the map is not coloured for more than a comparatively short 
 distance south of Issik-Kul, we must shift our position to the west of 
 the lake, i.e. to somewhere in the neighbourhood of Tokmak, which is at 
 the head of a great inland basin lying north of the Alexander Moun- 
 tains. From here, by following a line rather to the west of south, we 
 can keep on the geologically coloured part of the map. 
 
 " The Alexander chain is obviously a prolongation of the Kungei Ala- 
 Tau, immediately north of Issik-Kul : the Chu valley, traversed by the 
 post-road from Tokmak, not indicating any real orographical boundary. 
 It is therefore probable that, as in the case of the Swiss Oberland range, 
 the complete elevation of this Alexander and Kungei Ala-Tau range is a 
 more recent event than the definition of the mountain range forming 
 the watershed to the south. 
 
 " These Alexander Mountains consist, as already said, of a central 
 gneissic axis, fringed on each side with crystalline schists, which are 
 overlain by the phyllite group. Farther west, Devonian and Car- 
 boniferous rocks set in on the northern face, and above all comes a 
 continuous border of Tertiaries. There is, however, a strip of Jurassic 
 rock, probably a minor infold, extending from a point south-west of 
 Tokmak to the longitude, approximately, of the west end of Issik-Kul. 
 
 " South of the Alexander Mountains the orographical structure is 
 extremely complicated. From the Kara-Kol Pass (on the longitude of 
 Pishpek), which crosses a southern offshoot from the Alexander Moun- 
 tains, the streams on the eastern flank flow eastwards, and ultimately, 
 after being joined by rivers that rise much farther south, form the Chu 
 and run northward past the west end of Issik-Kul to Tokmak; whilst 
 from the west side of the Pass the streams all find their way in a 
 southerly direction, joining the Kara-Kol river (one of the upper streams 
 of the Syr-daria), the basin of which seems to encroach in a northerly 
 direction, and produces a marked flexure in the general line of the 
 watershed. 
 
 " The geology of this region is correspondingly complicated. The 
 broad trough of the Issik-Kul basin can be traced for some distance 
 west of the longitude of Tokmak, but the trough itself seems to consist 
 of a group of folds which are composed of phyllites and older rocks, 
 with some Carboniferous deposits and considerable masses of Triassic, 
 Jurassic, and even Tertiary rocks. Hence it would seem to have been 
 an area of deposition up to a comparatively late date. The folds have 
 a general east to west direction, but the river courses are remarkably 
 complicated, as if, after they had first been defined, tliey had been 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 dure of Khan-Yailak, and other pastures on the northern 
 slope of the range. 
 
 We were thus making our way, all going well, until 
 
 affected by movements in new directions. The watershed for a short 
 distance from the Kara-Kol Pass runs due south, then sweeps off to the 
 east, passing south of Issik-Kul, and inosculates with the main range 
 of the Tian Shan, which follows a south-west direction. 
 
 "The foregoing complication is increased by a long range, the 
 Ferghana Mountains, which runs off from the southern Tian Shan (from 
 near the Terek Pass) in a general north-westerly direction, and consists 
 of members of the phyllite group, flanked locally with Carboniferous 
 rocks, and everywhere by Triassic or Jurassic rocks, with which Tertiary 
 strata seem to be infolded. Presumably this area was one of deposit up 
 to a comparatively late period, and has been since disturbed by flexures 
 in more than one direction. 
 
 " Rather to the south of the junction of the above-named Ferghana 
 range with the main Tian Shan chain (which takes place a little west 
 of the lofty lake Chadir-Kul), lines of flexure, running east and west, 
 become again more conspicuous, as we come to the ranges south of the 
 Ferghana basin, which is drained by the upper waters of the Syr-daria. 
 
 "These ranges, forming the northern part of the Pamir, consist of 
 the gneissic and the phyllite groups, infolding, at first, Carboniferous, 
 with some Tertiary rocks. Then some Devonian beds appear below 
 the Carboniferous; and some Jurassic are seen locally beneath Creta- 
 ceous (these last rocks appear to be limited in a north-easterly direc- 
 tion by the line of the Ferghana range). Tertiary rocks still occur as 
 before. East and west folds continue towards the south till we reach 
 the great Kara-Kol lake in the Kargosh Pamir, and they affect the 
 drainage of the head-waters of the Amu-daria. The folds consist 
 mainly of the gneissic and the phyllite groups, with or without crystal- 
 line schists ; but as strips of Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks are involved, 
 there must have been great earth movements since the date of the 
 latter. 
 
 " From near the Kara-Kol lake, the main watershed of Asia strikes off 
 over the Pamir plateau, dividing the drainage of Chinese Turkistan. 
 first, from the tributaries of the Amu-daria, and then, from those of the 
 Indus. 
 
 "The route from Kuldja southwards crosses the Uzun-Tau (a pro- 
 longation of the chain north of Issik-Kul), which range is a complicated 
 wrinkling of the gneissic and phyllite groups with some crystalline 
 schists, flanked by Carboniferous, Triassic, Jurassic, and Tertiary rocks. 
 Kashgar appears to be situated on a post-Tertiary deposit overlying 
 Tertiary rocks, beneath which are rocks assigned to the Trias. 
 
 " In the foregoing description I have not taken note of the dioritic
 
 DOWN THE MUZ ART VALLEY. 291 
 
 about two o'clock, when it became necessary to fortl 
 the Muzart-nin-su, here as wide perhaps as the Thames 
 at London Bridge, but divided into several streams, 
 and rushing rapidly. We had successfully forded 
 streams on so many occasions, that it seemed unne- 
 cessary to take special precautions now ; and, our old 
 Nimrod having stayed behind to chat, probably with 
 Osman Bai, Joseph, Amin, and I prepared to follow 
 Tor-jee. 
 
 I suppose our dog did not like the look of the 
 
 rocks, which are probably subordinate members of the gneissic series, 
 or of occasional masses of gabbro, serpentine, etc., and but little of the 
 "porphyries," felsites, etc., thesebeingallorographicallyof minor impor- 
 tance ; and as they must be, in many cases at least, intrusive in the 
 rocks with which they are associated, there are no means of ascertain- 
 ing their age. Also I have left unnoticed the occasional patches of 
 dolerites, andesites, etc., which, even if they may occasionally form 
 elevated peaks, as in the Caucasus, are probably very late in date and 
 of little structural significance. 
 
 " Looking at the map as a whole, the mountain massifs of these 
 parts of Asia appear to be due to three leading lines of folding, the axes 
 of which run respectively north-west (or a little to the south of it), west- 
 south-west (or a little to the south of it), and nearly west. Possibly the 
 last may be due to the combination of the first and second, but I 
 believe all three to be distinct. All seem to be post- Jurassic. 
 
 " I cannot decide from the map whether the Tertiary rocks form 
 flanking ranges like the nagel/iuh and f/iolasse in the Alps, or whether 
 they enter into the composition of the main ranges, like the earlier 
 Tertiaries of those mountains. Although the information before me is 
 not sufficient to enable me to venture upon any suggestion as to the 
 relative age of these disturbances, yet they point strongly to the com- 
 parative newness of this great mountain system. As the folds which 
 run from west-south-west to east-north-east and from west to east seem 
 to be especially effective in complicating the drainage systems, I am 
 disposed to think that both these, at any rate in part, are due to move- 
 ments of very late date. 
 
 " The peculiarly irregular paths followed by some of the rivers suggest 
 that, after their courses had been roughly determined by an early set of 
 movements, others took place, along different lines, so that the rivers 
 had to escape from the rocky labyrinth thus produced as best they 
 could. But upon this question, in the absence of detailed information, 
 one can do no more than offer a surmise. — [Signed) T. G. RONNEY." ^ .
 
 292 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 current, nor perhaps the icy water, and was hanging 
 back, whereupon Tor-jee kindly dragged him up to his 
 pommel, and thus found occupation for one hand, whilst 
 with the other he was leading the black horse laden 
 with the saucepans, and, on the top, what was far more 
 valuable — my precious camera. 
 
 And now began a scene. The rough stones of 
 yesterday's route had made the black horse footsore, 
 so that on getting into the middle of the stream he 
 stumbled, and Tor-jee, unable to attend to so many 
 things at once — his own horse, the dog, and his own 
 safety — let the sumpter go. 
 
 This was exciting enough, to see the animal lying 
 in mid-stream, with part of his baggage under water ; 
 but matters grew worse when, trying to rise, he only 
 partially recovered himself, and was washed by the 
 force of the current into deeper water, where the 
 baggage kept going down and down, till at last the 
 whole of it, camera and all, was completely under 
 water, and the only thing above the surface was the 
 horse's black head, he struggling for dear life. On 
 and on he swam, and farther and farther receded from 
 my vision my camera, with its roll of 48 views com- 
 pleted only an hour or two since, and including the 
 wonderful " Muz-davan with our horses descending." 
 
 Of course I shouted and bellowed directions with 
 all my might, and in turn Joseph had to shout to 
 me in mid-stream that I was exposing myself to 
 danger, and should be carried away too if not careful. 
 So swift was the current that to look down, even 
 when my horse was standing still, made me quite 
 dizzy, and I was glad with Joseph and Amin to reach 
 a shoal in the middle of the river, whence we could 
 see the horse floating farther and farther away, until
 
 DOWN THE MUZ ART VALLEY. 293 
 
 presently we saw him washed on to a bank, where 
 he managed to loosen the baggage ropes and break 
 himself free. 
 
 Meanwhile Tor-jee had not been idle, but had de- 
 scended along the stream, and, knowing the value I 
 set on the camera, left the horse to look after itself 
 and made for the baggage, of which only a small 
 portion was visible above the surface. What he was 
 doing with it we could not, owing to the distance, 
 make out, and I sent to his assistance Amin, who 
 quickly stripped himself and ran off in nature's robes 
 by the nearest way. 
 
 We saw him come up to the spot, but were puzzled 
 to observe both now stooping and apparently unable 
 to do what they wanted. This, of course, was highly 
 exciting, nor were we greatly helped on getting out 
 my telescope to view the proceedings. 
 
 At this juncture the old huntsman came up, and 
 galloped his little horse over the stony bed of the 
 river and through its streams in truly workmanlike 
 style. The black horse had made his way out of 
 the water, and was standing sheepishly on a shoal 
 far down the river. Nimrod brought him back to 
 his fellows, and also approached to the help of Tor-jee, 
 whilst Amin came back to his clothes, his teeth chat- 
 tering, and his whole frame shivering. 
 
 I never in my life saw a man shiver so, and was 
 fearful as to what might be the result ; so I helped 
 him to get at once into his sheepskin coat, after which, 
 but not before, he could give us a little information. 
 As for Osman Bai, he came up when the excitement 
 was beginning to abate, and, taking things very coolly, 
 chose a different place for his horses to cross, and 
 quietly went on his way.
 
 294 CHINESE CENTRAL AS/A. 
 
 Amin being dressed, we prepared to follow, and 
 crossed the remainder of the river, to be met by Tor-jee, 
 who brought me my camera with a smile of triumph, 
 as if aware that he was doing something that would 
 please me highly. 
 
 He said that on stooping to detach from the other 
 baggage the felt wherein for protection the camera 
 was wrapped, so icy cold was the water that his 
 hands were numbed, and he was obliged to hold all 
 down till assistance came, to prevent the whole being 
 washed away. This explained his apparent inaction 
 as seen from a distance, and I forthwith concluded 
 that Tor-jee, Amin, and the old huntsman had exerted 
 themselves nobly, and promised each a special reward. 
 
 The pots and kettles suffered nothing by the ducking ; 
 but the tiour was prematurely made into paste, the 
 bread was reduced to a similar condition, and one 
 of the component parts of the baking powder had 
 fizzed away. The wreckage, however, with my camera 
 case emptied of water, was placed again on the back 
 of the horse, whose temper was not improved by the 
 episode, for he kicked Tor-jee when urged forwards 
 after his fellows. 
 
 We then made our way along the western bank of 
 the river, and in about an hour came to a small pasture 
 with sheep feeding. Here Osman Bai wished to en- 
 camp, saying that if we went on to the station a mile 
 or two farther, he would have to bring back his horses 
 to this spot for pasture. This he was told he must 
 do, and about six o'clock, after a ten hours' ride, we 
 arrived at the station of Kailek. 
 
 Kailek was found to be a Chinese picket, large and 
 well built compared with any of the pickets we had 
 seen north of the Pass, and situated in a little grove
 
 DOWN THE MUZ ART VALLEY. 
 
 295 
 
 of poplars. Its courtyard was surrounded by stables 
 and rooms, but the officer supposed to be in charge 
 had gone away on a visit, and had locked the door. 
 
 Since necessity knows no law, we took French leave, 
 forced the door, and obtained possession ; the room 
 appropriated by me having a kang, or sleeping plat- 
 form, and a fireplace, but nothing more. A few 
 chickens wandering about helped to afford us a 
 welcome back to settled life, after sleeping in nomad 
 tents, and my first care was to look after affairs 
 photographic. 
 
 My camera, selected and arranged by Dr Lindsay 
 Johnson, was a half-plate expanding apparatus made 
 by Perken, Son, & Rayment, measuring, when folded, 
 only 8x8x3 inches, wherewith, if needful, ordinary 
 glass negatives could be used. It had been fitted with 
 one of the box roller slides of the Eastman Company, 
 containing a sensitised paper roll for 48 exposures, the 
 whole, with a double back and everything except the 
 tripod legs, fitting into a leather case 10 x 10 x 7 
 inches. 
 
 This case was usually wrapped in a sheet of felt, 
 which served for protection during conveyance on 
 horseback, and was spread on the ground when taking 
 views, Amin carrying for me that and the tripod bag. 
 
 I think it says a great deal for the excellence of 
 the cabinet-making and workmanship of this box, 
 that, notwithstanding the thorough ducking I have 
 described, little if any water got inside the roller 
 box, and I lost only the last two of the 48 views, 
 that of Mazar-bash and Tamgha-tash, the last being 
 unrolled and having nothing but the vulcanite slide 
 between it and the water in the outer camera case. 
 The glue fixing the leathern portion of the camera
 
 290 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 had been here and there dissolved by the water, and 
 I greatly feared my picture-taking was at an end ; but 
 things were not so bad as they looked, and, though 
 stopped for the next few days, 1 managed afterwards 
 to repair the damage. 
 
 Next morning we left Kailek at half-past nine, 
 starting thus late partly because, after the rugged 
 route of the previous two days, some of the horses 
 needed to be re-shod. Three hours sufficed to bring 
 us to Tuprak, where was a station, inhabited and 
 in somewhat better order than at Kailek. 
 
 Here I challenged old Nimrod in the afternoon to 
 go out with me shooting, and was amused to watch 
 his proceedings. He carried a curious old gun, to 
 the muzzle of which was affixed a pronged rest to 
 place on the ground and steady his aim, whilst the 
 trieeer brouQht down, not a hammer, not even a 
 llint, but a piece of lighted string into a little pan 
 of gunpowder communicating with the charge, loaded 
 with ball. 
 
 Near the station was a leafy dell of small trees and 
 long grass, wherein we very soon saw a hare, sitting 
 on her haunches with ears erect, making a reconnais- 
 sance. I nodded to Nimrod to take the first shot ; 
 oft" went his hat, and, advancing a step or two, his 
 prong descended in a moment to earth, aim was taken, 
 and down came the clumsy trigger, but all too fatal 
 for Bunny, for she was hit clean in the shoulder, and 
 immediately fell. 
 
 The old huntsman threw down his gun and rushed 
 immediately to stick a knife into his prey, to ease, I 
 suppose, his IMuhammadan conscience, according to 
 the dictates of which he would, I fancy, be forbidden 
 to eat a creature not killed by the letting of blood.
 
 DOWN THE iMUZART VALLEY. 29; 
 
 I managed to get an azure Titmouse {Parus cyauits), 
 one of three specimens of small birds secured, of which 
 there appeared to be very few, in the locality. On the 
 day following I was more fortunate, and secured about 
 eight specimens, including two red-legged Partridges 
 {Caccabis var. pallcscens), a Masked Wagtail [JMotacilla 
 per sonata), a Brambling {^Montifringilla Brandti), a 
 Bullfinch {Caj'-podacus erythrinus), a Magpie i^Pica 
 kucoptera), and a red-legged Crow or Chough 
 {I^yrrhocoi^ax gracuhis), the last of which, stuffed, 
 now appears in a glass case before me. 
 
 But my greatest ornithological " find" in this neigh- 
 bourhood was a Golden Eagle {Aq/ii/a chrysaetos), 
 locally known as a lUrkut, the most powerful of birds 
 trained for hawking, and one that will attack a wolf 
 or kill a deer. The old huntsman told me that he 
 possessed three of these, trained, or partly so, and at 
 the next station brought them for my selection. 
 
 One was just then without a tail, and therefore not 
 so good for my purpose ; a second, trained, was three 
 years old, and comparatively costly ; whilst the youngest, 
 though the handsomest bird, was not yet trained, and 
 therefore to the owner was less valuable. He had 
 obtained it at Kailek-davan, near the station of that 
 name, during the previous Ramazan (about the middle 
 of May). Letting a boy down by a rope, the young 
 eagle, not then fully Hedged, had been taken from the 
 nest — the only occupant in this instance, though there 
 are sometimes two, but never more, the old man 
 said. 
 
 Hence the bird was approximately only six months 
 old. It weighed, nevertheless, 7 lbs., measured a yard 
 from beak to tail, whilst its outstretched pinions ex- 
 tended to seven feet. Not a feather appeared to be
 
 298 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 wanting or out of place, and as I looked into its cold, 
 drabbish-grey eyes, it seemed nothing short of a shame 
 to think of killing so noble a creature. 
 
 But how else was it to be conveyed from the Tian 
 Shan to South Kensington ? and how was the foul 
 deed to be done ? To shoot it in cold blood was too 
 dreadful, and, besides, would partly damage the skin 
 and plumage. 
 
 So I bethought me of the injunction of my naturalist 
 to beware of letting anything eatable come near his 
 arsenical soap, because it was " deadly poison." Surely, 
 then, thought I, a nice little morsel of meat seasoned 
 with a pinch of arsenical soap will be just what is 
 wanted. 
 
 A tender morsel accordingly was prepared, which 
 Joseph flavoured under directions, after eating which 
 I expected to see my beauty ready for post-morteui 
 honours ; whereas, to our amazement, she stretched 
 out her neck, and asked for another helping of the 
 same sort ! A second was given her, and, I think, a 
 third ; but, as with the Jackdaw of Rheims, 
 
 " That which gave rise to no little surprise, 
 Nobody seemed one penny the worse ! " 
 
 After this Mullah Khoja was requested to take his 
 bird to the roof and there kill her, which he did by 
 strangulation. 
 
 The preparation of the skin of this bird was Joseph's 
 masterpiece, and it reached the Museum in such good 
 condition as to receive " honourable mention " from 
 Mr Bowdler Sharpe, in the ornithological department, 
 which to me was the more gratifying because, on 
 looking at the skin a few days after preparation, it 
 appeared to betray signs of decay under the pinions, 
 whence it had been necessary in so large a bird to
 
 DOWN THE MUZ ART VALLEY. 299 
 
 remove portions of flesh that in a smaller bird are 
 usually left to shrivel up. 
 
 We quitted Tuprak at six on a Saturday morning, 
 and continued on the west of the river in a southerly 
 direction, coming in one spot to a little verdure, where 
 my men reported red-legged partridges. 
 
 Of course I was glad, for we had no longer the regal 
 allowance of a slaughtered sheep per day, but were 
 dependent upon what the road afforded, and that was 
 not much ; besides, we were looking forward to making 
 the morrow a feast day. The men were all alive and 
 keen to pursue the game. 
 
 The only creature who did not seem to share these 
 sentiments was my horse, who, though he cheerfully 
 carried my gun, objected to my firing it from his back. 
 The first time I did so, in the Tekes valley, I expected 
 to be unseated ; but the sensation was so novel to him 
 that I think he did not know what to make of it. 
 
 Later on he manifested a decided fear of explosions, 
 and on the present occasion, after I had taken aim, 
 wheeled round and nearly caused a serious accident ; 
 for, my finger being on the trigger, the gun went off 
 painfully close to Joseph's head, who declared, indeed, 
 that the smoke came in his face. It was not till after 
 I had dismounted and secured a brace of birds that I 
 learned what cause I had for thankfulness for so narrow 
 an escape from homicide. 
 
 As we continued south the valley became narrower, 
 and after a ride of five hours and a half we came along 
 a level plateau to the end of it, where the entire width 
 of the gorge was closed by a wall and a fortified 
 Custom-house station called Muzart-Kurgan. Here we 
 determined to stay over Sunday.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FROM MUZART-KURGAN TO AKSU. 
 
 Lodging- at Muzart-Kurgan, 300. — Objections to Customs examination ; 
 Advice concerning Ciiinese officials, 301. — Standing on ones 
 rights, 302. — Visit of Customs official, 303. — Inspection of Muzart- 
 Kurgan ; Nimrod's cunning, 304. — Route continued over undulat- 
 ing tableland ; Dust columns, 305. — Kizil-Bulak ; Route south- 
 wards over curious geological formation, 306. — Messenger from 
 Aksu ; Stay at Auvat, and ride to (Jam, 307. — Southern view 
 of Tian Shan, 308. — Khan Tengri, visible 100 miles off, 309. — 
 Glaciers and crests westwards ; From Jam to Tash-Lianger, 310. — 
 Death of a horse and dog, 311.— Thermometrical obser\-ations 
 between Kuldja and Aksu ; Arrival of Madamin Bai from Russian 
 Consul, 312. — A minatory letter, 314. — Escorted into Aksu, 316. 
 
 ON arriving at the Custom-house of Muzart- 
 Kurgan, my party was not all together, and 
 when the leading detachment was stopped at the gate, 
 the men said their master had a special letter. There- 
 upon all were permitted to enter, and I was conducted 
 at first to what was supposed to be a travellers' room 
 in an inner court. 
 
 It was, however, so dark and dirty and dismal that 
 I preferred going to the outer yard, on the north side 
 of which was a number of rooms for serving-men and 
 cattle, especially the latter, but airy and light, and 
 affording something to look at from the door. I 
 directed one of these rooms to be cleaned out, and
 
 FROM AIUZART-KURGAN TO AKSU. 301 
 
 determined to lodge there among my men and 
 baggage. 
 
 Soon after our arrival and the handing in of my 
 letter from the Tsian-Tsmn, an official came to say 
 that my baggage must be searched, for that there was 
 nothing in the letter to the contrary. To this I 
 objected, saying that I had been given clearly to 
 understand that my luggage would be exempt from 
 examination. 
 
 I had learned this so far back as St Petersburg, 
 where in M. Tching Tchang, the Chargd d'affaires at 
 the Chinese Embassy, I found a gentleman speaking 
 excellent English and better French, who had spent 
 some years in Paris, and was more Europeanised than 
 most of his countrymen I have met. He entered 
 with zest into my proposed travels, and upon my 
 asking him what I should do, supposing the petty 
 Chinese officials should be vexatious, he advised me 
 to threaten complaints to the great men I knew in 
 Europe. 
 
 This was not vain counsel, for I afterwards met an 
 Englishman who told me that, when travelling in the 
 Chinese interior, an inferior official told him his bag- 
 gage must be searched, to which he replied, " Very 
 well, then I shall complain to the authorities in 
 Peking " ; whereupon the trouble vanished. 
 
 Very different advice was given me by the Russians 
 in Asia, who to a man said, " Ask nothing ; but de- 
 mand everything. With small officials, send for them 
 to call upon you, and not vice versa. Do everything 
 by force, and never allow a Chinaman to take the least 
 liberty with you." This was the counsel given me by 
 General Prjevalsky, and another General in Kuldja. 
 Also I have heard it said by F^nglishmen living in
 
 302 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 China, and even by the son of a Chinese woman, that 
 " the Chinese respect nothing but force." 
 
 Let me not fail to record, on the other hand, a 
 beautiful reply that came well from my heathen friend 
 Mattie at Suiting. Seeing him disposed to be friendly, 
 I asked for any hints he could give me for dealing 
 with the Mandarins in the new country I was about 
 to visit, whereupon he said, " There is one rule that is 
 useful all the world over. The fussy, bubbling, noisy 
 brook is always shallow. Still waters run deep. In 
 short, be humble ; and apologise to the officials for 
 not knowing their ceremonies as you should, asking 
 that your shortcomings may be attributed to ignorance, 
 not to lack of good intention." 
 
 Here, then, was a bundle of modes of address, each 
 of them, I doubt not, expedient on occasion and in 
 measure, and the difficulty was at Muzart- Kurgan to 
 know which to adopt, and how far. 
 
 At the first encounter I contented myself with 
 claiming that my baggage should not be examined ; 
 and the young official caved in, saying, as he walked 
 off, that he would copy the Tsian-Tsmn s letter, which 
 having done he returned it, and we were left awhile in 
 peace. 
 
 Presently Joseph came to say that " one greater 
 man " had arrived, and wished to see my letter, which 
 Joseph having taken, the official invited him in and 
 offered tea, asking sundry questions about his master, 
 and then sent me a pass to show at another Custom- 
 house farther on. 
 
 This was quite a change in the wind, partly attri- 
 butable perhaps to a talking-to given them, Joseph 
 afterwards informed me, by Monkey-face and Tor-jee. 
 " Don't you know," they said, " that this Englishman
 
 FROM MUZ ART-KURGAN TO AKSU. 303 
 
 is a very great man, one who has dined with the Tsian- 
 Tsiun ? What do you mean, then, by troubling him 
 about his baggage ? Evidently you don't know 
 Chinese good manners and proper behaviour to a 
 foreigner ! " 
 
 This lecture was given behind my back, and when, 
 later in the afternoon, I went to call on the " one 
 greater man," he showed me into his opium den, and, 
 with an evident intention to be polite, offered me a 
 whiff of the detestable pipe which he had seemingly 
 been smoking — anyway he seemed to be somewhat 
 excited. 
 
 Next morning the head of the station, Chian-da- 
 loya, called on me, looking ghastly and emaciated 
 from the use of opium, and slightly hilarious, as if with 
 his morning pipe. He excused himself for not asking 
 me to dinner by saying that he did not know how to 
 prepare a meal to my taste. This was a fortunate 
 deliverance. He sent, however, a present of four 
 fowls, one of them an old rooster, as tough as cow- 
 hide.* 
 
 * He gave me the following estimate of distances : — 
 
 Udungei to Khan-Yailak . . . 60 // or 21 miles. 
 
 Khan-Yailak to Tamglia-tasli . . 100 ,, 35 ,, 
 
 Tamgha-tash to Kailek . . . . So ,, 28 ,, 
 
 Kaiiek to Tuprak . . . . . 40 ,, 14 ,, 
 
 Tuprak to Muzart-Kurgan . . . 60 ,, 21 ,, 
 
 Muzart- Kurgan to Aksu . . . 300 ,, 105 ,, 
 
 Kostenko's distances from Muzart Picket (our Shattoo) to Mazar-bash 
 are : — 
 
 Muzart Picket to entrance of ATuzart defile . 5 versts. 
 Entrance of defile to summit of Pass . . 50 ,, 
 
 Summit of Pass to Mazar-bash . . .12 ,, 
 
 Mazar-bash to Tamgha-tash . . . . 20 ,, 
 
 Total . . 87 ,, or 58 miles. 
 And this must be accepted as nearly correct because based, I presume, 
 on Shepeleff's measurement by chain from Muzart Picket to Mazar- 
 bash. We took 2T^ hours from Shattoo to Tamgha-tash, which in my
 
 304 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 After breakfast I mounted to the roof, which was 
 indescribably filthy, and had a good look round the 
 station. It was in reality a fortress, and the residence 
 of the chief of all the pickets up to the glacier. 
 Shepeleff was informed that there were in garrison 
 here under Yakub Khan 500 soldiers, 30 at Kailek, 
 25 at Tamgha-tash, and 30 at Mazar-bash, whilst 
 farther south there were said to be 20 at Kizil-Bulak, 
 100 each at Jam, Kent-Shlentchi, and Tash-Lianger, 
 and 600 at Aksu. 
 
 Judging from the size of the station at Muzart- 
 Kurgan, I should think 500 soldiers would have been 
 squeezed therein with difficulty ; but it had two, if not 
 more, quadrangular courts, with many rooms, though 
 nearly all were now empty, and the military character 
 of the place, as with all the pickets, appeared quite 
 departed. But I was less struck with the buildings of 
 the fort than with the remarkable walls continued from 
 it (on one side across the Muzart, if I remember 
 rightly), and, after the fashion of the Great Wall of 
 China, right up the mountains to the most inaccessible 
 places for builders to approach. 
 
 The authorities were evidently minded that no one 
 should get by unobserved. Yet I noticed that old 
 Nimrod managed to elude their demands. So grasp- 
 ing were they, we were told, that they would make him 
 pay for bringing in the skin of the hare he had shot. 
 Accordingly, the old man had entered with my party, 
 and remained with us an hour or two, as if belonging 
 to the caravan. 
 
 Presently I observed him looking over the parapet 
 to see whether the coast was clear. „ His brother 
 
 itinerary gives 68 miles; but here the average of three 'miles an hour, 
 over the glacier, is manifestly too high a calculation.
 
 FROM MUZART-KURGAN TO AKSU. 305 
 
 Turkis willingly connived at what was going on, but 
 I was quite innocent of the ruse. Mounting his horse, 
 he slipped out of the gate and made off to his not 
 distant home. Later he returned, bringing an eagle, 
 and on the morrow two more, one of which I pur- 
 chased, besides giving him an enamelled tea-bottle 
 like my own but better, as well as other presents 
 I had promised, and which were richly deserved, for 
 various services. 
 
 On Monday morning at eight, after bidding farewell 
 to Chian-da-loya, to whom and his underlings I gave 
 several presents — including the New Testament in 
 Chinese — we left Muzart- Kurgan, and with it the 
 Muzart-nin-su, which continues thence in a south- 
 easterly direction till it joins the Tarim on its way to 
 Lob- Nor. 
 
 Our route to Aksu lay to the south or a little west 
 of south, across a tableland, unlike anything I have 
 seen elsewhere, in that its surface was of bare earth 
 in parallel ridges undulating with the regularity of 
 low waves of the ocean, presenting, in fact, the appear- 
 ance of an earthen sea. 
 
 I have sometimes heard the spiral dust columns 
 raised by wind called "sand devils"; and if there 
 is any truth in Dr Beale's suggestion that these, or 
 something of this character, are what Hiuen Tsiang 
 intended by " dragons," then the Buddhist pilgrim 
 might well have noticed them among the terrors of 
 the locality, for I counted no less than 1 5 of these 
 spouts whirling about at the same time, and that on 
 a not very windy day. It may well be, therefore, that 
 the passage of this plateau, which took us five hours, 
 is very trying in windy weather. 
 
 At ten o'clock we came to Kizil-Bulak, a small 
 
 VOL. I. 20
 
 3o6 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 hamlet of half-a-dozen mud huts, on the first of two 
 small streams that unite to form the Auvat, and 
 llow southward for about 90 miles from their con- 
 lluence, to be absorbed in a sandy desert north of 
 the Tarim. 
 
 Kizil-Bulak was surrounded with cultivation — of 
 bearded wheat among other crops, but not yet ripe. 
 Tor-jee, after galloping about with his butterHy net, 
 brought me a few Icpidoptera ; but animal life was here 
 scarce, and I fear that he got little refreshment for 
 the inner man by visits to the people, who looked 
 exceedingly poor. 
 
 Our horizon on the south was bounded by low, 
 pointed hills, at which we arrived at one o'clock ; and 
 before descending out of sight of the spot whence we 
 emerged from the mountains, I turned and took a 
 magnetic bearing of the defile, and found it 358^ or 
 about due north, after allowing 2" easterly variation. 
 On mounting these pointed hills, we had before us, on 
 the other side, another extraordinary geological forma- 
 tion, such as I do not remember to have seen 
 elsewhere. 
 
 It consisted of comparatively lofty hills bounding 
 the horizon on the south, whilst between us and them 
 were hundreds of miniature mountains on a level 
 below us, each of these little mountains being perfectly 
 devoid of verdure and formed of highly-coloured clay, 
 also furrowed from the top, presumably by the action 
 of water, to such a degree that there was hardly a 
 square yard of smooth surface visible. We were 
 reminded at once of the Muzart glacier, only that the 
 hummocks and inequalities were now of clay instead 
 of ice. 
 
 Among this mass of hillocks we descended, follow-
 
 FROM MUZART-KURGAN TO AKSU. 307 
 
 ing the bed of a wide but shallow stream, which, after 
 much meandering, at last had to cut its way through 
 the final counterfort of the Muz-Tag range, and in 
 so doing laid bare a quantity of coppery earth and 
 honeycombed rock. 
 
 We were picking our way somewhat gingerly, now 
 by the side of, now across, this stream, as it emerged 
 from a little gorge to join, if I remember rightly, the 
 second and wide branch of the Auvat, when, on 
 turning a corner, we met a Turki horseman, who 
 addressed my people, and turned out to be a mes- 
 senger, sent three days since from Aksu, by the 
 native Russian Aksakal, to meet me with a present 
 of fruit. This was deposited at the station a few 
 hundred yards distant, called Awat, as pronounced, 
 or, as it appears on the Russian map, Auvat. 
 
 Now I had feasted the previous day on partridges 
 and the tough rooster of Chian-da-loya, but the wild 
 apricots of Chapchal had never recurred. Imagine, 
 then, our delight when, on reaching the station at four 
 o'clock, we there found a whole sieveful of the most 
 luscious nectarines, two sieves of apples, and a sack- 
 ful of melons, to say nothing of a sieve of peaches 
 spoiled through keeping. 
 
 As in the case of Tuprak, Auvat does not appear to 
 have had a garrison in the time of Yakub Khan, but 
 the two places served as residences for men attending 
 to the administration of the picket postal service, and 
 to caravans. The stations at both places were of 
 similar construction. 
 
 We left Auvat at seven next morning. A few 
 minutes after starting we emerged from the mountains 
 at what might be called the end of the Muzart break 
 or defile, which we had entered at Shattoo. The
 
 3o8 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 entire length Kostenko reckons at about loo miles, 
 and since the northern slope measures only ^-^ miles, 
 he naturally argues that the southern is less steep, 
 which is precisely what we found it. From Auvat, 
 beyond the plain to the south, we could see a clump 
 of trees, towards which we rode across another bare 
 flat and stony expanse, but not furrowed in this 
 instance with waves. 
 
 After crossing this desert, or cJml, for four hours, we 
 approached the oasis of Jam, a village of 130 houses, 
 and surrounded with cultivation ; where, on what 
 would be with us " the village green," and beneath 
 shady trees, we rested for an hour. We were now 
 nearly 30 miles from the spot whence we emerged 
 from the mountains, and had here perhaps our grand- 
 est distant view of the southern range of the Tian 
 Shan. Beginning as far east as the town of Kurla, 
 and running west, the range is first known, south of 
 the Yulduz basin, as Kok-Teke ; then as the Eshik- 
 bashi ; beyond which follow the Khalik-Tau and the 
 Muzart Mountains, the last of which we had just 
 crossed. 
 
 A little west of Muzart rises the dominant mass of 
 the whole Tian Shan system, known as the Khan 
 Tengri group, which, though exceeded in height, as 
 Reclus remarks, by some of the Trans- Alai peaks, 
 yet contains a greater number of snowy crests, 
 glaciers, and streams flowing to the four points of 
 the compass. 
 
 Here the monarch of the mountains, known as 
 Khan Tengri, raises his head in lofty grandeur, far 
 above the surrounding peaks, to an altitude, according 
 to my Russian map, of 24,000 feet, though Walker's 
 map (probably in error, since his information on this
 
 FROM MUZART-KURGAN TO AKSU. 309 
 
 part of the country is presumably taken from Russian 
 sources) gives only 21,000 feet.* 
 
 Our distance at Jam from the peak being, according 
 to my Russian map, about 80 miles, we could, of 
 course, distinguish very little. I say "of course" in 
 reference to an individual peak ; for not only could we 
 see the outline of the range from Jam, but a few days 
 afterwards we did so from Sai-Aryk, where on a clear 
 morning my attention was called to the appearance of 
 the Tian Shan, and a suggestion made as to why they 
 were called " I'he Heavenly Mountains." 
 
 Above the range was the deep blue sky, and an 
 azure mist hid its base, so that its snowy peaks floated 
 like clouds in mid-air. I could scarcely believe that 
 the unaided eye could have seen so far, and I tried to 
 obtain a photograph, but in vain, for though the picture 
 gives well enough the details of the foreground, nothing 
 can be seen of the celestial mountains, which the map 
 shows to have been 1 10 miles off.f 
 
 The only souvenirs that I possess of the Khan 
 Tengri Mountains are photographs of two sketches by 
 a Russian artist of two gorges through which flow the 
 upper waters of the rivers Kokjar and Karkara. These 
 streams, which appear to be very rapid, push their 
 way through extremely rugged rocks, indicated by 
 
 * According to Shepeleff's calculation, made by compass from one of 
 the northern elevations of the Muz-Tag range, about four miles from 
 the entrance to the Muzart defile, he found the position of Khan Tengri 
 to be about 15 miles south and 26 west of the Muzart Pass. 
 
 t The snow-line in this portion of the Tian Shan is 15,000 feet above 
 the sea. In the northern ramifications of the system, as the Jungar 
 Ala-Tau, it is about 10,000 feet ; on the 43rd parallel of latitude 
 generally, 11,000 feet; and in the Alai, Turkistan, and Zarafshan 
 groups, more than 14,000 on the northern slopes ; whilst still farther 
 south, in the Hissar groups and the Mountains of the Pamir, it is found 
 at a height of upwards of 15,000 feet.
 
