XI KHOTAN THE KINGDOM OF JADE

There is no article of traffic more valuable than lumps of a certain transparent kind of marble, which we, from poverty of language, usually call jasper. These marbles are called by the Chinese Iusce.l —BeNEDICT GOES, 1603 A.D.

To Mrs. St. George Littledale belongs the distinction of being the first English, if not European, woman to enter the town of Khotan, and I felt proud at being the next to follow in her footsteps. We had travelled over three hundred miles from Kashgar to this farthest city in the Bast of Chinese Turkestan, and hundreds of miles of desert lay between it and any place of importance in the Celestial Empire. A broad sandy road shaded by trees led to the capital, broken only by the wide stony bed of the Karakash River, the three branches of which we forded with ease, since much of the water had been drawn off for irrigation purposes into a broad canal.

Khan Sekib Badrudin, the British Agent, a finelooking old man in a long coat of rich brocade and a snowy turban, met us and, dismounting from his showy horse, conducted us to the usual dasturkhwan. We were told that he wielded great power in the city. He was so frank and hearty that I took to him on the spot, and after running the gauntlet of the other receptions, we were conducted by him to his newly built and elaborately ornamented gardenhouse. During our tour we had the good fortune to be quartered in three entirely new residences, which any traveller who knows the dirt and squalor of the East will recognise as no small boon.

Badrudin’s ““ garden,” in common with all that I saw, was intersected with irrigation channels, had no paths, and was planted with a confused, ill-grown mass of fruit trees, so crowded together that his orchard produced a very indifferent crop. Flowers are usually conspicuous by their absence in these pleasaunces, although one sometimes comes across zinnias, asters and marigolds, but to me their redeeming feature was the shefang, and at Khotan the open-air parlour was a particularly large and handsome one, curtained round with muslin that ensured some privacy without excluding the air.

The trees surrounding it were the roosting-place of hundreds of small birds, and about five o’clock every evening they would appear in a large flock and a fearful squabbling would ensue, caused, I imagined, by their desire to take possession of one another’s pet twigs. After half an hour they settled down, and only a few drowsy murmurs would be heard as one bird or another made a sleepy remark.

At Khotan I was anxious to replenish our butterjars, but fear that no one will believe me when I say that the united efforts of five cows during two days only resulted in a single pound of butter! There is no grazing in these oases, and the animals are allowed on the fields only when the crops have been gathered, their usual feed being a bundle of lucerne, fresh or dried according to the season, a meagre dietary not conducive to a plentiful supply of milk.

My brother, as in all towns, was busy in receiving and returning official visits and in settling cases, some of which had been in abeyance for years. One of these interested me particularly, as I was brought into touch with it in a way. It was concerned with righting a widow whose relatives were trying to defraud her of property that justly belonged to her, and the poor soul waylaid me as I was returning from a ride and, seizing my hand, kissed it repeatedly, with loud lamentations that went to my heart. When justice had been done, and she was reinstated, the old lady came to my brother to express her gratitude, which she evinced by kissing the hem of his ridingcoat, to his great embarrassment.

I had visitors of my own, as Badrudin’s three wives, accompanied by his eldest son, wearing a suit of would-be British cut, called upon me. The chief wife was a handsome Afghan lady, her eyebrows painted with antimony in order to make them meet across her forehead, and as she spoke Persian we got on well together. She had plenty of character, and it was evident that she kept the other wives in due subjection. Despite the heat the ladies wore rich velvet jackets and had gold or silver braid on the brims of their velvet hats, and long white shawls shrouding them from head to foot. They enjoyed sampling the cakes and biscuits that I provided for tea, and liked seeing the curios that we had bought in the town, some quaint jade monkeys throwing them all into convulsions of laughter and most effectually breaking the ice between my visitors and myself. As a result I felt quite at home with them when I went next day to return their call, merely passing through a door in the wall of our garden into theirs, where T found them installed in a shabby old house very different from the gorgeous edifice in which we had our quarters, and which I suspected would be entirely reserved for the men of the household when we departed. Owing to the emigration of the men, the women, as at Kashgar and Yarkand, are in great preponderance, and here, as throughout Chinese Turkestan, the cheapness of marriage encourages frequent divorce and so lowers the status of the wives.

