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Jf eae. BY (1630 ae os w? ret o) 2 o “ay lt “i ai p & If Sah y aby aor | Unexplored wg , APR 24 1930 ~\ Ve, & “OL OgicaL SES CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA RAR ira g out me 5 AP 7 SS dd S PAMIR 6a) CHINE HIZ BRIDE, z KTRC A CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA C. P. ‘SKRINE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE, BRITISH CONSUL-GENERAL IN CHINESE TURKISTAN 1922-1924 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SIR FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND K.GS.1. WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN COLOUR 5 PANORAMAS AND 2 MAPS 51 OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1926 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN To MY WIFE WHOSE HELP AND COMPANIONSHIP MADE ME ENJOY ALL THESE WANDERINGS PREFACE r NHIS book is an account, compiled during a spell of home leave, of a very happy two and a half years spent by my wife and myself partly at Kashgar, partly on the road in Northern Kashmir and Chinese Turkistan. I did not seriously entertain the idea of writing a book about our experiences until three or four months before we left Kashgar; consequently, most of the letters and desultory notes on which I have relied for my material have had to be edited from memory far from the scenes described. The book does not in any sense, therefore, purport to be a treatise on the countries described. I have, however, thought it worth while to devote two or three chapters to such ethnological and other observations as my study of the Eastern Turki language and the experience gained in the course of my official duties suggested. It is hoped that the result of my amateur efforts will at any rate indicate the variety and interest of the different fields open to the student of man and Nature in Chinese Central Asia. As a travel-book, on the other hand, I fear this work will be considered old-fashioned. Neither aeroplane, nor caterpillar-wheeled car, nor cinema, nor wireless, nor oxygen apparatus, nor any of the other adjuncts of up-to-date travel figure in its pages: The fact simply is that my wife and I, being confirmed nomads with a strong distaste for the beaten track, welcomed my appointment as Consul-General at Kashgar as a Heaven-sent opportunity for the gratification of our tastes ; and for the benefit of the many who share those tastes I have tried to give a matter-of-fact account of the experiences and impressions of two average Britons wandering among the highlands and lowlands of ‘‘ Innermost Asia.’’ Though it has sometimes been difficult to maintain a due sense of proportion among scenes beautiful and rare, I have tried throughout to eschew exaggeration ; and in particular I have done my best to avoid the trap into which so many travel-writers fall—over- vil vil CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA emphasis of such difficulties and dangers as they may have experienced. The reader will find few of the “ adventures ” (most of which could probably, if the truth were known, have been avoided with a little more care and foresight) that loom so large in many popular accounts of travel. My thanks are due to the Royal Geographical Society for permission to reproduce, with certain additions, the excellent map prepared by them to illustrate Sir Aurel Stein’s paper on ‘“‘ Innermost Asia: its Geography as a factor in History,”’ published in the “‘ Geographical Journal ’’ for May and June 1925. Ihave also to thank the Society for their great encour- agement and help in connection with the photographs which illustrate this book. In the collection of material for chapters XII and XIII, I was loyally assisted by my friend Murad Qari of Yarkand, who also helped me with the transcription and translation of most of the Turki songs, proverbs and popular sayings quoted. I would also like to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to my father, Mr. Francis H. Skrine, for many useful hints and for an invaluable final correction of the proofs. With the exception of the plate representing certain Takla Makan antiques, for which I am indebted to the British Museum, the photographs were all taken and developed by me in camp or at Kashgar. For the benefit of those interested in the subject I have appended a note on photography in Central Asia at the end of the book. The frontispiece is a reproduction of a sketch made by my wife at Yambulak on our journey to Kashgar in 1922. C. P. SKRINE THE BATH CLUB 1st July, 1926 CHAP, Vill XVII CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . To THE OUTPOSTS ; : : : In THE HEART OF THE KARAKORAM . : OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE . THE MouNTAIN Roap To CATHAY KASHGAR . A CENTRAL ASIAN ARCADY THE FINDING OF THE Happy VALLEY YARKAND, KHOTAN AND BEYOND DESERT, RIVER AND MOUNTAIN . A MuRDER CASE AND A DIFFICULT JOURNEY THE PEOPLE OF THE HAPPY VALLEY . ARCHZOLOGY, ART, LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Customs, Music, PoETRY AND FOLKLORE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS OF HEAVEN UNDER THE NORTHERN RIM OF TIBET ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS BACK TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY APPENDIX . INDEX A r ; . é : ‘ ix 105 121 137 153 167 193 218 244 261 278 297 301 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A Kircuiz BRIDE, CHINESE PAMIRS Frontispiece (in colour) RAKAPOSHI FROM NORTH SIDE OF HUNZA VALLEY , How WE CROSSED THE ASTORE RIVER AT RAMGHAT ° . A RAFIQ oR CLIFF TRACK IN THE HuNzA GORGES. BALTIT 4 : 4 : CASTLE OF THE Mirs oF HunzA, BALTIT IN THE HunzA GORGES BETWEEN ATA’ABAD AND GALMIT NANGA PARBAT FROM Bunji, INDUS VALLEY BEFORE CROSSING THE MINTAKA PASS e » ° . . CROSSING THE YANGI DAVAN UNMAPPED LAKE AT HEAD OF YAMBULAK VALLEY THE WALLS OF OLD KASHGAR BRITISH CONSULATE-GENERAL FROM NORTH BANK OF TUMEN SU EVENING ON THE TUMEN SU ABOVE KASHGAR KASHGAR ON BAzAR DAY ‘ THE Happy VALLEY , , STARTING ON THE MARCH IN THE KAYING VALLEY, OCTOBER, 1922 IN THE GLACIER “ CIRQUE ’”’ OF THE UPPER KAYING JILGHA ‘* FOLDED ” LIMESTONE STRATA, KAYING JILGHA IN THE SHRINE OF HAZRAT PIR, YARKAND PANORAMA FROM NEAR CHAT, UPPER QARATASH TELEPANORAMA OF KASHGAR RANGE . Xl FACING PAGE 100 100 108 116 116 xii CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA DEBTOR WEARING CANGUE, MAGISTRATE’S YAMEN, KARGHALIK DULANI WOMAN WITH SIcK LAMB, MERKET . : : : KIRGHIZ CALLERS, Q1zIL TAGH REGION . ‘ : ° e A KirGcHiz WEDDING BREAKFAST, UPPER QARATASH VALLEY . KASHGARI CHILDREN IN GALA ATTIRE . : E : : DISPENSING MEDICINE TO THE KIRGHIZ, CHOPKANA JILGHA . A KIRGHIZ BRIDGE BUILT ON THE CANTILEVER PRINCIPLE, KHAN- TEREK e e e e e e . e e e Peaks J, IIIA Aanp III oF SHIWAKTE GROUP : ; ‘ SUMMER AT KAYING BASHI . : * . : PEAK I oF SHIWAKTE GROUP : ‘ é : : PLASTER HEAD OF WOMAN FOUND UNDER SANDS OF TAKLA MAKAN DESERT NEAR KHOTAN c ‘ ; “ A SOAPSTONE FIGURE OF SARASWATI AND HER PEACOCK FOUND AT YOTKAN ., t sb A = . i : A PROFESSIONAL BEGGAR, OLD Agsu . : 5 é ’ A GAME OF CAT’S CRADLE; DULANI CHILDREN, MARALBASHI DISTRICT : % ; : ; ’ ‘ : A DESERT LAKE (THE CHOLL KuL, MARALBASHI DISTRICT) . THE WALLS OF KHOTAN ‘ ‘ ; ; ’ . ; A STORY-TELLER AND HIS AUDIENCE, KARGHALIK , . * IN THE YANGI ART JILGHA, TIEN SHAN MOUNTAINS : ° SHEEP-FARM OF YETIM DOBE, CENTRAL TIEN SHAN ; A KirGuiz BEG OF THE TIEN SHAN, WITH HIS HUNTING EAGLE THE City OF THE DEAD, OLD Agsu : ; J AL : An Agsu SMALL-HOLDER’S MELON-CROP : : : ; KASHGARI FISHERMEN AT WORK IN A CANAL. : ; : Our CARTS STARTING OUT FROM A CHINESE REst-HovusE 4 TELEPANORAMA OF KUNLUN MOUNTAINS 4 é ‘ : TELEPANORAMA OF TIEN SHAN PEAKS . 4 “ : ; PANORAMA OF QUNGUR MaAssiF, SHIWAKTE GROUP AND PEAKS OF KAYING VALLEY : , : , , . . FACING PAGE 124 124 132 132 138 146 146 150 158 164 170 170 184 184 192 204 204 218 226 232 258 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA Xill FACING PAGE MUHAMMADAN GUESTS, AT PRAYER IN THE GARDEN OF THE CONSULATE-GENERAL, KING’S BIRTHDAY RECEPTION, 1924 262 THE LATE GENERAL MA, TITAI OF KASHGARIA . : Pate Le THE KEPEK PASS : : ; ; : ° : Mee ty F- AN AWKWARD STEP ON THE DESCENT OF THE KEPEK PASS . 272 Ag TasH GLACIER AND PEAK III OF THE SHIWAKTE GROUP . 