 310 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Mushketoft's map to be of the Tertiary system, and so 
 make their way over, one or both of them, into the 
 Charin. 
 
 West of the Muzart is a world of crests and glaciers. 
 Some of the latter, especially that of the source of the 
 Sary-jassy, a tributary of the Tarim, are comparable, 
 Reclus says, in length to the Aletsch glacier in the 
 Valais Alps, and this I am told is about 1 5 miles long. 
 
 From the Muzart to the western extremity of the 
 Sary-jassy Mountains the snowy range for 60 miles 
 has a mean elevation of upwards of 16,500 feet, all the 
 peaks overtopping Mont Blanc by at least 3,000 feet. 
 
 Still farther west the range, under the name of Kok- 
 shaal, maintains a mean altitude of more than 1 5, 000 feet, 
 with summits rising 2,000 feet higher, and so continues 
 in a south-westerly direction till it joins the Pamirs. 
 
 After reposing at Jam we continued our journey, 
 crossing the river Jai-tugrak-ustang, which after a 
 course of nearly 100 miles runs into the sandy waste 
 alluded to on the north bank of the Tarim. Other 
 streams which we crossed do not run so far even as 
 that, but are quickly exhausted by irrigation or evapo- 
 ration near the localities where they rise. Several 
 aquatic birds were flying about the river at Jam, and my 
 gun brought me specimens which Tor-jee was ready 
 to go through fire and water to pick up. 
 
 The next inhabited point arrived at was Tash- 
 Lianger, to the suburbs of which, southwards, we were 
 brought to spend the night in a house in a garden of 
 melons. My room was small, but comfortably fur- 
 nished with carpets and quilts, the spare number of 
 which appeared to indicate an owner in easy circum- 
 stances ; but the room had the drawback of being 
 lighted only through a hole in the roof.
 
 FRO]\r MUZART-KURGAN TO AKSU. 311 
 
 The caravan arrived at two o'clock, after a march of 
 seven hours, and had to report a death in the family. 
 Joseph had come to me at Jam to say that the horse 
 I have already alluded to at Kuldja as being weak was 
 ill, and would eat no barley. A consultation of horse- 
 doctors was held, whereupon both Osman and Monkey- 
 face pronounced that the sick animal's nose must be 
 cut to let blood, which was accordingly done, but not 
 to much purpose ; for after crossing a long stretch of 
 desert in the stifling plain north of Jam the poor 
 creature dropped. 
 
 The old mullah was left by its side to see if it would 
 recover, and if not to hear its dying speech and con- 
 fession, which were, I believe, to the effect that the 
 heat of the plains, following on the toils of the glacier, 
 had proved too much for it — a result reminding one of 
 Shepeleft"'s experience on the glacier with his horses, 
 or rather mares, which all prematurely cast their 
 young. 
 
 Nor was this our only loss. Our dog "Kuldja," 
 purchased at Chapchal, was led by a string up the Tekes 
 valley, lest he should go back to his Kalmuk home, 
 and he ran well at first. By the time we reached the 
 Muzart stream he had discovered that his new owner 
 could feed him quite as well, to say the least, as his old 
 one, and he followed without being led. 
 
 He was, however, very timid, and appeared to 
 consider no one as a friend but Joseph and myself. 
 When, therefore, at Toghri-su, where he arrived tired, 
 he was suddenly roused out of a snooze by a horrid 
 cry some of the men made in playing, he jumped up, 
 and, seeing neither of his friends, bolted off to such a 
 distance in the mountains that we feared he was lost. 
 
 Allured back by Joseph, he got across the glacier
 
 312 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 pretty well, though he had to be carried, as I have said, 
 over the Southern Muzart. But when we exchanged 
 the cool air of the mountains for the heat of the plains, 
 where the maximum temperature at night was 99°,* he 
 too, like the horse, succumbed. 
 
 Meanwhile the messenger who had brought me the 
 fruit went back from Jam to herald my approach to 
 his master, Madamin Bai, Russianised into Madamin 
 Alim Baieff, who during the night came out from 
 Aksu, bringing delicious grapes and other fruit. 
 
 He had received a letter, he said, from M. Petro- 
 vosky, the Russian Consul at Kashgar, asking him to 
 help me, and he was come out to do us honour. 
 Accordingly, he and his attendants set out with our 
 
 * Record of Thermometrical Observations between Kuldja 
 AND Aksu. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Locality. 
 
 Hour. 
 
 Vt time of 
 Reading. 
 
 Maximum & Minimum 
 during Night. 
 
 1888 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 July 27 
 
 Kuldja, in tent 
 
 4.15 a.m. 
 
 70 
 
 
 — 
 
 ,, 28 
 
 Ghaljat ., 
 
 4.0 „ 
 
 — 
 
 80 
 
 68 
 
 „ 29 
 
 Chapchal gorge, in tent ... 
 
 9.0 „ 
 
 — 
 
 73 
 
 57 
 
 ,, ,, 
 
 ., 
 
 6.30 p.m. 
 
 73 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 ,, 30 
 
 „ ,, 
 
 4.30 a.m. 
 
 — 
 
 65 
 
 58 
 
 ij )) 
 
 Booghru „ 
 
 6.0 p.m. 
 
 65 
 
 
 
 ,> 31 
 
 71 )! 
 
 5.0 a.m. 
 
 
 65 
 
 48 
 
 Aug. I 
 
 Khanakai „ 
 
 6.0 ,. 
 
 — 
 
 64 
 
 53 
 
 ), 2 
 
 ., ,. 
 
 4.0 „ 
 
 — 
 
 55 
 
 43 
 
 M 3 
 
 Geelan ,, 
 
 4-30 v 
 
 — 
 
 62 
 
 52 
 
 >, 4 
 
 Tekes Picket ., 
 
 5-0 ,. 
 
 — 
 
 57 
 
 44 
 
 ,. 5 
 
 Shattoo 
 
 9-0 „ 
 
 — 
 
 70 
 
 49 
 
 
 " ••• 
 
 5.0 p.m. 
 
 
 80 (during 
 the day) 
 
 ~ 
 
 ,. 6 
 
 )• i> 
 
 5.0 a.m. 
 
 — 
 
 63 
 
 49 
 
 „ 7 
 
 Udungei ,, 
 
 4-3° .' 
 
 — 
 
 59 
 
 43 
 
 „ 5^ 
 
 Toghii-su ,, 
 
 30 7' 
 
 — 
 
 52 
 
 42 
 
 „ 9 
 
 Tamgha-tash 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 — 
 
 ,, 10 
 
 Kailek, window-sill 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 65 
 
 61 
 
 ). II 
 
 Tuprak, verandah 
 
 5.0 a.m. 
 
 — 
 
 65 
 
 55 
 
 ,. 12 
 
 Muzart-Kurgan, window-sill 
 
 8.0 ., 
 
 — 
 
 ' 71 
 
 60 
 
 ., 13 
 
 „ ,, ,, 
 
 5-30 „ 
 
 — 
 
 1 73 
 
 58 
 
 ,> 14 
 
 Auvat ,, 
 
 5-3° '. 
 
 — 
 
 ! 99 
 
 69 
 
 .> IS 
 
 Tash-Lianger, door-sill ... 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 77 
 
 „ 16 
 
 Aksu, verandali ... 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 74
 
 FROM MUZART-KURGAN TO AKSU. 
 
 ?sn 
 
 caravan at seven o'clock, and in two hours we ap- 
 proached some houses at a place they called Shlengir, 
 where, to my surprise, was awaiting me a deputation 
 of a dozen white-turbaned Afghans and Andijanis, all 
 of them mounted and ready to escort us into Aksu.* 
 But before proceeding we had to turn aside for a 
 
 * Of distances between Muzart- Kurgan and Aksu I have four 
 estimates. 
 
 1. Chian-da-loya gave it as 300 //, or 104 miles. 
 
 2. The Russian Aksakal, Madamin Bai, gave it : — 
 
 Muzart-Kurgan to Auvat ..... 5 task or farsam^. 
 Auvat to Jam 
 
 Jam to Lianger . 
 Lianger to Shlengir 
 Shlengir to Aksu 
 
 1 3 task, or (at 20 li to 
 the tash) 260 li, or 90 
 miles. 
 
 3. Kostenko's (or rather Shepcleff's) distances, supplied from native 
 information, are : — 
 
 Tamgha-tash to Kailek ..... 12 versts. 
 
 Kailek to Tuprak . . . . . . 15 „ 
 
 Tuprak to Muzart-Kiu^gan . . . . . 32 „ 
 
 59 vasts, or 29 miles. 
 
 (We took from Tamgha-tash to Muzart-Kurgan 21 hours, or, at three 
 miles an hour, 63 miles, which I think to be nearer the mark.) 
 
 ersts. 
 
 INIuzart-Kurgan to Kizil-Riilalc 
 
 • 14 
 
 Kizil-Bulak to Auvat ..... 
 
 . 12 
 
 Auvat to Jam 
 
 • 35 
 
 Jam to Kent-Shlentchi 
 
 . 20 
 
 Kent-Shlentchi to Tash-Lianger Serai . 
 
 . 18 
 
 Tash-Lianger to Aksu ..... 
 
 . 22 
 
 121 versis, or 81 miles. 
 
 4. We took from Muzart-Kurgan to Aksu 19 hours, or 57 miles. Thus 
 Kostenko's distance from Muzart Picket (Shattoo) to Aksu is 177 miles, 
 and ours 63 hours, or 189 miles. 
 
 Finally, Kostenko's distance from Kiildja to Aksu is 311 miles, and 
 ours 117 hours of travel, or 351 miles.
 
 314 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL AS/A. 
 
 ieasL they hatl prepared ol a slaughtered sheep, under 
 shady trees, near sparkHng rills, with further abund- 
 ance of the fruit of the land. Here we quaffed tea as 
 we lay on carpets, and those who had not breakfasted 
 early, as I had already done, did ample justice to the 
 viands. Conversation also flowed apace, and if any 
 one was not at his ease, perhaps it was Osman Bai, for 
 Madamin Bai was one of his chief creditors, and my 
 caravan das/n was walking like a lamb into the mouth 
 of the lion. 
 
 I had a letter, however, to Madamin Bai containing 
 some very straight hints on this subject from the 
 Consulate at Kuldja. He was "to give full assistance 
 to the bearer of this letter, to find for him a suitable 
 lodging in the town, or perhaps in his own house " (the 
 Sarts, I heard, had inns at Aksu, but not the Chinese 
 or Russians), " also to seek for Dr Lansdell a trust- 
 worthy arbakesh or carter at moderate cost, and on 
 no account, under pain of expulsion, or perhaps exile, 
 to hinder Osman Bai, the bearer's caravan bashi, since 
 the Russian Government had given to Dr Lansdell full 
 protection." 
 
 I thought Osman Bai looked rather sheepish when 
 he went up to shake hands with a crowd of his old 
 acquaintances from Aksu, where, I suppose, he had 
 long been "wanted," but for the present all was peace. 
 
 I was considerably at a loss to know what could be 
 the meaning of all this unexpected fuss made about me 
 by the Afghan traders of the town, and on broaching 
 the subject they said they had similarly gone out, not 
 long before, to meet two others of my countrymen — 
 namely, Mr Carey and Lieutenant Younghusband — 
 each of whom they said had stayed in Aksu for three 
 days, Colonel Bell also having stayed there.
 
 3i6 • CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 The action of the Turkis, who were Russian sub- 
 jects, was not so hard to understand, and they informed 
 me that for a traveller to come, heralded by two 
 Russian Consuls, from Kashgar and Kuldja, was an 
 event that did not happen twice in a century, and they 
 therefore felt bound to do for me all they could. 
 
 Accordingly, after the feast, they all formed, or 
 wished to form, in procession before me, which had 
 the not trifling inconvenience of covering me with a 
 cloud of dust, from which I insisted upon escaping, 
 and riding at the head of the force. In this fashion 
 we continued for two hours, Joseph talking hard with 
 the column of horsemen, who had fifty questions to 
 ask concerning his master, and all he intended to do. 
 
 Thus we approached the enormous cemeteries on 
 the top of the bluff that overhangs Aksu. Having 
 descended this bluff, our company was conducted 
 through the streets between astonished and gaping 
 crowds to the house of Madamin Bai.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CHINESE rURKISTAN. 
 
 Chinese Turkistan ; its boundaries and vaiying names, 318. — The Sin 
 Kiang, or New Frontier ; its eastern boundary and latest carto- 
 graphy, 319. — Its dimensions, mountains, rivers, and lakes, 320. — 
 Surface and communications, 322. — The country described as 
 approached from Peking by northern route, and by southern route, 
 to Hami, 323. — Hami ; its history, European visitors, and present 
 condition, 326.— Roads from Hami to Kobdo, Barkul, andGuchen, 
 329. — Urumtsi ; its history and situation as headquarters town of the 
 Sin Kiang, 330. — Route via Toksun to Pishan and Turfan, 2)?)li- — 
 History of Turfan ; its sacred mountain and latest European 
 visitors, 334. — Karashar and its Kalmuks, ;}^^'] . — Kurla, Kuchar, 
 and Bai, 338. 
 
 1HAVE glanced already at those portions of extra- 
 mural China known as Manchuria, Mongolia, and 
 Sungaria. I purpose now to treat of that portion of 
 Chinese Central Asia which consists of a horseshoe 
 depression bounded by the Tian Shan, Kuen Lun, and 
 Pamir Mountains on the north, south, and west respec- 
 tively, but lying open to the Gobi desert on the east. 
 
 The name of this region has varied much and often 
 among Europeans, Mongols, Turks, and Chinese. 
 Along the south of the valley ran the great "silk 
 route " 2,000 years ago, but without bequeathing to 
 us any particular name for this portion of the " land 
 of the Seres." In the first map of the region, made 
 by Renat, the word "Cottoner" figures conspicuously,
 
 3i8 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 with the information that the people of Khotan were 
 then subject to the Kalmuks ; but Reclus observes that 
 "the kingdom of Khotan" fell into disuse after the 
 city of that name had ceased to be the capital. A 
 century ago the territory was thought to be a part 
 of the vast "plateau of Tartary," then supposed to 
 occupy the interior of the continent, whilst in some 
 maps of that period it figured as " Little Bokhara." 
 Twenty years ago, during the insurrection of Yakub 
 Khan, it was called " Kashgaria," which was for a time 
 its current name in Europe ; but the Turki natives 
 spoke of the country as Alti-shahr (or six cities), an 
 expression afterwards replaced by Jiti-shahr (or seven 
 cities). Other two names, still in vogue and applicable, 
 are Eastern Turkistan — to distinguish it from the 
 land of the Turks west of the Tian Shan — and 
 Chinese Turkistan, which I prefer, as differentiating 
 it from Russian Turkistan, and what some writers 
 have called Afghan Turkistan. 
 
 The Chinese appear to have formerly spoken of the 
 country in general as part of Hi in its widest sense, 
 and more particularly under the appellation of Tian 
 Shan Nan-lu, or Southern Tian Shan route, as opposed 
 to the Tian Shan Pe-lu, or Northern Tian Shan route 
 of Sungaria ; but on the recovery of the country from 
 Yakub Khan, a new name was given to the territory, 
 including Sungaria and Chinese Turkistan. Accord- 
 ingly, when, in 1882, I received from the Chinese Lega- 
 tion a letter of commendation, it was said to be to 
 the Governor-General of Sin Kiang, or the New Pro- 
 vince, or Frontier. 
 
 It is not easy to get authorised information of the 
 exact limits of Sin Kiang eastwards. Old maps repre- 
 sent Kansu, the north-west province of China proper,
 
 CHINESE TURKISTAN. 319 
 
 as projecting like a tongue across the Gobi, and con- 
 tinuing north of the Tian Shan to the frontier. The 
 last edition of Stanford's map of Asia, recently pub- 
 lished, does away with this " tongue " altogether, and 
 draws the eastern boundary of the Sin Kiang, beginning 
 at the Altyn Tagh Mountains, midway between Lob- 
 Nor and Sachu, to the Kuruk Tagh hills, about 100 
 miles north of that town, and then running eastwards 
 along a continuation of these hills, called Chukum 
 Shan, to the meridian of Kan-chow. Further, it 
 follows the old border of Kansu without-the-wall, 
 proceeding north-westwards to the hills north of 
 Barkul ; then it strikes northwards to the Great Altai 
 chain, which forms the northern watershed of the 
 Black Irtish, and runs along that chain to the Russian 
 frontier. Mr Littledale tells me, however, that, when 
 he was camping in Sungaria, a Chinese official, from 
 Chuguchak, on his way to Peking, told him that the 
 Black Irtish is the frontier between the Chuguchak 
 and Kobdo divisions. Accordingly, the dividing line 
 in this region should probably be drawn along the Upper 
 Irtish and Urungu rivers, instead of along the crest of 
 the Great Altai chain. 
 
 I happen to know that this new piece of map-making 
 is based on information given by a recent traveller, and 
 that the frontier thus indicated must be regarded as 
 delimited by the plenipotentiaries of the map-room, 
 rather than by the Chinese Government, from whose 
 representatives in London I could get no detailed in- 
 formation. I believe Stanford's map, however, to be 
 accurate, the south-eastern border of Chinese Turkistan 
 having the Gobi on the east, and on the south a portion 
 of Kansu beyond-the-wall. Thus it appears that the 
 new province of Sin Kiang takes in the whole of what
 
 320 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 I have called Sungaria, the Hi valley, the part of Kansu 
 formerly north of the Gobi, and the depression we are 
 now speaking of, which last I shall continue to call 
 Chinese Turkistan. Mr Bolton (geographer to Mr 
 Stanford), after careful calculation, gives me the area 
 of the Sin Kiang as 611,840, or, say, 612,000 square 
 miles — the size, that is, of France, x'\ustria, and the 
 British possessions in Europe. 
 
 Taking the extreme length of Chinese Turkistan on 
 the 40th parallel as lying between the 74th and looth 
 meridians, it stretches about 1,500 miles from west to 
 east ; whilst from the Muzart Pass to the 36th parallel 
 — the widest part from north to south — the 8ist meri- 
 dian measures 400 miles. Reclus estimates the area 
 of Chinese Turkistan at 480,000, the Encyclopcedia 
 Britannica at 465,000 square miles — that is, about the 
 size of France and Austria together. 
 
 There is probably no other valley in the world of 
 equal extent possessing such an environment of lofty 
 mountains of the first rank. Nevertheless, the depres- 
 sion itself is everywhere flat, unless account be taken 
 of a ridge of hills called Mazar Tagh, north of Khotan, 
 and an offshoot of the southern range of the Tian Shan, 
 called, near Karashar, Kuruk Tagh, which continues 
 east to Kansu. But, though flat, the valley is not 
 low, but rather a high plain or plateau, varying from 
 3,250 feet above the sea-level at Lob- Nor to about 
 4,500 feet west and east at Kashgar and Ngansi. 
 
 Into this valley the encircling mountains pour 
 numerous streams, not all of which reach the open 
 plain. Enough, however, are gathered together to 
 develop a considerable water system, the end of which 
 is Lake Lob. The principal river is the Tarim, and 
 hence the depression is sometimes called the Tarim
 
 CHINESE TURK I STAN. 321 
 
 valley or basin. 7^his river is made up westward 
 by the confluence of the Kashgar-daria and Yarkand- 
 daria, and these give their names to towns through 
 which they pass. After this, flowing east, the Tarim 
 is joined by the Khotan river from the south, and a 
 smaller stream, the Aksu, from the north, and flows 
 onwards to Lob- Nor. Just before reaching that lake 
 it receives another affluent from the south, called the 
 Cherchen-daria, the only one of the Kuen Lun torrents, 
 east of Khotan, that reaches the central depression. 
 One more stream that tries to do so from farther east 
 is the Bulundzir, the head-waters of which rise in the 
 Nan Shan, or continuation of the Altyn Tagh eastwards, 
 and after a total course of 300 miles, 200 of which is 
 westwards towards Lob, the river is lost in the desert 
 lake of Khala-chi. Besides these lakes may be men- 
 tioned three more to the north-west of Lob, near the 
 skirts of the Tian Shan — namely, Bagratsh-Kul, Sari- 
 Kamish, and Baba-Kul — as well as a salt lake or marsh 
 near Barkul ; whilst away towards Kansu are Lakes 
 Khua-khaitsi (spotted lake) and Alak-chi, into which 
 run small streams from the Nan Shan. 
 
 From the foregoing sketch of the hydrography of 
 the country it will be readily understood that oases 
 of verdure and fertility are found only along the 
 skirts of the mountains, and even then in such places 
 alone as are watered by descending streams. Hence 
 the greater part of Chinese Turkistan is barren desert. 
 Between Lob-Nor and the river Khotan stretches the 
 vast Tarim desert, and between that and the Kuen 
 Lun lies the desert — nearly as large as Great Britain 
 — of Takla Makan. East of Lob-Nor are the sands 
 of Kum Tagh, sometimes regarded as part of the 
 Gobi, by which name, however, Reclus says the desert 
 
 VOL. I. 21
 
 322 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 is unknown in Chint^sc Turkistan. 1 tie Gobi may 
 therefore with greater propriety be said to begin 
 somewhat farther east. 
 
 The lofty mountains shutting in the valley on three 
 sides suggest its inaccessibility by ordinary roads from 
 the north, west, or south ; but from the east there is 
 a road, practicable for carts, which leaves the western 
 end of the Great Wall near Su-chow, and crosses the 
 desert to the eastern extremity of the Tian Shan 
 Mountains at Hami. Here the road bifurcates. The 
 northern branch continues through Barkul, Urumtsi, 
 and the towns on the northern slope of the mountains 
 to Sungaria and Kuldja ; the southern continues en- 
 tirely round the Tarim valley, passing successively 
 through the towns of Pishan, Turfan, Karashar, 
 Kuchar, Aksu, Kashgar, Yengi Hissar, Yarkand, 
 Khotan, and Keria. Beyond this point there was 
 in ancient times a route passing south of Lob-Nor, 
 probably over an easy pass of the Altyn Tagh, to 
 Su-chow, but this route is now disused. 
 
 Besides the cart-road from the east, there are several 
 bridle-paths whereby the valley can be approached 
 from the other points of the compass. On the north 
 Kuropatkin enumerates no less than 13 passes used 
 by the traders crossing the Tian Shan and the Alai, 
 all except one practicable in summer, whilst that over 
 the Terek-davan, or "Poplar Pass," is open throughout 
 the year. South of this, over the Pamirs, is a path 
 connecting Badakshan with Yengi Hissar ; whilst the 
 Kuen Lun is crossed by paths converging on Yar- 
 kand; by others approaching Khotan and Keria (the 
 last through Polu) ; and, finally, a little-known track 
 northward from Lassa, after crossing the Kuen Lun 
 and Altyn Tagh, descends to Lob-Nor.
 
 CHINESE TURK/STAN. 323 
 
 I have mentioned already the advice given me be- 
 fore leaving England, that I should approach Chinese 
 Turkistan from Peking ; and for purposes of description 
 I shall now do so. Regarding Hami as the first town 
 to be approached, the traveller from the Chinese capital 
 has a choice between two routes, — one called the Ala- 
 shan route outside the Great Wall, occupying i 2 days, 
 to Kwei-hwa-cheng, and then by camels across the 
 desert ; the other route by a cart-road through Shansi, 
 Shensi, and Kansu to the end of the Wall at Su-chow, 
 and then across to Hami — a journey of 2,162 miles 
 in 68 days. 
 
 By the Ala-shan route the traveller from Peking 
 passes on the second day through the inner branch 
 of the Great Wall at the Nankow Pass, and on the 
 fourth day reaches the mountain frontier at Kalgan 
 (whence start the caravans to Urga and Kiakhta), 
 where is a station of American missionaries. Turning 
 west from this route, he passes through the outer wall 
 to a district of grassy steppes and Mongol tents, 
 and in eight days reaches Kuei-hwa-cheng, or Kuku- 
 Khoto. Here is a station of the China Inland 
 Mission, where the traveller will receive a welcome. 
 
 From Kuei-hwa-cheng is a route to Uliassutai in 
 the north-west, and another of 67 days to Barkul. 
 By this second route our traveller passes, west of 
 the former, along the skirts of the Hurka Hills to 
 the farthest offshoots of the Great Altai Mountains, 
 and then turns southwards, and circumvents the eastern 
 end of the Tian Shan spurs, to Hami. The only 
 Englishman who has travelled by this route to Hami 
 is Captain Younghusband, who rode the distance of 
 1,255 miles from Kuei-hwa-cheng in 70 days. 
 
 The cart-road or southern route is easier, thoup-h
 
 324 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 somewhat longer. The first 1 2 stages from Peking 
 take the traveller through Pau-ting (Pao-ting-fu), the 
 capital of Chi-li, across its alluvial plains, and over 
 the hills separating it from the next province, before 
 descending to Tai-yuen, the capital of Shansi. This 
 is a town of some 50,000 inhabitants, where are 
 stations of the China Inland Mission, a Baptist 
 Mission, and a Roman bishop and cathedral, the 
 last claiming to have 600 adherents in the city and 
 18,000 in Shansi. 
 
 The next 13 stages bring the traveller to Singan, 
 the capital of Shensi, founded b.c. 1122, and for 2,000 
 years the capital of China. Its population is stated 
 to be 1,000,000, including 50,000 Muhammadans. It 
 is the most populous of Chinese cities after Peking 
 and Canton. Another 12 stages cover the journey 
 from Singan to Lan-chow, over a hilly road at from 
 6,000 to 7,000 feet in altitude, through a depopulated 
 country, with villages destroyed during the 1 7 years 
 of Muhammadan rebellion. Lan-chow is said to have 
 40,000 houses. The Roman Catholics in the city 
 number 80, in the neighbourhood 200, and in the 
 province of Kansu 2,400. The China Inland Mission 
 also maintains a station here. 
 
 From Lan-chow extends, in a north-westerlydirection, 
 for some hundreds of miles, but sometimes no more 
 than a few miles wide, a remarkable depression or 
 channel, between the Kuen Lun Mountains on the 
 west, and the sandy plain of the Gobi on the east. 
 This lengthy portion of country throughout is level and 
 has much fertile ground, its western end being the 
 outlet whence to cross Mongolia to Central Asia. 
 Along this channel from Lan-chow are 16 stages 
 through Liang-chow and Kan-chow to Su-chow.
 
 CHINESE TURKISTAN. 325 
 
 Liang-chow is a walled town ol from 20,000 to 30,000 
 inhabitants, and it is the advanced post in this direction 
 of the China Inland Mission. Here, too, is a Lazarite 
 bishopric, established in 1879, with adherents round 
 the city, it is said, of 600 persons, and with stations at 
 Kan-chow and along the Yellow River, in addition to 
 the Mission I have previously referred to at Kuldja. 
 
 Formerly the administration of the Kansu province 
 extended a variable distance along the Pe-lu and 
 Nan-lu routes, with the towns settled on them ; but 
 now the traveller passes out of Kansu about 70 miles 
 north of Ansi-fan at Shing-shing-she, and comes to 
 the first halting-place in the Sin Kiang province at 
 Iswa Chenza. 
 
 The journey from Su-chow to Hami is accomplished 
 in 15 stages. At 18 miles from Su-chow is Kia-yu- 
 kuan, a walled town and fortress standing in the 
 channel referred to on a neck of land, and guarding 
 the north-west entrance into the Empire, in much the 
 same fashion, to judge from a sketch I have seen, that 
 the Muzart-Kurgan, with its walls, stretches across the 
 valley leading to the Ice Pass, The Great Wall circles 
 round Kia-yu-kuan across the neck, and ends about 
 ten miles distant. Six stages from Su-chow bring the 
 traveller to Ansi-fan, or Ngansi, the residence of a 
 Taiitai, but a poor place of 400 or 500 houses, where 
 stores are laid in for crossing the Shamo, or Gobi, 
 which for 200 miles along the trade route is almost 
 wholly desert. There are, however, all along the way 
 stations consisting of a few huts and inns kept by 
 Chinese ; and water, though sometimes brackish, is 
 plentiful everywhere. The road is of two cart-ruts 
 six inches deep, generally over sandy gravel and some- 
 times over rock. The desert ceases on the last stasje
 
 326 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 but one ; and the last stage, over a reedy grass prairie, 
 brings the traveller to Hami. 
 
 Hami enjoys the respectable distinction of dating 
 back to the first century, when, in a.d. ']'X,, the Chinese 
 took I-wu-lu, as it is first called, from the Hiung-nu, 
 the ancient inhabitants of Mongolia, and established 
 there military colonies. Some centuries later the oasis 
 v^as occupied by Turkish tribes, but was again sub- 
 jected by China, and under the T'ang dynasty of the 
 seventh and eighth centuries its name was changed 
 to I -chow. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries it 
 belonged to the Uigurs, to whom probably Marco Polo 
 alludes when he speaks of the inhabitants as idolaters 
 " with a peculiar language." He calls the place by the 
 Turkish name of Camul, or Kamul, changed by the 
 Mongols to Khamil, or Khami. The Chinese annals 
 mention that in 1289 the people of Ko-mi-li were 
 afflicted with famine, and the Chinese Emperor ordered 
 corn to be sent to them from Kansu. 
 
 The first European, probably, to come here was 
 Marignolli in 1342, who stayed some time, and baptised 
 a number of the natives. In 1420, when Shah Rukh's 
 embassy passed through, they found a fine mosque 
 and convent of dervishes side by side with a Buddhist 
 temple. Before this the Ming Emperor Hung-wuhad 
 obtained the allegiance of the Uigurs, and received 
 from the ruler of Hami, in 1403, a tribute of 190 
 horses ; and, in addition, the Chinese Government 
 bought from the same source 4,710 horses. In 1406 
 a Chinese military station was established in the place. 
 About 1472 Sultan Ali of Turfan captured and plun- 
 dered the city, which for the next 40 years was 
 alternately in the possession of the Chinese and 
 Turfanese, till in 1513 the Sultan established his rule.
 
 CHINESE TURKISTAN. 327 
 
 Hami depended on Turfan down to 1696, when the 
 chief of Hami, Beg Abdullah, acknowledged the supre- 
 macy of the Emperor Kang-hi, of the present dynasty. 
 In 1757 Hami was again administered from Kansu. 
 
 The next European traveller at Hami after Marig- 
 nolli was Benedict Goes, in 1605. About a century 
 later Jesuit missionaries, by order of the Emperor 
 Kang-hi, determined by astronomical observations the 
 position of the place. From this date for a century and 
 a half these regions were closed against Europeans. 
 In 1873 appeared in the Proceedings of the Russian 
 Geographical Society an account of Hami, compiled 
 by M. Uspensky from little-known Chinese sources. 
 The expedition of Sosnovsky travelled through Hami 
 in 1875, as also did Potanin in 1877, and Prjevalsky, 
 who spent five days there in 1879. No Englishman, 
 however, seems to have visited Hami till Mr Carey's 
 caravan arrived in 1886, to be followed next year by 
 Colonel Bell and Captain Younghusband. 
 
 Prjevalsky gives the oasis as from eight to ten miles 
 from east to west, and a little more from north to 
 south. He describes the fertile soil as of clay and 
 sand, producing wheat, millet, barley, maize, water- 
 melons, pumpkins, grapes, and melons — the last being 
 famous, and sent sometimes so far as Peking. The 
 poppy also is grown. The present Hami is described 
 as consisting of three quarters, two being Chinese and 
 one Muhammadan, the last called Khamil. Khamil 
 was founded 300 years ago. Of the Chinese quarters, 
 Low-chen (Lao-cheng, old town) is only about 180 
 years old, and Sin-cheng (new town) is quite modern. 
 
 Coming from the south, Sin-cheng is first approached. 
 It has walls of mud 20 feet high, a top width or 
 terre-plein of 20 feet, with a loopholed parapet, and is
 
 328 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 regarded by die Chinese as a fortress. The deep 
 moat is ten feet broad, and at the east and south 
 gateways are ramps leading to the ramparts, the 
 interior being taken up chiefly by Government offices, 
 yamens, and barracks. There are said to be i,ooo 
 Hunan soldiers in garrison. In Low-chen are i,ooo 
 Chinese families, and in the Muhammadan town a 
 fourth of that number. The shops in Low-chen are 
 well stocked with goods, mostly Russian. 
 
 The Muhammadan city Khamil lies one mile to the 
 south-west of Sin-cheng, the intervening space being 
 occupied with gardens. It is surrounded by a dilapi- 
 dated mud wall about 25 feet high, and inside are a 
 number of huts built round inclosed yards. The 
 kings of Hami lie under a mausoleum, the dome of 
 which is covered with green-coloured tiles, but of 
 poor quality and appearance. The tombs are elevated 
 oblong structures. In addition to these, there are 
 many buildings half-destroyed by war. Nevertheless, 
 the town, shaded by large trees, is said to have a clean 
 and comfortable appearance. 
 
 In the bazaar everything is dear except flour, which 
 costs 4.S-, (id. for 133 lbs. A sheep costs about the 
 same ; a draught pony from 30^-. to 45^. ; a cow z^os. ; 
 and a camel from ^4 to ^5 ; whilst beans or split 
 peas for horses cost t^s. 6d. per cwt. The town is well 
 supplied with coal ; also firewood from the Tian Shan, 
 30 miles distant. Russian merchants established 
 themselves here in 1881. They receive their goods 
 from Moscow, Nijni-Novgorod, Omsk, and Tomsk 
 two or three times a year, via Biisk and Kobdo, 
 employing their own camels to bring cottons, hard- 
 ware, sugar, soaps, candles, lamps, clocks, matches, 
 vodka, and wines. All the outlying stations of China in
 
 CHINESE TURKISTAN. 329 
 
 this direction are said to be supplied by the Russians, 
 there being three Russian shops at Kobdo, and at Ulias- 
 sutai four; but nothing is exported from Hami to Russia. 
 
 The Chinese soldiers at Hami are reported to be 
 unbearably impertinent and oppressive, sometimes 
 taking what they want from the stores at their own 
 price. Colonel Bell says the Chinese are behaving 
 most foolishly in this respect, giving no protection or 
 justice even to the Russian merchants. He himself 
 met with great incivility here from the mandarins. 
 
 From Hami to Kobdo and Uliassutai there are 
 camel tracks of 22 and 23 stages respectively, the 
 route to Kuldja being 800 miles, and passing through 
 Barkul, Guchen, and Urumtsi. Barkul is reached in 
 three days, crossing the Tian Shan by its most easterly 
 pass — an easy one, with an altitude of 9,000 feet. 
 The road leads up a stony ravine, 150 yards wide, 
 over indurated shales, the highest slopes of which are 
 clothed with pine, larch, and juniper. The descent is 
 steep, amidst clay hills, to an exceedingly rich valley, 
 and so onwards to the Chinese lake Pa-li-kul, or 
 Barkul, which is 5,300 feet above sea-level. 
 
 Barkul comprises both a Manchu and a Chinese 
 city, the former occupied by 1,000 Manchu and 1,000 
 Chebing soldiers, or local militia. This is the garrison 
 on paper ; what it may be in reality is quite another 
 matter. In the city are 1,100 Chinese families; 'jo 
 Dungans, or Chinese Muhammadans; but no Chentu, or 
 Turks. The soldiers are under a Chen-shi-ting. The 
 climate differs from that of Hami because on the north 
 of the mountains rain frequently falls. The extent of 
 cultivated land about Barkul is small, but must once 
 have been much greater, to judge from the size of the 
 ruined villages. The soil is very rich.
 
 330 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Cart-roads lead from Barkul northward to Uliassutai, 
 and over the hills southward to Pishan and Turfan, whilst 
 westward the road continues across the Lake Pa-li-kul 
 basin and over hills branching out from the Tian 
 Shan, with pasture and occasional ruined hamlets. At 
 the ninth stage, and distant 240 miles from Hami, is 
 Guchen, razed to the ground during the last rebellion. 
 It is now a small place of trade occupied by 1,000 
 Chinese, 25 Manchu, and 40 Turki families, with a 
 garrison of 500 Hunan braves and 500 local militia. 
 The bullocks of the country are fine and numerous. 
 In Guchen there are 100 shops. English cottons 
 penetrate here from Tientsin, via Kwei-hwa-cheng 
 and Han-kow, and, though dearer than Russian goods, 
 are preferred by the Chinese as of superior quality. 
 American cottons are also in good repute. 
 
 Four stages farther — 408 miles from Hami — is 
 Urumtsi. According to Klaproth, this place is the 
 same as Pei-t'ing of the T'ang period. Thus it carries 
 us back to the seventh century, when this district, 
 with that of Barkul, became dependent (according to 
 one Chinese source) on the Government of Kansu, till 
 the Uigurs, forsaking their homes on the banks of the 
 Orkhan, Tola, and Selenga, settled here, and called 
 the place Bishbalik, which signifies, in Turkish, the 
 " Pentapolis," or five cities ; whence the country round 
 was sometimes called Bishbali. 
 
 Thus, from the Si-pei-ti, or Mongol-Chinese 
 mediaeval map, we find that in 1278 Ba-sa-cha-li re- 
 ceived a tiger tablet, investing him with authority to 
 direct the military post-stations in Bie-shi-ba-li. In 
 1280 a commander of 10,000 was sent to guard the 
 frontier at Bie-shi-ba-li. In the next year Prince 
 A-dji-ghi requested that '^o new post-stations might
 
 CHINESE TURKTSTAN. 331 
 
 be established between the town and the mountains ; 
 and in 1284 he asked that two cities, hipsed to Khotan, 
 might be restored to Bishbalik. In 1287 a Chinese 
 mihtary colony was established in the place. 
 