But, on the other hand, the women mix freely with the men, sell their wares in the bazars and practically dispense with the face-veil. It may be that the superior freedom enjoyed by the women of Khotan centuries ago has been handed down to their descendants. According to Rémusat, the Chinese writers remark again and again that the women mixed with the men even when strangers were present, and rode like the men on horses and camels. It is curious to note that over a thousand years ago the women wore the long coats and trousers and plaited their hair just as they do at the present day, the hair of yaks’ tails being used then as now to thicken and lengthen these tresses, which are adorned with gold or silver tassels.

Badrudin rode out with us one morning to see Tlchi, as the inhabitants call their city, and I thought that the people looked as sickly as those of Yarkand. Goitre was very prevalent, and there were, alas, many idiots to be seen, both the bodily and the mental afflictions being probably caused by the limited supply of water, which is kept in tanks, a sure method in the East of propagating disease.

Three years before our visit a large part of the principal bazar had been destroyed by fire, and our host had lost many shops on this occasion ; but the visitation was a blessing in disguise, for neat wooden stalls with well-made shutters had been built in place of the former dirty, untidy booths. We were taken to see the principal mosques and shrines, architecturally beneath notice and all very shabby in appearance, and beyond the bazar was the dismantled mud brick fort erected by Yakub Beg. Separated from the old native town was the modern China-town, walled in and dominated by a fort, and on all sides stretched the well-watered oasis. Maize, barley, millet, buckwheat, rice, cotton, hemp, grapes, peaches, melons and mulberries were grown in abundance, while the numberless irrigation channels were planted with poplars and willows which serve as fuel.

Khotan is famous for its silks and felts, its cotton cloth, carpets, paper and jade, but the modern silk carpets with their aniline dyes are not artistic, and the few old ones to be found command an exorbitant price. In Rockhill’s Life of the Buddha there is a curious legend relating to the introduction of the silk industry into the province. A king of Khotan married a Chinese princess, who wished to benefit the country of her adoption by teaching its inhabitants how to make silk. She had brought the eggs of the: silkworm with her, concealed in her hat, as one version has it; but the Chinese ministers, who were determined that Cathay should retain the monopoly of a lucrative trade, told the credulous king that the harmless worms would turn into venomous serpents and ravage the land. The monarch in a panic commanded the rearing-house to be burnt down ; but his wife managed to save some of the caterpillars, and later ou appeared in beautiful garments woven from their silk. Her husband, realizing that he had been duped by the Chinese, repented of his foolish act and thenceforth warmly fostered an industry that greatly contributed to the prosperity of his kingdom.

Silk is said to have been made in China from remote ages, for it is recorded that to the wife of an emperor who reigned about 21,640 B.C. (sic) belongs the credit of inventing the loom; but the secret was guarded so jealously that centuries passed before the industry took root in Khotan and Central Asia. At the commencement of the Christian era raw silk was literally worth its weight in gold, and we read that the Emperor Justinian had a monopoly of the costly stuff and set up weaving-looms in his palace. The story goes that he persuaded two Persian monks to bring him the precious eggs from Cathay at the risk of their lives, for death would have been the penalty had the Chinese discovered the contents of the hollow bamboo pad which they carried to Byzantium about A.D. 550. otan is believed to be the district from which those eggs and the great silk industry of Europe actually came, and only at the present day has it been necessary to procure a fresh supply of the former from the East to renew the original stock brought across the desert so many centuries ago.

It was interesting to visit the chief silk factory of hotan, where thousands of pale yellow cocoons were being boiled in big cauldrons, in defiance of the command of the Chinese princess, who said that such a proceeding was a sin against the light, and would be followed by a silkworm famine during the following year. Beside these vats women were squatting who deftly picked a thread from each cocoon, unwinding it until it was ready to be handed on to other women sitting beside primitive spinning-wheels, who wound the threads off npon a spool. From small reels the shining silk was wound on to large ones, and finally it was hung up in thick hanks of delicious creamy colour, ready for export. The native-woven silk is coarse in texture and dull when compared with that produced from European looms, but when dyed with deep vegetable colourings it has an indescribably rich appearance, and much of it is exported to India.

Yu is the Chinese name for jade or nephrite, and Yu-tien or Khotan signifies Kingdom of Jade ; therefore I was naturally anxious to obtain all the information I could about this stone, which is valued above all others in China and is even spoken of as “the quintessence of Heaven and Earth.” The jade of Khotan has been known to the Chinese for over two thousand years. Rémusat points out that there are references to it as far back as 140 B.c., and it was often sent as tribute from the rulers of the province to the Emperor of China.