276 Foot OF COMBINED OI TAGH AND Bux UsH GLACIERS . Piao tie LooKING UP NAGAR VALLEY TO HISPAR ; : q i 22 MAPS PamMirs QuNGUR MASSIF : : . . Front Endpaper CHINESE TURKISTAN AND ADJACENT TERRITORIES , : - 290 INTRODUCTION HE “‘ unchanging East ”’ is, of course, a fiction. The East does change, and change very remarkably, as we can see from this book. When a high Chinese official receiving a British Consul-General can wear a bowler hat, and relieving himself of it transfer it to an attendant wear- ing a Homburg hat, who thereupon places the bowler on the top of the Homburg on the top of his head, things must have changed indeed from the time when every Chinese official on every official occasion wore a pork-pie hat and feather and kept it firmly on his own head. Other changes too one notes in this book. Thirty-nine years ago, when I first visited Chinese Turkistan, the Russian Consul- General was in a dominant position and there was not asingle Englishman resident in the country. During the period with which this book deals (1922-4) the Russian Consulate no longer exists, and it is the British Consul-General who is the most influential European in Kashgaria. Still, if the East does change, there can hardly be a part of it which changes less than Chinese Turkistan. On three sides it is hemmed in by lofty mountains, including the Himalaya, the Roof of the World, and the Heavenly Mountains. And on the fourth it is bounded by a great desert. Tibet itself is hardly less secluded. And, therefore, we can still see there now most of what the East was. The Chinese may have taken to wearing European clothes, but the skin under the clothes remains of much the same colour. From Mr. Skrine’s account of the officials, including the General, they appear to be both as polite and cultured and composed, and also as arrogant and at times cruel towards the people, as they always have been in Turkistan. And the change in the amount of influence respectively exerted by the Russians and British does not particularly affect the Turki inhabitants. They seem to remain pretty much the same as they have been for centuries ; and Chinese Turkistan XV Xvi CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA is a blessed country without a single railway or even a metalled road. Here then is a country worth taking some trouble to describe. You do not need a snap-shot camera: the object is sufficiently stationary for you to give it a time exposure. And Mr. Skrine has taken advantage of his opportunity. Not everyone— especially not every married man—would care to exile himself for two and a half years to so distant a post. But Mr. Skrine seized the chance with enthusiasm and worked assiduously all the time—observing like a bird all that went on around him and recording what he saw with the indefatigability of a typing machine. And he was incessantly on the move touring the country. What with the Russian, French, Swedish and British travellers who have explored the western end of Chinese Central Asia one would have supposed that there was not a nook or corner which had not been visited. Yet Mr. Skrine discovered what must be about the most delightful spot in the whole country—the Happy Valley lying under the very eaves of the Roof of the World. His description of this valley and of other parts which he visited, and of the people, their art, their folk-lore and their customs, and his photographs—all these together make Mr. Skrine’s book a valuable and welcome addition to Central Asian literature. FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA CHAPTER I TO THE OUTPOSTS T was on a frosty eveningin the November of 1921, in the | cosy precincts of the Quetta Club bar, that Fate vouch- safed its first hint of the pleasant Odyssey that was in store for my wife and myself. A certain senior colleague of mine in the Foreign and Political Department, who happened to be in Quetta on duty at the time, drew me aside and made the following electrifying proposition : ‘““ Some time ago I agreed to go to Kashgar next summer and officiate for a year as Consul-General in place of E. who is going on leave. Now, for domestic reasons, I don’t want to go. Would you like me to suggest you to Government as a substitute ? ”’ It took me an appreciable time to grasp the full significance of this proposal. Then I said: “Why, I’d start to-morrow if I had the chance. But I am far too junior and there’s not the least prospect of their giving me the job.” “ Oh, I don’t know,” said the Colonel, “‘ it’s only for a year,} and there won’t be much competition. Anyhow, I may suggest your name to them at Delhi? ”’ “Most certainly you may!” | D. (my wife) and I were touring six weeks later in that remote and little-known district of East Persia, the Sarhad, when the telegram came which informed me that I had been appointed to officiate as British Consul-General in Chinese Turkistan. A picturesque Baluch scallywag of the Sarhad Levies brought it, twisted up in a grimy section of his volumi- nous clothing, from Khwash, 60 miles away, the westernmost station of all the far-flung Indian telegraph system. To use a 1 This period was subsequently extended, 1 1 2 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA trite phrase, the news seemed too good to be true. Four years before, at Kerman in south-east Persia, Sir Percy Sykes (then Inspector-General of the South Persia Rifles) had spoken to me in glowing terms of the ‘‘ Kashgar job,’”’ and I had sworn a vow that some day, later in my service perhaps when I should be full of years if not of honour, it should be mine. And now, after only four years, I was to go! The only question was, would D. be able to come with me? Forthwith I set the wires humming, and three anxious weeks, during which D. hardly slept for fear lest she should be left behind, passed before the necessary permission was received from Government. I had little anxiety on the score of her ability to stand the fatigues and hardships (if any) of the journey, for in the course of two long tours in the Sarhad she had had a good taste of desert travelling, and wanted more. Besides, I knew by experience how straight are made the paths of the British traveller on the frontier or beyond ; had I not myself helped to make straight the paths of others in a like case ? There was no need for haste. The Kashmir passes would not be officially “‘open’’ for another four or five months. For it must be understood that the route by which Kashgar had been most easily accessible before the Russian Revolu- tion, that is to say by rail from Russia to Andijan on the Transcaspian Railway and thence twelve marches by pony caravan across the Tien Shan, was no longer open. Thanks to the chaotic state of Transcaspia since the Revolution and the consequent closing of the Russian frontier of Chinese Turkistan, a comparatively easy journey to our destination with a free trip Home thrown in was denied us. The only practicable alternative was to go by rail and road to Srinagar and thence, in June when the passes opened, to ride and walk for seven weeks across the wide mountain belt which separates the Vale of Kashmir from the plains of Chinese Turkistan. There was plenty of time, therefore, to make our preparations and indulge in the delights of anticipation. The end of April saw us jogging up the Jhelum valley to the Kashmir capital. Most travellers to Kashmir, being in a hurry, dash up the 1go-mile road in two days by car. Wecould afford to take six days and taste the full savour of our first trip to the famous Valley, so we went by “ tonga”’ or pony- cart. D. and I with our rolls of bedding and hand-luggage (our heavy boxes had gone ahead by motor-lorry) occupied one tonga, while on the other came, perched on mountains of TO THE OUTPOSTS 3 their own baggage and some of ours, our faithful little butler- valet Ahmad Bakhsh and D.’s even smaller “ ayah,” a delight- ful old Bombay duenna called Malamma. The ayah came no further than Srinagar, for the passes would certainly have killed her, but Ahmad Bakhsh figures throughout this nar- rative and deserves a proper introduction. A dapper, cheerful, energetic, efficient little native of Amroha in the United Provinces, where the best servants come from, “‘ A.B.,’’ as we always called him, entered our service at Delhi in December 1920 when we were on our way to set up house in Baluchistan. Since then he had accompanied us loyally and cheerfully in all our wanderings and now, marvellous to relate, had volunteered to come with us to Kashgar. What this means will be appreciated by anyone who has tried, as I had more than once, to induce his best servants to accompany him on service out of India. Let me say here and now that A.B. not only went with us to Kashgar but stayed there for two years and came back with us, and that he was an unqualified success both as “camp khidmatgar ”’ on the road and as head butler at the Consulate-General, where he ruled his Turkisubordinates with a rod of iron. Arrived in Srinagar, we found that it would be a month or more before we could expect to start on our long trek across the mountains. Thanks to the beauty of Nature in the Kashmir Valley in spring and to the kindness and hospitality of friends new and old, the time passed only too quickly. At first we were the guests of the First Assistant to the Resident in Kashmir, Mr. Lothian, and his charming wife ; afterwards we collected a local cook and one or two other servants and set up house for ourselves in some unoccupied clerks’ quarters lent us by the Resident. Then began in earnest the task of equipping ourselves and making arrangements for our long journey. Before going further I must explain the situation as regards the ‘roads’ which connect India with Chinese Turkistan. At their best, i.e. most of the way up to the