 The Ming Shi speaks of Bie-shi-ba-li as a great 
 empire, bordered on the south by Khotan, north by the 
 Oirati, west by Samarkand, and east by Karakhojo, 
 near Turfan. This empire was that of the Jetes 
 or Getes of Muhammadan authors, and the country 
 was known in the west also as Moghulistan (not to be 
 confounded with the country of the true Mongols, 
 eastward). Moghulistan was ravaged by Timur in 
 T389. In 141 8 the name of the kingdom was changed 
 to I-li-ba-li, and its rulers sent tribute to China for 
 some years afterwards. The Ming Geography describes 
 the people of I-li-ba-li as nomads, living in tents, of 
 fierce appearance, subsisting on flesh and koumiss, and 
 dressed like the Oirats. 
 
 Bretschneider says that the Sungarian name of 
 Urumtsi first appears in Chinese annals in 171 7. 
 After the Emperor K'ien-lung had conquered Sun- 
 garia, in the middle of the last century, the Chinese 
 built, in 1765, a new city on eight hills, at a distance 
 of three miles from Urumtsi. Here 3,000 Manchu 
 were settled under the command of a Chinese general. 
 In the days of Jinghiz, the great highway from Mon- 
 golia to Western Asia passed through Bishbalik. It 
 is mentioned by Ye-lii Ch'u-ts'ai, who accompanied 
 Jinghiz. King Hayton's route led also through it. 
 In 1756 the Jesuit Father d'Arocha determined the 
 astronomical position of the place ; and, in November 
 1879, Dr. A. Regel penetrated to it from Karakhojo. 
 In 1887 the first Englishman, Mr Carey, arrived, and 
 the year following came Colonel Bell, who gives the
 
 332 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 present Chinese appellation of the place, which I heard 
 also in Kuldja, as Umiotza or Hung-miotza. 
 
 The present Urumtsi is a town rising from ruins. 
 The district is poor and sparsely populated, and has 
 no nomadic inhabitants. It contains a population of 
 20 Chinese and 1,000 Turki families, besides 1,000 
 Chinamen without their families. Its shops number 
 500, many of them, kept by men from Hunan. Ex- 
 cellent coal and natural coke is brought from the hills, 
 and fetches from ^s. gd. to i i.s. 3^. per 1,333 lbs., or 
 about II.?. to i8i". a ton. Iron costs 43^-. 6d. per cwt. 
 It is not found here, but is brought from Kwei-hwa- 
 cheng. ]\I. Grum-Grjimailo speaks of Urumtsi as 
 producing nothing but corn and the poppy. Nearly 
 every kind of food has to be imported, including rice, 
 grapes, and other fruit. The people of Urumtsi have 
 not even cattle of their own. The animals are all 
 driven hither by Kirghese. Kalmuks, he says, are not 
 allowed to trade, and Kirghese are suffered to pasture 
 their cattle only on the way to market, Russian 
 subjects being under like disabilities. There are said 
 to be in Urumtsi and the neighbouring nine or ten 
 small towns 20,000 soldiers, but some think this 
 probably includes the total number from Hami to 
 Kuldja. I heard at Kuldja of much discontent among 
 the troops in Sungaria, and I have since learned from 
 M. de Deken that, their pay being six months in 
 arrear, they revolted and completely destroyed 
 Chuguchak, nor did he know in 1892 whether the 
 barracks had been rebuilt. 
 
 Urumtsi is the headquarters town of Sin Kiang, or 
 New Province. The Governor-General lives there. 
 Under his authority are the Taiitais of Aksu and 
 Kashgar, as well as the Tsian-Tsimi of Suiting and
 
 CHINESE TURKISTAN. m 
 
 the Tiittmg of Chuguchak. Hence, M. de Deken 
 told me, in 1892, there had been recently placed in 
 Suiting and Chuguchak Chinese generals, who com- 
 mand the Chinese troops, leaving it to the Manchu 
 authorities to command the Manchu, Solon, Sibo, and 
 Kalmuk forces. The Chinese generals are from 
 Yunnan, and recognise no authority but that of 
 Urumtsi. The late Liu Joshive, as Mr Carey called 
 him (or Lu-ko-sai, according to Bell), enjoyed the 
 prestige of having regained the province for the 
 Chinese in 1878. If I am not mistaken, he had 
 charge of the province for the rest of his life, and 
 Carey speaks of him as popular with all classes. With 
 him lived two Miah-tai, four Tmitai (or generals), 
 and three T?^/?/;?^ mandarins. M. Grum-Grjimailo in 
 1890 speaks of the Governor-General as Fan-tek, 
 
 The town, with a side of 1,000 yards, has been 
 remodelled. Old walls have been thrown down and 
 new ones built, or the old, where retained, thickened 
 to a top-width of 24 feet. They are of well-rammed 
 mud, 15 feet high, the gates being of wood, six inches 
 thick, faced with thin iron. The town is situated in 
 an undulating valley from five to seven miles broad, 
 and, as it is commanded by hills approaching to within 
 1,500 yards, would be at the mercy of artillery. 
 
 The valley runs up into the Tian Shan, the foot 
 hills of which form a minor watershed on the south, 
 whilst a broad river-bed skirts the downs westward. 
 Urumtsi, being situated on the northern road from 
 Sungaria to China, and commanding the southern 
 road to Kashgar, must always be an important post. 
 To join this southern road, the Tian Shan is crossed 
 to Toksun, 103 miles distant, on the way from Hami, 
 via Pishan and Turfan.
 
 334 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Pishan is on the ninth stage from Hami, situated in 
 a rich oasis ten miles long by three broad, with 
 numerous hamlets, the town itself being inclosed 
 within mud walls 25 feet high and 400 yards in length 
 on each side. The one street has a few good shops in 
 it. There are only 100 men in the garrison, but there 
 are an additional 200 men in a fort at Shigatai, 30 
 miles eastward. Between Hami and Pishan the first 
 three stages are over level country at the base of the 
 Tian Shan, which for the most part is desert, but with 
 oases at every ten or fifteen miles. These are covered 
 with ruins of houses built by the Chinese army under 
 General Tso-tsung-tang, who, on their way to meet 
 the forces of Yakub Khan, settled down quietly for a 
 season, cultivated the land, grew some corn, and then, 
 reinforced, went forward to conquer. Remains of 
 forts of this period are still to be seen, and occasionally 
 a monument to a fallen Chinese officer. Pishan was 
 claimed as the first frontier town of Kashgaria, under 
 Yakub Khan. Fifty-five miles westward is Turfan. 
 
 Turfan is another of the towns of this region which 
 has existed for many centuries. The Ming Shi 
 mentions it, under the name of Kiao-ho-ch'eng (or 
 "the city surrounded by a river"), as the capital of 
 Ch'e-shi, a kingdom of the time of the Han dynasty, 
 before the Christian era. For a while the name was 
 changed, but it was restored under the Sung 960 — 
 1127. The country was then occupied by the 
 Uigurs, who used to send tribute to China, and in 
 981 Wang Yen-te was sent by the Chinese emperor 
 to Kao-ch'ang. The Mongol dynasty established here 
 the headquarters of a corps of 10,000. 
 
 The name Tu-lu-fan appears first in Chinese annals 
 under 1377, when the imperial troops are said to have
 
 CHINESE TURKISTAN. 335 
 
 ravaged the country to punish the ruler for plundering 
 foreign embassies on their way to China. In 1406, the 
 emperor having sent an embassy far westwards, the 
 envoy on his way made a present of silk stuffs to the 
 ruler of Tu-lu-fan, after which there followed return 
 offerings from Turfan in subsequent years of jade, 
 horses, and gyrfalcons. In the middle of the fifteenth 
 century the ruler of Tu-lu-fan, becoming powerful, 
 assumed the title of Wang, then that of Sultan, and 
 seized Hami. 
 
 Turfan, since the fifteenth century, has been re- 
 peatedly visited by Muhammadan and Christian 
 travellers. We hear of it in connection with Shah 
 Rukh (whose embassy found there a Buddhist temple) 
 and Haji Muhammad. Benedict Goes stayed in it for 
 a month, and Father d'Espinha went there for survey- 
 ing purposes, after which Chinese Turkistan was closed 
 to Europeans, Dr A. Regel visited Turfan in 1879, 
 and Carey, Bell, and Younghusband in 1887-8. The 
 latest European travellers are the brothers Grum- 
 Grjimailo, who, in 1890, explored the Bogdo Moun- 
 tains, visited the sites of former Uigur towns, and 
 penetrated the desert south of Turfan. 
 
 The Bogdo Mountains north-west of Turfan are 
 mentioned very far back in Chinese literature. In 
 the Ming Geography the rocks of Ling Shan, or the 
 mysterious mountain, are said to show veins like hair, 
 and the Sung History says that the interior of the 
 mountain contains sal-ammoniac. " Inside there is 
 a perpetual fire, and the smoke sent out of it never 
 ceases. In the evening the flames issuing from it 
 resemble torch-light. The bats also appear red." 
 M. Grum-Grjimailo states that Bogdo-ola may be 
 ascended by a fair road from Urumtsi.
 
 336 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 The mountain is reckoned by the Mongols to be 
 God's throne. The whole locality is sacred, and 
 around it numerous temples have been erected. A 
 notice, too, has been put up near the lake forbidding 
 any one, under penalty of instant death, to violate the 
 tranquillity of this holy land. There must be no 
 shooting nor tree-cutting, nor any depasturing of 
 catde.* 
 
 At the present day, the oasis round Turfan is about 
 eight miles long and four broad, to a considerable 
 extent under cotton and wheat. Water is procured 
 from wells, but irrigation is carried on chiefly by 
 underground canals from springs at the foot of the 
 hills. On nearing the place from the east the traveller 
 passes through the ruins of an ancient town (destroyed, 
 according to Regel, 400 years ago), with a large 
 mosque or tomb and a minaret 200 feet high. There 
 are two distinct towns about a mile apart, and both 
 walled ; the eastern one, 150 years old, being occupied 
 by Chinese, the western by Turkis. The Chinese 
 town has a population of 3,000 or 4,000, including 
 perhaps from 800 to 1,000 soldiers. The four gate- 
 ways of its square walls are defended by semicircular 
 bastions. There are a few shops in the Chinese town, 
 but most of the trade is carried on in the one street, 
 a mile and a half long, of the Turki town. Young- 
 husband describes the heat in July as intense, and says 
 that the people, to avoid it, live by day in underground 
 rooms. Around the town for miles are hundreds, if 
 
 * Compare with this the directions concerning Mount Sinai : " And 
 thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed 
 to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of 
 it : whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death. There 
 shall not a hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through ; 
 whether it be beast or man, it shall not live " (Exod. xix. 12, 13).
 
 CHINESE TURKISTAN. 337 
 
 not thousands, of open wells, some of them 100 feet 
 deep, dug by the Chinese army when besieging Turfan 
 during the late rebellion. 
 
 Ten miles distant from Turfan is Mazar, or a tomb 
 locally noted as a place of Muhammadan pilgrimage, 
 its houses and galleries being fastened apparently to 
 the rock, and having a crypt. Dr Regel was shown 
 there sundry banners, with Sart and Dungan inscrip- 
 tions, and other curiosities. 
 
 Travelling westward, the next place of importance 
 is Toksun, near which are located 200 Kalmuk 
 families. The population of the town consists of 400 
 Turki, 200 Dungan, and about 15 Chinese families, 
 besides a garrison of 250 cavalry and a like number 
 of infantry. Yakub Khan held nothing securely east 
 of Toksun, and Toksun may be regarded as the out- 
 post of Karashar. It was also at one time the limit of 
 the province of Kansu. 
 
 From Toksun to Karashar is about 145 miles, over 
 country generally barren. For a great part of the 
 distance the road runs through low hills. In winter 
 there is considerable traffic in frozen fish, which are 
 brought from Lake Bagratsh and carried to Urumtsi. 
 
 In the time of Timur, Karashar was called Jalish, 
 and it was here that he divided among his troops the 
 booty taken in ravaging Moghulistan. The ruins of 
 the old town are still visible. The present town con- 
 sists of 460 Dungan, 250 Turki, 100 Chinese, and 
 400 Kalmuk families, but there are in the vicinity 
 from 1,000 to 2,000 Mongols, all Kalmuks. The town 
 would seem to exist to supply their requirements, and 
 as a strategic position. The country between it and 
 Urumtsi — a heavy ten days' journey for carts — pro- 
 duces but little. Lob-Nor is ten days' journey distant 
 
 VOL. I. 22
 
 338 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 in a south-easterly direction. Grass is found on the 
 road, but water is scarce. The Karashar river near 
 the town is about 200 yards wide in winter, and is 
 crossed on the ice ; but increases to 500 yards in 
 summer, when a ferry-boat is poled across in half-an- 
 hour. From Karashar there is a road leading over 
 the Tian Shan by the Yulduz valley to Kuldja, 280 
 miles distant. 
 
 About 32 miles south-west from Karashar is Kurla, 
 with a population of 2,000 Turki, 50 Dungan, and 10 
 Chinese families, ruled by a mandarin of low grade — 
 a Wang. Beyond Kurla the road still runs through 
 a country generally barren, though somewhat less so 
 than farther east. At several of the halting-places are 
 small patches of cultivation and a tiny bazaar. From 
 Kurla, at a distance of 85 miles, is reached the large 
 walled village of Yengi Hissar, of 800 Turki and 5 
 Chinese families. Bell computes the population of 
 this oasis at 200 persons to the square mile, and con- 
 siders that a fair estimate for the oases hereabouts. 
 Twenty-one miles westward bring the traveller, 
 through a barren country and little grass, to Bugur — 
 a large oasis occupied by 1,500 Turki, 15 Dungan, and 
 8 Chinese families. It is locally famous for its manu- 
 facture of rugs. From this point, through Yaka-Arak, 
 the road passes to Kuchar over small oases for the 
 most part unoccupied. 
 
 Kuchar was anciently an important little principality 
 and a flourishing seat of Buddhism. On a hill to the 
 north are ruins of an ancient temple and m.onastery, 
 where are found fragments of sculpture. Forsyth 
 states that in certain rock-cut galleries are paintings 
 of men and animals, still fresh and bright. A large 
 figure also is said to exist here on the face of a rock
 
 CHINESE TURKTSTAN. 339 
 
 overlooking the road to Kurla. It is described as 
 having the tongue lolled out and the right shoulder 
 depressed, with extended arms, as is the fashion of 
 Kalmuk salutation, but neither Carey, Bell, nor 
 Younghusband mentions it. 
 
 Kuchar is now a walled town in a rich oasis, occu- 
 pied by 3,050 Turki, 1,200 Dungan, and 30 Chinese 
 families, with 450 shops. This district is occupied 
 by 7,000 Turki families. In the neighbouring hills 
 copper ore in nodules is found in sand or sandy clay. 
 Coal also is reported to be found in the hills. The 
 town is garrisoned by 500 soldiers, who get 22s. 6d. 
 a month and beans for their ponies, which are Govern- 
 ment property. The soldiers find grass. 
 
 The only place of importance between Kuchar and 
 Aksu is Bai, famous for the excellence of its dairy 
 produce. In the district are 40,000 families, and in 
 the town 1,100 Turki and 140 Dungan and Chinese 
 families. Proceeding south-west from Bai, the road 
 passes over sand-hills, and several streams are crossed 
 before the traveller reaches our old acquaintance the 
 Muzart-nin-su, which at the point of fording is 400 
 feet wide, rapid, and from two to three feet deep. 
 
 The road then passes through Jam (not the place of 
 that name on the road from the Muzart), and onward 
 to Aksu, where, as I have said, my party arrived on 
 August 15th. Having thus given a general idea 
 of the geography of Chinese Turkistan, and some 
 account of the north-eastern portion of the country, 
 which was not visited by me, I shall now proceed to 
 speak of those portions through which I travelled,
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 OUR STA Y A7 AKSU. 
 
 Aksu ; its history and area, 340. — Our arrival and lodging, 341. — 
 Intricacies of Chinese money ; shoes, tengas, and cash, 343. — 
 Visits from merchants ; distribution of Scriptures, 345. — Reward 
 offered for Dalgleish's murderer, 346. — Aksu bazaar, 347. — Riding 
 round the town ; its buildings, cemeter}-, and mode of burial, 348. — 
 Repair of camera, 349. — Visit to Chinese Aksu ; Reception of 
 official visits, 351. — Inspection of prison, 352. — Preparations for 
 departure, and payment to Osman Bai ; Presents to Monkey- 
 face and Tor-jee ; Letters despatched to Kuldja, 354. — Cart-driver 
 taken before the magistrate, 355. 
 
 AKSU is a place of considerable antiquity. Ac- 
 cording to Deguignes, it appears in the Chinese 
 annals under the Han dynasty as early as the second 
 century B.C. Sir Henry Yule thinks it to be the 
 " Auxacia " mentioned in the second century a.d. in 
 the geography of Ptolemy. Hiuen Tsiang, before 
 crossing the Muzart Pass, stopped one night in the 
 kingdom of Poh-luh-kia, as the eastern portion of Aksu 
 in his day was called. 
 
 About the date of Timur's conquest of Moghulistan 
 we read of Mirza Eskender besieging Aksu, which in 
 I 399 is described as consisting of three castles, having 
 communication one with another, and deemed by the 
 inhabitants of the neighbouring provinces to be an
 
 OUR STAY AT A KSU. 341 
 
 asylum in time of war. Nevertheless, after several 
 assaults in the course of 40 days, the defenders had to 
 yield to the cogent arguments of the sapper and the 
 battering-ram, and several rich Chinese came out of 
 the place and offered presents. 
 
 At the beginning of the sixteenth century Aksu was 
 ruled over by Sultan Ahmed Khan, whom his son 
 Mansur succeeded and died a.d. 1545. Haji Muham- 
 mad (about 1550) mentions Aksu on the high road 
 from China to Samarkand, and in 1604 Benedict Goes 
 passed through Aksu from Yarkand, probably by the 
 route recently followed in the reverse direction by Mr 
 Carey, and later by Major Cumberland — that is, along 
 the Yarkand river. 
 
 The Aksu district now extends east to within two 
 marches of Bai, and west to within three of Maral- 
 bashi. It contains about a dozen villages, and is said 
 to have a population of 180,000 souls. Our party 
 approached Aksu, as I have said, from the north along 
 the top of a cliff, from the edge of which the town 
 below came suddenly into view. We descended into 
 the town by a ten-foot gully, on a gradient of one in 
 ten, and passed through narrow streets barred by four 
 gates and shut off by palisades into quarters, as at 
 Kuldja — a precautionary arrangement, I was told, in 
 view of possible insurrection. 
 
 On reaching the premises of Madamin Bai, they 
 were found to be large and commodious, with plenty 
 of stable accommodation, or rather standing room, for 
 my horses. My host's reception room, too, was large 
 and lofty, whilst to me was given his wife's apartments, 
 that lady having taken her departure for a season. I 
 was thankful indeed to have once more a tolerably 
 comfortable dwelling, and celebrated the occasion on
 
 342 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 the first night by taking a whole 12 hours in bed. 
 After this I rose refreshed, and, breakfast over, pro- 
 ceeded to master the intricacies of Chinese money- 
 changing. 
 
 I have said that I purchased at Jarkend for 1,160 
 roubles a pood, or 36 lbs avoirdupois, of yamb-sAvitx. 
 This was given me at Suiting in several large " shoes," 
 or lumps bigger than a closed fist, commonly spoken 
 of as 50 Hang each, and still smaller " shoes," the rest 
 being made up of half-shoes, quarter-shoes, and odd 
 pieces (I suppose "toes," "heels," and "uppers"!), of 
 various shapes and sizes. 
 
 Furthermore, at Kuldja a miniature balance or steel- 
 yard of wood was obtained, about 12 inches long, with 
 a pan slung from one end, and at the other a scale 
 indicated by dots, whence to suspend a piece of brass 
 according to the weight required. One Hang, it was 
 said, was equal to ten chian, and each chian to ten 
 ping, but all differing according to whether small, 
 medium, or large scales were used. The custom on 
 this point varied from place to place, whilst, by way of 
 nicely mixing up Russian, Chinese, and English ideas, 
 it was explained that in a Russian pood were 27 
 Chinese /V;/^^ which latter was about an English pound, 
 the jing being divided into 16 ser, or the approximate 
 equivalent of an English ounce.* 
 
 So long as payments were of large amount, as when 
 I paid Osman Bai 35 Hang of silver, all was tolerably 
 simple. A few pieces were found of the right weight, 
 which he received without question, and there ended 
 
 * Thus provided and instructed, 1 was to go to market, as did, I 
 suppose, the patriarch Abraham, when he went shopping in Damascus, 
 or when he " weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the 
 audience of the children of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current 
 money with the merchant " (Gen. xxiii. 16).
 
 OUR STAY Al AKSU. 343 
 
 the matter. But when payment for small purchases was 
 required, then commenced such a complicated business 
 as I had never before experienced.* 
 
 The people of Aksu do not, in the case of small 
 purchases, speak of fractions of a lian^, but of tengas 
 (a Turkish silver coin) and of Chinese chakra or dah- 
 chan, better known in China proper as " cash," 25 cash 
 being equal in reckoning to a tenga.^ 
 
 The chakra^ dah-ckan, sapek, or cash is a round 
 coin supposed to be of copper, but heavily alloyed, 
 about the size of a farthing, and with a square hole 
 in the centre to allow of its being threaded on a string. 
 Five hundred of these coins were at Aksu equivalent 
 to a liangdX par. On the day of my arrival the Aksakal 
 said he could give me 488 (or for each paper rouble 
 178), but a day or two later the price had fallen to 
 
 * The pood of silver was said at Jarkend to contain 440 ser or 
 Hang, the same, I presume, as the tad of Peking ; but at Aksu 
 they said that now the pood was reckoned at only 432. I was further 
 informed, with delightful lack of precision, that in a Imngv^ere about 
 two soom, that each sooni was equivalent to 250 chakra, and each 
 chakra to two puis, the last an obsolete coin, of which I remember 
 seeing a specimen, I think, in Khiva. 
 
 t I say in reckoning, because the tciiga- is now only a coin of 
 account. Yakub Khan minted a number of these coins, resembling 
 those of Khokand and Bokhara, with a fixed value in Ivashgaria, and 
 passing in Russian territory for 20 kopecks each. However, on the 
 arrival of a new Chinese Governor at Kashgar, he upset the market 
 (and everybody in it) by proscribing the tenga and annulling its fixed 
 value. Hence my " white tengas,'' of which I had purchased a small 
 stock in Kuldja, I found at Aksu to be worth only their weight as silver, 
 and that not pure silver, since alloy had been added, and a great many 
 of the coins, it was said, were counterfeit. To make matters still more 
 complicated, the Kashgar merchants having melted down their tetigas 
 into yamis, which not being of pure metal like the old, there was 
 thrown on the market more than one quality of yamb, thus affording 
 ample room for higgling as to how many chakra should be given for a 
 Hang of "old" or "new" silver. Of all this I knew nothing when 
 receiving my pood oi yambs, but accepted what was offered, supposing 
 each fragment to be alike good.
 
 344 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 475, and subsequently in a different locality to as little 
 as 350. 
 
 Now, as I started with English money, and my 
 accounts would have to be translated, roughly at all 
 events, back into English, the reader will perceive 
 that matters stood thus: — With English pounds were 
 purchased roubles in London, St Petersburg, and 
 Tiflis at a different price in each. At Jarkend roubles 
 were turned into lumps of silver, of value differing 
 according to their standard of purity. This silver 
 purchased "cash" at prices varying from 475 to 350 
 to the ounce, after which what mathematician would 
 undertake to state exactly in £ s. d. the price of an 
 article purchased ? 
 
 To me, who love exactness in accounts, and enter 
 every penny spent, the puzzle fairly made my head 
 swim, and the only way seemed to be to keep separate 
 the accounts paid in silver, the small expenses in two 
 columns of tengas and cash, and then envy the auditor 
 who had to subscribe " Examined and found correct." 
 Nor was keeping accounts the only difficulty, for on 
 sending to the bazaar for small change to the value 
 of 10 Hang (or about £2) there were brought 4,750 
 coins on the back of a donkey ! Subsequently, in 
 Peking, this enibarras de richesses was still worse, 
 where 10 taels brought nearly 30,000 cash ; but at 
 Aksu copper was scarce, and warning was given that at 
 Kashgar the Hang ^ovXA bring less than 475 chakra. 
 " Better, then," I said, "to buy some more here?" 
 But that raised two other questions : first, would 
 any one in the bazaar have so much change ? and, 
 next, would the taking so much money to Kashgar 
 affect the rate of exchange there? Were 1 a native 
 merchant, they said, I certainly should not be allowed
 
 OUR STAY AT AKSU. 345 
 
 to do it ; but since I was a foreigner, and my baggage 
 not subject to examination at the intervening Custom- 
 houses, I might smuggle the money through ; and this 
 I beheve was done surreptitiously by one of the party 
 who travelled under my shadow. 
 
 For my own part, fearing that we should not have 
 sufficient small money for the road, I sent, on the 
 morning of our departure, for the value of ten Hang 
 of cash more, but was told, rightly or wrongly, that 
 inquiry had been made in all directions, but that no 
 one in the bazaar possessed so much ! 
 
 As may be surmised, these transactions did not 
 inspire me with lofty ideas of the wealth of the 
 merchant princes of Aksu, who, nevertheless, did 
 not delay to cultivate my further acquaintance. Not 
 content with having escorted us into the town, the 
 Afghans and other traders came next morning, early 
 — I think before I was up — to pay me a formal call. 
 
 There are said to be about 100 foreign traders in 
 Aksu, most of them Andijanis or Russian subjects, 
 and some no doubt were killing two birds with one 
 stone when calling first on their Aksakal, and then 
 asking for his guest. I received and regaled them 
 with sherbet, and, on casting about for their business 
 with me, learned that it was the feast of Kurban- 
 Bairam, when everybody called on everybody, and 
 so I had been included. 
 
 They appeared extremely desirous to impress me 
 favourably — why, I could not for a long time make 
 out ; but it occurred to me to make capital out of a 
 return call on the Afghans, by seeking information as 
 to the possibility of crossing the Baroghil Pass into 
 Chitral, and trying to dispose of some of my Scriptures 
 amongst them. And this I did successfully.
 
 346 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 As for the Baroghil Pass, Gufur Khan, the Afghan 
 Aksakal, informed us that the road was free from 
 robbers, practicable in autumn or winter, but that a 
 Wakhan tent would be needed. The Chief of Chitral, 
 we were told, was Aman-el-Mulk, who could speak 
 and read Persian. 
 
 Gufur Khan subsequently asked me for a letter of 
 recommendation to all and sundry, thinking it might 
 serve him, I suppose, on his journeys to India. I 
 was uncharitable enough to suspect that this might 
 explain in part the assiduity of his attentions, though 
 he appears to have been attentive to Colonel Bell also. 
 
 Others suggested that since Mr Dalgleish had been 
 murdered by an Afghan, the traders of that race here 
 were afraid that they might lose the British favour 
 and protection they had enjoyed in passing through 
 Kashmir, and so were anxious to ingratiate them- 
 selves with me, seeking my protection in the form 
 of a letter. But just then I was not in a very 
 good humour with the Afghans, and Gufur Khan 
 had served me in no recognised capacity ; so that, 
 although I did not think it politic to refuse his request, 
 yet, not knowing what use he might make of the 
 letter, I took care not to make it too laudatory. 
 
 During our stay notice came from the Russian Consul 
 at Kashgar to the Russian Aksakal at Aksu that the 
 Indian Government had offered a reward of 5,000 rupees 
 for the arrest of Daud Muhammad Khan, the murderer 
 of Dalgleish, and 3,000 more for a certain dervish sup- 
 posed to be implicated in the murder. This notice the 
 Aksakal received instructions to publish throughout 
 the bazaar, and not to depend upon what the Chinese 
 authorities might do ; but he came to me first with the 
 letter, and took counsel how he should act.
 
 OUR STAY A'l AKSU. 347 
 
 Daud Muhammad Khan, he said, had been in Aksu 
 not many days previously — a fact known to the Afghan 
 Aksakal and a few others. He had brought four horse- 
 loads of what I understood to be indigo or blue, which 
 was left in the care of certain traders, who, he thought, 
 might afford a clue to the owner's whereabouts. Sub- 
 sequent inquiry only elicited that he left for Ush- 
 Turfan, and was now said to be in the mountains 
 among the Kirghese. 
 
 On looking round the bazaar we saw exhibited for 
 sale both English and Russian goods, — the English of 
 fine muslin, though I do not remember much else ; and 
 the Russian of cotton and chintzes, but everything 
 looking poor.* 
 
 For ourselves we were able to secure a few objects 
 of local make, such as ear- and finger-rings, and a sheep- 
 skin-lined head-dress something like the shape of the 
 pope's hat, or that seen in old pictures of the early 
 Russian Czars. This was worn far and wide through 
 Chinese Turkistan, but I do not remember to have 
 seen it in Russian Turkistan. 
 
 We also obtained a woman's veil and bonnet, or 
 rather hat, of a shape new to me, bulging out towards 
 the top, and possibly the remote ancestor of some of 
 the stiff crowns worn by European monarchs. To 
 these must be added some specimens of local pottery 
 and earthenware, and children's curiosities. Fruit was 
 
 * Twenty years ago Aksu was said to be celebrated for its manufac- 
 tures of saddlery and harness, its pottery, raw hide, jars called dabba, 
 for oil, butter, etc. Its tobacco also was considered the best in the 
 country. All these, with cattle and the shawl-wool of Ush-Turfan, were 
 exported to the neighbouring- towns. Also, at a still earlier date, lead, 
 copper, and sulphur mines were worked in the neighbouring mountains ; 
 and coal, found in the hills (near Karabagh, where there are hot sulphur 
 springs), was brought into the town.
 
 348 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 plentiful and cheap everywhere. Nectarines, as luscious 
 as one need desire, cost 2d. for 75, and grapes in pro- 
 portion. Flour, ground by donkey- or water-power, 
 cost five cash and three cash the catty, or, say, \d. and 
 \d. per lb. ; rice, five cash the catty. 
 
 The bazaar was full of men and women, the latter 
 not being in all cases veiled. Our foreign appearance 
 attracted attention and collected a crowd, amongst 
 which the Turkish element was respectful or timid. 
 They rose to their feet ; not so, however, the few 
 Chinese we saw in the Turkish quarter. 
 
 Later on we took a ride round the town. It is said 
 to contain 4,010 houses, some of them mounting up 
 the sides of the surrounding cliffs. All were flat- 
 roofed and low, presenting a poverty-stricken appear- 
 ance. There are in the town 500 Chinese and 500 
 Dungan, or Chinese Muhammadan, families ; the 
 rest are Turkish. 
 
 Mounting to what was the fort, built by Yakub 
 Khan in place of an old Chinese citadel, we obtained 
 a good view of the place, with the river and adjacent 
 gardens and rice-fields, the verdure of which was in 
 striking contrast to the parched appearance of other 
 portions of the landscape. The houses looked crowded 
 together, one or two mosques only rising above the 
 dull level of the earthen roofs. 
 
 In this place Yakub Beg had a small-arms workshop, 
 manned chiefly by natives of the Panjab ; but now all 
 munitions of war come from China. The only buildings 
 that invited attention w^ere the tombs with domes, 
 in the vast cemetery on top of the cliff Some of 
 them had inclosures entered by gateways. Besides 
 these there was one good-looking mosque, and several 
 mausoleums of considerable size.
 
 OUR STAY AT AKSU. 349 
 
 We saw a body being borne to burial. Unlike the 
 staid procession of the West, this is done at Aksu with 
 a rush. At death the chin of the corpse is tied with a 
 cloth, and the thumbs of the hands are tied together 
 as well as the big toes. Then the body, after being 
 washed and laid out, is buried within 24 hours, mullahs 
 at the cemetery reading the Koran.* 
 
 After the rough experiences which my camera had 
 gone through, as already recorded, I examined it with 
 some anxiety. It had suffered little, and some glue 
 quickly repaired the leather where it had been loosened 
 by damp. This done, I secured a capital view of my 
 host at home, seated beside his pots of flowers, and 
 his mirza or clerk with my Chinese interpreter standing 
 near the principal door, over the top of which was a 
 window-lattice, covered as usual with paper, there 
 being little or no window-glass in the country.^ 
 
 I took early opportunity to send my card to the 
 Chinese Tauiai, or General, named Chen, whom I 
 had heard of at Kuldja as Ji-li-ju, or Counnandant 
 de district. Of this, at first, no notice was taken, 
 nor was it until the fifth day after my arrival, and 
 
 * No cooking is done in the house for three days, food being supplied 
 by friends, and on the fourth day a feast is prepared for the mullahs 
 who praise the dead. The women remain in the house for seven days. 
 A widow mourns her husband 40 days, using his name in her prayers 
 daily, and wears a black cloth over her shoulders. A widower wears a 
 white waist cloth. A woman indicates her mourning for father or 
 mother by covering the upper part of her head-dress with white cloth. 
 
 f Also I attempted a view of my host's gateway, which was a covered 
 porch with an earthen bench, and on this, sitting with his haunches 
 drawn up and head between his knees, was a poor little idiot boy, who, 
 when fruit was offered, took it and grinned. Deserted alike by father 
 and mother, the Aksakal sXiO'^'^^ him by day to take refuge here " at 
 his gate," where he was fed with crumbs that fell from the rich man's 
 table, whilst at night he was locked up, generally in tears, in a shed 
 near at hand.
 
 350 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 after two subsequent messages, that this dignitary 
 summoned me to an audience at the " Yengi Shahr," 
 or New City, seven miles off. 
 
 The proper thing was to go in a Chinese cab or 
 springless cart, which I did, taking with me Joseph 
 and the interpreter into Chinese sent me by M. 
 Petrovsky from Kashgar. This man wished to be 
 nameless. Monkey-face and Tor-jee said that he 
 spoke " English " Chinese, which they could not 
 understand, but I hoped that between us all we 
 should be able to manage. 
 
 On arriving, the Tautai sent to say that he had 
 " lost his father," which I heard was sometimes a 
 polite way of excusing oneself from a personal inter- 
 view, and we saw his secretary instead, one perhaps 
 of the three or more mandarins under the Tautai, 
 whose jurisdiction extends from Karashar to Chilian. 
 
 Our reception was conducted with some ceremony. 
 My name being announced, the great gates of the 
 yamen were promptly thrown open, and we were 
 conducted through a crowd, assembled en fete to 
 witness a theatrical display. Passing by and beyond 
 the canopied stage, where the players were acting, 
 we were taken to an inner audience chamber, and 
 regaled with tea and pudding, with variations. 
 
 I then opened business by asking that the two men 
 who had accompanied me from the Tstan-Tsiun might 
 be sent back to Kuldja ; next, that two Chinese might 
 be given me as an escort to Kashgar ; and, lastly, that 
 I might be allowed to visit the local prison. All these 
 requests were granted, after which I asked acceptance 
 by the Tatttai of a Chinese New Testament and other 
 Scriptures, and some large oleograph wall-pictures. 
 
 I also gave much the same to the secretary, and
 
 O UR STA Y AT A KS U. 351' 
 
 proceeded to distribute to the people standing around 
 some of my large illuminated text-cards, and smaller 
 ones to the playgoers outside ; the result of which 
 was that, in the eagerness of the people to get them, 
 we were speedily mobbed. The secretary, however, 
 did the honours by accompanying me to my carriage, 
 and bowing me away. 
 
 There is an old Chinese town, now deserted, near 
 the Turkish quarter, but the present Chinese city of 
 Aksu was only five years old at the time of my visit — 
 built, it was said, by forced Turkish labour, on a sub- 
 sistence allowance of six cash, or a halfpenny a day I 
 During its construction several hundred men were 
 reported to have died from accidental causes.* 
 
 On the morning after my audience a Chinese official 
 called and confirmed yesterday's arrangements. He 
 brought me from the Taiitai a present of two sheep, 
 two fowls, and a donkey-load of clover ; but not, as 
 one Englishman was treated to, a thousand of cash. 
 
 My pictures had evidently made an impression, for 
 this envoy alluded to them very tenderly, asking 
 whether some could be bought. I therefore gave 
 him two, and also a Chinese New Testament. On 
 the next day the Tazitai s secretary called ; but as 
 he was so very polite as to come before I was up — 
 that is, between four and five in the morning — I 
 excused myself from receiving him. 
 
 * The town is about 1,000 yards square ; the walls 20 feet thick and 
 about 16 in height, with a musketry parapet 6 feet high and 3 thick. 
 The projectures at the angles are from 40 to 50 feet long, those at the 
 gates more than i 50 feet. The ditch is from 30 to 40 feet wide, and 
 shallow, but can be easily filled with water. On the east side is a 
 suburb, but on the other sides the land was under cultivation. Within 
 are large granaries, offices, and shops, kept for the most part by 
 Chinese. The whole is intended as a place of refuge should there 
 be another Turkish uprising.
 
 352 C TUNES R CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 On the afternoon of that day we went to visit the 
 prison — "one of the most horrible I have ever en- 
 tered," says my diary. The room that called forth 
 this remark was a small one, into which 23 men 
 were crowded, the only furniture in it being long 
 wooden stocks, like those of Bokhara, to hold the 
 prisoners' feet at night. The ventilation was by a 
 hole in the roof, and the atmosphere was so close 
 and hot that one could hardly breathe. 
 
 Several prisoners wore the cangue, or wooden frame 
 about the neck, which Williams says " is considered 
 rather a censure or reprimand than a punishment, and 
 is supposed to carry no disgrace with it. The frame 
 weighs between 20 and 30 lbs." (I think I have seen 
 one heavier at Kiakhta), "and is made to rest upon the 
 shoulders without chafing the neck, but is so broad as 
 to prevent the person feeding himself" (unless provided, 
 like my man at Kiakhta, with a long-handled wooden 
 spoon). " The name, residence, and offence of the de- 
 linquent are written upon the cangue for the information 
 of passers-by, and the culprit is usually exposed in a 
 public place." 
 