One Chinese author compares a wise man to jade, affirming that both have five of the same good qualities, and another talks of the different colours of the stone, saying it is red as the comb of a cock, yellow as a cooked chestnut, and so on. Again, a third writer affirms that it gives forth light and a perfume, and others speak of its weight and of the way in which it can be imitated and how easily it can be dyed.

In popular belief the Jade River was separated into three branches that carried down the white, black and green varieties respectively from the mines situated at its source; and in bygone days the King of Khotan used to inaugurate the “ Jade Harvest,” or season of the year when his subjects began to fish in the streams for the precious stone. This beautiful mineral is found in veins running through rocks of schist or gneiss, and is of almost every shade of white, grey, green, yellow, or black. Until the recent revolution it was worn profusely by the royalties and their courtiers, and was buried with the. dead in the form of bracelets and amulets, a carved bowl, screen or goblet being a choice gift for the Emperor to send to a ruling sovereign, in which connection a jade screen presented to Queen Victoria was valued at £300,000 by English experts.

Badrudin took us into the town to see the jade workers turning cups on lathes and polishing them by means of sand. On the ground lay some small dull green boulders, the stone in its raw state, and I was told that, had they been white flecked with green, they would have fetched between two and three hundred pounds apiece. After the white, the yellow is the most highly prized, and then comes the green and lastly the black, for which the famous cenotaph of Tamerlane at Samarkand is renowned. But alas, since the revolution the royal stone is no longer popular in China, and the export to Peking has practically ceased. To counterbalance this there is a small demand for it in India, where it is bought by the British ; but so low has the industry fallen that my brother and 1 could not procure nearly as many cups as we wished. The best that we found were a transparent black speckled with moss green, most beautiful when held up to the light; but only four of these goblets could be bought, and the rest of our purchases were in an attractive dull reseda green that reminded me of sea-water in its translucent delicacy.

One day we rode out to inspect the old jade pits several miles to the east of the city, Badrudin supplying us with horses, as our own always enjoyed a well-earned rest whenever we halted. He and his son escorted us through the Oasis to the broad stonestrewn bed of the Yurungkash or White Jade River, which we easily forded. We then trotted and cantered along sandy paths between the high mud walls of countless gardens. Our goal was a wide tract, formerly a river-bed, now a series of pits ringed with boulders, the result of digging for jade during the centuries. The sand-dunes of the great desert had crept to the edge of the masses of rubble, among which our horses painfully stumbled as we examined the so-called mines, holes about a dozen feet in depth. It is at that distance from the surface that the blocks of jade washed down in bygone days are to be found, the jade obtained from the mines being soft and inferior in quality. Few finds of value are made nowadays, and all good pieces are sent direct to Peking, the Khotan craftsmen being unable to execute the carving for which the Chinese are famous. The glory of Khotan was its jade, and it was owing to the high esteem in which the Chinese held this stone that we hear so much about the province from the early pilgrims and travellers.

When the Chinese travellers Fa-hien and Hiuen Tsiang visited the province, in the fifth and seventh centuries respectively, there were many towns in the kingdom which are now buried beneath the desert sand, and according to the accounts of both pilgrims there were a hundred Buddhist monasteries in the

Qasis. It appears that the Khotanis were not wholehearted followers of the Master, for we hear that the adherents to Buddhism were violently persecuted towards the end of the ninth century, by those that worshipped spirits; but the religion lingered on until it was finally extinguished by Islam, which swept like a great wave through Chinese Turkestan.

On the day that we left Ilchi we made a détour in order to visit the site of Yotkan, which was the capital of the province a thousand years ago. Old Badrudin led us a zigzag course round low-walled fields, and after four or five miles announced that we had reached our goal. We then dismounted and scrambled down a muddy slope on to a stretch of cultivated ground at the foot of a low cliff. This latter had been cut through by a yar, or ravine created by the action of the water which had escaped from an irrigation canal, and this yar revealed bits of gold and débris of all kinds on its banks. Sir Aurel Stein, who began his famous excavations with the investigation of this site, points out that without this fortunate accident the city so often mentioned in the Chinese annals might never have been discovered. The inhabitants of the village close by immediately began to dig for treasure, washing the earth for gold, and by their efforts the fields had been lowered several feet, because the strata containing the finds were some thirteen feet beneath the surface. Sir Aurel . Stein discovered no remains of buildings, but was not surprised at this, for mud bricks crumble away in the course of centuries; and it also occurred to me that perhaps the peasants may follow the custom of the Persian cultivator, who uses the débris of ruins as a dressing for his crops. Moreover, as the fields lying on the site of Yotkan were irrigated, the action of the water would soon disintegrate any buildings constructed of sun-dried bricks. The fact that the soil lies to-day some nine to twenty feet above the old capital is due to the system of irrigation; for the water let in over the fields carries much silt with it. The roads throughout all the oases in Turkestan are from this cause much lower than the fields, while the cemeteries, not being cultivated, are at about the same level as the roads.