furthest British outposts, they are well-engineered pack-transport roads, from three to six feet wide, made and maintained by the Indian Public Works Department. Once the level floor of the Jhelum Valley is left there is no question of wheeled transport of any kind; it would cost millions to construct a motor-road even as far as Gilgit or Leh. Beyond the out- posts the “‘road’”’ degenerates rapidly into a stony caravan 4 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA track winding up the gorges and along the precipitous moun- tain-faces of the Karakoram until the Great Divide is reached. There are few alternatives even among these exiguous paths. The tremendous barrier formed by the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram can only be pierced at three points, that is to say by the Chitral, Leh and Gilgit routes respectively. For reasons into which I need not enter, the first of these is not practicable for the ordinary traveller. The second, which goes from Srinagar to Leh and thence across the Karakoram to Yarkand, is the route most generally used. It is, I believe, by far the highest and most difficult trade-route in the world, not even excepting those across the Andes. Ever since the famous Forsyth Mission of 1873-4, which bore a letter and presents from Queen Victoria herself to the “‘ Amir’”’ Yakub Beg Bedaulat of Kashgar, it has been our policy to foster the trade between India and Chinese Turkistan. Until 1891, however, the Leh caravans used frequently to be looted by the men of Hunza and Nagar, and it is only since that year, when those tough httle mountain principalities were brought to heel by Colonel Durand’s column,} that the Leh road has been safe and regularly used by traders. The Kashmir State takes great interest in this ‘‘ road,” and it is carefully organized. The pack-transport road from Srinagar over the Zoji La Pass to Leh, the capital of Ladakh or “ Little Tibet,” is kept in excellent repair. An official known as the “ British Joint Commissioner in Ladakh ”’ looks after the interests of traders at Leh and Srinagar ; stores of State grain are kept at various points along the Yarkand road for sale to caravans at fixed rates, and trade encouraged in many other ways. None the less, in spite of the facilities described above, the obstacles which the Indo-Central Asian trade has to surmount are so great that it is nothing less than marvellous that the route can be profitably used at all. First, there is the notorious Zoji La Pass near Srinagar with its blizzards and avalanches. Then between Leh and Yarkand five passes over 16,000 feet high have to be crossed, of which three are difficult and even dangerous, though the highest of them all, the Karakoram - (18,550 feet), is easy. On thissection, for fourteen consecutive marches all food-supplies for man and beast have to be carried by the caravans. Innumerable mountain torrents and not a few large rivers swollen with melting snows have to be forded. +See the late Mr. E. F. Knight’s ‘“‘ Where Three Empires Meet’? for a graphic description of this campaign. TO THE OUTPOSTS 5 The carriers, most of whom are Turki landowners of the Karghalik and Goma districts, lose scores of ponies every season owing to the rarefaction of the air on the high passes, to shortage of food and to accidents by flood, blizzard, glacier and precipice. Nevertheless year after year the caravans toil to and fro, carrying to Yarkand the products of Manchester looms and Bradford woollen mills, British and German dye- stuffs, tea and brocades from India, spices and sugar from Java ; while in return come felts and hemp-drug (the hashish of Arabia), silks and carpets from Khotan and a substantial balance in gold dust and silver to fill the gaily-painted coffers of fat bunnias in Amritsar and Hoshiarpur. Most of the European explorers, sportsmen, missionaries and others who have visited Central Asia from India have travelled by this route, and we might have followed in their steps. But I was more fortunate than they, for I was travel- ling to Kashgar on duty, and a shorter and less arduous, yet even more interesting, route was open to me. This was the last of the three mentioned above, that via Gilgit, the Mintaka Pass and the Chinese Pamirs. For several reasons this route is not practicable for trade or other regular traffic. For one thing, the gorge of the Hunza River between Baltit and Misgar (six marches) is in many places quite impossible for loaded ponies, and all baggage has to be carried in fifty-pound loads from village to village on the backs of the few porters available. For another, up to 1891, as we have seen, the brawny lads of Hunza and Nagar added considerably to their incomes by raiding the caravans on the Lehroute ; and though we console them in various ways for the loss of this source of wealth, and though they have been as good as gold for the last thirty years, it would perhaps be trying them too highly to encourage the stream of trade to flow through their wild fastnesses. Lastly, there is the difficulty of supplies; each caravan or large party depletes reserves along the road, thus adding to the troubles of the local Indian Army Service Corps and Kashmir Durbar authorities who have their hands full enough already with supplying the Gilgit garrison and the posts along the road. For the favoured traveller, however, who comes armed with official permission, these obstacles are tackled by the local authorities with the utmost goodwill. The British officer of the I.A.S.C. in charge of the Gilgit road allows him to draw rations for his party and forage for his animals from the Supply depots established at most of the stages; the 6 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA (Indian) officials of the Kashmir Durbar at Bandipur, Astore and Gilgit help him as regards any other supplies he may need as well as in the all-important matter of pony- or coolie- transport from stage to stage; while, last but not least, the Political Agent at Gilgit makes the necessary arrangements with the chiefs of Hunza and Nagar who, tactfully handled and not overworked, treat their occasional European visitors with the utmost friendliness and traditional Oriental hospit- ality. The date of opening of the Gilgit road is governed by the state of the two passes which have to be crossed in its early stages, the Tragbal (11,950 feet) and the Burzil (13,650 feet). Though not nearly so high as the passes further up the road, these two make up for their lower stature by their heavier snowfall. Climatically they belong to the well-watered southern face of the Himalayas. The Burzil in particular, owing to its proximity to the immense massif of Nanga Parbat (26,620 feet), carries an astonishing amount of snow right into the summer. The I.A.S.C., who are chiefly concerned, find that as a rule the snow has not melted sufficiently for transport to cross easily until the beginning of June, and it is then that they declare the pass ‘‘ open.” As a fact, travellers can and do cross the pass as much as three or four weeks earlier, by travelling at night when the snow-crust is hard; but they do so at their own risk, for he who ventures too early in the season into the wilds of Gurais and Astore runs the gauntlet not only of blizzards on the passes but of avalanches in the valleys. We heard about the middle of May that the outgoing Consul- General had started down the road from Kashgar much earlier than had been expected and, travelling light, hoped to reach Srinagar by the end of the month. We were therefore advised to wait for him at Srinagar instead of meeting him up the road as we had intended, so that we could discuss Kashgar matters with him comfortably for a day or two before starting ourselves. About this time we were joined by an old New College friend of mine, Mr. Gerard Price, a planter of tea in far Ceylon who, immediately he heard of my appointment, began to long amid his spicy breezes for the icy mountains of Central Asia, and wrote to ask if he might join us. I had some little difficulty in obtaining permission for him to accompany us to Kashgar, but eventually succeeded, and he proved a welcome addition to our small party. TO THE OUTPOSTS 7 A few days before our departure yet another Kashgar pilgrim appeared on the scene in the shape of Mr. H. I. Harding of the China Consular Service, who had been employed for several years on the staff of our Legation at Peking. Attracted like ourselves by the prospect of a year in Central Asia, he had volunteered to give up the home-leave due to him and go instead to Kashgar for a year in the comparatively humble capacity of Vice-Consul in place of Mr. N. Fitzmaurice of the same Service, who had occupied the post for four years and was only awaiting my arrival to go on leave. Mr. Harding had not come alone from Peking; he too had a friend, a Chinese journalist from Peking, travelling withhim. We could not all go up the road together, as this would have sorely overtaxed the resources of the Gilgit route