 Besides the cangue, I saw at Aksu two instances in 
 which a wooden post, 6 feet high and perhaps iS 
 inches round, was chained to a man's neck and ankle, 
 so that, wherever he moved, this undesirable com- 
 panion had to be carried with him. I distributed 
 some tengas among the prisoners, and asked that they 
 might be brought outside into the yard. I was then 
 allowed to take several photographs, some of the poor 
 wretches being almost without clothing, and all very 
 miserable in appearance. 
 
 The feast of K urban- Bairam kept me well supplied 
 with visitors, three parties of Muhammadans calling
 
 IN THE PRlSOiN Al AKbU — iMt I iiODS OF PUNISHING THE PRISONERS. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 23
 
 354 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Upon us in one day, so that time did not hang on my 
 hands, especially as preparations had to be made for 
 starting afresh. After paying Osman Bai the balance 
 due to him, it was arranged that he was to take us to 
 Kashgar for 60 Hang of silver, of which 35 were to 
 be payable in advance ; our transport expenses thus 
 standing at about £\2 from Kuldja to Aksu, and ^13 
 from Aksu to Kashgar. He was to start on Tuesday, 
 August 2 1 St. 
 
 To Monkey-face and Tor-jee I gave sundry presents, 
 both for men and womenkind, including needle-cases, 
 buckles, hair-pins, besides Scriptures in all the 
 languages they could command (and some they could 
 not), photographs, flour for the way, two cups, an 
 enamielled bottle, chain and compasses, pencils, and, 
 finally, a watch and medal to each. 
 
 These medals were a happy thought when laying 
 in suitable presents. They consisted of half-crowns, 
 double florins, and crowns, all of them new Jubilee 
 coins, with a hole (contrary to law, I fear), through 
 which was passed a riband of imperial yellow. They 
 were a great success, and enabled me to score off 
 my friends the Russians. 
 
 " See," said Amin, the groom, " what excellent 
 people the English are. You may serve the Russians 
 a very long time before you get a medal, and here, 
 after a few days' travel, is a man decorated for life ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, Monkey-face did not seem perfectly 
 happy, and, on parting, spoke fearfully as to whether 
 and how the Tautai, who was not his master, would 
 send him back. The face of Tor-jee, who had sold his 
 watch for several roubles, was radiant. 
 
 The Aksakal was despatching a letter to the Russian 
 Consul at Kuldja, so I took the opportunity to send
 
 OUR STAY AT AKSU. 355 
 
 one too, and put in a good word for my host at Aksu, 
 who spared no pains to make us comfortable. I wrote 
 also to the Tsian-Tsiun and Kah, saying how well 
 their men had behaved. 
 
 We had then only one more difficulty to surmount. 
 There was now to be added to our caravan an arba 
 in which my interpreter had travelled from Kashgar, 
 with a mirza, or writer, as servant. The arbakesh, 
 or driver, had agreed at Kashgar to go to Aksu and 
 back. The return journey was to cost 20 roubles, all 
 of which he asked now in advance, pretending that he 
 wanted to buy a new horse, but wishing, if I remember 
 rightly, to hand over his job to some one else. 
 
 To this we objected, being willing to advance only 
 half the money and to pay the rest on the man's 
 return home. As he continued obstinate, my in- 
 terpreter took him before the Chinese magistrate, who 
 put the interpreter upon oath, by making him say his 
 prayers, and then, having heard his statements, ordered 
 the aj'bakesh to fulfil his engagement.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF CHINESE 
 CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Meaning of "Chinese Central Asia," anciently "Cathay," 356. — 
 How regarded by Greeks and Romans; Ptolemy's " Serica " ; 
 Chinese historians, 357. — The Buddhist pilgrims, 359.— Arabian 
 knowledge of the "Seres" ; Armenian and Persian intercourse 
 with China, 360. — Nestorian and Roman missionaries, 361. — 
 Marco Polo, 362. — Benedict Goes ; Translations from Chinese re- 
 cords and from Tchuen-yuen, 364.— Russian contact with Mongols; 
 Missions to Peking and Yarkand, 368. — Advances to Sungaria 
 and Kashgar, 370. — Prjevalsky's journeys in Mongolia, 371. — 
 Renat's map of Sungaria, 372. — English explorers in Sungaria, 
 and in Tarim basin, 374. — Forsyth's missions to Kashgar, 375. — 
 Later travellers in Chinese Turkistan, 376. 
 
 HAVING now reached the northern capital of 
 Chinese Turkistan, and indicated the geo- 
 graphical features of the country generally, I proceed 
 to give some account of the sources of our information 
 about this and other parts of Chinese Central Asia, by 
 which is meant here the western portion of extra-mural 
 China. 
 
 What we now understand by the Chinese empire 
 was known to the ancients of the West, when ap- 
 proached by sea, as Sin, Chin, Sinse, and China ; but 
 when approached across Asia, as "the land of the 
 Seres," and, later, " Cathay" or " Kitai," none recog-
 
 SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 357 
 
 nising that the country indicated was one and the 
 same. But with China as approached by sea, or what 
 we now call China proper, we are not here concerned. 
 From Yule's Cathay, and the extracts from 
 classical authors in Cordier's Bibliotheca Sinica, we 
 learn that the Greeks and Romans regarded the region 
 of the Seres as a vast and populous country, touching 
 on the east the ocean and the limits of the habitable 
 world, and extending westwards nearly to the 
 Himalayas and the confines of Bactriana. And this 
 we now know from other sources to have been about 
 the width of the Chinese empire for a century before 
 and after the Christian era. 
 
 In the geography of Ptolemy (about 150 a.d.) we 
 read: " Serica is girdled round by the mountains named 
 Annibi, by the easternmost part of the Auxacian 
 Mountains, by the mountains called Asmira^i, the 
 easternmost part of the Casian Mountains, by Mount 
 Thagurus, by the most easterly part of the ranges 
 called Emodus-Sericus, and by the chain of Ottoro- 
 corras. Two rivers of special note flow through the 
 greater part of Serica ; the river CEchardes is one . . . 
 and the other is the river called Bautes." This Serica 
 is judged to describe mainly the basin of the Tarim 
 {CEchardes), and Colonel Yule suggests that in 
 Auxacia we probably trace the name of Aksu, in 
 Casia perhaps Kashgar, whilst the Oikhardai on the 
 river of that name (probably the Tarim) may repre- 
 sent the Uigurs. 
 
 Turning now to early Chinese historians, they tell 
 us that certain " inventors of arts and sciences arrived 
 in China as far back as 2698 r..c. from the western 
 kingdoms in the neighbourhood of the Kuen Lun 
 Mountains," which is not very definite. We learn
 
 358 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 more clearly, under the Han dynasty (b.c. 140 — 86), 
 that the Yuechi had been driven by the Turkish race 
 of Hiongnu from their seats (somewhere between 
 China and Khotan, Yule thinks) westwards over the 
 Pamirs, first to Ferghana and then onwards to Bactriana, 
 where they destroyed the Greek dynasty and settled 
 themselves. 
 
 The Chinese Emperor, desiring to secure co-opera- 
 tion against the Hiongnu (who also disturbed his 
 border), about 135 B.C., sent for this purpose a party 
 under Chang-kian, who were caught on their way by 
 the Hiongnu and kept prisoners ten years. Chang-kian 
 then escaped, and continued on his way to Ferghana, 
 whose people had heard of, but had not come in 
 contact with, the power and riches of China. 
 
 Journeying forward to Bactriana, he found the 
 Yuechi unwilling to leave lands on the Oxus to return 
 to their eastern deserts and battle with the Hiongnu. 
 Thus unsuccessful, he tried to return to China by way 
 of Tibet, and was again taken by the Hiongnu, but at 
 length reached China again after 13 years' absence. 
 
 Subsequently, the Chinese subdued the Hiongnu, 
 and by b.c. 59 extended their power all over the 
 Tarim valley, so that, about the beginning of our era, 
 55 states of Western Tatary acknowledged them- 
 selves vassals of the empire, as did the provinces of 
 Trans-Oxiana and Bactriana. During the first century, 
 the Hiongnu emancipated themselves, but in a.d. %}, 
 were subdued afresh by the Chinese General Panchao, 
 who, in A.D. 94, reconquered Kashgar, crossed the 
 mountains and killed the king of the Yuechi in Bac- 
 triana, and then pushed his conquests to the Caspian. 
 
 For our next source of information concerning 
 Chinese Central Asia we are indebted to Buddhism,
 
 SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 359 
 
 which at an early date reached Western China from 
 Northern India, probably by way of Kashmir. In 
 A.D. 65 the Emperor Ming-te sent ambassadors to 
 India to obtain instruction in the new religion, and 
 to bring back images of Buddha. Twenty years later 
 Indian sovereigns are mentioned as sending presents 
 to the court of China, and in 405 arrived the first 
 embassy from Ceylon — probably by land, since it was 
 ten years on the road — and bringing a jade image of 
 Buddha. 
 
 Meanwhile, Chinese devotees began to go on 
 pilgrimage to India to study Buddhism in the land 
 of its birth ; and it is from the record of their travels 
 that we get information of the countries through which 
 they passed. 
 
 The first whose travels we have was Shih Fa-hian, 
 who journeyed from 399 to 414. Leaving Chang'an 
 in Shensi, he passed through the province of Kansu, 
 and then by the desert south of Lob-Nor to Cher- 
 chen, whence he seems to have gone north to 
 Karashar, where he found companions who had come 
 thither from China by the northern route through 
 Hami. The party then proceeded south to Khotan, 
 westwards to the Pamirs, and so to the Indus and 
 India. Another pilgrim, Sung Yun, set out in 518, 
 and from China proper seems to have travelled by the 
 route south of Lob-Nor to Khotan, and thence by the 
 same route as Fa-hian. 
 
 The most noted, however, of Buddhist pilgrims 
 from our point of view was Hiuen Tsiang, who 
 travelled between 628 and 645. Proceeding from the 
 end of the Great Wall to Hanii, he continued by the 
 Nan-lu route to Aksu, thence over the Muzart, and 
 past Issik-Kul to Tashkend, Samarkand, and across
 
 36o CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 the Oxus into India. Thence he returned by way of 
 the Pamirs to Kashgar, Khotan, and across the Takla 
 Makan desert to Su-chow, his record furnishing more 
 information than any of his predecessors. 
 
 Turning now to the Arabs, we find them acquainted 
 with the Seres early in the eighth century. One Mu- 
 hammadan author reports the defeat in 709 of 200,000 
 Tatars, who had broken into the Muhammadan con- 
 quests under command of the Chinese Emperor's 
 nephew. 
 
 About 713 the victorious General Kutaiba, after 
 overrunning Bokhara, Samarkand, Khiva, and Fer- 
 ghana, crossed the mountains to Kashgar, and sent 
 to the Chinese Emperor an embassy of 12 Muham- 
 madans, who experienced a friendly reception. 
 
 Perhaps it was they who brought notes of the 
 country traversed, for Abu Said, in 916, shows himself 
 acquainted with the general character of the overland 
 communication between Sogdiana and China proper, 
 saying that the frontier of the empire was not far from 
 Khorasan, but that the frontier of China proper was 
 two months' journey beyond, over an almost waterless 
 desert, the difficulty of passing which, he says, had 
 alone prevented the Mussulman warriors of Khorasan 
 from attempting the invasion of China proper. 
 
 Inquiring next of Armenia and Persia, we find 
 Moses of Khoren (about 440) speaking of China as a 
 great plain country east of Scythia, at the extremity of 
 the known world, comprising 29 nations, and furnish- 
 ing silk, musk, saffron, cotton, and peacocks. The 
 country of the Sinse, he said, adjoined China, which 
 embraced seven nations, and extended likewise to the 
 unknown land. Moses of Khoren states likewise that, 
 between 142 and 178, several bodies of settlers,
 
 SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 361 
 
 including Chinese, were placed in Kurdish Armenia 
 for the defence of the country. 
 
 In the Chinese annals, the first record of Persia is 
 that of an embassy sent there in 461, and another in 
 the reign of Naoshirwan, who, in 567, sent an embassy 
 from the Persian court to China. Under Tai-tsung of 
 the Thang (627 — 650) Chinese authority, which west 
 of the mountains had previously lapsed, was fully 
 re-established, and carried to the borders of Persia ; 
 but when, in 638, Yezdijerd III. of Persia was pressed 
 by the Muhammadans, and asked aid of Tai-tsung, it 
 was refused, though asylum seems to have been 
 granted to Firuz, the king's son, who established 
 himself in Tokharistan, near Balkh. 
 
 Thus far, nothing has been said about Christianity. 
 Yet we know, in addition to legendary accounts, that 
 it was introduced to China at an early date. Arnobius 
 (of the third century) speaks of the " Seres," with the 
 Persians and Medes, as having been reached by the 
 Word, and the celebrated monument of Singanfu 
 bears testimony that, in 635, the Nestorian missionary 
 Olopan arrived in China from Syria, after which, in 
 745, was issued an edict by the Emperor Yiun-tsong 
 concerning Christian temples. 
 
 In the time of the Patriarch Timothy (778 — 820) 
 we hear of Nestorian missions east of the Caspian, 
 and of the conversion of a Khakan of the Turks, as 
 also, later on, of the Kerait Tatars at the beginning of 
 the eleventh century. In the thirteenth century Marco 
 Polo speaks of Christians as numerous at Yarkand, 
 Urumtsi, Su-chow, Kan-chow, and all over the king- 
 dom of Tangut ; in Tenduc (the land of " Prester John," 
 north-east of the Ortus), and cities eastward ; as well as 
 in Manchuria, and the countries bordering on Korea.
 
 362 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 This brings us to the era of the Mongol supremacy, 
 under which Jinghiz Khan and his successors con- 
 quered everything and everybody from the Pacific 
 almost to the Baltic. Western Europe was quaking 
 in its shoes, when it occurred to the Pope and some 
 others to send messengers and missions to the Mongol 
 conquerors, inviting them to become Christians. 
 These messengers were the first Europeans to bring 
 news to the West of what we are now calling Chinese 
 Central Asia. The localities about which they 
 brought information will be indicated by the mention 
 of some of the routes they followed ; thus : — 
 
 In 1245 John de Piano Carpini proceeded by the 
 Syr-daria and seemingly by the shores of Lake Ala- 
 kul up the Irtish valley, and so through Sungaria to 
 Karakoram, the Mongol capital. 
 
 In 1253 Rubruquis started on a similar journey, of 
 which we have somewhat fuller details. From Alakul 
 he appears to have gone north-eastward towards the 
 Black Irtish, then to have ascended the river Urungu 
 towards Karakoram, where he remained six months. 
 
 In 1254 another traveller, King Hayton, or Hethum, 
 of Armenia, went to give in his allegiance to the 
 Mongol, Manghu Khan ; but he proceeded from the 
 Volga by a route north of that followed by the above 
 travellers, across the Ural river to the Irtish, and 
 up the valley of its head-waters. He returned from 
 Karakoram through Urumtsi and Sungaria to Almalik, 
 Talas, Otrar, Jizak, Samarkand, and Bokhara. 
 
 In 1 27 1, however, set out the most celebrated 
 traveller of his century, the merchant Marco Polo, who 
 from Badakshan crossed the Pamir plateau, and con- 
 tinued by way of Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, and 
 south of Lob-Nor to Tangut, and arrived in 1275 at
 
 SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 363 
 
 Kubilai's court in China proper. He remained 17 
 years in China, and returned homewards by sea to the 
 Persian Gulf, bringing to Europe more information 
 about China than had been known in the West 
 before. 
 
 In the century following v/e have other merchants 
 making their way overland to China, as well as mis- 
 sionaries proper; for, in 1339, William of Modena, a 
 merchant, and certain friars were put to death at 
 Almalik. This we learn from a letter by Pascal, a 
 young Spanish Franciscan on a mission to Tatary, 
 and it is confirmed by Marignolli, who was one of an 
 embassy from the Pope to the Khan. The embassy 
 set out in 1338, and proceeded by the usual route 
 through Old Khiva to Almalik, where it arrived a year 
 after the martyrdom just mentioned, and where it 
 stayed some time, not arriving at Peking till 1342. 
 
 From a handbook of the fourteenth century (1330 — 
 1340), written by Pegolotti for traders to China, we 
 find it stated that from Otrar, on the Syr-daria, to 
 Almalik was 45 days' journey with pack-asses, and 
 from Almalik to Kan-chow 70 days. 
 
 In 1 4 19 we hear of a new route followed by an 
 embassy sent by Shah Rukh, or Rokh, son of Timur, 
 from Herat, through Samarkand to Tashkend, and 
 up the Hi and Yulduz valleys to Turfan and Hami, 
 whence they crossed to Su-chow. 
 
 It is more than 100 years after this (about 1550) 
 that we get the next notice, from a Persian merchant, 
 Haji Muhammad, who, in an after-dinner conversation 
 at Venice, indicates the return route from Kan-chow 
 to Kaotai as 6 days' journey ; thence to Su-chow 5 
 days, and Hami 15 more; from Hami to Turfan 13, 
 and from Turfan to Aksu 20 ; thence to Kashgax 20
 
 364 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 days of wildest desert ; from Kashgar to Samarkand 25 
 days, and Bokhara 5 more. 
 
 We now come to the last of this series of authorities 
 in the person of Benedict Goes, who, in 1602, hoping 
 to discover by a land-journey whether China was one 
 and the same as Cathay, left Agra, and, proceeding 
 through Cabul and Badakshan, followed Marco Polo's 
 route over the Pamirs. He then descended upon Yengi 
 Hissar, and went on to Yarkand, whence he made an 
 excursion to Khotan, and, after his return, proceeded 
 to Aksu, thence to Hami, and in nine days to the 
 Great Wall, having discovered before reaching it that 
 China and Cathay were identical. 
 
 For the material of the foregoing sources of informa- 
 tion we are largely indebted to Sir Henry Yule, who, 
 in his Cathay and Marco Polo, brought together with 
 much labour the testimony of early authors, chiefly 
 Western, on China ; but since Yule wrote much addi- 
 tional light on the geography of Chinese Central Asia 
 during the Mongol supremacy has been given by Dr 
 Bretschneider in translations from Chinese records, 
 whence we learn that various Chinese travellers have 
 left narratives of what they saw in the " Western 
 Country," as they call the region we are speaking of. 
 
 Thus Ye-lii Ch'u-ts'ai, who accompanied Jinghiz 
 Khan as Minister to Persia, left behind an *' account 
 of a journey to the West," called Si-yu-lu, from an 
 abstract of which it appears that in 12 19 this Minister 
 left Northern Shansi, and crossed the deserts of 
 Mongolia to the camp of Jinghiz Khan (probably at 
 Karakoram). Hence the army of Jinghiz crossed the 
 Great Altai Mountains for several hundred li to Han- 
 bai, thought by some to be a dried -up inland sea. 
 Urumtsi is mentioned to the south, and south of
 
 SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 365 
 
 Urumtsi occurs Hami, and, as distant from Hami 
 3,000 or 4,000 //, Khotan. 
 
 After crossing the Han-hai, they arrived at Bu-la, 
 or Pulad (not far from Lake Sairam, and probably in 
 the valley of the Borotola, south of which are named 
 the Borokhoro or Talki Mountains), and after leaving 
 these they arrived at Almalik. West of Almalik is 
 a large river named " Hi," and several hundred // 
 westward is Talas, 
 
 The abstract then speaks of Khodjend and other 
 towns of Ferghana, as well as Otrar, Samarkand, 
 Bokhara, and Urgenj — that is, Khiva. Southward are 
 mentioned Balkh and India, " where it is so hot that 
 a vessel of tin put in the sand melts immediately." 
 Mention is made of the realm to the north-west of 
 K'o-pu-ch'u (probably Russia). " In that country the 
 days [in summer] are long and the nights short. In 
 little more than the time necessary to cook a mutton 
 chop the sun rises again." 
 
 Another account, Pei-ski-ki, contains the narrative 
 of the envoy Wu-ku-sun, sent by the Chinese Emperor 
 in 1220 to sue for peace of Jinghiz Khan, who had 
 gone westwards. Wu-ku-sun, on passing the northern 
 frontier of China proper, proceeded along the Lin-shan 
 deserts of moving sand (south of Lob-Nor ?), passed 
 over the Tsung-ling, and was presented to Jinghiz. 
 
 His narrative mentions several tribes which can be 
 identified as then living in Central Asia, and he notices 
 several points about the region — such as lack of rain, 
 the roofs of the houses, and the yellow-dyed beards 
 of men — which appeared to him strange. However, 
 the geographical yield of his memoirs is not great. 
 
 In the Si-yti-ki, or Travels to the West, of K'iu-ch'ang- 
 ch'un — a Taoist monk summoned to the court of Jinghiz
 
 366 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Khan — we are more fortunate. " The Master " started 
 in 1 220 from Shan-tung with 19 disciples, one of 
 whom kept a diary. Leaving Peking, they crossed the 
 Mongolian desert to the upper waters of the Kerulun, 
 and, finding Jinghiz gone, were obliged to follow. 
 
 The monk seems then to have passed through 
 Uliassutai, across a horrible desert in Sungaria, to 
 Urumsti, to the south of which the party saw " three 
 rugged mountain peaks supporting the heavens " (pro- 
 bably Bogdo-ola), not far beyond which Buddhists cease 
 and Muhammadans begin. Lake Sairam the Master 
 named " The Lake of Heaven," and descended the 
 Talki defile to Almalik. 
 
 The monk continued in pursuit of Jinghiz through 
 Talas, Samarkand, and the Iron Gates to the Oxus, 
 being at last presented to the monarch in the moun- 
 tains of the Hindu Kush. The Master also visited 
 Balkh, and afterwards returned by the way he came to 
 the Altai Mountains, where he had left some of his 
 disciples in an extemporised monastery. They then 
 proceeded by a sandy road to the northern frontier 
 of Tangut, and entered China proper at Su-chow, 
 reaching home after an absence of three years. 
 
 The next Chinese traveller whose route westwards 
 we are to glance at is Ch'ang-te, who in 1259 was 
 despatched as envoy by Manghu Khan to his brother 
 Hulagu, who had just taken Baghdad. The narrative 
 of Ch'ang-te, called Si-ski-ki, relates his leaving Kara- 
 koram, crossing Han-hai, and coming to the Uliungur 
 and the lake now known by that name. Then he 
 comes to Emil in the region of Alakul, " where a 
 furious wind comes out from the hill and blows people 
 passing there into the lake." He then proceeds 
 through the Talki Pass to Almalik, Talas, Tashkend,
 
 SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 367 
 
 Samarkand, and over the Oxus to Tabriz, where 
 Hulagu had fixed his residence. 
 
 The speciality of Ch'ang-te's narrative is that he 
 says more than his predecessors about the animals, 
 products, and customs of the Western countries ; whilst 
 his remarks take high rank as "travellers' tales." 
 
 Thus, of the lion of the West he says that " by 
 a blow with its tail it can seriously hurt men. When 
 it roars the sound comes out from the belly, and so 
 frightens horses that they pass blood instead of water." 
 "Dragon-horses," he adds, "exist in the Caspian, 
 provided with scales and horns. Hence they allow 
 no mares with colts to graze near the shore, since 
 the colts are drawn into the sea and do not return." 
 
 Most wonderful of all are the " sheep planted upon 
 hillocks," also a product of the Western countries. 
 " The people take the navel of a sheep, plant it in the 
 ground, and water it. When it hears thunder it grows, 
 the navel retaining connection with the ground. After 
 the beast has become full grown, they take a stick and 
 frighten it. Then the navel breaks off, and the sheep 
 begins to walk and eat grass." 
 
 Another of these " travellers' tales" states : " There 
 is a woman in those Western countries who under- 
 stands the language of horses, and can by this means 
 predict good or evil " ; after which Ch'ang-te concludes 
 with the observation that " Many other marvellous 
 things are seen there, but all cannot be reported ! " 
 
 The last of the Chinese translations given by Dr 
 Bretschneider is from the peregrinations of Ye-Lii-Hi- 
 liang, 1260-3. His wanderings, so far as they concern 
 us, begin at Su-chow, whence he walks over the Tian 
 Shan through winter snow to Urumtsi, and in the 
 summer crosses the river Manas to Emil and Pulad.
 
 368 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Then, seemingly, he goes fighting to Kashgar, whence 
 he is recalled by Kubilai Khan as courier, and posts 
 through Kucha and Hami, across the desert, to the 
 Emperor's summer residence at Shang-tu. 
 
 Another Chinese authority to be mentioned here is 
 Tchuen-yuen, a Mandarin, who, living in the districts 
 of Barkul and Urumtsi, in 1778, in the 71st year 
 of his age, wrote Memoirs of the Western Countries, 
 which have recently been translated by M. Gueluy, 
 a Belgian missionary. References to his work will 
 be made hereafter. 
 
 Thus far, it will be observed, the sources of our 
 information concerning Chinese Central Asia have 
 come from west, east, and south. Now we have to 
 notice Russian sources from the north. It was in 1579 
 that Yermak and his handful of Cossacks crossed the 
 Urals and defeated Kuchum Khan, prince of one of 
 several small khanates, into which the main horde of 
 Jinghiz Khan had been broken up. Tobolsk was 
 founded as a capital, w^hence in jo years the Cossacks 
 pushed eastwards, partly conquering in 1620 the Buriat 
 Mongols, east of the Baikal. 
 
 Westwards, as early as 1594, a fortress was built at 
 Tara on the Irtish, which brought the Russians into 
 military and commercial relations with the Kalmuks, 
 then masters of Sungaria. Some of their princes 
 asked the help of Russia, and it was through the 
 Kalmuk country, in 1655, that the Russians sent their 
 first embassy to Peking. 
 
 This was with a view to arrange a commercial 
 treaty, but the envoy refused to fall down and perform 
 the kotozv before the Emperor, and was sent away 
 empty. In 1665 Baikoff, on a similar mission, left 
 Tobolsk, and spent the winter among the Kalmuks.
 
 SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 369 
 
 Thence he proceeded to Lake Zaisan and up the Black 
 Irtish to China, but was no more successful in nego- 
 tiating a treaty than his predecessor. 
 
 In 1684 Russia and China came to blows on the 
 Amur, and some of the Russians were taken prisoners 
 to Peking, which they liked so well that, on peace 
 being proclaimed, they did not care to return, but 
 asked for priests to be sent to minister to them there. 
 This led to priests being sent at intervals of ten years, 
 and thus the Russians learned more of the country 
 through which these ecclesiastics travelled, and added 
 to their scholars several illustrious sinologues. 
 
 Soon after, we find Prince Gagarine, in 17 13, 
 sending a gentleman of Tobolsk, named Trouchni- 
 koff, to China across Little Bokhara, as it was then 
 called, to gather information about gold dust. He 
 visited Koko-Nor; the Altingol, or river of gold, which 
 forms the source of the Hoang-ho ; the Chinese towns 
 of Sining and Daba ; and in 17 16 returned, by way of 
 Kalgan, to Tobolsk. 
 
 He brought about 20 lbs. of gold dust, which so 
 excited the cupidity of Peter the Great that he ordered 
 a line of forts to be built from the Irtish to Yarkand, 
 whence the gold was said to come. Accordingly, 
 in 1 718, as a first step, the fortress of Semipolatinsk 
 was built, and Urasof and Somof surveyed the shores 
 of Lake Zaisan and the banks of the Upper and Lower 
 Irtish. The death of Peter the Great stayed the 
 building of forts, but Semipolatinsk grew into a place 
 of trade, and in 1 8 1 1 the Russians obtained facilities 
 to trade also at Chuguchak and Kuldja, where in 1851 
 Russian factories and consuls were established. 
 
 Meanwhile, rays of scientific light had been thrown 
 on the mysterious Sungarian country. In 1793 the 
 
 VOL. I. 24
 
 T,jo CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Russian botanist Sivers penetrated to the Tarbagatai 
 Mountains, whilst the mining engineer Sneghiroff 
 penetrated to Chuguchak searching for gold ; and in 
 1828 Humboldt reached the Chinese picket of Baty 
 on the Irtish, collected itineraries from Asiatic traders 
 at Semipolatinsk, and, with the help from these and 
 materials from Chinese sources, made some shrewd 
 guesses at the geography of Sungaria. 
 
 In 1 87 1, however, the Hi valley came into possession 
 of the Russians for 12 years, which period was fruitful 
 in explorations in Sungaria. In 1875 Sosnovsky re- 
 turned from Central China, passing through Hami, 
 Barkul, and Guchen to Lake Zaisan, an account being 
 written by Piassetzky, one of the mission. In 1876 
 Pevtsoff travelled from the Zaisan to Guchen by way 
 of Bulun Tokoi, near Lake Uliungur ; and Potanin's 
 expedition set out from Zaisan to Kobdo, passing by 
 Bulun Tokoi, and in the following year arrived at 
 Hami and Uliassutai. Also, in 1879, Regel travelled 
 from Kuldja, by way of Shikho, to Turfan. The 
 latest of Russian travellers are the brothers Grum- 
 Grjimailo, who have recently returned from a journey 
 to the Sungarian oases of the Tian Shan, which 
 they crossed, and explored the country for 70 miles 
 south of Turfan. 
 
 Turning our attention a little farther west, we have 
 in 182 1 Bubeinoff, a merchant, travelling from Semi- 
 polatinsk to Kashgar, and in 1859 Captain Valikhanoff, 
 in the disguise of a Khokand trader, crossing the Tian 
 Shan by Lake Issik-Kul, and likewise reaching Kash- 
 gar ; whilst in 1876 we have Kuropatkin's expedition 
 crossing from Ferghana to Kashgar, on a political 
 mission to Yakub Khan, and continuing eastwards 
 through Maralbashi, Aksu, Bai, and Kurla, besides
 
 SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 371 
 
 making journeys by the Bedal Pass to Kara-Kol, and 
 through Karashar to Lake Bagratsh. 
 
 To these I may add the journey of Dr Seeland in 
 1886 from Vierny to Kashgar, Aksu, and by the Bedal 
 to Kara-Kol, to whose narrative I am indebted in several 
 directions. Of the Russian scientists to whom we owe 
 information about the mountain district round Issik- 
 Kul (ceded to Russia in i860 by the treaty of Peking) 
 I say nothing here, but may refer my readers to what 
 I have written in Russian Central Asia. 
 
 But the Russian who towers above all others, as does 
 Marco Polo among his contemporaries, and to whom 
 we are most indebted for information on trans-mural 
 China, is General Prjevalsky. Whilst on military 
 service in the sea-coast province of Siberia, his first 
 rambles were in the Manchurian forests. 
 
 In 1 87 1 -3 he made his first great expedition from 
 Kiakhta across Mongolia to Kalgan, whence he turned 
 westward by Hue's route to Kansu, visiting Koko- 
 Nor and the salt marsh of Tsaidam, and pushing south- 
 wards to within 500 miles of Lassa. Lack of resources 
 obliged him to turn back. In returning he crossed the 
 Gobi in its widest part between Din-yuan-ing and Urga. 
 
 In 1876 Prjevalsky set out from Kuldja up the Yulduz 
 valley, crossing the Tian Shan to Karashar and the 
 Tarim, which he followed to Lake Lob. Then, con- 
 tinuing southwards, he discovered the Altyn Tagh 
 range rising almost precipitously and forming the most 
 northerly range of the Tibetan plateau. 
 
 In 1879 he started again, this time well supplied 
 with funds, from Lake Zaisan along the Uliungur, or 
 Urungu, and Bulgun, whence he crossed the desert of 
 Sungaria, passed the salt lake and plain of Barkul, over 
 a pass of the Tian Shan, 8,700 feet high, and descended
 
 1^2 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 to Hami. Thence he crossed the desert to Sa-chu, 
 passed over the Altyn Tagh, continued east of Tsai- 
 dam, and then descended in a south-westerly direction 
 towards Lassa, which he approached to within 170 
 miles, but was turned back by the authorities. 
 
 In his fourth great journey, 1883-5, Prjevalsky 
 crossed the Gobi from Urga to Ala-shan, through 
 Sining to Eastern Tsaidam. From hence he made 
 an excursion to the sources of the Yellow River, and 
 then marched westwards along a wide valley, which he 
 named '' The Valley of the Winds," stretching for 150 
 miles between the Kuen Lun on the south and the 
 Chaman Tagh on the north, and closed westwards by 
 a range connecting the Kuen Lun and the Altyn Tagh. 
 Prjevalsky crossed the Altyn Tagh south of Lob-Nor, 
 and travelled through Cherchen and Keria to Khotan. 
 Thence he tried to ascend the Kuen Lun, but failed 
 from physical difficulties, as he gave me to understand, 
 and then, turning homewards, followed the rivers 
 Khotan and Aksu to the Bedal Pass and Kara-Kol. 
 
 Thus, for accurate and scientific knowledge of 
 extra-mural China, we are chiefly indebted to Russian 
 travellers, but not for the first map of Chinese Central 
 Asia. Peter the Great sent some of his prisoners, 
 taken at Pultava, to Siberia, and among them a 
 Swedish sergeant named Renat, who, tired of nothing 
 to do at Tobolsk, asked to be allowed to take part 
 in the expedition of Bukholtz, sent in 17 16 to recon- 
 noitre Sungaria. 
 
 The force, however, was captured by Kalmuks, 
 amongst whom Renat lived in captivity 1 7 years. 
 In similar captivity, in various parts of the country, 
 were several Russian officers, whose description of 
 their journeys, supplemented by inquiries from the
 
 SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 2,72> 
 
 natives, gave Muller much of his geographical infor- 
 mation of countries bordering Siberia ; but to Renat 
 belongs the honour of drawing up the first map, 
 based largely on personal observations, of Sungaria 
 and the Tarim valley. 
 
 On his return to Sweden, the map was copied five 
 years afterwards, and has recently been published in St 
 Petersburg, a copy in facsimile now lying before me. 
 
 The map is not correct as to astronomical indications, 
 and distances are too great ; but these defects are 
 counterbalanced by careful delineation of political 
 boundaries, lakes, rivers, mountains, deserts, forests, 
 towns, the camps of the nomads, and, above all, their 
 royal tents. Some of the 250 Swedish inscriptions 
 are descriptive. Thus, at Issik-Kul we read "here is 
 found iron sand," and in the forest of Ebinor " here 
 are wild camels," whilst at Keria is written " here 
 they find gold." 
 
 At the beginning of the eighteenth century, under 
 orders of the Emperor, the Jesuits surveyed China 
 generally, and their map of 1718 was subsequently en- 
 larged in Europe to include the Trans-Caspian country, 
 and published by D' Anville in i J2)7- After the depopu- 
 lation of Sungaria, the Chinese Emperor sent there, 
 in 1760, Jesuit missionaries, by whom trigonometrical 
 points were determined north and south of the eastern 
 Tian Shan, and on the south shore of Issik-Kul, 
 Their labours were added to their predecessors' map 
 of China and contiguous countries, after which Klap- 
 voth drew up and published his map of Central Asia, 
 which was in Europe the chief geographical manual 
 of this region until the recent researches and imprints 
 made by the Russians. 
 
 We come now to our last source of information,
 
 374 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 chiefly English. The way to Sungaria from the East 
 was led by Mr Ney Elias, who in 1872 crossed 
 Mongolia from Kuei-hwa-cheng to Uliassutai, through 
 Kobdo, and thence passed the frontier into Siberia, 
 near Suok, and down the valley of the Katun to Biisk. 
 The last Englishman in Sungaria, known to me, is 
 Mr St George Littledale, who, with Mrs Littledale, 
 made up their caravan, as he informs me, at Zaisan, 
 crossed the Chinese frontier, and shot in the mountains 
 south of Kobdo, whence they continued south towards 
 Kuldja, and, turning back to Chuguchak, re-entered 
 Russia near Sergiopol. 
 
 The Hi valley was visited, as I have indicated, when 
 in possession of the Russians, by Ashton Dilke and 
 Schuyler in 1873, Delmar Morgan in 1880, and myself 
 in 1882, but none of us crossed what was then the 
 Chinese frontier, this little sprig of laurel, of being the 
 first Englishman to enter China from the West, being 
 left seemingly for me to cull in 1888, 
 
 This brings us, lastly, to Chinese Turkistan, into 
 which Adolf Schlagintweit penetrated in 1857. The 
 first Englishman known to have reached the valley 
 was Mr Johnson, who, in 1865, was engaged on 
 topographical work in Kashmir, and, making his way 
 towards Khotan, was kindly received by the ruler 
 Habibullah. Three, years afterwards, in 1868, Mr 
 Shaw, a tea-planter, and Mr Hay ward, an explorer, 
 made their way over the Himalayas to Kashgar, and 
 were well received by Yakub Khan, Mr Shaw return- 
 ing in safety, but Hayward being murdered at Yasin. 
 
 In the same year a Russian embassy, under Captain 
 Reintal, arrived at Kashgar. England and Russia 
 were now bidding for the goodwill of Yakub Khan, 
 and the former sent an embassy under Mr Forsyth,
 
 SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 375 
 
 with Henderson and Shaw, the trio going as far as 
 Yarkand, whilst, two years later, another Russian 
 embassy, under Kaulbars, was received at Kashgar. 
 
 Then was made up, in the following year, Forsyth's 
 second embassy, consisting of between 30 and 40 
 officers and soldiers, who carefully surveyed routes 
 and collected information of the mountain region 
 between India and the Tarim valley, and made their 
 way from Yarkand round the valley as far as Maral- 
 bashi ; besides sending native explorers to Khotan, 
 and making excursions to the Pamirs and the moun- 
 tains north of Kashgar. Their information was 
 printed in a bulky quarto volume, but not published, 
 and has proved to me a valuable storehouse of material 
 for the portion of country covered by the expedition. 
 