Badrudin told us the current legend that Yotkan had been destroyed by a great flood which overwhelmed both the city and its inhabitants, but Sir Aurel Stein shows this theory to be untenable, although he apparently offers no other to account for the desertion of what was an important city ten centuries ago.

Our host showed us various interesting objects found on the spot, a beautiful terra-cotta vase with a Buddha on either side being the chief, together with tiny terra-cotta figurines and a white jade ring. I was told that the Chinese archers wear these rings on their little fingers to keep them from being cut when they twang their bows. Sir Aurel Stein bought a tiny monkey made of gold, and says that there is still a small but profitable yield of the precious metal in the form of gold-leaf, which was used extensively to decorate the Buddhist temples and statues. Fa-hien mentions the splendour of these shrines and their attendant monasteries in the fifth century, and Rémusat gives details of the gorgeous ceremonial worship. ‘When we left Yotkan we rode to Zawa, where we rested, in anticipation of the night march across the desert to the serai of Ak Langar. In spite of our protests, genial old Badrudin insisted on accompanying us thus far on our homeward way, and it was not till half-past eight that night that with sincere regret we said good-bye to him. The moon, now in its third quarter, had not risen, and our late host did us a final good office by sending his body-servant ahead of our party, carrying a little native lamp of classic design with two wicks hanging from its spout. He proved a most useful torch-bearer, for the darkness under the trees of the oasis seemed impenetrable at first, and he pointed out the many small bridges and irrigation channels over which our horses might have come to grief in the all-pervading gloom. Time and again the feeble light seemed about to be extinguished by the breeze, but it held out until we were free of the village, and we were then put in charge of a Chinese runner who was to be our guide across the sand-dunes. The British Agent's trusty henchman now dismounted, kissed my brother's knee in token of farewell and, to my astonishment, actually wept, though I cynically reflected that this emotion must be due rather to the amount of his pourboire than to affection for the British Consul.

Half an hour later the moon cast a faint gleam across the desert, and we walked our horses in the track of the tall, wiry guide who kept ahead of us all the time, now and then breaking into a run when he reached the crest of a dune or descending it with great leaps. Our horses certainly walked at the rate of four miles an hour on an average, but the ya-yieh did the ten miles to the serai without turning a hair and arrived in better condition than I did. I had had a fatiguing day ; for there is always much to do when setting off again after a longish halt, and, counting the distance to and from Yotkan, I had ridden nearly forty miles. This in itself was nothing, as I loved being in the saddle; but it was trying to set off on a second march at the hour when I was usually making ready for bed, and I felt grateful to the pure tonic air of the desert that made me feel as fit as ever on the morrow.

Having retraced our steps to Yarkand, we made a détour by way of Merket, my brother being anxious to see that part of the country and to shoot some of the pheasants named after Shaw. We and our horses were again punted across the main stream of the river, and then had to ride warily, following defined tracks in order to escape the dangerous quicksands, and when we forded branches of the stream we avoided places where stakes protruding from the water warned us of holes or treacherous sands. It was rather a relief to clamber out upon the loess banks of the river, from which we had picturesque glimpses of sandy islets on which duck and water-birds were feeding, and I remember the delicious perfume of the melons that were laid out to dry in a field close to our encampment for the night.