in transport and supplies, so the new-comers gave us a few days’ start and followed us, marking time occasionally in order to avoid overtaking our more slowly-moving caravan. Our time in the little house at Srinagar was fully occupied in preparations for the journey. There were temporary ser- vants to engage, kit and stores to purchase. Numbers of the peculiarly strong leather-covered wooden boxes for pony transport known as “‘ yakdans”’ and of the baskets, also covered with leather, carried by coolies and known as “ kiltas,’’ had to be made to order by local craftsmen. Saddlery, camp furniture, felt-lined top-boots, ‘‘ poshteens ”’ or sheepskin coats, etc., etc., had similarly to be constructed carefully according to our specifications. Ahmad Bakhsh and Nizam ud Din had to be provided with regular trousseaux including poshteens, boots and suits of ““ puttoo’”’ or cheap Kashmir tweed for the passes as well as thin khaki twill clothes for the hot weather at Kashgar. Kitchen stores and utensils had to be bought according to carefully-thought-out lists and packed in the yakdans and kiltas, and a stock of knives, watches, table cutlery, etc., had to be laid in for presentation to those who helped us on the road. Next, transport had to be secured ; with the help of the Kashmir Durbar we arranged for twenty- five pack ponies to be ready for us at Bandipur on the Wular Lake, the jumping-off place of the Gilgit road, to say nothing of a dunga or native barge fitted up as a house-boat, with cook-boat attached and crews to match, to take us by river and lake to Bandipur. Finally, in the daily-increasing heat of Srinagar at the end of May, there was the packing—but over this I will draw a veil, merely remarking that those who 8 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA have not packed with a view to a year and a quarter practi- cally cut off from all shops, half of it to be spent actually travelling and the other half keeping house and entertaining on a large scale, simply do not know what packing is. One more item in the list of our preparations is worth mentioning, and that concerned the language question. Up to the frontier all that the traveller needs is Hindustani, more properly called Urdu, the lingua franca of the Indian Empire ; though a good literary and colloquial knowledge of Persian, especially if acquired in Persia itself, will add to his prestige. But in Chinese territory a knowledge of Urdu is confined to the Indian traders and a very few Chinese subjects connected with India or the Consulate-General. Persian, too, is spoken by few outside the Afghan colonies in the larger towns. The traveller who, like myself, has a rooted objection to being cut off from the people of a country by ignorance of their language, must learn Eastern Turki, a descendant of the old Uigur tongue and a first cousin of modern Turkish. No suitable native of Chinese Turkistan could be found in Srinagar to coach me, but an excellent Indian subordinate official known as the Aqsaqal? of the Yarkandis, whose duties necessitated a collo- quial knowledge of Eastern Turki, came to our house almost every day for three weeks and gave me a conversational start in the language which stood me later in good stead. D. joined us occasionally and picked up a few words, to which she afterwards added greatly (as a result, partly, of having a Turki maid) until by the time she left Kashgar she knew as much “ colloquial ”’ as I did. While on the subject of languages, it may be of interest to mention that no fewer than seven different languages, apart from dialects, are spoken on the Gilgit road between Srinagar and Kashgar. These are: In British Indian territory generally: Urdu. In Gurais and Astore: Kashmiri, In Gilgit : Shina. In Hunza and Nagar: Burushaski. In Little Guhyal, and again at Dafdar in the Chinese Pamirs : Persian (Wakhi dialect). In Sariqol: Tajik. In Chinese territory generally : Eastern Turki. There could be no better illustration of the extraordinary 1The word means literally ‘‘greybeard’’ and is used throughout Turki-speaking Central Asia for ‘‘ headman.”’ RAKAPOSHI FROM NORTH SIDE OF HUNZA VALLEY NEAR BALTIT [p. 25 TO THE OUTPOSTS 9 welter of races inhabiting the tangle of mountains through which we were soon to thread our way. At last, on June 3, 1922, Colonel E. having arrived and the necessary conversations with him concluded, all was ready for the start. The dunga was brought by its chattering crew and moored to the river-bank near our quarters. Throughout the morning and half the afternoon our belongings gradually transferred themselves into it; our cook, who refused to come with us further than Bandipur, ensconced himself with his paraphernalia in the cook-boat together with A.B. and the “ Knight of the Broom,” and by four o’clock in the afternoon we had bid good-bye to our Srinagar friends and were slipping quietly down the placid Jhelum. * * * * * How pleasant it was next day to awake on a perfect morning of June and find ourselves gliding peacefully along the winding channel which connects the Dal and Wular Lakes ! They faded away like a dream, those hot and dusty weeks of bustle and preparation, of packing and re-packing, of chaffering with tradesmen and bickering with would-be servants, guides, horse-copers, boat-owners and all the thousand and one different species of tout with which Kashmir’s capital swarms. Lithe brown Kashmiri watermen poled us unhurriedly along in our Noah’s Ark-shaped craft, reminiscent of house-boats and old days on the river, conducive of restfulness. Early rising was no hardship in such circumstances, and Gerard Price and I with dressing-gowns over our pyjamas were soon sipping our early-morning tea on the veranda of the dunga, while the first rays of the sun bathed the ice-cliffs of Haramukh hanging in the northern sky. It is always difficult on such occasions to realize that one is at last on the Road; but when it is such a Road as that which now lay at our feet ! A few months before, D. and I who had never seen even Kashmir would have looked upon Gilgit as the furthest limit of our possible wanderings in this direction. But now the Gilgit road was but the first and best- beaten section of a track which was to lead us right through the wild mountain principalities of Hunza and Nagar, through the “ Rough Bounds” of Guhyal, over the Great Divide of the Hindu Kush, across the lofty wastes of the Pamirs and down through little-known gorges to the cities and deserts of 10 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA a land, the very name of which had long been one to conjure with—Chinese Turkistan. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be not only young—reasonably so—but bound for Kashgar was very Heaven ! Much has been written about the road from Srinagar to Gilgit, which is traversed yearly by frontier officials, sports- men, explorers; globe-trotters and others, and I will therefore confine myself to a few impressions and episodes of interest. How vivid are some of those impressions still! The landing from our dunga at the leafy little “ port’ of Bandipur; the strawberries on which we feasted there, tarrying through the noonday heat at the cottage of kind Srinagar friends ; the first tang of pine-scented mountain air which greeted our nostrils that evening as we toiled up to the “ alp ” of Tragbal ; a snow-white river in Gurais which gushed out among pines from ‘‘ caverns measureless to man’’; a Paradise of corn- fields shaded by groves of walnut and mulberry, Astore, hanging over its abysmal river-gorge like the gardens of a mountain Babylon ; the gashed and blasted flank of Hatu Pir with its break-neck descent to the heat and sand-flies of Ramghat ; the strange hues and stately reaches of the Indus Valley, first seen from the wooded heights of Dashkin. .. . It was comfortable travelling ; we slept nightly at well-built rest-houses which boasted two or three, sometimes even four sets of rooms, and our marches, except when a pass had to be crossed, were taken easily enough on foot or horseback accor- ding to our whim. Rapid marching was out of the question in any case ; for we depended, after crossing the Burzil Pass, on local ponies and men for the transport of our baggage; and ponies and men alike, poor creatures, were sadly weak and emaciated owing to two consecutive years of famine. This, we were at first puzzled to hear, had been caused by over- copious monsoons; in a land most of which stands upon its own edge, as it were, famine is more often caused by exception- ally heavy rains which wash whole fields away, crops and all, than by drought. We did what we could for those who came to us, but it was little enough, for it was food they wanted, not medicines or money. A procession of hill-men would come to our halting-place, carrying on a primitive bedstead a poor wretch in the last stage of some terrible malady, obviously brought on, or at any rate aggravated, by a diet of wild plants TO THE OUTPOSTS 11 and garbage ; it was heartrending