 And thus matters stood when the Chinese re-con- 
 quered the country in 1877-8. In 1879 Mr Ney Elias 
 went to Yarkand on political duty, arranging, among 
 other things, for the passage to and fro of traders from 
 India, whilst in 1882 I met M. Petrovsky at St Peters- 
 burg, about to proceed to Kashgar to reside as Russian 
 Consul. 
 
 Two years later, however, from 1885-7, Mr Carey, 
 with Dalgleish as assistant, accomplished by far the 
 grandest journey that has been made in Chinese 
 Turkistan. Leaving Ladak, they descended upon 
 Keria, passed along the Khotan river to the Tarim 
 and Lob-Nor; then over the Altyn Tagh and along 
 the Kuen Lun to East Tsaidam, and northward to 
 Hami ; then westwards by the high road to Maral- 
 bashi, whence they turned south to Yarkand, Mr Carey 
 reaching India after an absence of two years. 
 
 In 1887 also were performed two remarkable journeys 
 from Peking by Colonel Mark Bell and Lieutenant
 
 376 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 (now Captain) Younghusband. Younghusband, as 
 already stated, took the northern route outside the 
 Wall, and Colonel Bell the cart-route, to Hami. 
 Thence Younghusband proceeded by the ordinary 
 road to Toksun, Bell going to the same point by 
 way of Barkul and Urumtsi. From Toksun both 
 followed the same route to Aksu ; but thence reached 
 Kashgar, Younghusband through Ush-Turfan and Bell 
 through Maralbashi. Lastly, proceeding to Yarkand, 
 Bell crossed by the Karakoram and Younghusband by 
 the Muz-Tag to Kashmir. Captain Younghusband 
 has since spent a winter at Kashgar, and has broken 
 new ground towards the Pamirs. 
 
 Two later travellers in Chinese Turkistan are 
 Major C. Cumberland and Lieutenant Bower, who, in 
 August 1890, crossed the Karakoram, and from Kilian 
 turned westwards towards Sarikol, meeting Captain 
 Grombchevsky, after which they reached Yarkand. 
 
 Mr Bower had taken in hand the detection of 
 Dalgleish's murderer (of whom more hereafter), and 
 left for Kashgar ; but Major Cumberland was bent 
 on shooting, for which purpose he crossed the desert 
 to Maralbashi, and then turned eastward to Aksu and 
 onwards a certain distance in the direction of Lob- 
 Nor. Returning to Maralbashi, he reached Kashgar, 
 and then proceeded up the Gez defile to the Pamirs, 
 and over into Ferghana, particulars of which are given 
 in his letters on " Sport on the Pamir Steppes," which 
 appeared in Land and Water. 
 
 Later expeditions of Grombchevsky and Prjevalsky 
 will be noticed hereafter, but having now indicated the 
 principal sources of our information and the stages by 
 which they have become known to us, I shall continue 
 my own narrative of travel through Chinese Turkistan.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 FROM AKSU TO MARALBASHI. 
 
 Two roads to Kashgar; Northern through Ush-Turfan, followed by 
 Younghusband, 377. — District of Ush-Turfan; its people and 
 capital, 378. — Aksai valley and Kirghese nomads, 379.— Our 
 departure by southern route, 380. — March to Chinese city of 
 Aksu, 381. — Fording the Janart river, and shooting birds, 383. — 
 Ride to Sai-Aryk, 384. — Stormy weather, 385. — Night travel through 
 Chilan to district of Maralbashi, 386. — Sunday at Yaka Kuduk ; 
 A Chinese official, 387. — Undesirable companions, 388. — March to 
 Chadir-Kul, 389.— Its birds and buildings, 390. — Pheasants and 
 Podoces, 391. — Scriptures at Turn Chuk, 393, — Arrival at Char- 
 wagh, visited by Biddulph for shooting, 394.— Antiquities between 
 Charwagh and Maralbashi, 395. 
 
 FROM Aksu to Kashgar we had a choice of two 
 roads, — one through Ush-Turfan, skirting the 
 mountains ; and the other through Maralbashi, crossing 
 the plains. Osman Bai, with an eye doubtless to free 
 pasture for his horses, would have been pleased to 
 take the former. He depicted in alluring colours the 
 verdure and cool air of the hills, and on the other hand 
 dilated on the stifling heat and mosquitoes of the 
 plains, together with enforced travel by night to 
 escape the horse-flies. Probably he foresaw also that 
 he would have to purchase fodder from station to 
 station. Inasmuch, however, as my chief interest lay 
 amongst the people of the country rather than pretty 
 scenery, and the southern route was the more populous,
 
 378 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 it needed but a moment's consideration to decide in its 
 favour. 
 
 We may briefly glance, nevertheless, at the northern 
 road. The route from Aksu to Kashgar through 
 Ush-Turfan is about the same length as through 
 Maralbashi, but is not, like the southern route, 
 practicable for carts, the ascents beyond Ush-Turfan 
 being sometimes difficult even for horsemen. 
 
 Captain Younghusband followed this route in 
 August 1887, and calls it the pleasantest part of his 
 whole journey. He describes the area between Aksu 
 and Ush-Turfan as level, and cultivated with rice — the 
 best, it is said, in the country — and watered by the 
 Janart and Aksu streams. The latter is crossed about 
 seven miles on the way. Beyond, the traveller passes 
 through Saik, the village of Barin (where clover, 
 barley, and fuel can be had), and along a good road 
 through an inhabited country past Yaz-jigda, Akyar, 
 and the village of Acha-Tag to Ush-Turfan. 
 
 Ush-Turfan is the chief town of a district lying north- 
 east of the district of Kashgar, and separated therefrom 
 by a range of mountains running east from the Terekti 
 Pass, and called the Balauti range — the irregular chain 
 of hills which shuts off the Ush-Turfan valley from the 
 plains. The limits of the district are Kakshal on 
 the west and the Aksu river on the east, the Bedal 
 mountain on the north and the Balauti ridge on the 
 south. 
 
 The western half of the valley is occupied by the 
 Kirghese pastures of Kakshal, through which flows 
 the Aksai, Tushkan, or Kizil-Kungai river, running 
 down from the valley east of Chadir-Kul, lying at 
 an elevation of 11,000 feet. The population of the 
 eastern end of the valley, which is agricultural, is
 
 FROM AKSU TO MARALBASHI 379 
 
 quoted by Forsyth as living in 2,000 houses. Farm- 
 steads are scattered over the valley, but the principal 
 settlements are Safr Bai, Karawul, Akyar, Acha-Tag, 
 and Aral. 
 
 Sheep, cattle, and horses are very numerous, the fine 
 wool of the sheep being woven by the Kirghese for 
 home use, and also exported to Aksu, to which place 
 the trade relations of the valley are said by Forsyth to 
 be limited, though I have met with the statement that 
 the fine wool alluded to makes its way over the 
 Himalayas for the manufacture of the well-known 
 Kashmir shawls. 
 
 The capital of Ush-Turfan had formerly a strong 
 little castle, but it was destroyed with the town in 
 1765, and the people massacred by the Chinese for 
 revolt in favour of a Khoja rebellion. Forsyth calls 
 it an open market town of 800 houses, peopled by 
 descendants of Taranchis, planted here by the Chinese 
 after the massacre. Under Yakub Khan it had a 
 garrison of 300 men. Sunarguloff, in 1877, mentions 
 Mondays and Thursdays as market-days. The present 
 Chinese fortress is situated at the foot of a rocky pre- 
 cipitous hill, about 150 feet high, with a small guard- 
 post at the top. Near the fort are about ^^o houses 
 and a row of shops. 
 
 From Ush-Turfan, Younghusband continued to 
 ascend the Aksai valley for three days. At seven miles 
 west of the town is Bashagma, whence there branches 
 off a pack-road to the Bedal Pass, put down by Sunar- 
 guloff at 15,000 feet above the sea. The main road 
 continues to Safr Bai, whence also goes a caravan road 
 northward over the Bedal Pass to the source of the 
 Narim, and then across the Zauka Pass to IssikTvul. 
 
 West of Safr the valley contracts, and the road
 
 38o CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 passes for 30 miles through dense forests of poplar, 
 which clothe the river banks. The little farm settle- 
 ments are for the most part left behind, and the 
 country is now entirely inhabited by Kirghese, amongst 
 whom the traveller must not depend on getting pro- 
 visions other than mutton. 
 
 At the end of three days, presumably from Akchi, 
 Younghusband turned south-west from the valley over 
 the Belowti Pass (i 1,000 feet), another road continuing 
 up the valley and crossing the range farther west at 
 Saribeli in the direction of Kashgar. The ascent of 
 the Belowti Pass is spoken of as quite easy, whilst the 
 descent brought our explorer into a region that had 
 been traversed by Captain Trotter and Dr Stoliczka, 
 when members of the Forsyth mission. 
 
 Descending from the Pass over a stony plain, 
 Younghusband found his way to the Sirt country, 
 which consists of large plains, covered in some places 
 by woods of considerable extent, and surrounded by 
 hills. There were seen also large fields of wheat 
 grown by the Kirghese, who were left behind at Kalti 
 Ailak, 50 miles from Kashgar, where the road quits 
 the hills and descends into the plains through the rich 
 district of Artish. 
 
 By this northern route, presumably, the Tautai of 
 Kashgar expected me to travel, for it afterwards 
 transpired that he sent a packet of letters to meet me; 
 whereas, for reasons already stated, we had chosen the 
 southern route, and the day of our departure — Tues- 
 day, August 2ist — was marked by considerable activity 
 on the premises of Madamin Bai, where many persons 
 assembled to watch our preparations, and to accom- 
 pany us out of the town. 
 
 We did not start till after midday, the Afghans,
 
 FROM AKSU TO MAR ALB AS HI. 381 
 
 Andijanis, and others swelling our cavalcade. After 
 filing through the western gate of the town, called 
 Sabun-Kabuk, we continued along a 15-foot road, 
 embanked from one to two feet, traversing rice-fields, 
 and presently reached a clifi' from 20 to ^q feet high. 
 Under this the road became broad and sandy, and in 
 about an hour ascended by a gully to an elevated plain 
 of a sandy clay soil. Riding along, we had a pretty 
 view of the trees and greenery of the oasis below. 
 
 That, I told them, was something like England, 
 only they must picture our island green all over, and 
 not with mere patches of verdure and huge deserts 
 between. No doubt they thought it must be a grand 
 country, and consequently its people grand too ; for 
 as we met mounted natives who did not at first realise 
 the importance of the encounter, our escort, like new 
 brooms, cleared the way, and shouted ahead, not 
 " Bow the knee ! " but " Get down ! get down ! " — an 
 order that was immediately obeyed, the horsemen 
 standing at attention till the cavalcade had passed. 
 
 Thus, after descending again to the cultivated plain, 
 and passing through gardens, huts, and habitations 
 which to besiegers would give cover up to its walls, 
 we came to the Chinese city, where at a wayside 
 restaurant we took a parting snack of refreshment. 
 Monkey-face and Tor-jee had put in an appearance, 
 and accompanied us thus far. They now came for- 
 ward to bid us good-bye, which they did after their 
 manner, Monkey-face gloomily and Tor-jee with smiles. 
 
 Their places were filled by two Chinese soldiers 
 from the Taiitai of Aksu, and the Russian Aksakal 
 also attached to our caravan two men, one of them 
 named Sarim Sak ; so that with the arbakcsh and 
 interpreter, his cart and four animals, together with
 
 382 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 the mullah and Osman Bai and his helpers, we made 
 a party of about 30 horses and more than a dozen 
 men. At Yengi-shahr our complimentary escort re- 
 turned, and we had the rest of the afternoon to reach 
 our first station of Choktal, or Chuk-Tal Rabat, which 
 we did about five hours after setting out, and at a 
 distance, it was said, of 40 li, or, according to Kuro- 
 patkin, 13 miles, from Aksu. 
 
 The sei^ai where we stayed was an extremely poor 
 one — the arba being preferred by one of the party as 
 a sleeping-place — so that we had no inducement to 
 linger next morning, but started a little before seven 
 o'clock ; that is, according to my poor watch, which, 
 being a common one for rough travelling, varied some- 
 times, and was found, on our arrival at Kashgar, to 
 have lost two hours since we left Kuldja. The road, 
 from 20 to 30 feet wide, and lined by trees, all of recent 
 growth, passed through a well-cultivated valley of 
 fertile clay, bordered on the south, a mile distant, by a 
 low cliff of clay, and on the north, five miles away, by 
 barren hills. 
 
 Colonel Bell, the only Englishman preceding me 
 along the whole of this route from Aksu to Kashgar, 
 and to whose practised eye I am indebted for many 
 items of information, read to the Royal Geographical 
 Society a paper now before me. He speaks therein 
 of the distance from Aksu to the river Janart as 3 
 miles, which may mean either that we did not cross at 
 the same spot, or, more probably, the 3 is a misprint 
 for 13. 
 
 We had not ridden far from Choktal before we came 
 to the first of several branch streams, each from 100 to 
 200 feet wide, which were forded. On coming to the 
 main stream, about 300 yards wide, we crossed in a
 
 FROM AKSU TO MARALBASHI. 383 
 
 ferry, though the water could not have been very 
 deep, since one poor woman — unable, I suppose, to pay 
 toll, or coming too late— had solved the difficulty by 
 hoisting her garments aloft and wading through. 
 
 The Janart rises, as the Sariasi, immediately be- 
 neath the southern slopes of Khan Tengri, and, after 
 being joined by several nameless streams in the Tian 
 Shan, runs towards Aksu, where it is joined by another 
 river of that name. After this, the united stream flows 
 for 70 miles till it joins the Tarim. 
 
 The Aksu, when in flood, cannot be crossed in 
 arbaSy for the current is so swift as sometimes to wash 
 horses and passengers away. Where we crossed, the 
 shallow river bed, with banks perpendicular in places 
 and 12 feet high, is about three-quarters of a mile 
 wide, and, what with fording and ferrying, it took us 
 a long time to get over. From the ferry the country 
 in sight down-stream was under cultivation. 
 
 The delay in crossing, and subsequent opportunities 
 on the road, gave occasion for shooting, and there 
 were added to my collection two long-billed water- 
 birds from the river bed ; also two sparrow-hawks and 
 a rook, a wood sandpiper (Totanus glareold), a shrike 
 {Lanius arenarius), and a hoopoe {Upupa epops), as 
 well as a specimen of Seebohm's lark (Alattdula 
 Seebohmi) and a Kentish ring-plover {/^gialites 
 cantianus):^ 
 
 There was a little rain during the morning, which 
 made our ride a cool one, and we stayed for lunch at 
 
 * The Kentish ring-plover, called by the Turkis " Chullok," is, ac- 
 cording to Dr Scully, " a seasonal visitant to the plains of Chinese 
 Turkistan, arriving about the end of March, and disappearing in 
 winter. It frequents stony ground and efflorescent wastes, always [as 
 I observed] in the neighbourhood of shallow pools of water. When 
 disturbed it appears to take only short flights, but runs very nimbly."
 
 384 CHINESE CENTRAL ylS/A. 
 
 a village called Besharik-Ustan. Thence we marched 
 through cultivated country, well wooded, with abundant 
 pasture, over a road sometimes sandy, and narrowing 
 occasionally to ten feet by reason of rough culverts of 
 trees laid horizontally over the many canals by which 
 the country is irrigated. About five hours from start- 
 ing we came to Kum-bash, a/zas Gouai-Urten — 60 /i, 
 it was said, from the Chinese town of Aksu — with a 
 station vastly better than the one we left in the morning, 
 and where we stayed for the night. 
 
 A march next day of only three hours brought us to 
 Sai- (or Soi-) Aryk. Bell mentions at 20 miles from 
 Aksu a large village of 500 Turki families, called 
 I -crow, where he crossed a stream 50 to 60 yards wide 
 by a rough combination of earthen piers and water- 
 ways. I have no note of this village ; but we passed 
 half-way, through Ai-kul, situated in a depression, and 
 mentioned by Kuropatkin as marshy in spring. 
 
 As we rode through the street I caught sight of a 
 man sitting behind a basket of nectarines, and told 
 Joseph to buy the lot, which he did at the ruinous 
 price of four for a charik, or, say, a penny for 35, and 
 better nectarines I think I never ate ! We continued 
 onward by a good road lined on both sides, as on the 
 previous stage, with trees, including the willow, poplar, 
 mulberry, •B.xiA jigda, or wild olive ; and in the gardens 
 we noticed the walnut. Here the men were set to 
 butterfly-catching, which they did not enter into with 
 the zest displayed in the mountains by Monkey-face 
 and Tor-jee, though several specimens were secured. 
 
 On arriving at Sai- Aryk, which we did by ten o'clock, 
 we took up our quarters in a poor little serai once 
 occupied, Muhammad the Aksakal told me, by Mr 
 Carey. His luggage, they said, was placed in the
 
 FROM AKSU TO MARALBASHI. 385 
 
 room I occupied, a restoration having taken place in 
 the interim. It was a sorry place, however, and soon 
 after our arrival, notwithstanding our being in what is 
 called a rainless region, there came on a violent thunder- 
 storm, with hailstones as large as a starling's it^^ — the 
 largest, I think, I ever saw. 
 
 The rain poured down in such torrents that an old 
 serving-man on the place declared he had never wit- 
 nessed the like, and the water found its way by the 
 chimney only too freely into my room. This cooled 
 the night temperature indoors to a maximum of 73° 
 and a minimum of 65° ; whereas the night before, on 
 my window-sill at Kum-bash, the maximum had reached 
 10° higher. 
 
 The storm cleared the atmosphere, so that our atten- 
 tion was called next morning to the snowy peaks of 
 the Tian Shan, which the map shows to have been 
 1 10 miles off. Khan Tengri lying nearly due north. 
 A reason, too, was suggested for the Chinese name, 
 " The Mountains of Heaven," since their base was lost 
 in azure, blue as the vault above, and the snow-tops 
 appeared to float like clouds. 
 
 I attempted to photograph this lovely phenomenon, 
 but succeeded in portraying only the maize-field and 
 trees in the foreground. I was more fortunate, how- 
 ever, in securing a good view of the tiny bridge that 
 stretches over a small stream giving life to the village 
 of 130 Turki families, a crowd of whom came out to 
 see what the foreigner with his camera was doing. 
 
 We stayed at Sai-Aryk till three in the afternoon to 
 gather up our forces for a march through the night 
 over two stages, on the alleged ground of scarcity of 
 fodder and bad water at the next station. On leaving 
 the village we passed through flooded rice-fields, with 
 
 VOL. I. 25
 
 386 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 many gulls flying about. After several fruitless shots 
 one was secured as a specimen ; but my gun failed to 
 bring down what looked like a birkut eagle that had 
 descended to the plains. 
 
 Within an hour we left cultivation and entered a 
 desert, at first with low brushwood, and then with 
 sparse tamarisk shrubs only. We were at an elevation 
 of 3,500 feet, and at ten miles from Sai-Aryk the soil 
 became saline. Five hours' riding brought me to Choi 
 Kuduk, decidedly tired, so that I was glad to give my 
 horse to Mr Interpreter, and turn into his cart for the 
 rest of the stage. Thus proceeding, we passed through 
 Shor Kuduk (or Shur Kurduck), and at four o'clock in 
 the morning reached Chilan, or Chilian, where the 
 baggage horses had arrived an hour before. 
 
 I did not take at all kindly to this travelling through 
 the night, and felt so fatigued that I began to suspect 
 that I was growing less able than formerly to endure 
 hardness. Moreover, at Chilan — a hamlet of 25 poor 
 houses, with a little cultivation — I had a miserable 
 room, and the water was bad, so that I was the less 
 sorry to hear that Osman Bai wanted to start afresh in 
 the afternoon, and do two stages more. 
 
 Accordingly, we set out at six, and at dusk I got into 
 the cart, which was less fatiguing than the saddle, but 
 slower, for the road was sandy. 
 
 We now entered the district of Maralbashi, the 
 western border of which is a wide sandy desert joining 
 the Kashgar district at Yangi-Awat, whilst to the north 
 it extends to Kalpin, on the Aksu river, and descends 
 southwards to the river of Yarkand. 
 
 Towards midnight we came to Jaida, or Jaidi, with 
 a little chi grass growing about the station, where were 
 ten huts, peopled in winter ; but the inhabitants, except
 
 FROM AKSU TO MARALBASHI. 1,'i,'] 
 
 those at the station, were now gone with their cattle 
 to the mountains. Here we stopped to feed the cart- 
 horses, and then plunged into a muddy road, in which 
 the cart stuck, and we found the advantage of having 
 with us a small company to get us out. The ground 
 is here rendered swampy by a stream from the barren 
 and snowless hills from 20 to 30 miles to the north-west. 
 
 At 16 miles from Chilan the route became heavy 
 among sand-hills, and at two miles farther on we came 
 upon some species of poplar trees called tograk. 
 These, later on, thickened into a wood. Thus we 
 travelled on heavily all through the night, and not 
 until six the next morning did we reach Yaka Kuduk, 
 though the baggage arrived somewhat earlier. 
 
 At Yaka Kuduk we spent Sunday, the place con- 
 sisting of 15 houses, in the midst of tamarisk and 
 tograk trees, with a population in winter of 50 inhabi- 
 tants. There was also a good-sized station with a 
 resident Chinese official of superior appearance, who 
 was well behaved and disposed to be helpful. 
 
 I invited him to my room, gave him illuminated 
 cards, tickets, etc., and sold him portions of Scripture. 
 He offered to give me fodder, which I declined with 
 thanks, but submitted to him the question whether 
 the innkeeper was not extortionate in asking seven 
 chariks a bundle — that is, seven times the price we had 
 paid for fodder at Aksu. He agreed with me that 
 this charge was excessive, but thought five times not 
 too much, since food had to be imported from afar. 
 
 Again, one of the Chinese escort was found to have 
 been feeding his horse at my expense, which perhaps 
 was not unreasonable, and at first I submitted, where- 
 upon his fellow began to follow suit. Upon my 
 mentioning the matter to this official, however, he
 
 388 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 said the escort could claim nothing from me since they 
 were granted a travelling allowance from their Tautai, 
 and anything I might give was a matter of grace. 
 
 Both men upon this acknowledged themselves 
 wrong, and undertook to provide in future for their 
 beasts. I had also to call to order one of the Turki 
 djiguitts for stealing my nectarines ; but, with the 
 exception of these little peculations, and considering 
 what a bad lot Chinese soldiers proverbially are, affairs 
 moved along smoothly enough. 
 
 There was, however, another matter in which I had 
 to ask this Chinaman's help. Soon after leaving Sai- 
 Aryk, we overtook in the desert a horseman who 
 turned out to be a policeman, a horsewoman who was 
 his prisoner, and a cart carrying the woman's father, 
 with, I think, some other members of the family. 
 
 Salutations were exchanged as a matter of course, 
 and. remembering the loneliness and dangers of the 
 way, it was natural for this small party to try and keep 
 up with ours, which they accordingly did, conversa- 
 tion and jokes flowing apace, and the pipe passing 
 round, in all of which the woman was not backward 
 in taking her part. She was young and good-looking 
 — not yet out of her teens — stylishly dressed and un- 
 veiled, and mounted upon a fairly good horse, said to 
 be her own. Joseph told me she was of evil reputa- 
 tion, on her way to the prison at Maralbashi, and then 
 probably to Kashgar to be put to death. 
 
 I did not much like this set of companions for my 
 caravan ; but, whether I would or would not, when 
 we stopped they stopped, when we moved they moved, 
 and thus we came to Yaka Kuduk, both parties putting 
 up at the one inn of the place. Looking about the 
 yard in the afternoon, I was invited into a room and
 
 FROM AKSU TO MARALBASHI. 389 
 
 offered tea, and here was this woman smoking opium. 
 She appeared also from time to time chatting and 
 smoking with my men, of which I took no ostensible 
 notice, until information reached me that a rumour 
 was going about to the effect that this woman was the 
 travelling companion of my servant Joseph. 
 
 Doubting whereunto this might grow, and not 
 knowing upon whom the calumny might next fall, I 
 sent for the official and explained the situation, where- 
 upon he kindly cut the knot for me by sending her 
 party another way, and I saw no more of her until 
 inspecting the prison at Maralbashi. 
 
 We had heard a great deal of the numbers of 
 pheasants we should see on the way, and at Yaka 
 Kuduk my men came more than once to call my 
 attention to coveys of these birds a few yards only 
 from the station. Next morning I breakfasted on the 
 first pheasant shot by my own gun. For some reason, 
 however, of momentary inconvenience I excused 
 Joseph from dressing the skin ; but with the result 
 that, though we more than once saw pheasants after- 
 wards, I did not get one for my collection. 
 
 Osman Bai wanted to start again on Sunday after- 
 noon and travel through the night, which I declined, 
 and we left next morning at seven for a four hours' 
 march to Chadir-Kul, passing on the way a ruined fort, 
 built by Yakub Khan. Here Bell, a month earlier, 
 found the horse-flies so troublesome as to render night 
 travel imperative. The heavy sandy track lay through 
 a forest of tograk, with occasional ponds, and after 
 1 1 miles we passed through a jungle of tamarisks, low 
 shrubs, and trees. 
 
 When one speaks, however, of " forests " the reader 
 must not call to mind the density of an Indian jungle,
 
 390 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 for I rarely saw underwood in Chinese Turkistan so 
 thick as that of a Kentish copse, whilst all the trees 
 I saw put together — they rarely exceeded 12 or 18 
 inches in diameter — would hardly make such a show 
 of timber as exists in Greenwich Park. I found one 
 of my ornithological acquaintances at the British 
 Museum picturing, in the Tarim basin, dense, bound- 
 less forests, providing a resting-place for half the birds 
 of the world. I should rather call the Tarim forests 
 straggling collections of trees, through which one could 
 usually march a cavalry regiment. 
 
 Around Chadir-Kul were a few cultivated fields, 
 and cJii grass was plentiful. There was also near at 
 hand (as the name of the place implies) a lake, formed 
 by the overflow of the stream we had first seen at 
 Yaka Kuduk, and which, from Chadir-Kul, flows 
 southward for a distance altogether of about 50 miles 
 into the river of Kashgar, near its confluence with the 
 river of Yarkand. 
 
 Two men were sent to the lake, but in vain, to 
 procure me specimens of fish. Meanwhile I took my 
 gun, and secured a shrike (Lanius arenarius), two 
 crested larks {Galerita cristata et G. magna), having 
 also shot a few birds on the way, but not so many as 
 report had led me to hope for. 
 
 I took with the camera a view, outside the village, 
 of a pretentious clay -built mausoleum of a local magnate, 
 one Osman Ming-bashi, or Captain of a thousand. It 
 consisted of a large domed building with pishtak, sur- 
 rounded by a mud wall with gateway ; and as it had 
 been built only the previous year, it was in fair order, 
 and gave one an idea of what the tombs of the rich 
 men of the country are like. A view was also taken 
 of the village street, which possesses nine houses and
 
 FROM AKSU TO MARALBASHI. 391 
 
 six serais, a Chinese military station or fort, a tiny 
 Buddhist temple beneath a lofty tree, and an earthen 
 mile-post. 
 
 Declining again to travel by night, we left Chadir- 
 Kul at four in the morning, which meant rising at the 
 uncomfortable hour of two. Outside the village we 
 ascended among sand-hills, and near a copse sighted 
 a fine cock pheasant, and a few minutes afterwards two 
 deer, the only specimens of this animal that we came 
 across all .through the country, and these quickly made 
 themselves scarce. 
 
 Of course I could not leave the caravan to stalk 
 them, and had to content myself with a pair of antlers 
 of a maral stag, appropriately purchased at Maralbashi 
 from a man who obtained them four months previously 
 from Tum Chuk, where the original owner had been 
 eaten by a tiger. They are now in the Museum of 
 Natural History at South Kensington. 
 
 I shot, however, in the morning an ornithological 
 prize. Professor Newton, of Cambridge, as well as 
 people at the British Museum, had bidden me be on 
 the look-out for a bird comparatively rare in European 
 collections, called Podoces, of which four varieties are 
 known [Podoces Panderi, P. Hcndersoni, P. Juimilis, 
 et P. Biddulpki)* 
 
 From the illustration and description of Podoces 
 Hendeisoni in Lahore to Varkaiid, I make no doubt 
 
 * This genus, Mr Dresser tells me, is characteristic of the region, being 
 confined to the steppe country, and up to the present time ornithologists 
 are undecided as to where the genus Podoces should be placed. For 
 his own part, he believes it to come nearest to the jays, though very 
 different from them. Hume, in Lahore to Yarka}id, remarks of Hen- 
 derson's Podoces that in its external form this species most nearly 
 resembles the choughs ; with which, following Buonaparte, he places 
 it, and not with the jays or magpies.
 
 392 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 it was this variety of which we saw several between 
 Yaka Kuduk and Chadir-Kul.* 
 
 The Podoces are spoken of as habitually fluttering 
 and flapping about in the sand, laving their feathers 
 in it after the manner of fowls, or like some of the 
 Babblers {Malacocerci), commonly called in India 
 "dust birds." The Turki name " Kum-tuche " is 
 said to mean " sand bird." Those we saw were always 
 in the desert and sandy places, but I think not always 
 in pairs, as Henderson observed near Sanju. 
 
 They moved about from one sand-hill to another, and 
 impressed themselves on my memory by the speed at 
 which they ran. They were slow to rise on the wing, 
 but would lead me a chase for hundreds of yards, and 
 generally succeeded in keeping out of range till I shot 
 my first not far from. Chadir-Kul. Mr Shaw, it seems, 
 found them good eating. I did not try them, but my 
 men, regarding the capture as a prize, said that its 
 liver, I think, was used by them as medicine. The 
 only Podoces in my collection that reached England 
 was determined as that of Biddulph (/*. Biddnlphi). 
 
 * Dimensions of male bird: length, irs ; tail, from vent, 4-5; 
 expanse, 18. Description: "The bills, legs, and feet are black; the 
 tail quills (except a white bar), the greater coverts, and the whole top 
 of the head and nape, black, with a metallic purplish-blue lustre ; most 
 of the feathers of the head with a minute rufescent white speck at the 
 top. All the primaries with a very broad white bar extending from near 
 the base to near the tip, and, except on the first primary, occupying the 
 outer as well as the inner web. The shafts of the white portion of the 
 feather are, in the first two or three primaries, partly brownish, in the 
 rest white. The whole of the rest of the bird may perhaps be best 
 described as a pale jay colour — that is to say, a mixture of pale rufous 
 and fulvous fawn ; with, especially on the back and rump, a vinaceous 
 tinge, and becoming albescent on the chin, cheeks, and lower tail- 
 coverts. The upper tail-coverts are verj'^ long, and reach to within an 
 inch from the end of the tail, and are coloured like the back. The wing 
 lining is blackish brown, but the feathers about the carpal joint are 
 cream}'' white."
 
 FROM AKSU TO MARALBASHI. 393 
 
 At four miles from Chadir-Kul trees give place to 
 brushwood, and the track passes between low sand-hills 
 covered with scrub. Approaching Turn Chuk, we ate 
 excellent water-melons from a garden at the roadside, 
 and after more than four hours' march reached this 
 village of 40 Turki families, or, as my notes say, " 60 
 houses in the district." Here was some small amount 
 of cultivation, and we saw barley cut, but not carried, 
 though Bell observed wheat being harvested about 
 Aksu on the preceding July 13th. Here I set Joseph 
 to sell New Testaments, which he did so successfully 
 as to need restraining, lest we should not have sufficient 
 for all our journey. 
 
 On arriving at Tum Chuk, I was at first disposed to 
 regard the day's march as over ; but, as Osman Bai 
 seemed eager to push forward, I gave permission, 
 thinking to get on the morrow a day's shooting at 
 Charwagh, where pheasants were said to be as common 
 as barn-door fowls. Accordingly, we set out at four in 
 the afternoon, and soon approached a long barren range 
 of hills called the Akhur-Tau, stretching across the 
 plain, having a gap through which our track passed 
 nearly at a right angle. 
 
 As we went along I was looking and inquiring every- 
 where, but without success, for the ruins of a very 
 ancient stone city, which Biddulph was told, and 
 Forsyth reports, existed at Tum Chuk. In approach- 
 ing the range we saw, at the southern end of it, some- 
 thing like the ruins of a castle perched on the top, but 
 too far off to be accurately distinguished. Here and 
 there, too, were farmsteads, and ruins of mud huts all 
 around, showing the place to have been once populous. 
 
 The track, among low trees, passed over sand-hills, 
 through the gap in the range, which was of indurated
 
 394 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL AS/A. 
 
 clay, with layers of flint at steep angles. Trees now 
 ceased, and c/ii grass became plentiful, the track wind- 
 ing over a plain, out of which rise low detached hills. 
 The district is watered by several canals from the 
 Kashgar river, all sunk from three to six feet below 
 the surface. Travelling thus, I reached Charwagh at 
 ten, about an hour in advance of the baggage, feeling 
 very tired and not quite well, though a night's sleep 
 seemed to put me right. 
 
 On reaching Charwagh (or Chahar-bagh, according 
 to Bell) we had come to the farthest point in this 
 direction reached by members of the Forsyth expe- 
 dition in 1873. Colonel Biddulph made his way to 
 Maralbashi, and then went on 14 miles farther to 
 Charwagh — a village, he says, of 250 inhabitants — 
 being especially anxious to shoot a tiger, in which 
 he was unsuccessful, though there were said to be 
 many about. 
 
 He had good sport, however, shooting deer, and 
 saw the birhits, or trained eagles, take gazelles and 
 foxes. For my own part, my opportunities and desires 
 were less ambitious ; but, hearing that pheasants were 
 so plentiful, I wished to get some of their skins, to say 
 nothing of procuring something for my larder by way 
 of change from chicken and mutton. 
 
 I therefore obtained as guide a man who was said 
 to know the locality, but who turned out a poor hunter. 
 We saw, indeed, two or three pheasants, but after three 
 hours' tramp we returned to the station, rather tired, 
 and with nothing more to show than a hawk, a rook, 
 a crested lark {Galerita magna), and a starling {Sttwmis 
 porpJiyronottLs). * 
 
 * Colonel Biddulph, Avritinsf to Dr Bowdler Sharpe of the pheasant 
 of this locality {Phasfamis S/iawi), says that it frequents thick grass-
 
 FROM AKSU TO MARALBASHI. 395 
 
 The horses having rested, I left Charwagh at five 
 in the afternoon in the arba, the hard track over clay 
 continuing to traverse the ^//z-covered flat. Biddulph 
 mentions, as within a mile of the road hereabouts, a 
 huge black rock, apparently basaltic, with a triple peak, 
 rising to a height of some 2,500 feet above the plain, 
 rugged and quite inaccessible. It is called "The 
 Prophet All's footstep," and at its foot on the north 
 side is a tomb of renowned sanctity, at sight of which 
 Muhammadans dismount to utter prayer. 
 
 At first our way lay through high grass, tall as stand- 
 ing corn. The district being irrigated by numerous 
 canals, we crossed many bridges, one of which had 
 to be mended before we could do so, and herein our 
 Turki djiguitt, Sarim Sak, showed himself a thoroughly 
 capable and hard-working fellow. Beyond the high 
 grass we got among trees, where we were annoyed by 
 mosquitoes. The low hills now receded from ten to 
 fifteen miles to the north, whilst detached hills occurred 
 to the southward, all barren and steep. 
 
 At 1 1 miles from starting we approached the 
 Kashgar river, here 50 feet broad, of which we could 
 not see much, since we no longer had moonlight. Six 
 hours' drive, however, brought us, near upon midnight, 
 to a serai in the native town of Maralbashi. 
 
 jungle, and, according to the natives, never roosts in trees. Some of 
 the Forsyth party shot specimens between Yarkand and Kashgar, and 
 Biddulph was more fortunate than I in finding it very common at 
 Maralbashi ; but he did not meet with the bird west of Kashgar. He 
 reports it as very wild and shy, and running like a fiend, only rising, as 
 a rule, at a considerable distance ; so that, as it was almost impossible 
 to retrieve them in the grass unless killed outright, he did not bag more 
 than three in any one day.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE INHABITANTS OF CHINESE TURKISTAN. 
 
 Chinese Central Asia and its inhabitants ; Manchus in Hi and Pelu 
 towns, 396. — Kaimuks in Sungaria and Karashar, 397. — Kirghese ; 
 their anthropological characteristics, diseases, morals, and occu- 
 pation, 398. — Scarcely subjected by Chinese ; Turkish inhabitants 
 of plains, 405. — Their alleged Aryan descent, 406. — Lack of physical 
 strength ; The Turks hard-working and honest ; Weak points 
 of urban character ; Lack of baths ; Abuse of narcotics, 408. — 
 Sexual depravity, 409. — Piteous story of a female prisoner, 410. — 
 Degradation of country through Muhammadanism ; The Chinese, 
 " strangers and foreigners " ; their mandarins and soldiery, 412. — 
 Chinese garrisons and traders ; Total population, 414. 
 
 THE inhabitants of Chinese Central Asia, or 
 China beyond the Wall, may be roughly enume- 
 rated as Manchus and Mongols, Kaimuks and Kirghese, 
 Turks and Tibetans. Confining ourselves here to 
 Chinese Turkistan, I may say that of Tibetans we 
 did not meet, or hear of, a single specimen throughout 
 the country ; not even at Khotan, where some writers 
 had led us to expect a few. 
 
 Nor do I remember meeting any Manchus, though 
 there had been no lack of them in the Hi valley ; also 
 among theTian Shan Pelu towns are mentioned Manchu 
 cities, as at Barkul, with 1,000 Manchu soldiery, and 
 similarly Kinsu, a small village somewhat farther east.
 
 THE INHABITANTS OF CHINESE TURKISTAN. 397 
 
 At Guchen, also, a Manchu town was completed in 
 1887, to be occupied the following year. 
 