It was mid-October when we reached Merket, and my brother, who had had many disappointments as to the duck-shooting he had been promised, felt his hopes revive as the natives spoke of a lake some four miles off which simply teemed with water-fowl. I suppose it is inbred in Orientals to say what they think will please a superior ; the peasants at all events were seemingly unconcerned as to whether their statements were accurate or not. On this occasion, for example, the so-called lake turned out to be a small marsh dried up by the summer heats and with never a sign of birdlife among its withered rushes. This was rather a blow; but, on making enquiry about game at a prosperous-looking village that lay outside one of the wide belts of stunted trees through which the sandy road led, we heard that the jungle was swarming with pheasants. A party of beaters was improvised on the spot, and my brother went off full of hope, while I rode slowly on with old Jafar Bai and the one-legged Hindu trader, having agreed to halt for our mid-day meal a couple of miles farther on. And now the Hindu began to play the wellknown game of dangling a lure before the European, the bait in my case being water. He professed that he knew every inch of the road and that a refreshing stream was close at hand ; but, when we had ridden considerably farther than the stipulated distance, I revolted, and stopping in the shade of the trees ordered lunch to be served as soon as Sattur and his mapa arrived. Hardly had I finished when the sporting party cantered up with the disheartening news that they had not seen a single pheasant. It was a day of disappointments; for, as we were riding into camp, a servant rushed up with the news that wildduck were in abundance on a lake near which we had passed. Hope again revived, and'off my brother went, but, as usual, after a fata Morgana. This day is a sample of many. During our halt at Merket my brother shot only two or three of the Shaw pheasants, and he had no luck when he rode off at five o’clock in the morning to watch the great hunting eagles bring down gazelle, although they made successful flights at hares. Probably the scarcity of game is owing to the fact that the country is comparatively ; RNAS

OS AR thickly populated and well-cultivated, and that many of the peasants are sportsmen and have no scruples as to close seasons.

Just outside the village my brother was met by an old greybeard who saluted in military style, and it turned out that he had been formerly in a Panjabi regiment, and had been sent into Turkestan with letters for Dalgleish, whose murder resounded through Central Asia a generation ago.

Merket is interesting as being the home of the Dulanis, supposed to be Kirghiz who settled on the land a couple of centuries ago when the Kalmucks ruled the province. These people are remarkable as being Moslems who mix freely with their women, the latter going about unveiled, and eating, dancing and singing with the men at entertainments which often last the whole night long. They have a great reputation as singers, and one morning we were favoured with a performance, the songster being a tall greybeard clad in a long red robe and a sheepskin cap. He beat on a tambourine-like instrument, throwing his head into the air and emitting tremendously longdrawn notes and then taking breath in deep gasps, much as the Germans sing their Lieder in Lutheran churches. His songs seemed full of repetition, he made fearful grimaces, and as he yelled at the top of his voice, I was not surprised that after a while he became hoarse. His companion played a rubab, a stringed instrument much like a mandoline, the plectrum being a bit of wood, and crowds of villagers gathered to hear the performance, to which they listened in enraptured silence; for we were told that the singer was renowned throughout the district.

Iftikhar Ahmad kindly translated for me two of his songs, which run as follows : If I say that I am a Mohamedan and do not keep the commands of Allah How shall I escape punishment when I am laid in the dark grave ? No young girls will dance at my bidding. They have blackened their eyebrows with kokl and refuse to bow down before the youths.

The second is the lament of a love-sick maiden :

Alas, my love has gone from me in anger and how shall I persuade him to forgive me ?

I will place tea! before him and by dancing and smiling I will make my peace with him.

The Merket bazar was one of the poorest and most squalid I had seen in the course of my travels, and was in curious contrast to the apparent prosperity of the large oasis. The inhabitants, who hovered about our camp all day long, were certainly of a lower type than the ordinary villagers of Chinese Turkestan, but as far as I could judge they did not merit the scathing condemnation of one writer, who says: “These people are in the most backward state of human intelligence that it is possible to imagine human beings to be capable of. In physical strength and stature they are perhaps the most miserable objects on the face of the earth, but their social position is still more deplorable . . .” ‘When we left Merket we plunged into sand covered with low tamarisk scrub and the foghrak tree, populus heterophyllus, peculiar, I understand, to Chinese Turkestan, which looks like a cross between the willow and the poplar. When this tree is quite young all the leaves are pinnated, like those of the willow ; at an older stage the upper part has the poplar leaf, and when it is full-grown there is no trace of the narrow willow-like leaf, which has dropped off. It was now mid-October and the foliage was a brilliant gold, bright as the trees in a Canadian fall, but without the flaming scarlets of the maple and oak of the Dominion.

We and our belongings had to cross the Yarkand River again in one of the clumsy ferry-boats, and the vigorous-looking boatman was obliged to make such Herculean efforts to pole his unwieldy craft round that I was not surprised to learn that men of his calling contract heart complaint from the strain.