to have to send the pitiful train away up the steep hill-side with but a tin or two of condensed milk and a handful of flour, all we could spare, well knowing that the man was doomed. We were cheered to hear afterwards at Gilgit that Government supplies were on their way, now that the Burzil Pass was at last open, and that the coming crop promised to be a good one. The crossing of one’s first really high pass is a great event, and our defeat of the snowy Burzil was a memorable experience for allofus. True, it was not quite our first pass, even in Kash- mir, for the Tragbal was already behind us. But the Tragbal hardly counts, for it only boasts a beggarly 11,000 feet, and moreover does not fulfil one’s ideas of a pass at all; rather is it a long, bare, grassy upland across which the path winds for several miles and then suddenly dives giddily into a forest- filled glen. The Burzil, on the other hand, is every inch a pass, 13,500 feet high. For two whole marches one steadily ascends ; up through the leafy Gurais valley, famed for its trout, up the pine-clad slopes of Pushwari, up and ever up- wards past the lovely alp of Minimarg, haunt of bears, past woods of silvery birch and over boggy meadows pink with primulas, each new landscape more beautiful than the last. Then the ascent suddenly steepens, flowers and trees drop away below and the traveller is left alone with the black rocks and the snow and the razor-edged breath of the great ranges... . Of real difficulty or danger from the mountaineering point of view there is now little or none, though in the early days of British penetration the crossing of the pass before the melting of the snows must have been a much more arduous business ; for then there was no Burzil chauki, or rest-house. Right below the lofty saddle of snow which marks the pass appears a roomy, stoutly-built chalet of stone, and here, in the cosy quarters provided by a benign Government, we made our- selves thoroughly at home before roaring fires of pine-logs. Within ten minutes of our arrival D. with her habitual industry (always warmly approved and encouraged by myself) had started in to bake large quantities of the tasty scone of her native heath, and in due course the three of us were sitting down to a tea @ /’Ecossaise which would have done justice to any fishing hotel in the Highlands. Under the fierce sun of a Kashmir June, snow softens in the daytime at higher altitudes even than 13,000 feet, and it is advisable to cross a pass like the Burzil at night or in the 12 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA early morning, when the surface is firmly caked. Accordingly at the ‘‘ dead unhappy ” hour of three next morning, or soon after it, we swathed ourselves in every woollen and furry garment we could muster and zigzagged sleepily up the bleak hill-side. Ours were the first ponies of the season to cross the pass and, no path being visible, our only guide was the Burzil stream ; when this disappeared under a solid casing of ice and snow, the leading carriers had frequently to cast about for a practicable route. The snowfields were nowhere steep enough to be really dangerous, but there were one or two mauvais pas where a slip would have meant an involuntary toboggan-run into the depths of the glen, with the possibility of hitting a weak point in the torrent’s ice-cap at the end of it. Dawn was breaking when we emerged upon wide snow-slopes. Here there is a tower of steel girders about 4o feet high with a small hut perched comically on the top. This, we were informed, was a shelter for those hardy employees of the Indian Telegraph Department whose duties take them over the pass at all times of the year. At first I could hardly believe that so high a tower was necessary ; but our carriers assured us that the snow sometimes covered the hut. I thought of beloved Munchausen of my childhood, with a new respect for his veracity. Accustomed to the snowfalls of my grand- parents’ Highland home, seldom more than a foot or two in depth, I had always had a little difficulty in swallowing one, if no other, of the worthy Baron’s adventures. I refer, of course, to the occasion on which the Baron, having tethered his horse one evening to a lonely wooden cross which protruded from the snow, woke up next morning after a sudden thaw to find him- self sitting in the middle of a village market-place and his steed dangling by its bridle, kicking and struggling, from the topmost cross of the church steeple. Had I known about the Burzil, my scepticism would have vanished. The going was now easy, and we made good progress past the half-buried Burzil Hut at the summit and down the steep but smooth northern side, where I longed for skis. By noon we had reached Sardar Koti, some miles beyond the foot of the pass on the Astore side, and now we understood why it was so necessary to cross the Burzil by night at this time of year ; the snow, which had been so firm, became, as we crossed the last patches, a bog in which ponies and men floundered help- lessly. There is also the danger of avalanches, the force and fury of which may be gauged from what we saw at Gorai on TO THE OUTPOSTS 13 the north side of the Tragbal. ‘‘ Baedeker,”’ i.e. the official route-book, mentions a convenient rest-house at this place on a knoll which rises 20 or 30 feet above the torrent. All we could see was a sprinkling of stones and fragments of mortar on the hill-side, steep as the proverbial side of a house, above the knoll. We were puzzled by this, until it was ex- plained to us that the year before an April avalanche had come down the opposite side of the glen with such momentum that its head had shot across the stream and had carried the rest- house a hundred feet up the hill-side! Luckily the place was empty at the time. Near Chillum on the north side of the Burzil we were met by the three mounted servants whom Colonel E. had brought down from Kashgar and left in Astore to wait for us. To eyes unaccustomed to the costumes of Central Asia they were an odd-looking trio. They wore dark-coloured overcoats padded with cotton-wool and coloured scarves wound round their waists, shapeless top-boots and remarkable red and white cocked hats exactly like the triangular paper hats made by children.1 Of the three new additions to our dramatis per- sone two did not remain long in our service after we reached Kashgar and may be dismissed briefly. Muhammad Rahim, a well-meaning but inefficient Ladakhi strongly resembling a baboon, appeared to owe his post as orderly to an alleged capacity for camp cooking ; accordingly we tried him as a relief for the overworked Ahmad Bakhsh, but the effect upon our digestions was such that D. very soon relieved him of his culinary duties. Mamatek, the assistant table-servant at the Consulate, was an overgrown lad of about sixteen who afforded us our first experience of the congenital laziness of the younger Turki. But Hafiz, the orderly in charge of the horses, was a man of a very different type. Sturdy, active and efficient, Hafiz was always in the forefront whenever there was a job of work to be done or a difficult bit of road to pilot the caravan over. He was particularly good with animals; his was the only horse that never gave any trouble, and at Kashgar he proved a great success as Keeper of the Camel, when as a matter of course he was entrusted with the special duty of looking after and leading D.’s stately and supercilious mount, Camel Sulaiman, A native of the Kashgar oasis and a Chinese subject, Hafiz both in appearance and in characteristics 1The Kashgar orderlies now wear khaki turbans in the Indian style, a form of headgear they much prefer to the local type. 14 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA approximated rather to the Mongol than to the Iranian type of Kashgari Turki. His pluck, honesty, promptness, loyalty and unflagging spirits made him in course of time more of a friend to both of us than a servant. He accompanied us on every yard of our various journeyings and when, two and a half years later, we came at last to the end of them, there was no one in all Kashgaria with whom we were more grieved to art. fe In the gloomy depths of the Astore river-gorge, where the path clings perilously to the cliff-face and comes at times within inches of the foaming river, occurred the nearest approach to an ‘“‘adventure”’ that any of us had on this journey. An adventure may be described as an unexpected occurrence which is dangerous at the time and, like one’s schooldays, pleasant (if at all) chiefly in retrospect. I may be of an unromantic temperament, but that is how I have been struck by the few I have experienced. The adventure in question, which certainly merited the above description, came about as follows. With the servants we found waiting for us at Chillum was the horse which Colonel E. had ridden down from Kashgar, and which I was to ride up there, a black Afghan stallion of great strength and (as I found afterwards) by no means of a vicious