 Again, of Mongols proper we saw none ; but a 
 certain portion of the country is inhabited by their 
 congeners the Kalmuks. Speaking of the Kalmuks 
 generally, they may be divided into four branches, 
 distributed for the most part over Sungaria. The 
 northern division is located in Khobak and Sarin, 
 east of Chuguchak. The eastern division inhabits the 
 country between An-how-tzien and Balgazi ; and the 
 western division is spread over the district stretching 
 from south of An-how-tzien to Bora-Burgusu. This divi- 
 sion numbers 40,000 individuals, with 3,900 horsemen. 
 
 Lastly, the southern division is found on the river 
 Khuidu-gol, near Karashar, and is the most numerous, 
 mustering 8,100 horsemen, which probably includes 
 the Mongol nomads, sometimes called Hoshoits, of 
 the Kunges valley, some of whom migrated there from 
 Koko-Nor, and are said to number 18,000 individuals, 
 furnishing in the field 1,800 horsemen. 
 
 In Chinese Turkistan the only Kalmuk settlement 
 is Karashar ; unworthy, Wilkins thinks, of the name 
 of a town, since it consists of one street only, about 
 500 yards long, with no regular bazaar, but only a 
 few poor and dirty shops without Russian or English 
 merchandise. There are, however, about 250 houses, 
 a caravanserai, and, in the time of Yakub Khan, there 
 existed an elementary school, and two inedresses, or 
 colleges. In the vicinity are 500 Kalmuk cavalry, and 
 from 1,000 to 2,000 Kalmuk families. 
 
 Of the physical and ethnographical characteristics 
 of the Kalmuks I spoke when among them in the 
 Tekes valley ; and so completely did we there leave 
 them behind, that on arriving at Aksu we could find
 
 398 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 none amongst whom to distribute any of our few 
 remaining copies of the Kahnuk Scriptures. I had, 
 therefore, to entrust them to the Russian Aksakal to 
 sell them to, or send them by, traders proceeding in 
 the direction of Karashar ; and when farther west we 
 failed to meet a single Kalmuk, I sent the last ten 
 copies from Kashgar to General Ivanoff, asking him 
 to distribute them amongst the Kalmuks of Vierny. 
 
 We may pass, therefore, to the Kirghese, who in 
 Chinese Turkistan are, almost to a man, dwellers in 
 the mountains. They monopolise the Aksai valley west 
 of Ush-Turfan and the Sirt country, and roam over the 
 mountains north, south, and west of Kashgar as far as 
 the Pamirs. They are much better known to science 
 than their Kalmuk neighbours, and have been closely 
 studied, among others, by Dr Seeland, who, not long 
 before I met him at Vierny, had written a paper on 
 the Kirghese for the Revue d Anthropologie, to which 
 I am indebted for much of my information.* 
 
 The body of the Kirghese is vigorous, and endowed 
 
 * After an elaborate series of measurements of 40 men and 10 women, 
 Dr Seeland describes the Kirghese as of medium stature and well pro- 
 portioned ; shoulders wide, neck neither long nor thick, chest well 
 developed, the lower limbs straight, hands and feet small, brown skin, 
 and dark hair. Fat subjects are rare ; hump-backed and crooked not 
 seen. The head, covered with stiff hair, and cut short or shaven, is 
 very brachycephalous, and more or less pointed, the summit forming a 
 sort of crest. The forehead, especially among the men, is more or less 
 retreating ; ears of medium size, with the upper portions standing off 
 from the head, by reason perhaps of the sheepskin busby being pressed 
 down upon them, though this would not apply to the malakhai, or 
 travelling sheepskin hood. The cheek-bones are wide apart, but less 
 so, as I myself observed, than with pure Mongols such as Buriats. 
 The nose is prominent, and not too large ; the mouth fairly small and 
 well coloured ; but the upper lip is ordinarily thick and protruding. The 
 teeth are straight and white ; the beard and moustache often lighter 
 than the hair, and rarely thick ; and in general the skin is not very 
 hairy, but is supple, and impregnated with the smell of smoke.
 
 THE INHABITANTS OF CHINESE TURKISTAN. 399 
 
 with greater organic resistance than that of settled 
 peoples ; and the temperature of his blood is higher. 
 
 A KIRGHESE IN ' MALAKHAI, OR TRAVELLING.. HOOD. 
 
 Cold, heat, hunger, thirst, and all physical sufferings 
 are admirably endured by these nomads. Their vitality 
 is especially observable in the way they bear wounds.
 
 400 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Great gashes, even of the skull, often heal without 
 fever or loss of appetite ; and amputated limbs are 
 rapidly covered with granulations, without leaving 
 ulcers, caries, etc. 
 
 Sickness occurs .among them less frequently than 
 among ourselves. The muscular strength, however, 
 of the Kirghese is less than that of the Russian 
 peasant. In horsemanship both sexes excel, the 
 Kirghese being as firm on horseback as on his feet ; 
 but in vaulting and tricks of equitation he is beaten 
 by the Cossack. Again, sight, hearing, and smell are 
 admirably acute, but touch is less developed than 
 among educated persons.* 
 
 The extremes of climate and variety of territory 
 frequented by the Kirghese, as well as their manner 
 of life, help, no doubt, to develop the organic resistance 
 just spoken of to cold and hunger, as an illustration of 
 which Seeland quotes an instance of a young Kirghese, 
 in the neighbourhood of Pishpek, buried by accident 
 in snow for 20 hours, his only nourishment being his 
 boots, which he ate down to the soles ! 
 
 Their indifference to physical suffering may, how- 
 ever, be partly attributable to the feebleness of touch 
 before mentioned. Comparing them with the Gilyaks 
 on the Amur (who I remember struck me, in 1879, 
 as the lowest specimens of humanity I had seen), See- 
 land thinks sensitiveness to pain more developed among 
 the Kirghese. When he pulled a few hairs out of a 
 Gilyak, the man seemed to heed it no more than 
 a horse seized by the mane as an aid to a mount, 
 
 * The Kirghese women resemble the men, but with certain important 
 diiferences. The stature and muscular strength of the woman are less, 
 but her temperature is higher. The arms are relatively shorter, but 
 her physiognomy is more intelligent and grave. The average weight 
 of the men, tested by Seeland, was 131 lbs., that of the women 110 lbs.
 
 THE INHABITANTS OF CHINESE TURKISTAN. 401 
 
 whereas the Kirghese winced. Both can rest quietly 
 in their tents when full of snioke, whence it would 
 
 A KIKCHESE BRIDE. 
 
 seem that the mucous membrane covering the ball of 
 the eyes is less tender than among ourselves. 
 
 From the fact that in Kirghese one word, kok, does 
 duty for blue, green, and grey, it has been assumed 
 
 VOL. I. 26
 
 402 CHINESE CENTRAL ASTA. 
 
 that they are colour-l)lind ; but this is not the case. 
 Moreover, their sense of smell is such that they scent 
 smoke at distances incredible to a European. They 
 like the perfume of flowers, but are indifferent to what 
 some would call a positive stench. 
 
 The Kirghese arrive at puberty at about the same 
 age as Europeans of a temperate climate, but so rarely 
 live beyond 85, that in 1883, at Tokmak, among 82,000 
 Kara-Kirghese, there were surviving only two men of 
 86 and 92 respectively. Out of a like number of 
 English, 2,700 attain 85 and upwards. 
 . As for their diseases, scrofula is met with but rarely ; 
 and of phthisis, Dr Pchigodski met with one case only 
 in the district of Tokmak in seven years.* 
 
 The native methods of treatment, apart from the 
 curious instances named in a previous chapter, include 
 the cure by hunger and water, the patient receiving 
 for a period of from 14 to 60 days nothing but water, 
 with a very little milk, of which mixture some drink 
 from 12 to 14 pints a day; so that to pose like ]\Ir 
 
 * Leprosy does not appear to exist. Cancer occurs 20 times less 
 frequently than among settled populations. On the other hand, syphilis 
 among them is endemic, one in 20, perhaps, suffering therefrom. In 
 spring the Kara-Kirghese suffer also from scorbutus. Of infectious 
 diseases small-pox is the most frequent, but its virulence and area have 
 much diminished since the introduction of vaccination. Intermittent 
 fevers are rare or frequent, according to the ground selected for winter 
 encampment. Rheumatism is common, but organic disease of the 
 heart rare ; whilst diseases of the nervous system, paralysis, con- 
 vulsions, and psychosis are very rare indeed. Cases, however, are met 
 with of idiocy and melancholy. Diseases of the organs of sense are 
 not common, except superficial inflammation of the eyes, arising 
 generally from smoke ; also growths upon the eyeballs and inversion 
 of the eyelids occur from time to time ; but loss of sight, from cataract 
 or atrophy of the optic nerve, as well as loss of hearing, is rare. 
 Chronic diseases of the skin frequently exist, due to lack of cleanli- 
 ness ; for regular bathing is unknown even in summer, though, if a 
 Kirghese chance to be passing a river, he may take a plunge into it.
 
 THE IXHABITANTS OF CHINESE TURKISTAN. 403 
 
 Tanner and his imitators would scarcely pay among 
 the Kirghese. Intermittent fever is treated by fright. 
 Against chills they have recourse to enforced sweating. 
 For scorbutus they give sour cabbage and koiujiiss, 
 which are, in fact, excellent remedies. To wounds 
 they apply burnt felt, if there is haemorrhage. They 
 
 
 INTERIOR OF A KARA-KIRGHESE TENT. 
 
 also place on the wound powdered tobacco, pour on 
 boiling fat, and sometimes (according to M. Gourdet) 
 cauterise by means of ignited gunpowder. 
 
 The temperament of the Kirghese is decidedly 
 sanguine. Their manner of living, plenty of horse- 
 riding, frequent change of place and mountain air,
 
 404 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 together with the absence of intoxicating drinks, 
 opium-smoking, and the use even of tobacco, seem 
 to engender a happy temperament, and to account for 
 the absence of nervous diseases and melancholy. 
 
 And this temperament of the Kirghese is reflected 
 in his moral physiognomy. Among his good qualities 
 must be mentioned integrity, compassion, hospitality, 
 endurance, sobriety, and absence of revenge and 
 cruelty. His defects are idleness, want of fore- 
 thought, vanity, curiosity, uncleanliness, a certain love 
 of litigiousness, and a great weakness for his neigh- 
 bours' horses, the stealing of which he mixes up with 
 remembrance of raids in pre-Russian times, when 
 cattle-lifting was regarded as part of the calling of 
 a brave ; but this love of equine appropriation is said 
 to be consistent with honesty in other things. 
 
 Crime, as we understand the word, is comparatively 
 rare among them. Murder is not common, and suicide 
 seldom heard of ; and then generally among women, 
 whose lot is frequently a hard one.* 
 
 The Kirghese is before all things a nomad, a shep- 
 herd, a tender of cattle ; and he thinks it a descent in 
 life when obliged to follow agriculture. This, however, 
 he is gradually learning on Russian soil.t 
 
 To judge from the zest with which a number of men 
 and boys rushed into a stream near Issik-Kul to secure 
 
 * Rape occasionally occurs, but Dr Seeland says that prostitution 
 and unnatural offences are unknown, though the last, in Russian 
 Turkistan, are largely practised by the Sarts. 
 
 f In Chinese Turkistan, in the valley west of Ush-Turfan, Young- 
 husband found the Kirghese cultivating the poppy, not for their own 
 use, but as a profitable crop ; and in the Sirt country, wheat also and 
 other cereals. Gordon, too, mentions a little scattered cultivation by 
 Kirghese in the Toyan valley and the lower valleys of the Siriks district. 
 Many of these people are also carriers, and transport merchandise over 
 the mountainous country between Osh, Vierny, and Kashgar,
 
 THE INHABITANTS OF CHINESE TURKISTAN. 405 
 
 for me specimens of fish, the Kirghese should be keen 
 sportsmen. As a means of subsistence, however, hunt- 
 ing is not much in vogue, though they chase the deer 
 for their horns and foxes for their skins, to the extent 
 that, in 1882, there were killed in the districts of Issik- 
 Kul, Vierny, and Sergiopol 6,000 foxes, worth ^1,200, 
 and 400 stags, worth i^2,200.* 
 
 On Russian soil the Kirghese pay about 1 2s. a tent 
 as taxes, but the Chinese have not got them sufficiently 
 in hand to exact anything — a cause of trouble to the 
 Russians, some of their subjects crossing the frontier 
 to evade the tax-collector. In fact, the district between 
 Kashgar and Ferghana, and the adjacent Chinese por- 
 tion of the Pamirs, was said to be hardly in subjection, 
 the Kirghese there regarding themselves as free, and 
 ready upon a favourable opportunity to aid insurrection 
 and descend for plunder to the plains. Nor is pillage 
 of caravans entirely unknown. On my arrival at 
 Kashgar, I met Miss Petrovsky, who, with her brother, 
 had crossed by the Narin route from Vierny, and had 
 been robbed, on Chinese soil if I mistake not ; but 
 the occurrence was regarded as rare, the goods were 
 recovered, and the robbers taken into custody. 
 
 Having now spoken of the nomad hill tribes of 
 Chinese Turkistan, I proceed to the settled inhabitants 
 of the plains, which I have called Turks to distinguish 
 them from Mongols, Manchus, and Chinese. Some 
 writers call them Uigurs ; others Dungans, Taranchis, 
 and Kashgarians ; and Shaw — " Tatarise dAryans." 
 
 The common opinion seems to be that the Yuechi, 
 
 * The slaughter of deer for their horns has, of course, wrought great 
 havoc throughout Central Asia, and I have learned with satisfaction 
 from Mr Littledale that in the neighbourhood of Malo-Narinsk an 
 attempt at preservation is being made by inclosing the animals and 
 as an experiment cutting off their horns when soft.
 
 4o6 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 who, in the second century B.C., were driven from their 
 seats over the Pamirs by the Uigurs, were Aryans. 
 They left behind them a considerable remnant, with 
 whom the Uigurs and subsequent Mongol invaders 
 intermarried. Hence the existing inhabitants of the 
 towns of Chinese Turkistan. 
 
 Dr Bellew, who both studied the people locally, and, 
 in his historical sketch in Forsyth's Report, as well as 
 in his Kashmir and Kashgar, shows himself widely 
 read in his subject and entitled to speak with authority, 
 supports the foregoing hypothesis by etymological con- 
 siderations, and others follow his lead. 
 
 I am not aware, however, that any history, document, 
 or historical monument affords proof that these primitive 
 inhabitants were Aryans, or that their migration was 
 only partial. At the same time I must allow that just 
 as to an ordinary observer the difference was patent 
 between Buriats and Kirghese, so it struck me among 
 the people of Chinese Turkistan that one oftener saw a 
 nearer approach to a European countenance than was 
 visible, I thought, among natives in Russian Turkistan. 
 
 But here again I gladly avail myself of the researches 
 of Dr Seeland, whose journey from Vierny to Kashgar, 
 and thence to Aksu and Ush-Turfan, gave him the 
 opportunity of studying anthropologically the natives 
 of the northern portion of the country, just as the 
 Forsyth mission gave similar opportunity to Dr Bellew 
 to study the natives of the southern portion, especially 
 Yarkand, their observations coalescing at Kashgar. 
 
 Dr Seeland's examination and measurements were 
 made upon 30 agriculturists and labourers — 25 from 
 the oasis of Kashgar, and five from Aksu and Turfan 
 — and may therefore be regarded as complementary 
 to those of Dr Bellew, only that anthropologically
 
 THE INHABITANTS OF CHINESE TURKISTAN. 407 
 
 they are far more minute and exhaustive. Dr See- 
 land wrote an account of his journey, a portion of 
 which, translated into French by our mutual friend 
 M. Gourdet, is before me in manuscript. 
 
 The Kashgarian type, he observes, is far from 
 handsome, and Aryan blood among them is, without 
 doubt, reduced to a minimum. The average stature 
 is about 64 inches, chest fairly broad, but generally 
 flat, whilst the back is rounded, from the habit, pro- 
 bably, of sitting cross-legged and leaning forward to 
 balance the body. The muscle of the labourer is well 
 developed, and the constitution generally good, though 
 among the lower stratum of poor in the towns feeble 
 folk are common enough. 
 
 As for the head, it resembles that of the Kirghese, 
 thus far at least, that it is strongly brachycephalous, 
 retreating towards the top and little developed at the 
 back. The faces of some presented certain character- 
 istic traits of the Caucasian race, with a thick beard ; 
 but, in most subjects, Mongolian characteristics pre- 
 vailed — projecting cheek-bones, little beard, large 
 nose, thick lips. The colour of the skin is swarthy, 
 but without the yellow tint of the Chinese. 
 
 Here and there among the younger women a whitish 
 tint of great delicacy is observable, and it is noteworthy 
 that the women of Kuchar, eastwards, are remarkable 
 for their beauty and fresh complexions. This agrees 
 with what Marco Polo says of the good looks of the 
 women of the eastern part of the country ; and the 
 same is mentioned in some of the older Chinese 
 writings, as well as confirmed by a modern traveller, 
 M. Chikhalibekoff. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Maralbashi, Seeland found 
 the Caucasian type of countenance better preserved —
 
 4o8 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 the face oval and regular, mouth straight and good- 
 looking, nose thin, eyes larger than among the 
 Turkish races, and stature taller ; whereas in Aksu 
 the Mongolian characteristics were more accentuated 
 even than in Kashgar. The face of the Kashgarians 
 has little or no expression, unless it be of indifference, 
 and is, on the whole, somewhat repellent. 
 
 Their physical strength is in no way remarkable, 
 and Dr Bellew more than once points out their 
 incapacity for sustained exertion. Both sexes ride, 
 but generally on donkeys, and equestrian games are 
 not much in vogue. 
 
 The settled inhabitants of Chinese Turkistan are, 
 however, beyond doubt hard-working, and gain their 
 daily bread literally by the sweat of their brow ; also 
 they are honest, notwithstanding their poverty. Theft 
 is comparatively rare, and throughout the villages the 
 doors are without locks. One is struck also with the 
 probity of the carriers, who often transport merchan- 
 dise and money abroad of ten times the value of their 
 own possessions, yet nothing confided to them is lost. 
 
 On the other hand, among the weak points of urban 
 character in Chinese Turkistan must be mentioned 
 lack of cleanliness, a tendency to the abuse of narcotics, 
 and sexual depravity. Other Muhammadan countries 
 are supplied with baths, but in Aksu there are none, 
 and in Kashgar only one establishment, and that small 
 and badly kept. I myself was thankful to accept from 
 M. Petrovsky the luxury of a Russian bath at the 
 Consulate. Amongst the natives the well-to-do wash 
 at home ; the poor, it is said, dispense with washing. 
 
 With regard to narcotics, Seeland says that half the 
 proletariat of Kashgar smoke hasheesh, or hemp, under 
 various forms, and four or five per cent, of the women
 
 THE INHABITAA'TS OF CHINESE TURKISTAN. 409 
 
 eat it in sweetmeats. At Aksu the consumption of 
 hasheesh and opium is relatively smaller by about one- 
 half. These poisons are taken at establishments set 
 apart for the purpose, and are smoked in the chilim, 
 or pipe of the country, which is filled with a mixture 
 of hemp and tobacco, whereon are placed Hve coals, 
 the smoke being drawn right into the lungs. 
 
 There exist other means of taking narcotic prepara- 
 tions, for which are used, besides hemp and opium, 
 henbane, thorn-apple, and probably, as in Ferghana, 
 nux-vomica. The gaiety produced by these narcotics 
 seems to afford an artificial oblivion, at the expense, 
 of course, of enfeebling the nerves, so that among the 
 townspeople even old men are often seen to burst into 
 tears ; and madness is frequent. 
 
 As for the other form of depravity mentioned, it 
 arises partly from emigration of the men, whereby the 
 women, in Kashgar at least, are in excess of men, I 
 was told, by six to one. Hence throughout Central 
 Asia the cheapness of Kashgar wives is proverbial. 
 For four or five shillings one may acquire a " lawful 
 wife" ; and if for one reason or another she does not 
 please, divorce is equally easy. Some of the men, 
 Seeland says, change their wives six times a year ! * 
 
 * There exists among the Sarts another hideous depravity in marrying 
 girls of from ten to twelve years old, and drugging them at first with 
 opium. This testimony was confirmed to me by a man of education 
 resident in Kashgar, and by a second European, who said he had 
 known many girls have 20 husbands before they were capable of be- 
 coming mothers ! What sort of progeny results when they become 
 old enough to bear children may be imagined, and indeed seen in the 
 miserable appearance of many of the townspeople. Meanwhile, the lot 
 of the cast-off women is very sad. They cannot obtain daily employ- 
 ment, and their only resource is the making of inata, by which to earn 
 a miserable pittance. Others, again, of the unmarried women who 
 cannot obtain husbands have recourse to practices which recall the
 
 410 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 The case of the female prisoner whom we overtook 
 on the road will illustrate this, and is worth more than 
 many statements of a general character. When looking 
 over the fort at Maralbashi, I peeped into one of the 
 prison rooms, and there, alone, cleanly dressed, but 
 hiding herself from observation, was the young woman 
 we had seen, and whose piteous tale was afterwards 
 given me as follows : — 
 
 Her father, it seems, about ten years before, killed 
 another man, for which he was put in the Chinese 
 prison at Kashgar, whither her mother daily sent her 
 little and pretty child of nine with food for her father. 
 One of the prison officials thus came to notice the 
 child, and made an offer to the mother that if she 
 would give her daughter to him the father should 
 be released. 
 
 The mother consented, and for six months the child 
 was abused in the house of her keeper, who, having 
 to go to Peking, and she not wishing to accompany 
 him, sent her home to her father. Then another 
 Chinese official married her and took her to Ush-Turfan 
 for two years, after which her husband put her into a 
 cart and sent her back to Kashgar, whilst he returned 
 to China. 
 
 Next, she was married to a Muhammadan Bek, or 
 nobleman, for a year, when he took an additional wife, 
 with whom for three months this one quarrelled, where- 
 upon she was divorced and sent away, and remained 
 free for three months. Then came another Bek, to 
 whom she was married for five months. But he 
 already had a wife of higher grade, from whom at 
 
 unseemly things of heathen Rome. In the country districts of Chinese 
 'I'urkistan, however, these depravities are said not to obtain, each man 
 usually having but one wife, and living permanently with her.
 
 THE INHABITANTS OF CHINESE TURKISTAN. 411 
 
 first he kept this one separate, till, bringing them 
 together, and quarrels ensuing, she was again dis- 
 missed, at the age of only thirteen, from this her 
 fourth husband. 
 
 Then she went home and lived a loose life for a 
 year, her mother being aware of it, but not the father. 
 He, on learning the facts, not only did not forbid her, 
 but, after the mother's death, forced her against her 
 will, and with blows, to pursue an evil life, and basely 
 lived and smoked upon his daughter's gains. 
 
 The next chapter in her melancholy career was to 
 be kept by a Chinese officer, and he quarrelled with 
 another man who came to her house, on account of 
 which the woman was exiled to Aksu. Here, again, 
 two men had quarrelled in her dwelling, the result 
 being disastrous to herself ; for, at the age of only 
 eighteen, and in spite of her good looks, this poor 
 young creature was on her way to execution. 
 
 She herself told this tale to Joseph, in the hope, 
 as I afterwards heard, that I would intercede on her 
 behalf Amin, too, had seen her seven years before, 
 and, having been born in Kashgar, knew her family 
 sufficiently to corroborate the main facts of the case. 
 
 Much of the foregoing, it should be observed, is 
 quite in keeping with being an excellent Muhammadan. 
 Yakub Khan posed as a religious reformer, restored 
 colleges, built mosques, appointed officers to drive the 
 people to prayers, closed licensed houses, and tried to 
 suppress prostitution ; yet, according to Kuropatkin, 
 he maintained 300 women, six of whom accompanied 
 him in all his. wanderings ; and I was told that he 
 absolutely killed by his brutality two of the young 
 girls of his harem, and brought upon himself much 
 indignation thereby.
 
 412 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 It would have been pleasanter to have passed over 
 a great deal of what has been written in this chapter, 
 but the reader may thus form an idea to what degree 
 iNIuhammadanism is capable of degrading a country 
 after centuries of unopposed sway. Other features of 
 anthropological and ethnographical interest among the 
 Turks will be noticed as we travel round Chinese 
 Turkistan, but I pass on now to notice briefly the 
 ruling class among the inhabitants of the country — 
 namely, the Chinese. 
 
 The Chinese are as much strangers and foreigners 
 in the Tarim valley as are the English in India ; 
 indeed, more so, since the Chinese longest in resi- 
 dence came into the country but yesterday, and I 
 never heard of a mandarin troubling himself to study 
 the requirements, or even to learn the language, of 
 the people he governed. 
 
 Moreover, the imperial government at Peking, it 
 seems, acts in a most foolish manner towards the recon- 
 quered country, sending thither, not its best mandarins, 
 but those who for some disgrace are thus banished as 
 to a Botany Bay. Hence I was given to understand 
 that the Chinese officials in Kashgar and neigh- 
 bouring towns are mandarins decidedly below par, 
 educationally and otherwise. 
 
 Again, the larger proportion of the Chinese soldiery 
 are but militia, sometimes convicts, or enlisted often 
 at a moment's notice from among the idlers and raga- 
 muffins of the bazaar, and sent off to the colonies for 
 service, where, thanks to bad military discipline, and 
 lawless conduct of various kinds, they become a veri- 
 table pest to the localities where they are quartered. 
 
 In the Hi valley we were constantly reminded that 
 many of the higher officials came from Manchuria,
 
 CHINESE WOMEN AT KASHGAR.
 
 414 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 but I do not remember hearing the hke in the Tarim 
 valley. There (beginning east), the 500 soldiers at Tsi- 
 tai-hsien, near Guchen, are said to be from the province 
 of Sz-chuen, and the Guchen garrison consists of 500 
 braves of Hunan. Again, at Gu-medi are 500 Hunan 
 braves, and 20,000 similarly described are supposed to 
 be posted between Hami and Hi. The garrison of 
 Toksun are called braves from Hunan and Shensi, 
 whilst 1,050 of the soldiers at Kashgar are spoken of 
 as from Hunan, and at Yengi Hissar are 500 cavalry 
 from Shantung. 
 
 Besides this military population there are certain 
 Chinese traders, who generally take up their quarters 
 in the forts, and who are mentioned (by Bell), especially 
 in the eastern towns, as settled by hundreds. Thus 
 at Chi-mu-sa are 35 Chinese families; at San-tai, 300 ; 
 at Szen-i-chien, 130; at Fuh-khan, 130; and at Kashgar^ 
 300. At Urumtsi there are said to be from 500 to 
 1,000 Chinese shopkeepers from Hunan, Su-chow, and 
 Ping-yang, but living without Chinese wives. 
 
 It was this sort of thing repeated, I suppose (to 
 judge from the paucity of Chinese women we saw 
 farther west), in the " Yengi-shahr" of Aksu, Kashgar, 
 Yarkand, and Khotan. The foreign rulers looked 
 always a scanty few among the surrounding natives. 
 
 The total population of Chinese Turkistan was 
 estimated by Forsyth at a million, but Bell thinks 
 this too low, and after travelling all along the 
 northern and western portions of the country, and 
 with the advantage of Russian estimates before him, 
 his "two millions " is probably nearer the mark. 
 
 Having thus spoken of the inhabitants generally, 
 I shall continue to describe my journey among them,
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 FROM MARALBASHI 20 KASHGAR. 
 
 An early welcome, 415.- — Call on the mandarin ; The bazaar, 416. — 
 Visited by mandarin, 417. — Photography, and consequent excite- 
 ment, 418. — The fortress and its features, 420. — General character 
 of forts in Chinese Turkistan ; Maralbashi, a strategical position ; 
 Road southwards to Yarkand, 422. — Dolan shepherds and their 
 underground dwellings, 423. — Departure from Maralbashi, 424.- — A 
 trot to Urdaklik, 425. — Caught in a quagmire, 426. — A neighbour- 
 hood of wild-boars and deer, 427. — March to Faizabad ; Visited 
 by Chinese general, 428. — Features of the town, 429. — Limits of 
 Kashgar district ; March to the Yengi-shahr, 430. — March through 
 fortress to old town of Kashgar, 431. 
 
 EARLY on the morning of August 30th, at Maral- 
 bashi, before I was up, Isa, a Turki bek, in the 
 employ of the Government, called to inquire for me 
 and offer his services. He had been advised, he said, 
 of my coming, and had taken for me better apartments 
 at another serai, to which he invited us to remove. 
 The baggage, however, being unpacked, and antici- 
 pating only a short sojourn, I preferred to stay where 
 I was ; whereupon he did his best to make himself 
 useful in other ways. 
 
 Of his own accord he asked the Chinese authorities 
 to send me a guard because of the curious crowds 
 forcing themselves into the serai to look at the stranger 
 — the numbers being the more increased by my giving
 
 4i6 CHIXESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Joseph books and cards to sell — so that at length, in 
 self-defence, the crowd had fairly to be driven out of 
 the yard by a petty officer and two subordinates, who 
 stuck up at the gate an arrow, as an emblem of 
 authority, to signify that I was under the special 
 protection of the magistrate. 
 
 In the afternoon I called upon the chief authority, 
 there being two mandarins in the town, a hsien and a 
 military. Riding into the fort, and not dismounting 
 until I reached the great man's door, I thought, 
 seemed to perturb some of the Chinese, who came up 
 to me as if remonstrating. But I neither understood 
 nor heeded, and sent in my card. Before the door 
 stood a drum, which if a man strikes at any hour of the 
 day or night the mandarin, whatever he may be doing, 
 is bound to come. 
 
 Such is the magnificent theory by virtue of which 
 the distressed may flee to the highest for help ; but, 
 inasmuch as the mandarin, under such conditions, 
 usually orders his summoner loo lashes, and then asks 
 what he wants, the privilege is of doubtful value, and 
 one of which I did not avail myself. It took but a 
 short time, on the appearance of this local potentate, to 
 exchange compliments ; after which we proceeded to 
 look about the fort, and permission having been given 
 to visit the prison therein, we found it new, much 
 better than at Aksu, and with few inmates. 
 
 On our way to and from the fort we passed through 
 a portion of the bazaar, which is, in fact, the main 
 road, lined by shops, some kept by Turks and some 
 by Chinese. Indian merchants are said to come here 
 via Yarkand, and stay for a month or two. They 
 bring tea, sugar, pepper, ginger, and cotton goods. 
 Thus, in the shop of an Afghan, I was pleased to read
 
 FROM AIARALBASHI TO KASHGAR. 417 
 
 on a piece of muslin " Ferdinand Cohen & Co., Man- 
 chester." For 18 yards they asked 55-., whilst for 
 another piece of 10 yards of figured coloured muslin, 
 marked "Graham, Bombay and Calcutta," the price 
 named was ']s. 6d. 
 
 In the summer ice is cheap and plentiful, and iced 
 curds and apricots are the order of the day. Iron ore 
 is said to be found in the vicinity, and is roughly 
 smelted ; but it did not give one a lofty idea of local 
 commerce when Isa, the bek, represented the getting 
 me small change for five ounces of silver — about a 
 sovereign — as not quite an easy matter. He thought 
 it might be done at 16 tengas the ser instead of 20 — 
 that is to say, at the rate of i6j-. for ^i ; whilst another 
 man quoted 15 tengas only, but doubted if so much 
 ready cash could be found in the market. 
 
 At the time of Colonel Bell's passing through, there 
 was at Maralbashi a barber from Lahore, said to be 
 doing well and contented ; the same, I suspect, who 
 presented himself to me about 12 months later at 
 Kuldja — one Ismail — who said he had been recom- 
 mended to try his fortune as barber in the Hi valley. 
 He had accordingly come thither from Maralbashi 
 over the Muzart Pass in 24 days, and at a cost from 
 Aksu of 100 tengas, or about £v, for each of two 
 horses, and 100 more for expenses. I did not gather, 
 however, that he had improved his position by wander- 
 ing farther from India, but rather the contrary ; and I 
 heard on the spot of no British subjects at Maralbashi, 
 though Isa said he had known Mr Dalgleish, 
 
 When, on the morrow, the chief mandarin returned 
 my visit, I asked whether he had received orders to 
 make inquiries for the murderer of Dalgleish. He 
 replied in the negative, but showed every disposition 
 
 VOL. I. 27
 
 4i8 CHIXESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 to meet my wishes, having already promised me two 
 Mussulman attendants to relieve the two djiguitts 
 returning to Aksu. 
 
 My first wish, after resting for a day, was to start 
 again ; but, for a wonder, Osman Bai desired me to 
 tarry, saying that one of his horses was sick, and I 
 assented the more readily as it was a rainy morning ; 
 also it gave me opportunity to take some photographs, 
 which I commenced from the top of the serai. 
 
 The neighbouring flat roofs and the straight level of 
 the Chinese fort in the distance presented a dull picture, 
 relieved by one erection only, standing out above the 
 horizon — namely, the so- called Old Tower, the sole 
 building I remember as a possible survival of what 
 Biddulph calls a " palace," built outside the fort by 
 Yakub Khan, who often stayed here on his way to 
 and from Aksu. The views of the bazaar east and 
 west from the gate of the sei^ai presented the curious 
 aspect of Central Asian streets shaded with what once 
 were leafy branches, and now looked like brushwood. 
 
 Meanwhile the sight of my camera so stirred the 
 curiosity of the crowd that they made a rush for the 
 housetop, which I forbade. It was plain, however, 
 that my Turkish attendants, although officials, and not 
 hesitating to lay their whips on their fellow-country- 
 men, were very cautious of touching a Chinaman, and, 
 as it soon appeared, with good reason. 
 
 I had heard of the outrageous lies a Chinaman can 
 tell, merely to give point to his conversation. On the 
 present occasion one of these rascals, who had, I 
 suppose, been turned back from ascending to the roof, 
 went to the mandarin and told such a tissue of false- 
 hoods as to the treatment he had met with as to make 
 one's hair stand on end- The mandarin sent to ask
 
 TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE BAZAAR,
 
 420 CHIXESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 whether it was true, and fortunately accepted my 
 denial; but it was easy to see how a Turk would be no 
 match for such a calumniator before a Chinese judge. 
 
 Happily the authorities manifested no fear of my 
 revisiting and taking photographs of the fort, which 
 Kuropatkin calls the "third of the important defences 
 of Kashgaria," though I should hardly think it would 
 take such rank now.'^ 
 
 A photograph of one of the four gateways presented 
 an enormous mass of brickwork, lOO feet deep. 
 The gateways are in the centre of each side, and 
 project 40 yards by 60, thus giving flank defence. 
 Within, we mounted the walls by ramps at the gate- 
 ways, over some of which are covered lodgments, 
 whilst at the angles of the fort are circular projections 
 of about 30 feet diameter, with towers, thus giving a 
 double line of musketry fire. 
 
 The fort was originally built by the Chinese, but 
 many of the mud huts within it were probably erected 
 in the time of Yakub Khan ; whilst here and there 
 were new buildings, yamen, barracks, etc., of a style 
 unmistakably " Celestial," but there were no shops. 
 We nowhere had so good an opportunity of inspecting 
 the characteristics of the Tarim forts as at Maralbashi. 
 
 The Chinese seem to be well aware that their 
 tenure is precarious ; and remembering how com- 
 pletely their soldiers are outnumbered by Turks, and 
 on former occasions have been butchered, they have 
 
 * The fort has faces, according to Kuropatkin, of about 280 yards 
 long, whilst another estimate says 400 yards. The walls are from 15 to 
 18 feet high, and about as thick, revetted with brick, and surrounded by 
 a dry ditch. The Kashgar river, or a branch of it called the Kizil, flows 
 close under the north face, whereby it would seem possible to flood the 
 ditches. On the east face the village would give cover to besiegers. 
 On the other sides the ground is uneven, but open with easy slopes.
 
 TAKING A I'llOTOCKAPII FROM THE ROOF OF THE TARAVANSERAI.
 
 422 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 built at each important point we visited (namely, Aksu, 
 Maralbashi, Kashgar, Yengi Hissar, Yarkand, and 
 Khotan, to say nothing of towns farther east) strong 
 inclosures, into which the Chinese population may run 
 and be safe, whilst the Turki towns are left without 
 walls, or nearly so, and the people are deprived of 
 arms. Hence, as one native merchant said to me, 
 "We are as weak as a lot of women." 
 
 The fort at Maralbashi should be garrisoned by 
 350 soldiers of Hunan, some mounted, but the number 
 was 100 short. How they are armed I cannot say, 
 but on examining some of the muskets at the yamen 
 I found them marked " Tower," which smacked of the 
 days of the old " Brown Bess." I photographed 
 the interior of the fort from the ramparts, and then 
 placed my camera on the top of the wall for a view of 
 the native town, which has a population, it is said, 
 of about 2,000 Turks.* 
 
 The existence of this large fort near so insignificant 
 a village is explained by its situation at the junction 
 of roads which lead to the town of Aksu from Khotan, 
 Yarkand, and Kashgar, thus giving it a position of 
 considerable strategical importance. 
 
 Of the track from Maralbashi southward to Yarkand 
 we know but little, four Europeans only, so far as I 
 remember, having travelled that way."!* 
 
 * Biddulph observes that the town is also known as Barchuk and Lai 
 Musjid, having a population of about 1,500 inhabitants, whilst Forsyth 
 mentions 5,000 houses for the whole Maralbashi district, and says that, in 
 the time of the former occupation of the Chinese, they kept here a garri- 
 son of 3,000 men, whereas Yakub Khan maintained the post with only 300. 
 
 t Benedict Goes did so, and has left us 14 names of places on his 
 25 days' journey from Yarkand to Aksu. Mr Carey travelled the 
 reverse way, but neither he nor his lieutenant, Mr Dalgleish, in their 
 contributions to the Geographical Society's publications, appears to have 
 given us names of stations between Maralbashi and Yarkand, and of
 
 h'kOM MARALBASHl TO KASHGAR. 423 
 
 Carey speaks of a reception, always kindly and 
 hospitable, on the part of the Dolan shepherds in the 
 country round Maralbashi, which Forsyth calls their 
 capital. Bell, however, does not speak of the inhabi- 
 tants of Maralbashi as different from those of other 
 towns he passed through, nor did I notice any dis- 
 tinctive marks, though Seeland observed about Maral- 
 bashi, without being able to account for it, a greater 
 number of countenances of Aryan type. 
 