The ferryman’s wife, 2 handsome young woman, charmingly clad in a rainbow-striped coat and a green velvet gold-embroidered cap, watched her husband’s progress, and I was told that she was a Dulani. Certainly she looked a credit to her tribe, as she strolled about unconcernedly among the men, with many of whom she exchanged greetings. Her bare feet were thrust into the overshoes that all wear over the long riding-boots, and her big silver earrings added to the picturesqueness of her appearance. I was seated on a felt beside a table heaped with grapes and melons, and smiled at her as she gradually edged up to me on pretence of flicking the flies off the fruit. She held her pretty little boy by the hand, the child all too warmly clad in a padded red coat and fur cap, and a small gift unsealed her lips, putting us on such friendly terms that she was delighted to be photographed by the first European woman she had ever seen.

And now we turned our backs on the Yarkand River and were piloted across sandy tracks and rode through barren spaces dotted with tamarisk, towards the dunes of a strip of desert, the loose sand of which made the going heavy for our horses. The sun sank at half-past five and, as is usual in the East, there was hardly any twilight, but by the waning moonlight we could see the track as we plodded along, our horses snorting suspiciously and starting at isolated tamarisk bushes or stunted toghrak trees. At last we surmounted a dune and saw below us a deserted mud building and the gleam of a pool of water, indicating the goal of our march. To me there was something curiously eerie in the scene ; for the moonlight cast strange shadows, and the desert seemed as if it were listening for I knew not what, reminding me of Meredith’s lines :

The servants and horses had disappeared round the ruined rest-house, and I had a queer sense that things seldom seen by mortal eyes would have revealed themselves had I been quite alone. I remember strolling up to a largish foghrak tree, under which

A DULANI WOMAN AND HER SON.

Page 236. a little tent was to be pitched for me, and what was perhaps a big rat ran down the bark with incredible speed and seemed to vanish, and later on, as my brother and I walked back along the road to listen for the mapa which was to bring Sattur and our evening meal, some creature, probably a fox, noiselessly rushed past us like a flash, giving the impression of being a shadow rather than anything material.

The water here was brown and bitter and smelt so disagreeably that neither we nor our animals could quench our thirst, When the waggons came up they made only a short halt and went on at 2 a.m. and we ourselves followed soon after, as we were anxious to water our horses, not to mention our own thirst.

The usual early morning breeze changed to a wind that blew up clouds of sand; therefore we pushed ‘forward as fast as we could, in case a real sandstorm should overtake us. This particular tract of desert is called Karakum or Black Sand, and I imagined that the name must be some kind of native joke, as the sand was particularly white. We rode on hour after hour and were thankful finally to reach a serai, before which stood & trough full of water. My chestnut was so impatient to quench his thirst that he kicked my ankle as I dismounted, presumably to hasten my movements. He was always a bad-tempered animal— Shaitan (Satan) the grooms called him—snapping with his ears laid back at any human being or animal within reach ; but in spite of this he was my favourite on the march, as none of our other horses could rival his elastic walk and easy canter. I was thankful that he had not started kicking earlier in our acquaintance ; for on every subsequent occasion that I rode him he lashed out at me as I slipped from the saddle, and in order to save me from a broken ankle my brother was obliged to hold up his fore-leg; so perforce I changed to another mount.

There are many advantages in travelling officially, transport and supply being thus made easy, bub never before had roads and bridges been mended in honour of our arrival, as was the case in the Merket district. The highway was dotted at intervals with parties of peasants who were piling earth over the many holes in the bridges, and driving rows of stakes into the ground along the irrigation channels where the road had broken away. These stakes would then be padded with maize-bents, reeds or tamarisk scrub, and plastered over with thick lumps of wet mud. This method of road-making, which prevails thronghout Chinese Turkestan, is by no means an ideal one, for when the earth and padding fall away the points of the props stick out in a manner most dangerous to horses if going at any pace.

The glorious weather we had had on the whole was now changing, and, after a gale so violent that our tents that night seemed to be in danger every moment, we became aware of the approach of winter. The sun had vanished, a grey veil lay over the landscape, and therewasblack frost in the air. The villagers had donned their padded red, black or blue long winter coats, those of the women being often striped in many colours, and all wore their pork-pie hats of velvet or cloth edged with fur or sheepskin and looked cold and miserable. Jafar Bai amused us by pointing out a shady spot where we could eat our mid-day lunch, with his usual formula, “Here you will find shelter from the sun,” although he himself had told us that it was now fhe season of the storms that herald in the winter.