temperament. On this occasion, however, all four animals had been eating their heads off for a fortnight in the clover of Astore; also—cherchez la jument—the black horse and a quarrelsome ginger-coloured mustang from Yarkand ridden by Hafiz were hated rivals whenever there were any mares in the offing. On the day that we marched down the gorge from Astore village our caravan included two or three mares, a fact which escaped my notice until we came up with one that was lagging behind the rest of the loads. Suddenly, snorting and flinging up a contemptuous heel at his rival as he passed, Hafiz’ steed shot past us, bent no doubt on a flirtation with the mare; this was too much for the black, which pursued the red horse and sank his teeth in the latter’s neck. Followed a battle royal, the red horse’s hind legs lashing out time after time like a runaway threshing machine and the black snapping furiously at the red’s neck and quarters, neither of them paying the slightest attention to his rider. Most providentially, this Homeric conflict took place at one of the few points on the day’s march where the four-foot path did not actually overhang the river, from which it was TO THE OUTPOSTS 15 here separated by several yards of detritus fallen from the cliffs above; for the combatants behaved exactly as if they had the widest plains of their native Turkistan to fight over. Perhaps a better horseman than I would have stuck on at all costs and dragged his mount out of the mélée by sheer strength and will-power ; I frankly confess that I thought of nothing but how to jump, slide, tumble or otherwise remove myself from the back of my horse at the earliest opportunity and thus escape alike the Scylla of the red horse’s hoofs and the Charybdis of the river. The worst moment was when the black horse lost his balance and sank to the ground with the other on top of him; even then; my leg being pinned, I could not roll clear, and the beast was up again with me on his back before I knew where I was. Finally he reared high in the air and I, seeing a few feet of smooth ground behind me, rolled off on to it, a few seconds after Hafiz had managed to do likewise. Bruised and shaken but thankful, I joined D., who had been an agitated spectator of the whole affair, and together we watched the horses continue the battle among the rocks. There was no stopping them, and peace was not declared until the black had bitten several gory holes in his enemy’s neck and had torn his near-side saddle-flap right off, and the red horse on his part had kicked or savaged his rival in a dozen different places. Thus was the hungry Astore River baulked of its prey, and Hafiz and I escaped with some heavy but not serious bruises on back and legs; we struggled into Dashkin and there stopped the night, halving our march, and no permanent damage was done except to a Government saddle. Needless to say we did not allow the enemies within a day’s march of each other again, and at Gilgit I graciously loaned the red horse as a mount for the rest of the journey to our Vice-Consul, Harding, who as already explained was following two or three days behind us up the road. But the poor beast was doomed to a tragic end after all; in Guhyal, a few marches beyond Gilgit, he fell off the path eight hundred feet into the Hunza River—without on this occasion, however, doing his best to take another horse and a couple of unoffending human beings with him. Another novel but less unpleasant experience was being slung across the Astore River at Ramghat on a bridge con- sisting of a single steel cable. A year earlier we could have crossed by a fine suspension bridge, ponies, loads and all; 16 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA but this convenient method of transit was no longer available. The previous July, during the annual “spring cleaning ”’ and readjustment of the bridge and its cables, one of the latter parted and the bridge turned turtle, flinging six unfor- tunate workmen into the river and drowning three of them. It still spanned the perpendicular-sided gorge, but all twisted, tangled and awry, its roadway, railings and all, tilted giddily round towards the river a hundred feet below. There was something peculiarly grim and yet pathetic about the sight ; the picture of the bridge twisting round and the wretched coolies dropping off it like flies haunted one, while the vast scale of the picture’s setting dwarfed it until the broken bridge seemed no more than a strand of spider’s web torn by the falling of a twig. Here where it debouches into the Indus, the Astore river-gorge is at its narrowest and deepest, and a mighty volume of water roars through it in summer from the glaciers and melting snows of Nanga Parbat. As D. and I squattedin the four-feet-square wooden box without a lid which did duty for a car and were jerked slowly across the gulf, we had ample time to gaze apprehensively downwards and ask each other how any of those six coolies managed to escape at all. The temporary rope bridge above described, though up to four hundredweight of people or baggage at a time, could not cope with horses, and our mounts had to make a detour in- volving two extra marches down the Indus to Lezin, across a bridge there and up the right bank. We were thus deprived of them for two days. To our dismay we found that the shortage of horseflesh was even more pronounced nearer Gilgit than in Astore, and two or three skinny local “tats ”’ were all that we could raise for our servants and ourselves. We had perforce, therefore, to foot it most of the forty-four inter- minable miles of baking sand and rocks that compose the road between Ramghat and Gilgit. In June the Indus Valley at this point is not to be compared for heat and biting insects with some countries that I have experienced, the Persian Gulf littoral for instance, or the plains of Sind though which this same Indus flows a thousand miles further south. Still, there are cooler places, and I for one have decided that if ever I have to travel up this road again in summer, nothing will induce me to come down from the cool heights of Astore until I am assured of a mount for every yard of the Ramghat- Gilgit road. Of our whole journey from Srinagar to Kashgar, this was the only section which fell below the level of enjoy- Sd9uaOD VZNOH HHI NI MAAN Cy HYOLSV HHL GaHSSOYD AM MOH 7 PAD SE) fi are ¥) ' js Po Ny at 5. q Wee ie oa on} ahs rt} > TO THE OUTPOSTS 17 ment of a delightful picnic; and even it was not without its bright spots. After that grilling midday tramp of 8 miles from Ramghat to Bunji, the cool gloom of the bungalow which another kind friend put at our disposal was no less than the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land, and the somewhat flavourless white mulberries of the country which we devoured in platefuls were luscious as the grapes of Paradise. In the late afternoon the heat haze vanished and there ap- peared, framed in the mighty curves of the Indus gorges, lovely as the Taj at the end of its cypress-vista, the ice-clad dome of Nanga Parbat, 26,600 feet high. None of us had ever imagined, much less seen, so wondrous a picture of mountain beauty and majesty, and we could but gaze in silence while the virgin world of ice above the clouds glowed brighter and brighter with the gathering of the shadows below. At Gilgit, which we reached on June 15, we received a royal welcome from the Political Agent and his wife, and were soon revelling in the comforts of a well-appointed European house and the shade and fruits of its delightful garden. One of the pleasantest features of travelling in these parts is the uniform kindness and hospitality even of perfect strangers, who make the most elaborate arrangements for one and insist on one’s treating their houses as hotels, even when they are not at home themselves. In the present case our hosts were old friends of mine, the Political Agent happening by a lucky chance to be Colonel D. L. Lorimer, my erstwhile chief at Kerman. During the four days we spent at this last European- inhabited outpost of the Indian Empire, preparing for the longest and wildest section of our journey, often did we talk of far-off Kerman and exchange reminiscences of life and travel in the sunny land of Persia. CHAPTER II IN THE HEART OF THE KARAKORAM UR three days’ halt at Gilgit gave us a welcome opportunity to recondition our kit and replenish our stores, according to the experience we had gained and the advice we received from Gilgit friends well versed in the peculiar “ ropes’ of travel in these parts. We had also time to learn something about the wild regions through which we were to travel for the next fortnight. The Hunza-Nagar country is familiar to those interested in this part of Asia from the late Mr. E. F. Knight’s “‘ Where Three Empires Meet,’ Sir Aurel Stein’s ‘“‘ Sand-buried Ruins of Khotan,”’ and other standard works; but it is of such peculiar interest that some remarks about it may not be out of place. Stein says of the Hunza Valley, which he traversed in 1900 on his first journey to Chinese Turkistan : * There can be no doubt that this secluded valley, so long inac- cessible to outside influence, with its small population wholly isolated in regard to language and ethnic origin, contains much that deserves careful examination by the ethnographist and historical student.” 