 Forsyth, who met several of the Dolans at Yarkand, 
 calls them an outcast Tatar tribe, whose dwellings 
 were described to him as oblong pits dug in the 
 ground, and roofed with a thatch of reeds supported 
 on poplar beams — miserable hovels, in which the family 
 consorts with its live-stock. This recalls exactly what 
 I saw of the Tatars of the Crimea or Caucasus in 
 1880. Biddulph reports the Uolans to be descended 
 from prisoners brought from Trans-Oxiana in the 
 eleventh century by Haroun Bugra Khan, and forcibly 
 settled between Maralbashi and Kuchar. 
 
 Again, Forsyth speaks of Dolan settlements along 
 the river of Yarkand, where their principal wealth con- 
 sists of asses, though they have also small herds of 
 oxen and llocks of sheep. They have no agriculture, 
 but carry to the market at Yarkand fuel, potash, coarse 
 desert salt, butter, curd cheese called suzma, skins of 
 foxes and birds, and coarse rope made from the fibre 
 of the poplar. Another product of the poplar which 
 they bring is called toghrago — a fungous decay from 
 the trunk, sold for ferment in baking. They carry 
 back in exchange cotton cloth, flour, bread, biscuits, 
 boots and shoes, caps, etc. 
 
 the four places indicated on Walker's map none appear to tally with 
 those of Goes. The fourth travi?ller referred to is Major Cumberland.
 
 AH 
 
 CHIXESE CEXTRAL ASIA. 
 
 The Dolans are poor and illiterate, nominally 
 Muhammadans, and without conjugal fidelity.* Physi- 
 cally, they are said to be of inferior race, and their 
 mental capacity is of the meanest. They are short, 
 small of limb, with retreating forehead, and repulsive 
 Tatar features, resembling, Forsyth says, the Tibetans. 
 They talk a dialect of Turki, but among themselves 
 use a language nobody else understands. They are 
 timid, simple, despised, shunning and being shunned 
 by their neighbours. 
 
 On the third day I was impatient to start, and gave 
 my men the first call at an hour after midnight, rose 
 myself at two, breakfasted at three, but even then 
 did not get off till nearly four. At first the 30-foot 
 road traversed the well watered oasis, which is said, 
 however, to be poor rather than fertile. Here and 
 there are farmsteads, and then we came to a district of 
 low bushes of tamarisk, sometimes so profusely tipped 
 with crimson as to remind one of lilacs in bud. 
 
 About five miles from JNIaralbashi we crossed the 
 Kashgar river, a sluggish stream here 50 feet wide, 
 and its bed from six to eight feet below the general 
 surface of the land. Beyond, the track ran over an 
 uncultivated country, and, at ten miles, entered a wood 
 of tograk, with trees 25 feet high, and 18 inches in 
 diameter. In this wood, durinof the summer, horse- 
 flies abound. With me it was the first of September, 
 and sufficiently cool to make a shawl acceptable when 
 lying in the arba. 
 
 * The custom obtains among them, according to Forsyth, that is also 
 reported by Bell to exist among the Mongols, and which Marco Polo 
 recorded of the people of Hami and Caindu, whereby the master of the 
 house, on receiving a traveller, places his wife at the disposal of his 
 guest, and himself retires to a neighbouring hovel until the guest's 
 departure.
 
 FROM MARA LB A SHI TO KASHGAR. 425 
 
 Mindful of the date, I was keenly on the look-out 
 for "birds." The clay soil, easily pulverised, and 
 abundance of chi grass, seemed to afford good cover, 
 but I do not remember flushing any partridges in the 
 northern part of the country. Two pheasants crossed 
 our path, but not within gun-shot. At a bend of the 
 river, many feet below, I saw a goose or swan, of a 
 kind not familiar to me, but I did not fire because of 
 the apparent impossibility of retrieving the quarry. I 
 knocked over, however, my first hare, one of the few 
 mammals I shot. 
 
 Four hours' ride brought us to Shugeh, a distance 
 of 70 li — "very tired," says my journal ; whereupon I 
 got into the arba and drove 60 li along a heavy road, 
 often deep with dust, to Kara-Kuchan (or Kara- 
 Kilchin-Robat), where we arrived at three. The 
 baggage had come about an hour earlier, but minus 
 a large piece of felt, which Osman Bai had left at 
 Maralbashi — the only time, I think, he was forgetful — 
 and for which the officer at the station kindly sent 
 back a message, and it was recovered. 
 
 At Kara-Kuchan we spent Sunday, and I indulged 
 in an extra hour or two of bed, with such success that, 
 on rising, I reported myself in the enjoyment, so 
 far as I could tell, of perfect health. That these 
 Sunday stoppages were alike good for man and beast 
 I have not a doubt, though Saturday night some- 
 times landed us in queer places wherein to spend 
 the day of rest. 
 
 Monday morning brought a continuation of the rain 
 that had been falling during the night, so that I did 
 not hurry the men away ; whilst for my own part I 
 delayed for nearly an hour more, and then tried the 
 experiment of a trot to Urdaklik (or Urdalick) in
 
 420 CHIXESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 three and a half hours, instead of walking with the 
 caravan, which took six. 
 
 By way of a change, the road was very muddy 
 instead of dusty, and lay through forest with little 
 undergrowth ; but I saw no birds worth shooting. 
 Colonel Bell seems to have been so persecuted here 
 by horse-flies as to speak of this tract of country as 
 worse than the passage of the Gobi ; but I was six 
 weeks later, and had no such cause of complaint. 
 
 My experiment of a quicker pace so far succeeded 
 that I was less tired than sometimes after proceeding 
 at walking pace ; and my early arrival gave me the 
 opportunity for taking photographs of the station, 
 which was typical of the travellers' resting-places 
 hereabouts. Approached from the road, it was a large 
 walled inclosure, about lOO by 150 yards, which could 
 be made to serve as a fortress ; and on entering the 
 gate, the first yard was surrounded, or partly so, by 
 rooms, each with doorway and tiny window, suitable 
 for the lodgment of soldiers on the march, or the 
 serving-men of caravans ; whilst in the inner yard 
 were rooms for officers or travelling mandarins, with 
 paper windows, a kang, a fireplace, and sometimes a 
 table and chair, but nothing more. 
 
 We left Urdaklik next morning at seven, and I was 
 proceeding alone over what looked like a little expanse 
 of dried sand, when my horse unexpectedly sank in a 
 quagmire, first to his knees and then to his girths. The 
 farther forward he plunged, the worse it became, till he 
 came to a standstill sufficiently on his side to imprison 
 my left foot. Happily the soil was soft, and on getting 
 off I was able, with the help of the men who had come 
 up, to extricate myself without injury. 
 
 After this, at a distance of 40 //, we came to a
 
 FROM AIARALBASHI TO KASHGAR. 427 
 
 picket station, Yassa Bulak, or " Wusu Block." About 
 a quarter of a mile before reaching it, the Kashgar 
 river, here about 40 yards wide, is again crossed, this 
 time by a bridge of three spans, 45 paces long, the 
 banks being revetted with timber for some distance up 
 and down the stream. 
 
 Here we stayed for rest and refreshment. On the 
 previous night they had told me that wild-boars were 
 making a raid into the neighbouring melon gardens ; 
 but the prospect was not alluring enough to draw me 
 out of bed either for shooting or pig-sticking. It was in 
 this neighbourhood, I presume,. that Biddulph stopped 
 at a place he calls Toga Sulookh for a day's shooting, 
 but secured only a specimen of the djeran [Aiiiilopa 
 gtUturosa), nearly resembling the Indian gazelle, 
 except that the horns are rather larger and curved 
 outward, the tips being turned sharply inwards, and 
 making a very handsome head. 
 
 At Yassa Bulak I saw many water-birds in a lake, 
 some of them tall waders, like cranes or herons. 
 These I could not approach, but I managed to bring 
 down a snipe. Then I turned into the arba for about 
 a third of the way, and after 80 // more we arrived at 
 Lungur, forest and sand being plentiful all day, with 
 low brushwood, thorny bramble, and camel-thorn, but 
 no grass ; so that at Lungur again we had to pay for 
 fodder seven times, and corn double, the Aksu prices. 
 Joseph, too, having been instructed that the female 
 of a cock was a hen, came to inform me that he had 
 bought a " hen " sheep for 20 tengas, or say 4^.. 
 
 The next day's march brought us practically to the 
 end of the desert, through which we had been travelling 
 for many days. The rutty road, over dry alluvial soil, 
 covered sometimes with a thin, hard crust of soda.
 
 428 CHIX/iSE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 crackling under foot at every step, and in which horses 
 sank to their fetlocks, was once more alternated with 
 a sandy track, amidst tamarisk bushes and hillocks. 
 Several podoces allured me to a chase that was twice 
 successful ; and then we came, after 70 /?", to Yangi- 
 awat, or Yengi-abad, a village of 30 houses, where 
 cultivation recommenced. 
 
 Here we stayed for refreshment, in a small shaded 
 inclosure by the roadside — I think belonging to a 
 mosque. Then I turned into the arba to proceed over 
 an easy road, from 30 to 40 feet wide, with good 
 bridges and well shaded by trees, through a well- 
 watered oasis, dotted over with farmsteads, where 
 maize grows luxuriantly, and wheat had been harvested 
 in July. Thus we continued for 50 li more, and ten 
 hours from the time of starting arrived at Faizabad. 
 
 Forsyth calls " Yangabad " and " Fyzabad " places 
 of 600 houses each. Bell speaks of a few only in the 
 village of Faizabad, but of 450 houses scattered about, 
 and each accommodating two or three families. I did 
 not feel so fatigued as yesterday, and was hardly 
 settled in my room before a high military officer. 
 General Li, called upon me, presenting fuel and fodder. 
 
 He was commander, I presume, of the garrison, 
 evidently disposed to be chatty, and invited me to stay 
 over the morrow to dinner, which I declined. He 
 seemed to want all the information concerning me he 
 could get, and not understanding very well, I suppose, 
 the Chinese of my interpreter, sent for Amin, of whom 
 he asked who I was, what amount of attentions I had 
 received from previous mandarins, who had feasted 
 me, and so on. 
 
 In the morning he sent messengers urging me to 
 stay, in answer to which I returned him a present.
 
 FRO]\I MARA LB A SHI TO KA SUGAR. 429 
 
 but again declined. Thereupon he came in person, 
 assuring me that there was no lack of oxen and 
 fatlings, that he had plenty of everything, and was 
 ready to kill ducks, fowls, and sheep, and give me 
 a right good dinner. But I had been counting the 
 days when I should end my weary march to Kashgar, 
 and to be delayed four-and-twenty hours for the 
 delights of a Chinese dinner was not to my mind. 
 
 He then asked, as a parting favour, a portrait of 
 Queen Victoria, which I happened to possess among 
 my baggage, though not at hand, I promised, there- 
 fore, to send it back to him from Kashgar — and was 
 not allowed to forget my promise — by one of the two 
 soldiers he had given me in place of the two men 
 returning to Maralbashi. 
 
 These latter, I had heard, each received 200 cash for 
 the double journey ; but Joseph had standing orders 
 to see that commissariat affairs went smoothly, and on 
 parting I gave the men presents. Of the two soldiers 
 furnished me by General Li, I despatched one of them 
 in advance to announce my coming (on the next day 
 but one, as I hoped) to M, Petrovsky at Kashgar. 
 
 Meanwhile much rain had fallen in the night, and 
 came through my roof, and the roads in the morning 
 were muddy to a degree that beggars description, so 
 that we did not hurry off, and I was successful in 
 taking an excellent photograph of the Bazaar Mosque 
 of Faizabad. With its two minarets and pishtak it 
 was the finest building we had seen thus far in the 
 country, excepting perhaps at Aksu, 
 
 In the bazaar were exposed, besides melons, abund- 
 ance of fodder, and cotton cloth, called mata, which 
 here costs 8^., \s., and \s. 6d. the piece of six yards ; 
 whilst raw cotton sells at about /[d. per lb. I took,
 
 430 
 
 CHIXESE CE.VTRAL AS/yl. 
 
 also, a view of the Chinese barracks, where is a 
 garrison of 120 Dungan cavalry, and then left Faiza- 
 bad about nine o'clock. 
 
 We had now entered the district of Kashgar, which 
 stretches north to the Ush-Turfan valley, north-west 
 and west to the Russian frontier, and south to Yap- 
 chan, whilst the border on the east is desert. Within 
 these limits the population was estimated by Forsyth 
 at 16,000 houses. Of these 5,000 were attached to 
 the city and suburbs, 2,000 to Artosh, and the re- 
 mainder distributed among a dozen principal market 
 towns, with from 200 to 800 houses each, besides 
 several agricultural settlements. 
 
 Our road from. Faizabad lay for the most part 
 through fields and gardens with abundance of Indian 
 corn, good grazing land, and plenty of d/iud grass ; but 
 not many trees were to be seen. We rode through 
 several hamlets, coming first to a rest-house at Shafdul, 
 and then pushing forward to Kazangul, 50 /i from 
 Faizabad, where I rested till the arda came up, and 
 then, crossing a rapid stream at 16 miles from 
 Faizabad, drove 50 /i farther through Gam-i-sang 
 (with good grapes) to a picket called Yaman Yar. 
 Here we stayed for the night, fuel being reported 
 dearer than ever, and rising to six tcjigas per 100 Jing, 
 or, say, \s. 3^. per cwt. 
 
 It was a relief next morning to feel that we were 
 starting on our last stage to Kashgar, for which we set 
 out at half-past four, and at 30 // we came to a rest- 
 house, Yondama, where was a small village, and beyond 
 that a saline soil with little cultivation, a thick crust of 
 saltpetre covering the stagnant pools. Thirty li farther 
 on brought us to another hamlet, called Bahrin, and 
 ten // more to the Yengi-shahr, approaching which
 
 FROM MARALBASTTI TO KA SUGAR. 431 
 
 cultivation improves. On the north of the city is an 
 extensive swamp. 
 
 The Yengi-shahr of Kashgar is the chief fortress of 
 Chinese Turkistan, and was built in 1 838. It measures 
 from 700 to 800 yards square, the eastern side being 
 slightly curved. Outside, on the north and east, there 
 is cover for an attacking party ; to the west and south 
 the ground is clear,* 
 
 Within the ramparts the city is divided into defen- 
 sible quarters, and here resides the General commanding 
 the military district, extending as far as Khotan. 
 Here, too, are the artillery depot, powder magazines, 
 armourers' shop, and both military and civil yameiis. 
 There are within the town one Chi Tai mandarin and 
 one Chew, its population consisting of about 200 
 Dungan, 300 Chinese, and a few Turki families. It 
 is garrisoned by 250 cavalry and 800 infantry from 
 Hunan, with 125 Turki cavalry. 
 
 As we approached the Yengi-shahr — impregnable, 
 I presume, to an Asiatic foe — my men were for pro- 
 ceeding at once, without entering the fort, down the 
 broad and excellent 40-foot highway leading to the 
 Turkish town ; but I bade them conduct me at all 
 events, whatever became of the baggage, right through 
 the new city, as its name implies ; and thus I got a 
 peep at the Chinese, who stared hard at the stranger, 
 and were, I thought, a little disposed to be rude. 
 
 * The clay walls are 25 feet high, with a seven-foot crenelated 
 musketry parapet two feet thick. On the east and north are flanking 
 projections of about 50 by 40 yards ; and some small towers in the pro- 
 jections and angles give additional flanking defence. There is also a 
 covered way from 30 to 50 feet wide, fronted by a musketry parapet, and 
 a ditch 40 feet wide and 15 deep, with a partial cunette. There are 
 double gateways on the north, east, and south, entering at right angles, 
 the outer being 50 and the inner 100 feet through. Ramps at the gates 
 lead to the top of the ramparts, which are about 50 feet wide.
 
 432 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 Here were more Chinese shops built in the style of 
 the Flowery Land, and merchandise of higher preten- 
 sions than any we afterwards saw in the old town, 
 though we did not linger, but, having passed out of the 
 gate opposite to that by which we entered, rode along 
 a parade ground and rejoined the main road. 
 
 From our last sleeping-place to Yengi-shahr I had 
 driven in the arba, and there now remained for us but 
 a ride of five miles northwards, with the Turkish town 
 lying well in sight amidst an oasis of verdure. The 
 road too, by comparison with the way we had come, 
 was full of life and animation, merchants and humbler 
 folk wending their way to or from the old city, as also 
 Chinese officers, with outriders and attendants, helping 
 to make up a lively concourse. 
 
 We saw snipe in the marshes adjoining the rapid 
 river, which we crossed by a wooden bridge lOO feet 
 long, in four spans. As we continued between walls 
 and mud buildings, we presently met an Aksakal from 
 the Russian Consulate. From him we learned that, 
 expecting us to come by another road, an escort of a 
 dozen horsemen had gone out to meet our caravan. 
 
 We were also told that there had been an amiable 
 altercation between the Consul and the Chinese 
 authorities as to who should be my host ; the Consul 
 claiming it on the ground of personal acquaintance, 
 and the Chinese on the ground that I was in their 
 country. The latter were allowed to prevail, and I 
 was accordingly taken to a house in the town to be 
 the guest of the Chinese Tautai, or General in 
 command.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 OUR STAY AT KA SHGAR. 
 
 Ride to Russian Consulate, 433.— Ascent of city wall, 434.— M. Nicolas 
 Petrovsky and his Consular staff, 435. — His hospitality and in- 
 tellectual tastes, 436.^ — Miscarriage of letters ; Visited by local 
 authorities, 437. — Taking photographs, 438. — Trade of Chinese 
 Turkistan and its ramifications, 439. — Calls and presents from the 
 Tautai, 440. — Visit to prison, 441. — Three homicides, and instru- 
 ments of torture, 442. — Uncertainty as to route ; Thoughts of 
 Kafiristan, 444. — Preparations for Karakoram route ; Osman Bai 
 paid off, and three carts engaged ; I.ack of antiquities in 
 Kashgar, 446. — Ruin of Aski Shahr ; Present town of Kashgar ; 
 Visit to shrine of Khoja Aphak, 447. — Rifled grave of Yakub 
 Khan, 449. — The Mausoleum, 450. — The Golden Mosque ; The 
 Consul's photography and Muhammadan prejudice, 451. 
 
 REACHING Kashgar had been for many weeks 
 looked forward to as the attainment of a much- 
 desired goal, not only for the satisfaction of visiting a 
 little-known city, but also because I there expected to 
 find correspondence awaiting me which would help 
 determine my course onwards. I lost no time, there- 
 fore, on the day of our arrival in going to the Russian 
 Consulate. 
 
 Of cabs in Kashgar there are none, nor public 
 vehicles answering to them, though I believe there 
 are something like omnibuses plying between the old 
 and new towns. The Consul's calcche is the only 
 
 VOL. I. 28
 
 434 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 carriage in the city ; and of wheeled traffic of any 
 kind there is but Httle, though occasionally there are 
 seen in the streets rough carts with the clumsiest of 
 wheels made of blocks cut in sections of a circle 
 cobbled together, and groaning and creaking beneath 
 slabs of stone or logs of wood. We had, therefore, 
 to ride, and directed our course across a fruit market 
 near our lodging, and then continued through a street 
 so narrow that two horsemen could not comfortably 
 ride abreast. At the end of this we came to the north 
 gate in the city wall. 
 
 This wall, built of mud, is from 1,200 to 1,400 yards 
 long on one side, and, according to Gordon, three miles 
 round. Small projections at close intervals give flank- 
 ing fire commanding the narrow and shallow ditch. 
 The gate projections (on the north the water gate, and 
 on the south the sand gate) have sides of about 40 by 
 50 yards ; but walls, huts, and ditches outside would 
 give cover to besiegers right up to the town. 
 
 The area of the city, according to Bellew, is given 
 at about 50 acres, and, within, a narrow road is kept 
 clear under the steep inner slope of the wall. The 
 ramps, leading up to the top, are barred by doorways ; 
 but they were opened to enable us to ascend 25 feet 
 to the parapet, where the mass was 20 feet thick. 
 Here were posts of observation, and rooms built on 
 the wall that might serve for stores and sleeping-places 
 for watchmen. 
 
 The view extends from five to ten miles to the north 
 and west to low hills, beyond which, in the latter direc- 
 tion, the fine summits of the Tsung-ling Mountains, 
 already alluded to, form the horizon. The town, 4,060 
 feet above the sea, on a plain of loess about 16 feet 
 thick, and resting on sand, is surrounded by a belt
 
 OUR S'lAY AT KASFIGAR. 435 
 
 of gardens and fields, but within the view of the city 
 is anything but attractive. 
 
 Of the ornaments of an Oriental city, as popularly 
 conceived — marble mosques, stately palaces, and lofty 
 domes — there are none, and the few minarets are of 
 unglazed bricks, devoid of ornament or taste. Instead 
 of sparkling fountains, surrounded by greenery, are 
 visible here and there in a square muddy pools, pro- 
 viding a meeting-place for bathers and water-carriers. 
 Also, in place of cooling colonnades and arabesque- 
 adorned corridors, are seen everywhere the small, 
 crowded, clay-built dwellings of about 40,000 inhabi- 
 tants. 
 
 As in Aksu, the streets, or some of them, are shut 
 off with palisades and closed by night. The courtyards 
 are small, and the houses badly lighted. Window- 
 frames, where they exist, are covered with paper, 
 panes of glass being seen only at the Consulate. 
 Here and there a trader's house may have five or 
 six fair-sized rooms, and the 7ie plus zdtra of Kashgar 
 taste is a verandah with a diamond-patterned clay 
 parapet, whitewashed, or painted in gaudy colours. 
 The view over the town, therefore, did not long 
 detain us, and we descended to the Consulate, at a 
 short distance outside the city walls. 
 
 I had met M. Nicolas Feodorovitch Petrovsky in 
 St Petersburg in 1882, when he was on the eve of 
 departure for Kashgar, to reside as Consul. On 
 arriving, a native mud hut had been adapted to his 
 needs ; but I understood that the Chinese had given, 
 or were to give, a piece of ground whereon a worthy 
 Consulate should be erected for himself and his wife, 
 for Mr Lutch, the dragoman-secretary, and for about 
 40 Cossacks with their two officers and Afcldsc/icr, or
 
 436 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 surgeon's attendant. These, with the exception of a 
 Dutch Roman missionary, M. Hendriks, and a Pole 
 whom he had brought from Russia or Siberia, were 
 the only European residents in Kashgar. 
 
 It was, however, pleasant to get back to Western 
 languages, and a real kindness to receive an open 
 invitation to dine daily at the Consulate ; for, if 
 Madame Petrovsky found it difficult to provide a 
 variety of food from the meanly- stocked bazaars of 
 Kashgar, it may be imagined that my servants found 
 yet greater difficulty in furnishing me with anything 
 but the plainest fare. One redeeming point was the 
 abundance of excellent fruit. Water-melons were in 
 season at id. each ; also figs, grapes, and autumn peaches 
 — the last large, and 25 for \d. These peaches, some- 
 times called " cling-stones," are of reddish yellow, firm, 
 or almost hard, and hence " meat " or " food " peaches, 
 in contradistinction to the juicy peaches of summer. 
 
 The Consul's library showed him to be a man of 
 intellectual tastes. His books were numerous and 
 well selected, with a good sprinkling of English 
 authors. He had also collected some valuable Turki 
 manuscripts, and had brought with him a set of 
 Negretti and Zambra's meteorological instruments 
 wherewith to establish an observatory. The varia- 
 tions of the barometer, thermometer, etc., were re- 
 corded by the Pole just alluded to several times a day. 
 M. Petrovsky delighted in other scientific instruments 
 also, and was not a little pleased occasionally to excite 
 the amazement of his Turki visitors by showing them 
 electrical tricks, whereby it would not be strange if he 
 gained the reputation of being a sorcerer. 
 
 The view from the library included the Kizil-su, 
 which runs in two branches north and south of the city
 
 OUR STAY AT KASHGAR. 437 
 
 to unite at a short distance below. The river bed 
 was wide, but in September the stream looked almost 
 dry. Near at hand, in the garden, was erected a 
 Kirghese tent to serve as a summer-house or reading 
 pavilion ; and adjoining the offices was a Russian bath- 
 house, a building I was not a little thankful to use ; 
 whilst near at hand were added to the ordinary occu- 
 pants of a local poultry-yard several turkeys, which M. 
 Petrovsky had imported, and was rearing with success. 
 
 To my surprise I learned that the Consul had no 
 letters for me. A packet from India had reached him 
 some weeks before, which he had forwarded to the 
 Chinese Governor- General at Urumtsi, where, in 
 accordance with my first communications, I was ex- 
 pected to go. Of this I heard at Aksu, and not many 
 days before our arrival at Kashgar the Tautai had 
 sent off another packet for me, as I have said, think- 
 ing to meet me at Ush-Turfan. My packets of money, 
 however, had arrived safely from Vierny, and mes- 
 sengers had been despatched to recover the letters ; 
 but I, meanwhile, had to plan as best I could. 
 
 The morrow was a day of calls. Before I was up, 
 Lew, Chief of the town, sent his card, with a sack of 
 rice and a sack of maize, and inquiries for my health. 
 There came also a card from Kwang, Chief of the 
 Kashgar district. In reply I sent cards and presents 
 in the afternoon, at which time appeared the brother 
 of our friend Mattie at Suiting, sent by the Tautai 
 with his card, two sheep, and a bag of rice. Thus the 
 Chinese were mindful that we should not starve, and I 
 think there were added, besides, chickens and other 
 provisions. 
 
 The Russian Consul also paid me a formal call, 
 expecting to find me in a larger house, surrounded by
 
 438 CinXESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 a garden, perhaps in the suburbs, such as the authorities 
 had intimated they should place at my disposal ; but, for 
 my own part, I much preferred to be amidst the life of 
 the town, even though in less comfortable quarters. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and I was thankful to 
 rest ; but there was no public service to attend. The 
 Consul and his Cossacks had no Russian priest, M. 
 Hendriks and his Polish acolyte had no congrega- 
 tion, and Joseph and I were left to provide our own 
 spiritual exercises. 
 
 On Monday it was arranged that I should visit the 
 Tautai, and my card was sent early ; but his Excellency 
 had gone on the previous day to the new city, and, as 
 it had rained in the evening, had not returned, it not 
 being the fashion to go out in wet weather. I, there- 
 fore, took photographs of the bazaar, and saw something 
 of the town — though, sooth to say, it was hard to find 
 buildings worth portraying. 
 
 A view was secured of the Festival Mosque, which, 
 in common with other religious buildings, had the 
 merit of being built of burnt brick, with a somewhat 
 lofty gateway ; but the whole looked mean and poor. 
 Inside, however, there was a rather fine avenue of 
 poplars, with a broad, well-kept path, and streams on 
 either side, where the mullahs could delight themselves 
 in a cool and shady retreat. Another picture taken 
 was the Pishigeh caravanserai, which, after the rain, 
 presented a street full of ponds and puddles, every- 
 thing looking extremely dirty. 
 
 One could see from the streets some of the principal 
 industries of the people. Here in a shop, open to the 
 dust of the road and the winds of heaven, are exposed 
 pieces of viata. There, in another building, sits a 
 workman before a frame on which he is making
 
 OUR STAY AT KA SUGAR. 4^59 
 
 a carpet. A little farther on is a forge with bellows 
 roaring and sparks flying, and near it a cook-shop 
 with steaming mutton puddings just taken out of the 
 saucepan, and getting nicely seasoned with the dust of 
 the street, whilst on a counter, black and grimy with 
 dirt, is a medley of vegetables, grapes, melons, pieces 
 of meat, wares of sundry kinds, hats, and stuffs. In 
 shops devoted to the last are exhibited pieces of 
 English make, but more of Russian, of common quality, 
 chintzes, handkerchiefs, mirrors, etc. 
 
 Besides the shopkeepers there are niany pedlars 
 bawling out the excellence of their wares, chiefly 
 eatables ; also men with baskets on their heads filled 
 with horse-dung — the principal fuel of the poor. In 
 the bazaar flour costs a halfpenny per lb., and 100 oz. 
 of opium cost 21 oz. of silver. Ice is both plentiful 
 and cheap. 
 
 Concerning the trade of Chinese Turkistan generally, 
 I learned from a Russian source that merchandise 
 passes by all four of the routes leaving the country to 
 north, south, and west, the two principal commercial 
 points being Kashgar and Yarkand. Between Osh 
 and Kashgar are employed for transport 4,000 horses 
 a year; between Narin and Kashgar 1,000 horses, 
 500 camels, and 25 asses; the exports to Semirechia 
 and Ferghana being valued at ^150,000. and the im- 
 ports at ^100,000 a year. 
 
 This trade was said to be increasing daily, owing 
 to the Russians paying no import duty, and, further, 
 because the residence of a Russian Consul gives the 
 traders a feeling of security, so that they are gradually 
 getting the trade into Russian hands.* 
 
 * The chief articles of export are inafa and carpets ; but there are 
 no large capitalists, and many of the merchants trade on borrowed
 
 440 CHINESE CENTRAL A ST A. 
 
 By the next morning the Tautai had returned, and 
 I made my way to his ya7nen, with my camera ready. 
 Our party was shown into his private apartments, 
 where, after the usual formalities, and acceding to 
 the few things I asked, the General was amiable 
 enough to pose at the door of his room, whilst I 
 arranged in two rows his 25 retainers, some in 
 Chinese costume with black felt hats, but others, 
 apparently Dungans, with handkerchiefs tied about 
 their heads. After thus depicting the private apart- 
 ments, I was allowed to photograph the court-house, 
 or tribunal of justice, built of timber beams, having 
 also a table and certain emblems of authority, such 
 as are seen in Chinese public offices, as well as 
 several lanterns. 
 
 In the afternoon the Tautai returned my call, and 
 that with so much pomp and circumstance as to excite 
 the whole neighbourhood. He was borne in a huge 
 palanquin on the shoulders of perhaps a dozen men, 
 preceded and followed by a numerous suite. In front 
 was a man with a gong, thrumming and shouting to 
 all and sundry to get out of the way, for that the 
 Tatttai was coming. 
 
 capital, for which they pay the lender one-third of the profits. Trade 
 is carried on chiefly by credit and by barter, such currency as there is 
 for large amounts being gold fillahs and ^\\.v&x yaJ7ibs . 
 
 The trade with Badakshan is small, and not very long begun, and 
 little is done on the way with Shignan or Wakhan. The Badakshanis 
 bring to Yarkand horses, sheep, pistachio nuts, drugs, turquoise, and 
 an inferior quality of precious stones, for which they take back nasha, 
 or hemp, gold, and carpets, but not often cotton stuffs. Again, from 
 India, via Ladak, are brought a variety of cotton goods, coloured 
 muslins, calico, scarves, and cloth, among which are noticeable those 
 of Macdonald of Manchester and Graham of Bombay. To these must 
 be added red leather, drugs, watches, jewellery, knives, and Muham- 
 madan books ; but the sale of Indian tea is forbidden throughout 
 Chinese Turkistan. In returning, the traders take with them silk, 
 nasha, gold, silver, wool, carpets, and felts.
 
 (
 
 • 
 
 "m- ,4- 
 
 
 -*lt^fei _^ 
 
 ^
 
 OUR ST A V A T KASHGAR. 441 
 
 If any failed to give heed, there were two lictors 
 with whips thick enough to chastise an elephant ; 
 whilst next walked two or more executioners with 
 cudgels the length of a broomstick, and, as I have 
 previously described, spatulated at one end, and 
 ready to administer a beating at a moment's notice 
 — a tempting subject for an artist, though I am 
 bound to say I did not, on the present occasion, 
 see either instrument used. 
 
 On entering my humble lodging, the great man and 
 his suite filled it to overflowing. The meeting, how- 
 ever, was short, and he was borne away again with the 
 same ceremony as in coming, leaving or sending me 
 as a present four chickens and four ducks. I gave in 
 return presents of a binocular, oleographs, copies of the 
 Scriptures, a watch-chain and compass, my portrait, 
 a plume for his horse's martingale, and a pair of 
 brass rosettes. 
 
 I had asked to see the prison, and, next day, went 
 to do so, being taken first to call on the Chief of the 
 Kashgar district. Here, in a garden kiosque, I was 
 regaled with light refreshment by a very intelligent 
 Chinaman, who seemed to have met with Europeans 
 in China proper. As regards foreign information, he 
 was head and shoulders above the other officials. He 
 and a young man v\^ent with us to the prison. They 
 both seemed to have some knowledge of photography, 
 and even pointed out to me, when the picture was 
 focussed, that one of the lines was out of the per- 
 pendicular. 
 
 Whether the whole of the prison was shown to me 
 or not I am uncertain. They were some little time 
 before they announced that all was ready, and when 
 we did arrive the place bore signs of being brushed
 
 442 
 
 CHIXESE CENTRAL AS/A. 
 
 up to its maximum presentability. One part of the 
 building was remarkable, and consisted of a double 
 row of cages of wooden bars perhaps six inches in 
 diameter, suggestive of a menagerie. 
 
 Here were three prisoners in a costume that was 
 new to me — namely, Chinese blouses of scarlet cotton 
 cloth. Their ankles were chained together below their 
 trousers, whilst round the neck was an iron band con- 
 tinued down to the waist, and having at the bottom 
 two loops, through which the wrists were secured. 
 Hence it was not only next to impossible to run away, 
 but the hands could not be brought to the mouth. 
 
 These men were undergoing four years' imprisonment 
 for manslaughter — the reason, I was told, they were 
 dressed in red. One had served three years, the 
 others two each. In every case the hair and beard 
 were uncut, and their uncombed locks, hanging from 
 beneath sheepskin hats, and in a country where most 
 persons have shaven heads, added much to their 
 miserable appearance. 
 
 I asked that the three might be brought out and 
 photographed, first in front of their cages, and then 
 in a little yard close by with their jailor, and two Hctors, 
 one armed with a whip and the other with his long 
 cudgel, and both wearing tall sugar-loaf felt hats, 
 adorned in front with a perpendicular tin ornament, 
 and wearing on their breasts square or circular badges 
 of office of white calico inscribed with Chinese cha- 
 racters. 
 
 The authorities on this occasion were so amiable 
 that it struck me as a favourable opportunity to ask 
 for some of the prison instruments, offering to pay 
 for new ones as a substitute. Orders, therefore, were 
 given for making a murderer's suit and a lictor's hat.
 
 OUR STAY AT KASHGAR. - 443 
 
 which, needless to say, I preferred to have new; but 
 for instruments I took from the prison collection 
 some small scourges and a policeman's whip for patrol- 
 ling the streets. 
 
 They gave me also one of the iron abominations for 
 confining the neck and wrists ; a leather slapper, about 
 as big as the palm, for slapping naughty women's faces, 
 and a wooden stick for beating them elsewhere ; together 
 with what might be called a Chinese thumb-screw, or 
 rather finger torture, consisting of sticks to be placed 
 between the fingers and then tightened by means of 
 cords.* 
 
 How far these Chinese tortures are generally prac- 
 tised upon the Turkis I do not know, but in the case 
 of the three manslayers I felt perfectly convinced they 
 were dressed for my special benefit. They were said 
 to have been in prison for at least two years, whereas 
 their red clothing looked as if it had not come out 
 of the tailor's hands two hours ago. 
 
 When, moreover, I asked to see the other prisoners, 
 and was expected to believe that these three men were 
 all the felons under arrest in Kashgar, my powers of 
 
 * Torture is practised, according to Williams, in China, upon both 
 prisoners and witnesses, in prison and also in court. Among- the 
 methods employed in court, and reported in the Gazette, three are 
 described as legal — namely, boards with grooves for compressing 
 the ankles, round sticks for squeezing the fingers, and the bamboo. 
 Twisting the ears with roughened fingers, and keeping them bent 
 whilst making the prisoner kneel on chains, is illegal ; but when the 
 prisoner is contumacious, thej^ sometimes resort to striking the lips 
 with sticks till they are nearly jellied, wrap the fingers in oiled cloth 
 and burn it, suspend the body by the thumbs and fingers, tie the hands 
 to a bar under the knees so as to bend the body double, and chain the 
 prisoner by the neck to a stone. One magistrate is accused of having 
 fastened two criminals to boards by nails driven through their palms, 
 using beds of iron, boiling water, and red-hot spikes [a catalogue, in 
 fact, as bad as the Papal Inquisition], but the Emperor exonerated the 
 magistrate on account of the atrocious character of the criminals.
 
 444 
 
 CHINESE C EXTRA L ASIA. 
 
 belief broke down entirely, and I came to the conclu- 
 sion that the prison had indeed been prepared for my 
 visit. I left in it some Turki and Persian Scriptures 
 for future prisoners, and, after the fashion of the country, 
 gave a little money to the unfortunates, and then made 
 my way to the Consulate for dinner. 
 
 I have already intimated my uncertainty as to the 
 route by which to leave Chinese Turkistan. Con- 
 cerning the approaches to Tibet from Khotan I could 
 learn no more in Kashgar than in England, and reading 
 Dr Bellew's Kashmir and Kashgar and the horrors of 
 the Karakoram route did not make me anxious to pass 
 by that way into India. 
 