October 20 was the 4d, or festival to commemorate the sacrifice of Ishmael by Abraham (so the Koran has it, quite ignoring the Isaac of the Bible), and our servants were naturally eager to arrive at Kashgar on the previous evening, the id being an occasion of feasting as well as of prayer in the mosques.

As usual we suffered from the vague ideas of the natives concerning distances, and the so-called twentymile ride, that was to bring us within easy reach of Kashgar, dragged out to a thirty-mile march, which, to me at all events, was peculiarly dreary. It lay along sandy tracks crossing great stretches of crumbling salt-encrusted soil, with here and there a reed-covered lake or swamp that alternated with strips of cultivation. The grey mist hung round us, hiding villages and trees until we arrived quite close to them, and seeming to enclose us in a ghostly world with a curiously depressing atmosphere of its own. I felt as if we were in one of Maeterlinck’s plays, so heavily did a sense of impending disaster weigh upon me, in spite of vigorous struggles on the part of my common-sense. No misfortune overtook us save that the servants were deprived of the eve of their festival; for my brother decreed that, id or no 4d, we should halt for the night by a broad canal running parallel with the Kizil Su. It was well that he did so; for all our horses were tired out, and next day, even with the stimulus of their homes ahead of them, they could scarcely manage the twenty miles that lay between our last camp and Kashgar. Delightful as our tour had been, it was very pleasant to be in a clean, well-built house once more, and to be welcomed effusively by Bielka and Brownie. I was thankful to see them both in good condition, as well as the sweet little desert lark in its round cage.

Khotan, with its silk and jade, the desert, and the Yarkand River, receded into the background; for in about six weeks’ time we should be leaving Kashgar for good, and setting our faces towards Europe and home.

Indeed, I was not altogether sorry, for at first after our return Kashgar, enveloped in a frosty grey mist, was sunless and cold, and the revel of colour that the Kashgaris had displayed in their garments during the summer had gone. Fortunately in this part of the world the winter is short; for the houses are not designed to keep out the cold, and the people are too poor to heat them. Fuel is so dear that it is used only for cooking, and during the day the natives usually sit huddled up in sheltered spots and bask in the sunshine, which luckily does not fail them for long at a time. From December 22 to the beginning: of February is called the “Forty Days of the Great Cold,” and it is followed by the “Little Cold,” which lasts about twenty days. It has sometimes happened, when a wind blew during the “ Great Cold,” that peasants coming in to market on their donkeys have been frozen to death. In consequence of this the Chinese have passed a law that, if any one demands shelter at a house during this period and dies because the door is shut against him, the inhospitable owner of that house is to be tried for murder.

We had enjoyed the very best of the year, and were fortunate to leave without seeing Kashgar at its worst, graphically described by Lord Dunmore, thus: “It is as desolate, dirty and uninteresting looking a city as can possibly be imagined . . . a series of yawning abysses; roads full of gaping chasms . . . tumbledown mud houses, obsolete mud cemeteries. . . . The town is always either swimming in mud or smothered in dust, and what offends the eye still more is the one uniform melancholy tint of dirty drab that pervades the whole picture. . . .”

To me it will always remain a most picturesque and interesting place, embowered in foliage, surrounded by water and gilded by sunshine, while its brilliantly clad, pleasantmannered inhabitants greatly contributed to its charm.

Sir George Macartney arrived in November and we again started off through Central Asia and Northern Europe, reaching home about a month later, when the War, with its urgent claims upon every man and woman, took possession of our thoughts and energies. But I shall never forget the wonderful sunsets of Kashgar seen through a haze of gold, or the glorious dome of Muztagh Ata, the immense sweep of the desert over which the moon and stars hung like lamps in a sky of sapphire velvet, and the friendly races, Turki or Kirghiz, who added so greatly to the pleasure of my last experience of the Open Road.

1 Jusce is Yu-shik or Jade stone, 209 P PART TI

Page 222.

A DULANI SHAYKH. 1 Oh, my beloved, fresh coloured as an apple, I entrust thee to the keeping of Allah until we meet again. 2 Ob, that I could ride to Aksu on my white horse newly-shod, Or could see thee, my love, walking beside the river. 3 1 am feeble as a rush, I am in the power of a giant ; I cannot sleep at night and am forced to think of thee all day long. 4 1 To offer tea is a symbol of apology.

I neighbour the invisible So close that my consent