 Mr Wilkins, as already mentioned, had suggested 
 my ascending the Gez defile, crossing the Pamirs and 
 the Baroghil Pass to Chitral, and so into Kafiristan. 
 This, physically, would have been much easier, I 
 presume, than by the Karakoram ; besides which I 
 had been in correspondence with a medical missionary 
 in Kashmir, who had expressed his readiness to meet 
 me at Yarkand. He further proposed that we should 
 cross the Pamirs to Wakhan, and enter Kafiristan, 
 whence I happened to know that the people had sent 
 to Peshawur asking that a missionary should come to 
 them. If, therefore, the way opened in this direction, 
 I thought, as I approached Kashgar, it would be my 
 duty to enter. 
 
 My friend's "committee" in London had not seen 
 their way to grant my request that he might meet me at 
 Yarkand, but I had a lingering hope that in the interval 
 he might have obtained permission ; and, failing that, 
 I wondered whether it would be of any use to take 
 my boxes of medicine, endeavour to make my way to 
 Kafiristan, and on the plea that I understood they had
 
 OUR STAY AT KASHGAR. 445 
 
 sent for a missionary, and had offered to provide him 
 a house, ask to be allowed to see it, and invite further 
 negotiations. 
 
 I had accordingly asked M, Petrovsky to inquire 
 into the possibilities of my reaching Kafiristan ; but he 
 completely overturned my air-castles by explaining, 
 more fully than I previously knew, the relative posi- 
 tions and relations of Chitral and Kafiristan ; and he 
 said that to enter the latter district would probably 
 mean death. 
 
 Perplexed, I anxiously but vainly awaited letters 
 that might come from any of four directions.* Sub- 
 sequently it appeared that my correspondence travelled 
 by each of these four routes, and eventually I received 
 the whole of it, so far as I know, except one bundle 
 of letters in an envelope, which, after travelling to 
 Kashgar, and back again safely to England, was 
 irrecoverably lost in the post between London and 
 Sevenoaks. 
 
 My way, therefore, seemed shut up to the Karakoram, 
 failing the receipt of a telegram which I anticipated 
 might recall me westwards by the Terek Pass ; and 
 this M. Petrovsky seemed rather to wish that I might 
 try, no Englishman up to that time having crossed it. 
 He spoke also of the desirability of my visiting 
 Khotan, in connection with which the principal diffi- 
 
 * On the 2nd of the month, it seemed, a djiguitt was despatched 
 from Osh, who usually reached Kashgar on the 9th ; and on the 15th 
 of the month Cossacks set out with money and letters from Narin, 
 and arrived by the 24th. These were the only regular postal com- 
 munications ; but the British authorities at Leh were able occasionally 
 to send letters by chance traders passing through Ladak ; whilst, lastly, 
 the authorities in China proper despatched messengers to " the Western 
 Country " as necessity required, who also, by favour, sometimes carried 
 letters to private individuals, their quickest delivery between Peking and 
 Kashgar being two months.
 
 446 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 culty seemed the getting there and back again in time 
 to cross the passes before the fall of the winter snows. 
 
 I therefore began to make preparations. On paying 
 off Osman Bai, he expressed his willingness to go to 
 Khotan and to India, if I desired ; but for this he 
 asked a prohibitive price, and evidently did not want 
 to go even to Yarkand. At the same time, he was 
 quite effusive in his compliments, asking for a compass 
 as a parting gift, with the observation that the money 
 I paid him would speedily be scattered, but the com- 
 pass he should wear, and thus at the hour of prayer be 
 reminded of me ever hereafter. He thought, too, it 
 was such an admirable thing for an English gentleman 
 to travel and spend money in the country, and he 
 hoped that I should come again. 
 
 Obliged, therefore, to look for a new carrier, I was 
 glad of the assistance of a Turki official, Ibrahim Beg, 
 who found me a man possessing three arbas, in which 
 my baggage was to be transported to Yarkand ; but 
 before leaving we were to go out to the locally famous 
 shrine of Hazrat Aphak. 
 
 The lack of antiquities in a place that has existed 
 for so many centuries as Kashgar is surprising. From 
 pre-historic times downwards, it appears to have been 
 the capital of the territory and a centre of trade. So 
 early as 94 a.d. we read of its being conquered by the 
 Chinese general Panchao. In the seventh century it 
 was visited by Hiuen Tsiang, who calls it Kie-sha ; 
 and in the eighth century it was conquered again by 
 the Muhammadan warrior Kutaiba. Abulfelda quotes 
 authors with respect to Kashgar of the tenth and 
 twelfth centuries ; and then comes Marco Polo, in 
 whose day it was the seat of a Nestorian bishopric ; 
 but of the " Cascar " visited by him all that now
 
 OUR STAY AT KASHGAR. 447 
 
 remains is the ruin called Aski Shahr, " the old city," 
 seen a little to the eastwards from the bridge between 
 the present town and fortress.* 
 
 The present town dates from 15 13, and was built as 
 a fortress by 10,000 men in seven days, under Mirza 
 Abakakar, when he destroyed the ancient capital on 
 the approach of an invading army under Sultan Said 
 Khan. Nearly two centuries later the first mullah 
 king of the country, named Khoja Aphak, died, and 
 in 1693 w^s buried about two miles north of the city, 
 beyond the Tuman river. The spot has now become 
 a place of pilgrimage ; and the shrine of Hazrat Aphak 
 represents the most renowned Muhammadan building, 
 with any pretension to antiquity, in Chinese Turkistan. 
 
 When visited by Forsyth, his party were said to be 
 the first Christians allowed to enter its sacred precincts, 
 and I was suf^ciently premonished concerning Muham- 
 madan bigotry to know that if I wished to see it, and, 
 above all, to take photographs, I must be on my best 
 behaviour. 
 
 On our way, beyond the river, we passed a cemetery. 
 Many of the tombs are covered with domes, or 
 vaulted chambers, open towards the east ; and several 
 of these in Forsyth's time were inhabited by ragged 
 and filthy Kalendars, or dervishes, "devoted ascetics 
 and abandoned mendicants," as he calls them, "veri- 
 table dwellers among the tombs, impudent claimants 
 of charity from every passer-by, and equally ready 
 
 * It consists of a few walls about 24 feet high and 12 paces broad at 
 the top, built of hard clay and gravel. At intervals of 50 or 60 paces 
 are tall, round moles, built of layers of clay and rubble. On the west 
 face are four of these moles standing some 30 feet from the walls, and 
 pierced with horizontal lines of holes, at intervals of about 6 feet. These 
 represent, probably, sockets for rafters to a covered way from the 
 outwork to the fort, giving the archers a flank fire upon assailants.
 
 448 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 with curse or blessing, as their loud appeals may 
 require." I imagine their number may have diminished 
 under the Chinese regime, for we were not molested 
 by them ; and all went well up to our arrival, when I 
 asked to see the Sheikh, or chief mullah of the shrine. 
 We were shown into a carpeted room, and seated on 
 the floor. Refreshment was quickly brought, and on the 
 
 DERVISH SHAH ISMAIL, A KALENDAR OF THE APHAK MONASTERY. 
 
 Sheikh's appearing, I began to enlarge upon the long 
 journey 1 had made from distant lands, whither had 
 spread the fame of Hazrat Aphak, and said I hoped to 
 be allowed to see for myself what had otherwise been 
 learned by reading. I informed him, further, that I, 
 too, was a mullah, and had brought some of our sacred 
 books ; that I should like to present to the college the
 
 O UR ST A Y AT KA SHGA R. 4^9 
 
 Bibles in Arabic and Persian, and the lugJiil, or New 
 Testament, in Persian and Kirghese. Upon this the 
 Sheikh accepted the books, and preparations were 
 quickly made for showing me the buikHngs. 
 
 The mausoleum is surrounded by a cemetery, a 
 coveted spot for burial, full of clay tombs, inclosed 
 by a wall and shaded by numerous silver poplars 
 called tarik. Walking down the main avenue, we 
 came to a spot of historical interest, where Yakub 
 Khan had been buried. The Chinese, however, on 
 re-entering Kashgar, were not minded that the bones 
 of the usurper should rest in peace. They, therefore, 
 exhumed the body, burnt it, sent the ashes to Peking, 
 and forbade the erection of any monument or descrip- 
 tive sign over the rifled grave. 
 
 This struck me as a good opportunity to begin 
 photographic operations, I said that we had heard 
 of Yakub Khan in England, and asked two of the 
 mullahs to stand and point to the spot where their 
 ruler was buried. Yakub Khan was, of course, in 
 favour with them, since he posed as a good Muham- 
 madan, and it was he, according to Forsyth, who built 
 the college, mosque, and monastery adjoining the 
 mausoleum. 
 
 This view taken, I had only to turn my camera 
 round and say how much I should like to secure a 
 view of the eastern side of the mausoleum, the most 
 beautiful of all buildings in Chinese Turkistan. No 
 objection was made, whereupon I proceeded next to 
 take a picture of a local curiosity on the same side — 
 namely, a brick pedestal, on the top of which was a 
 pyramid of ovis poli, or wild sheep's horns, such as 
 would delight the heart of an English collector, and 
 the like of which I have seen nowhere else. I next 
 
 VOL. I. 29
 
 450 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 was allowed to photograph the northern face of the 
 building, but was given to understand that the door 
 was locked, and that no one was allowed to enter. 
 
 The mausoleum is a rectangular building, with a 
 dome, and on the north side is a pishtak over the 
 
 AT KASHGAR— MULLAHS INDICATINC, THE RIFLED GRAVE OF YAKUB KHAN. 
 
 principal entrance, and round minarets at the two 
 corners. The walls are faced with blue and white 
 glazed tiles, which, as specimens of Kashi work, are 
 in no way remarkable — in fact, are very poor as com- 
 pared with the Kashi work of Samarkand. Forsyth
 
 OUR STAY AT KASBGAR. 451 
 
 saw it, no doubt, at its best, when recently restored 
 by Yakub Khan, and he calls it handsome ; but such 
 an expression is permissible only by comparison with 
 the generally wretched buildings of the country. 
 
 Near the gateway leading to the mausoleum is the 
 so-called Golden Mosque, with wooden doors, and 
 pillars of carved work. I photographed this, and 
 then made my way to dinner, and told M. Petrovsky 
 of my successes. 
 
 " You mean to say that you have taken a dozen 
 pictures of Hazrat Aphak ?" 
 
 '' Yes." 
 
 " Well, that is more than I have had the courage to 
 attempt during the six years I have been here ! " 
 
 But the Consul forgot that when he was photo- 
 graphically inclined, he proceeded to a spot in his 
 calcche with Cossacks before and behind, and that he 
 might consider it beneath his dignity, if forbidden, to 
 allow himself to be deterred by Muhammadan preju- 
 dice from effecting his purpose ; whereas, with me, had 
 they objected, I should have simply packed up my 
 camera and departed, and the wheels of the universe 
 would have rolled on as usual. 
 
 To me the incident seemed to show that one 
 need not always be afraid of the alleged bigotry of 
 the Muhammadans, and to illustrate the saying that 
 "one man may steal the cow whilst another dare not 
 look over the hedge." 
 
 My remaining days in Kashgar were Lirgely devoted 
 to reducing baggage, and packing my specimens for 
 transport homewards.
 
 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 [Vol. I. is to be understood, unless otkerivisc mentioned.) 
 
 DATE B.C. 
 
 2698. 
 
 II22. 
 
 580. 
 
 550- 
 253- 
 200. 
 
 163. 
 140- 
 139- 
 135- 
 126. 
 
 62. 
 
 60. 
 
 59- 
 
 A.D. 
 
 6.S. 
 
 li- 
 
 83- 
 
 94. 
 
 142 
 
 200, 
 
 202 
 
 Inventors of Arts and Sciences arrived in China 
 Singan, capital of Shensi, and, for 2,000 years, of China 
 Supposed flight of Syawush to Afrasiab, near Bokhara 
 
 The founder of Buddhism died 
 
 The Great Wall of China built by Shi-Huangti . 
 
 The Yuechi deprived of their lands by the Uigurs 
 
 The Saka pushed out of the Tarim valley . 
 
 -86. The Yuechi driven from their seats by the Hiongnu 
 
 The Envoy Chang Kian despatched to the Yuechi for help 
 
 Chinese Emperor sent Chang Kian against the Hiongnu 
 
 The Saka driven farther West ..... 
 
 Emperor Ming-ti despatched a mission to Tokharistan 
 
 The Uigurs were conquered by the Chinese 
 
 The Chinese subdued the Hiong'nu .... 
 
 Emperor Ming-ti sent to India for Buddhist information 
 The Chinese took Hami and established military colonies 
 
 250 
 260 
 335 
 399 
 411 
 
 Hiongnu and Uigurs subdued under Panchao . 
 
 Kashgar conquered by Chinese General Panchao 
 and 178. Chinese settlers were colonised in Armenia 
 
 Christianity introduced into Merv 
 , Khotan sent elephants to the Emperor of China 
 
 Chi-Ming translated Buddhist writings from Patna 
 
 Fa-hian reached China ..... 
 , Chinese subjects permitted to take Buddhist vows 
 , Chi Fa-hian procured Buddhist writings from India 
 or 503. The bishopric of Samarkand founded 
 
 358, 
 358, 
 
 357 
 324 
 ii. 48 
 ii. 81 
 ii. 48 
 ii. 48 
 ii. 48 
 358 
 ii. 49 
 
 358 
 ii. 48 
 ii. 81 
 ii. 49 
 
 358 
 
 359 
 
 326 
 
 ii. 49 
 
 ii. 49 
 
 360 
 
 41 
 
 ii. 168 
 
 ii. 82 
 
 ii. 82 
 
 ii. 82 
 
 ii. 83 
 
 ii. 122
 
 CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 453 
 
 BATR A.D. PAGE 
 
 420. The See of Merv was promoted to Metropolitan rank . 41, ii. 122 
 
 445. A Chinese punitive expedition was sent against Tangut . ii. 168 
 
 461. The first record of a Chinese embassy to Persia . . 361 
 
 518. Sung Yun procured MSS. from India .... 31^9, ii. 83 
 
 629. Hiuen Tsiang travelled to India, etc., to study Buddhism ii. 83 
 
 630. The Tibetans learned arithmetic and medicine from China ii. 291 
 635. The Missionary Olopan from Syria arrived in China. 361, ii. 120 
 639. Srong-btsan-sgam-po founded Shaldan, afterwards Lassa ii. 292 
 
 712. Kutaiba conquered Bokhara and penetrated into Fer- 
 
 ghana ii- 50, 20S 
 
 713. General Kutaiba crossed the mountains to Kashgar . . 360 
 713 — 755. Christian Church recovered its ascendency in China, ii. 120 
 
 714. See of Samarkand promoted to Metropolitan rank . . ii. 122 
 745. An edict issued in China concerning Christian temples 361, ii. 120 
 781. Singanfu monument erected by Nestorian Christians. . ii. 120 
 845. Persecution of Christians in China . . . . . ii. 120 
 858 — 1338. Dates on tombstones in Nestorian cemeteries . . ii. 124 
 860. John of Balad ordained by Sergius as Bishop of Merv . ii. 122 
 878. Christians formed a large foreign population at Khanfu . ii. 121 
 888. Ismail, a Samanid, became governor of Samarkand . . ii. 209 
 893. Ismail captured and annexed Taras, or (possibly) Talas . ii. 209 
 
 900. Joseph was Bishop of Merv ii. 122 
 
 907. The Samanid Empire extended from Ispahan to Turfan . ii. 50 
 988. Ebed Jesu was Bishop of Merv . . . . . . ii. 122 
 
 1013. Dharmapala came to Tibet with several Buddhist disciples ii. 293 
 1037. Hasan Bughra Khan succeeded as ruler over Kashgar . ii. 74 
 1041. The second introduction of Buddhism into Tibet . . ii. 288 
 1070. The Kudatku Bilik was written in Kashgar . . . ii. 133 
 1 135. The leader of the Kara Khitai took the title of Gur-Khan ii. 51 
 1 176. Supposed date of inscription on a rock in the Muzart gorge 247 
 1220. TheTarimvalley passed under the rule of Jinghiz Khan 366, ii. 51 
 1241. Jagatai died after succeeding his father, Jinghiz Khan . ii. 52 
 1245. Carpini proceeded by the Irtish valley to Mongolia . . 362 
 1246 — 48. Sakya Pandita visited the Court of Kuyuk Khan . ii. 293 
 
 1253. Rubruquis started by the Syr-daria to Mongolia . . 362 
 
 1254. Hayton of Armenia proceeded from the Volga to Mongolia 362 
 
 1270. The Sakya-pa lamas became Tibetan rulers for 70 years . ii. 293 
 
 1 27 1. Marco Polo crossed the Pamirs from Badakshan . . 362 
 
 1274. Water stations established between Khotan and Yarkand ii. 157 
 
 1275. Marco Polo arrived at Kubilai's Court in China . . 362 
 1316. Monastic life in Central Asia proved by an epitaph . . ii. 129 
 1328. Friar Odoric of Pordenone visited Tibet . . . . ii. 299 
 1336. Pascal, a Franciscan, travelled through Urgcnj (Khiva) . ii. 125 
 1338 — 42. Papal Embassy passed through Old Khiva to Peking 363 
 1339. William of Modena was put to death at Almalik . . 363 
 1342. Marignolli baptised some of the natives at Hami . . 326
 
 454 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 DATE A.D. 
 
 1347 
 1375 
 
 ■383 
 1389 
 
 t399 
 1419 
 
 1447 
 
 '53^ 
 '576 
 
 1602 
 [624 
 [644 
 1645 
 
 t655 
 t66i 
 1678 
 [684 
 [688 
 [693 
 706, 
 1716, 
 
 [717, 
 
 1718, 
 
 [719, 
 1720. 
 1740, 
 
 755' 
 ,756, 
 
 757' 
 758. 
 1760, 
 [771, 
 [772, 
 '774' 
 778. 
 [782. 
 
 783. 
 [786. 
 
 —63. Tuglak Timur on the throne in MongoUa . 
 The Catalan map shows a monastery near Issik-Kul 
 Turfan appears first in Chinese annals . . . . 
 Khizr Khoja reigned and enforced the shariat on Kirghese 
 Tamerlane undertook his last campaign into Moghulistan 
 Aksu is described as having three castles . . . . 
 A new route to Hami followed by Shah Rukh's Embassy . 
 The Tashi Lunpo monastery was founded by Gedundub . 
 The present town of Kashgar was built as a fortress 
 Said, according to the Tarikhi Rashidi, invaded Tibet . 
 The king of Koko-Nor designated Sodnam " Vadjra 
 
 Dalai Lama " 
 
 Travels of Goes through Central Asia . . . . 
 
 Antonio Andrada visited Tibet 
 
 Manchus placed present dynasty on the Chinese throne . 
 The fifth Dalai Lama was made monarch of all Tibet 
 The Russians sent their first Embassy to Peking 
 Grueber and Dorville went from Peking to Agra, via Lassa 
 Aphak placed as governor at Yarkand .... 
 Russia and China first came to blows on the Amur . 
 Limits of Manchuria defined by Treaty of Nertchinsk 
 Khoja Aphak, the first Mullah king of Kashgar, died 
 Joseph d'Asculi, and Maria de Tonn, reached Lassa 
 Renat reconnoitred and drew first map of Sungaria . 
 
 iDesideri left Lassa 
 
 The Sungarian name of Urumtsi appeared in Chinese annal 
 
 The Sungarians invaded Tibet .... 
 
 A map of Tibet was submitted to the Jesuits 
 
 Van de Putte made his way to Lassa through India 
 
 The Jesuits surveyed China generally 
 
 Orazio della Penna reached Lassa through Nepal 
 
 The Chinese army finally conquered Tibet . 
 
 Orazio della Penna once more reached Lassa . 
 
 Amursana was m_ade ruler of Sungaria 
 
 Sungaria was depopulated by the Chinese . 
 
 D'Arocha determined the astronomical position of Urumtsi 
 
 Hami was again placed under the administration of Kansu 
 
 The Tarim valley again in the hands of the Chinese . 
 
 Christian missionaries were expelled from Lassa 
 
 The Torgout Kalmuks returned to the Hi valley 
 
 Deb Judhur invaded Kuch Behar .... 
 
 Warren Hastings sent Bogle to the Rajah of Bhotan 
 
 Tchuen-yuen wrote Memoirs of tJie Western Countries 
 
 The Goorkhas of Nepal appeared before Tashi Lunpo 
 
 Captain Turner was sent through Bhotan to Shigatze 
 
 The Chinese expelled the Goorkhas from Tibet . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 52 
 
 129 
 
 334 
 213 
 
 52 
 340 
 363 
 
 294 
 447 
 
 53 
 
 294 
 364 
 299 
 
 156 
 294 
 368 
 300 
 54 
 369 
 154 
 447 
 300 
 
 300 
 331 
 
 295 
 307 
 301 
 
 300 
 
 295 
 300 
 
 55 
 169 
 
 327 
 
 55 
 
 302 
 
 169 
 
 302 
 
 302 
 
 368 
 
 295 
 303 
 
 307
 
 CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 )ATK A.D. 
 
 1792. To this date the Dalai Lamas were elected by the clergy 
 [811. The Russians began to trade at Chuguchak and Kuldja 
 
 ,, Thomas Manning made his way to Lassa . 
 [813. The Chinese subsidised Khokand to control the Khojas 
 [820. Koros travelled through Bokhara and Cabul to Leh . 
 1828. Humboldt reached Baty on the Irtish .... 
 [834. The Dogra troops under Zorawar Sing subdued Ladak 
 [838. Efforts to Christianise Manchuria were begun . 
 
 ,, Wood pushed up to the Pamirs from Badakshan 
 [840. English missionaries expelled from the Trans-Baikal 
 1841. Zarawar Sing plundered the monasteries of Rudok . 
 [842. The Chinese re-occupied lost territory and besieged Leh 
 
 4. Hue and Gabet made their way to Lassa . 
 
 [845. De la Bruniere was murdered on the Amur b}' the Gilyaks 
 
 6. Seven Khojas under Katti Tura took Kashgar . 
 [851. The treaty of Kuldja made between Russians and Chinese 
 [853. Two Moravian missionaries set out for Mongolia via India 
 [857. Adolf Schlagintweit penetrated into Chinese Turkistan 
 8. The route was opened between Kiakhta and Kalgan 
 
 ,, The Russians took all Manchuria north of the Amur 
 [859. Valikanoff, disguised, crossed the Tian Shan to Kashgar 
 [860. The district round Issik-Kul was ceded to Russia 
 
 ,, Government of India employed natives surveying 
 [862. Dungan rebellion broke out in Shensi and Kansu 
 1863. Mr Howell crossed China from Shanghai to Kiakhta 
 
 5. Yakub Khan arose and posed as a Ghazi . 
 ,, Johnson approached Khotan from Leh 
 
 [866. Yakub Khan ruled over Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan 
 
 8. Shaw and Hayward crossed the Himalayas to Kashgar 
 [869. Whyte's Overla7id Roicte from Peking to Petersburg 
 [870 — 73. The Forsyth Missions from India to Yakub Khan 
 1870. Das went to Tashi Lunpo to study Buddhism . 
 [871. A school was opened in Vierny for baptised Kalmuks 
 
 ,, The Hi valley came into possession of Russia for 12 years 
 [871 — 73. Prjevalsky's first expedition, from Kiakhta to Kalgan 
 [872. Yakub Khan received the Mission of Kaulbars . 
 
 ,,• Ney Elias crossed from Kuei-hwa-Cheng to Uliassutai 
 [873. Hi valley visited by Ashton Dilke and Schuyler. 
 [874. Gordon, Trotter, and Biddulph penetrated to Kila Panj 
 
 ,, Dalgleish made his way as a trader to Yarkand 
 1874---75. Pandit Nain Sing explored from Leh to Lake Tengri 
 [875. The expedition of Sosnovsky passed through Hami . 
 
 ,, Yakub Khan received the second Mission of Reintal 
 [875 — 76. Milne wrote on the Route from St Petersburg to Peking 
 [876. The Chinese re-occupied Manas and LTrumtsi . 
 , Prjevalsky set out from Kuldja up the Yulduz valley 
 
 455 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ii. 289 
 
 369 
 
 ii- 303 
 ii. 56 
 ii. 304 
 370 
 ii. 296 
 
 159 
 ii. 16 
 
 163 
 ii. 296 
 ii. 296 
 ii- 303 
 
 159 
 ii- 57 
 ii. 260 
 ii. 306 
 
 374 
 161 
 
 155 
 
 37-1 
 ii. 16 
 ii. 58 
 
 161 
 ii. 217 
 ii. 170 
 ii- 59 
 
 374 
 
 161 
 
 374-5 
 ii. 309 
 
 256 
 
 370 
 
 371 
 
 ii. 60 
 
 374 
 
 374 
 
 ii. 17 
 
 ii. Ill 
 
 ii. 308 
 
 370 
 ii. 60 
 
 161 
 ii. 61
 
 45^ 
 
 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 i»»o 
 1881 
 
 1876. Pievtsoff travelled from the Zaisan to Guchen . 
 ,, Kuropatkin crossed from Ferghana to Kashgar 
 
 Kostenko was the first Russian author to reach the Pamirs 
 
 1877. Yakub Khan died 
 
 ,, Potanin passed through Hami 
 
 1877 — 78. The Chinese re-conquered the country round Khotan 
 „ Severtsoff visited and wrote concerning the Pamirs 
 
 1878. Siu-Joshive regained Urumtsi for the Chinese . 
 
 ,, Oshanin visited Karategin 
 
 ,, Pandit A. K. was despatched to cross Tibet into Mongolia 
 
 1879. Prjevalsky started from Lake Zaisan along the Ulungur 
 ,, Count Szechenyi tried to enter Tibet from Sachu 
 ,, Kegel travelled from Kuldja to Turfan 
 ,, Dr Lansdell crossed Siberia and part of Manchuria 
 
 Delmar Morgan visited the Hi valley . 
 
 Dr Kegel explored Darvvaz 
 
 ,, Russian merchants established themselves at Hami 
 
 ,, Russo-Chinese treaty on retrocession of Kuldja. 
 
 „ Chandra Das and a Lama visited Lassa 
 1882. Two French travellers crossed Manchuria to Vladivostock 
 
 ,, Dr Lansdell visited the Hi valley .... 
 1883 — 85. Prjevalsky crossed the Gobi from Urga to Ala-Shan 
 1884. Prjevalsky crossed the Nan Shan Mountains to Koko-Noi 
 1885 — 87. Carey travelled round Chinese Turkistan 
 
 1886. Dr Seeland journeyed from Vierny to Kashgar and Aksu 
 
 1887. Harry de Windt crossed Mongolia .... 
 ,, Bell and Younghusband rode from Peking to Kashgar 
 
 1888. Grombchevsky proceeded from Marghilan to the Alai 
 
 ,, Bonvalot, Capus, and Pepin crossed the Pamirs to India 
 1889 — 90. Bonvalot crossed the Tarim desert into Tibet 
 
 1889. Roborovsky's party entered Nia 
 
 ,, Grombchevsky, Pievtsoff, Bonvalot, Rockhill, and Lans- 
 dell travelling towards Lassa 
 
 1890. Grum-Grjimailo explored the Bogdo Mountains 
 ,, Cumberland and Bower crossed the Karakoram 
 
 ,, Mr and Mrs Littledale went a second time to the Pamirs 
 1890 — 91. Younghusband made excursions to the Pamirs . 
 
 1891. Bower started again to cross Tibet .... 
 ,, Cumberland approached the Pamirs by the Gez defile 
 
 Pi inced by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld, London and Aylesbury.
 
 ^ The Editio Princeps will be limited to the number already printed, of which the type 
 is distributed, and more than a third of the edition sold to America. Early applica- 
 tions, therefore, are invited, which will be attended to in the order received. 
 
 > • » • < 
 
 RUSSIAN CENTRAL ASIA: 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 KULDJA, BOKHARA, KHIVA, AN'D MERV; 
 
 WITH APPENDICES ON THE FAUNA, FLORA, AND 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RUSSIAN TURKISTAN. 
 
 Illustrated with Photographic Frontispiece ; Seventy Engravings ; and 
 
 with Route and Ethnological Maps showing the Afghan Frontier 
 
 as Marked in New Russiajt Publications. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. DEMY OCTAVO, 1,500 PAGES, PRICE TWO GUINEAS, 
 
 By henry LANSDELL, D.D., M.R.A.S.. F.R.G.S.. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THROUGH SIBERIA." 
 
 A journey of 12,000 miles— 5,000 by rail, 3,500 by water, and 3,700 on 
 wheels, horses, or camels — throug-h Western Siberia to Kuldja : thence 
 through Russian Turkistan and the Kirghese Steppes to Tashkend, Khokand, 
 and Samarkand. Crossing into Bokhara, the Author travelled through the 
 Khanate as guest of the Emir, floated 300 miles down the Oxus to Khiva, 
 and then continued by a new route across the land of the Turkomans and 
 north of Merv to Krasnovodsk. One of Dr. Lansdell's objects (as before 
 in Siberia) was the distribution in prisons and hospitals of the Scriptures, 
 on the Patriarchal and Persian customs of which the work throws light in 
 references to 350 texts. In ']'] chapters the book treats more or less fully 
 of all parts of Russian Turkistan, Kuldja, Bokhara, Khiva, and Turkmenia, 
 down to the frontier of Afghanistan ; describes many hundreds of miles of 
 country not previously visited by an English Author ; gives 4,300 species 
 of fauna and flora in about 20 lists, with introductions ; adds a biblio- 
 graphy of 700 titles, and an index of 5,000 entries. 
 
 LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, 
 188, FLEET STREET, E.G.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEKS. 
 I. 
 
 2, 3- 
 
 4, 6, 7, 
 
 8,11. 12.^ 
 
 5. lo. 
 13. 14-3 
 9, 20. 
 
 15-17. 
 
 8, 19,1 
 4, 28.) 
 
 21—23. 
 
 Introductory. 
 
 Journey from 
 Omsk. 
 
 London to 
 
 Geography, Economy, and 
 Administration of the 
 Provinces of Akmolinsk, 
 Semipolatinsk, and Semi- 
 
 RECHIA. 
 
 From Omsk to Kuldja. 
 
 History of the Russian ad- 
 vance UP the Irtish. 
 
 Ethnology, etc., of the 
 Chinese Valley of III 
 
 From Kuldja to Tashkend. 
 
 The Kirghese and their 
 Patriarchal Customs. 
 
 25, 26, 29. Meteorology, Geology, 
 Communications, and 
 
 Statistics of the Syr- 
 daria and Amu-daria 
 Provinces. 
 
 27, 41. The Russian Advance up 
 the Syr-daria. 
 
 30, 31. Our Stay at Tashkend. 
 
 3-- 35- 37- From Tashkend to Kho- 
 kand and samarkand. 
 
 34. 
 
 History and Geography of 
 F"erghana. and the Pamir. 
 
 36, 38: 
 39, 40. 
 
 42- 
 
 49- 
 
 .\ 
 
 CHAl'TERS. 
 
 Antiquities and Topo- 
 graphy of Muhammadan, 
 Jewish, and Russian 
 { Samarkand. 
 44. Siberian, Petersburg, and 
 Central Asian Prisons. 
 45—48. From Samarkand through 
 Karshi to Bokhara. 
 
 51. The History, Colleges, and 
 Jews of Bokhara. 
 52, 53. The Educational Institu- 
 tions, Population, Cus- 
 toms, AND Diseases of 
 Bokhara. 
 54, 55. From Bokhara to Charjui. 
 The Oxus (Upper and 
 Lower, Ancient and 
 Modern), and Floating 
 down it. 
 From Fort Petro-Alexan- 
 
 DRovsK TO Khiva. 
 The Oasis, Capital, and 
 Mosques of Khiva. 
 64—66. From Khiva to the North 
 OF THE Khanate. 
 Desert travel from Kunia 
 Urgenj to the Caspian. 
 
 73. Turkmenia AND the Turkomans. 
 
 74. The Turkoman Oases. 
 
 75. The Russian Advance to Merv. 
 
 76. Merv as Annexed. 
 
 77. From Krasnovodsk to Baku 
 
 AND Homewards. 
 
 56-59- 
 70. 
 
 61- 
 
 60. 
 -63. 
 
 67-69, 
 71. 72, 
 
 A List, Biblically Arranged, of 350 Texts Illustrated or Referred to. 
 
 Chronology of Russian Central Asia, from b.c. 329 to a.d. 1884, 
 
 Maps showing Author's Route and regions inhabited by Principal Races. 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 A. The Fauna of Russian Turkistan, with General Preface, Introductions, 
 
 and Enumeration of 3,000 Species; viz.: Mammalia, 83; Aves, 385; 
 Reptilia, 33 ; Pisces, 87 ; Mollusca, 54 ; Araneae, 146 ; Crustacea, 52 ; 
 Coleoptera, 556; Mellifera, 438; Sphegidae, 183; ScoLiiDAE, 30; 
 Muitllidae, 18; FoRMiciDAE, 36; Chrysidiformes, 54; Lepidoptera, 
 744 ; Neuroptera, 95 ; Orthoptera, 74 ; Vermes, 47. 
 
 B. The Flora of Russian Turkistan. A General Preface, with names of 
 
 92 Families and 1,200 Species in Latin and English, also the locality 
 
 AND altitude WHERE FOUND, AND Tilt TIME UF BLOSSOM OR FRUIT. 
 
 C. Bibliography of Russian Central Asia of 700 titles, chronologically 
 
 and topically arranged, with alfhabetical list of authors. 
 
 General Index of 50 Pages.
 
 [SPECIMEN PAGE.] 
 
 FROM BOKHARA TO CHARJUI. 
 
 i6i 
 
 bellows and inflate the bed. This appeared greatly to 
 tickle his fancy, though I doubt whether he had used 
 a screw before. To this I added an excellent filter, to 
 preserve his Majesty, I said, from rishta ; a pair of 
 
 THE AUTHOR IN ROBE OF HONOUR, WITH TLiKQUOISE blilULE, iUESENTED BY THE EMIR 
 
 OF BOKHARA. 
 
 mosquito curtains, the like to which I had seen nothing 
 in the khanate ; an electro j^epper and salt case, pre- 
 sented to me by Messrs. Langton and Son, whose 
 "travelling requisites" I have found so useful, besides
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 TH ROUGH SI BERIA. 
 
 Illustrated with Engravings and Maps. 
 
 Fifth Edition. In One Volume. lOs. 6d. 
 
 [A few copies remain of the Library Edition at 30S., in tzvo volumes, printed on thicker paper, nuiih 
 more engravi/igs, a photographic frontispiece, and an ethnological map.] 
 
 A journey of 8,000 miles from the Urals to the Pacific, on the rivers Obi, Amur, and 
 Ussuri, and by the hire of a thousand horses. The Author travelled privately on an 
 expedition of a philanthropic and religious character to the penal establishments of Siberia, 
 and describes his visits to nearly all its hospitals, prisons, and mines, giving a mass ot 
 authentic information concerning the exiles such as has never been published before. 
 The book treats of all parts of the country, as to its geography, natural history, and 
 inhabitants, both Russian and aboriginal ; whilst 3,000 miles of the Amur and Ussuri 
 are here described by an English Author as an eyewitness for the first time. 
 
 Extracts from 200 Notices of the English, Irish, Scotch, American, 
 Australian, French, Finnish, German, and Swedish Press. 
 
 The Times. {O/w c^/«w«.)— "The reader will . . . find in Mr, Lansdell's 
 volumes all that can interest him about Siberia." 
 
 The Athenaeum. {Five cohimns.) — "With the exception of Mr. Mackenzie 
 Wallace's ' Russia,' the best book on a Russian subject which has appeared of late years 
 is Mr. Lansdell's 'Through Siberia.'" 
 
 Eraser's Magazine. {Thirteen pages.)— ''Y\:\% testimony ... is simply the 
 best that exists." O.K. . . . (a ^/ww'aw writer.) 
 
 The Academy. {Four coluinus.) — " We are of opinion that ' Through Siberia ' is 
 much more entertaining, and certainly more readable, than many novels." 
 
 The Church Times, {Two columns.) — "Englishmen have every reason to be 
 proud of this work ; for it . . . can only result in making the name of our country 
 more honoured and respected than any mere victory of arms would do." 
 
 Charch Missionary Intelligencer. {Fonr pages. )— " It is altogether different 
 
 from even the higher class of books of travel. It teems with information of every 
 possible kind." 
 
 Harper's Monthly Magazine. {One column.'} — "Since the time of Howard, 
 no one has given us so full and fair an account of Russian prisons as is now presented to 
 us by Mr. Lansdell." 
 
 Revue des deux Mondes. {Tivche pages.)— ''CI\xok\. n'aille pas s'imaginer 
 apres cela que M. Lansdell soit un fanatique ... II estime qu'une sage philosophic et 
 une piete sincere ne sont irreconciliables ni avec la belle humeur ni avec ces honnetes 
 petils plaisirs que assaisonnent la vie." 
 
 The Baptist. {Two columns.) — " A man who undertakes to set matters in a true 
 light before the eyes of the world deserves the gratitude of all parties. This Mr. Lansdell 
 has done." 
 
 The Guardian. {T^uo columns^ — " it touches upon political and social questions 
 of great interest, and offers information upon the internal administration of the Russian 
 empire, which is not readily obtained elsewhere." 
 
 LONDON : SAMPSON LOW & CO., i88, FLEET STREET, E.G. 
 AMERICA: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN, & CO., BOSTON. 
 GERMAN TRANSLATION: HERMANN COSTENOBLE, JENA, 
 SWEDISH TRANSLATION : ALBERT BONNIER, STOCKHOLM. 
 DANISH TRANSLATION : O. H. DELBANCO, COPENHAGEN,
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
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 JUN 18 1956 
 
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