3 The district is part of a region long known vaguely as Dardis- tan, inhabited by two widely-differing races.2 The Yeshkun tribe, to which the Hunza-Nagaris belong, is probably of Ytiehchih or “ Indo-Scythian ”’ original* and is supposed to have come up the Indus valley at a very early date, followed later by an Indian tribe of more humble lineage called the 1“ Archeological Explorations in Chinese Turkistan,” p. 8. *See Sir T. Holdich’s article on ‘f Gilgit’? in the “ Encyclopedia Britannica.” ’ The Yuehchih or “‘ Indo-Scythians’’ were pushed out of Kansu and Eastern Turkistan by Hiong-nu (Huns) from the north, and over- ran Bactria (afterwards Balkh, now Afghan Turkistan) about 120 B.c. Later they crossed the Hindu Kush and founded a great state in what is now the North-West Frontier Province of India, 18 IN THE HEART OF THE KARAKORAM 19 Shins who pushed them by force of numbers into the wilder and more inaccessible fastnesses of the Karakoram. Well-built, upstanding and fearless, many of them good- looking and comparatively fair-complexioned, the men of Hunza and to a less extent the Nagaris contrast strongly with their neighbours further down the Indus Valley, a dark, undersized, grubbyrace. The language of Hunza, Buru- shaski, is quite different not only from the Shinada tongue of Gilgit but from all other known languages; Stein calls it ‘‘an erratic block left here by some bygone wave of con- quest.” 1 The ruling families of the two little States are reputed to be descended from a common ancestor in the fifteenth century, but he, they claim, was descended from Alexander ; if the Yeshkuns are really of Yiiehchih origin, as Biddulph thinks, it is just possible that this mythical tradition represents a race-memory of Bactria which Alexander con- quered in 329-7 B.C. However this may be, there is no doubt whatever that the race which inhabits the Hunza Valley has been there, tucked away in the heart of the greatest mountain mass in the world, for a very long time indeed. In this connexion, it must surely be more than a mere coincidence that the favourite game in Hunza and Nagar, which has been played there since time immemorial, is a primitive form of polo. Now polo, as is well known, was the royal game of Persia in the Middle Ages, though it has long been forgotten in that country. More striking still, the practice of archery on horseback is still kept up, particu- larly in Nagar, which is the more conservative of the two states. One of the regular sports there is shooting a narrow at full gallop at a small silver mark fixed in the ground; we watched the Nagaris doing it when we stayed with the Mir on our journey down, and were astonished at the accuracy with which they planted their arrows as they thundered past. One’s thoughts at once flew back across the ages to the ancient Parthians ; could it be that here, in the Indian Empire of the twentieth century, the ‘‘ Parthian shot”’ still survived, if only as a sport? The art of shooting on horseback, indeed, still exists in Persia, but the bow has long since been dropped for the rifle. Another link with the remote past is the shadowy suzerainty still claimed by the Chinese over the people of Hunza, or “ Kanjut ’’ as they call it. This is probably a survival of a 1“ Sand-buried Ruins of Khotan,”’ p. 34. 20 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA connexion between the Gilgit district and the Celestial Empire dating back to a most interesting episode in the history of High Asia, one which has only been brought to light during the present century through the researches of the late M. Edouard Chavannes! and of Sir Aurel Stein. The account given in the official Annals of the T’ang Dynasty, our sole authority; may be summarized as follows. Towards the end of the seventh century A.D. the Chinese, then at the height of their power in Eastern Turkistan, occupied the districts comprised in the present Gilgit Agency with a view to driving a wedge between their two great enemies, the Arabs on the upper Oxus and the Tibetans in Ladakh. Between 722 and 741 the Tibetans, in their efforts to join hands with the Arabs and secure a base on the Pamirs for an attack upon Kashgar, managed to gain possession first of Baltistan (Polu) and after- wards of the Gilgit district (Little Polu). This stimulated the Chinese to a truly remarkable enterprise. An army ten thousand strong under a general of Korean extraction called Kao Hsien-chih marched up to the Pamirs from Kash- gar, defeated the Tibetans, crossed the exceedingly difficult Darkot Pass (15,400 feet) into Yasin and reoccupied the whole of “ Little Polu,’”’ including the Hunza Valley. It is almost incredible that so large an army, or indeed any army at all, should have performed such a feat; but the T’ang Annals are definite and circumstantial on the subject, and Sir Aurel Stein by his researches on the spot has worked out the itinerary actually followed by the Chinese general. The latter’s ex- ploit made a lasting impression on the neighbouring countries of Asia, though not perhaps quite such a widespread one as the Chinese historian would have us believe when he says that “the Syrians, the Arabs and 72 kingdoms of divers barbarian peoples were all seized with fear and made their submission.”’ “ Little Polu’’ was turned into a military district with a garrison of 1,000 men, which, it is interesting to note, was afterwards victualled with the utmost difficulty from Kashmir, probably by the very same route by which the present garrison of Kashmir State troops under British officers has been sup- plied for the past thirty-five years. By the end of the eighth century the Chinese power had gone down before the victorious Tibetans, and close upon a thousand years were to elapse 1 Chavannes, ‘‘ Documents sur les Tou-kiu occidentaux’’; Stein, ‘‘A Chinese Expedition across the Pamirs and Hindukush, a.p. 747,” “ Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,” February, 1922. BALIIT alk p hy a OG i ; : ) Oar Pa a be pae IN THE HEART OF THE KARAKORAM 21 before it was re-established. But the tradition of Chinese dominion in ‘‘ Little Polu’”’ seems to have survived. For at least two generations before the British conquest the Mir of Hunza, or “‘ Kanjut Chief ”’ as the Chinese call him, had been sending annual deputations to the Tao Tai of Kashgar with tribute in shape of gold dust and woollen cloth; and in 1847 we hear of Hunza sending a contingent to the aid of the Chinese in one of the numerous revolts of the period. And yet there is no record of a Chinese army having ever again penetrated south of the Hindu Kush. The Hunza deputation still waits on the Tao Tai of Kashgar every year with an ounce and a half of Shimshal gold dust and bales of rough grey tweed, and every year, as a proof that the Kanjut Chief is still his feudatory, a photograph goes to the Governor at Urumchi showing the Tao Tai sitting in full durbar with scales for weighing the gold dust by his side and the men of Hunza standing respectfully before him. The Tao Tai indeed makes it worth the said chief’s while to pay the “tribute,” for he sends back several times its value in presents of porce- lain, silk and tea, besides defraying all the expenses of the deputation while in Chinese territory. The scarcity of even reasonably level ground and the poorness of the soil are such that it is only by hard work and clever husbandry that the land can be made to support any population at all. The crofts and steeply-terraced plots of the inhabitants cling precariously to the precipitous sides of the river-valley and its narrow side-glens; even in the main valley the cultivation is only in three or four places more than a few hundred yards wide. To the inhabitants of such a country the world consists of “‘ nullahs”’ or confined valleys in which men live, and the ice-bound heights between them. This is amusingly illustrated by a conversation which took place between a British officer of my acquaintance who was shortly going home on leave, and a headman in the Yasin district. “You are going to your father’s home in England, aren’t you, Sahib ? ”’ asked the headman. “Yes, I am going to the capital of England, London.” “London is a very big place, with plenty of shops, isn’t it, Sahib ? ” “Yes, there are a great many shops.” “I suppose it is in a nice wide nullah, Sahib?” The country being what it is, one must not be too hard on 22 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA the men of Hunza if they succumbed to the temptation put before them by British encouragement of trade on the Yark- and-Leh road and regularly raided the caravans, coming and going by the terrible Shimshal gorges through which no hostile force on earth could follow them. Even the slave- traffic which they carried on, selling their weaker Shin neigh- bours in droves across the Chinese border, can be understood if not forgiven. Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that they were quite as bad as they were painted. Nothing indeed surprised me more on the way through their country in 1922 and afterwards, than the difference between the courtesy, good humour, frankness, honesty and genuine friendliness of the men of Hunza and the picture drawn of them by the author of ‘““ Where Three Empires Meet.’’ Arrogant, blood- thirsty, treacherous, cruel—no words of abuse are too strong for them. I think the explanation is to be found, partly at any rate, in the reaction of a small, despotically-governed Oriental people to the character of its ruler. Safdar Ali, the Mir who was deposed by the British after the campaign of 1891, was from all accounts a man who deserved all Mr. Knight’s strictures and more. It was his greed, cruelty and arrogance that were responsible for the state of affairs which eventually necessitated the Hunza expedition; and one can well believe that the fiercer spirits at any rate among his entourage became like him. It was only necessary, as the British authorities wisely saw, to banish Safdar Ali, or rather to let him stay where he had taken refuge in Chinese territory, for a great revulsion of feeling to take place among his subjects under his admirable successor, Muhammad Nazim Khan, the present Mir. In spite of the loss alike of their indepen- dence and of the chief source of their wealth, so soon afterwards as 1895 the Hunza-Nagaris were rendering yeoman service in the Chitral campaign, and at the present day it would be difficult to find more loyal and enthusiastic adherents of the “‘ Sarkar.” Fierce rivalry has existed from time immemorial between the two principalities which frown at each other across the Hunza River, unfordable in summer and forming an admirable stra- tegic frontier. Though they might combine against a common foe, as they did in 1891, a state of chronic warfare had existed between them until Colonel Durand’s column enforced the pax Britannica which has existed ever since. Not much love, however, is even now lost between the two states, par- ticularly as the Hunza men are Maulais or followers of H.H. IN THE HEART OF THE KARAKORAM 23 the Agha Khan,! whereas the Nagarisare strict Sunnis. But their age-long rivalry is now, theoretically at any rate, a friendly one, confined to the polo-field and the various sporting contests organized at the zhalsas or “ Highland Gatherings ”’ held twice yearly at Gilgit. Only among the older men, perhaps, does a lingering regret for the good old days survive. D,’s Hunza orderly once took his mistress to see his tall, up- standing, white-moustachio’d father, who showed her with loving pride the sword and bow with which he used to fight the men of Nagar and raid the caravans on the Leh road. ““ We were poorer in those days,” the old man said. ‘‘ We used to take the Nagaris prisoner and sell them as slaves to the Kirghiz for the Yarkand market. We used to loot silk and pearls and coral from the Leh caravans.”’ He heaved a sigh, and then, remembering to whom he was speaking, added, “ But now, by the favour of the British Government, we do not need to fight or raid any more.” The four marches between Gilgit and Baltit, the capital of Hunza, are graphically described by Knight in ‘‘ Where Three Empires Meet,” and a few extracts from letters written on the road and from an account of the journey which I compiled soon after arrival at Kashgar will suffice to convey some of our more vivid impressions. The first two marches up to Chalt, where the extracts begin, are dull compared with the second two; little can be seen from the bottom of the ever-narrowing Hunza river-gorge along which the road, from four to six feet wide and as solid as anyone could wish, is carried for the most part on ledges and galleries cut out of the cliff-face, alternating with stretches of flat but stony beach. Eighteen miles from Gilgit we spent the night at Nomal, a sunny strip of orchards and cornfields contrasting happily with the desolate gorge above and below it. Chalt, 20th June, 1922. cd * * % x Just before you reach this village the gorge opens out into a fair valley round which the pine-forests Fledge the wild-ridgéd mountains steep by steep, sheltering terraced fields of maize and barley and tiny hamlets set 1[ had come across a community of this sect in the wild country south-east of Yezd, far away in Central Persia, and it was interesting to find more of them in another remote corner of Central Asia. We were to find yet other colonies of Maulais in Sariqol on the Pamirs and in the plains district of Posgam, south of Yarkand. 24 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA in orchards of apricot and mulberry. The steep Chaprot glen stretches away up into the sunset, a sentinel village perched on a poplar-crowned crag in its midst; to the south, if you climb a little way up the grassy hill-side and are careful not to look round until you reach a little shepherd’s hut, there will burst upon you the first marvellous vision of twenty-five-thousand-foot Rakaposhi. Like a sword of ice bran- dished to heaven, the sharp ridge of Rakaposhi stabs the blue, in- credibly far overhead; surely nowhere else in the world can crag and snow-slope and ice-cliff be seen from such close quarters towering one above the other to a height of nearly four miles! In the evening we wandered up the Chaprot path, and from a flat-topped boulder watched the setting sun catch points on the ice-wall and make them glow like burnished silver above the shadowy forest, while opposite us the ‘‘ alpengluh”’ suffused Rakaposhi and the sea of peaks from which it rises. * x * *- Minapin, 21st June, 1922. * x * “ * At Ghalmit, the half-way house on this march, we were met by the son and heir of the Mir of Nagar, a good-looking, well-mannered youth of about twenty-five. He is a contemporary of the heir of Hunza, our escort Ghazan Khan, and the two are old school-fellows and the best of friends in spite of the historic enmity between their States. This friendship is cemented by the marriage of Ghazan Khan’s sister to the Nagar boy. As for the heir of twenty generations of Hunza chiefs, he is a friendly, cheerful youth, fair and sandy with a bushy red moustache, a Scotsman to the life did he but dress the part. We lunched under a spreading plane in the very middle of the village; sitting on deck-chairs specially brought for us from Nagar, a delicate attention invariably paid to “‘ Sahibs”’ by the thoughtful Mir. Soon after leaving the village we were surprised to see ahead of us, issuing from the depths of the gorge, vast clouds of what seemed to be smoke flying upwards with great rapidity. Somewhat alarmed, and wondering whether perchance we had come by mistake to the verge of the Bottomless Pit, we pushed on, and soon discovered what it was; on the opposite slope of the valley, which is composed of crumbling rock and detritus and is pitched at a very steep angle, a stone-shoot was in progress—a kind of continuous land-slide in which streams of boulders bounded down a funnel-shaped slope, sending up columns of dust as they went. Every now and again the battering of the stones would dislodge a mighty fragment from the side of the shoot and it would join the rout, plunging heavily out of sight to an accompaniment of echoing crashes. The remains of the road which used to traverse the north side of the valley, right across the shoot, are still visible; now not an ibex could tread that path and live. This was the only stone-shoot we saw in eruption, so to speak, but there were many others on the north side, some enormously high and all pitched at an astonishing angle. We had to cross one on the south side too, three miles before Minapin. The path is carried away in several places, and you have to tread gingerly along a barely- visible mark among the loose stones, which sink under your feet and IN THE HEART OF THE KARAKORAM 25 start small avalanches hurtling down to the hungry-looking river far below. A few hundred yards on, comes one of those contrasts which give their peculiar quality to the landscapes of Kanjit; the unstable, desolate, terrifyingly steep stone-slopes with their touch of Dantesque horror give place to an Arcadian village set in rich woodland pastures, fields of corn and shady orchards perched on cliff-tops and a picturesque ruined castle crowning a crag in the midst. Two miles of leafy paths brought us to Minapin; here broad fields, heavy with crop, and groves of mulberry and apricot trees stretch from the foot of two glacier- valleys of Rakaposhi to the very edge of the river-bluffs. In places the orchards are brought almost within inches of the sharp-cut edge without a wall or fence of any kind, and one marvels at the survival of the rosy-cheeked children who are to be seen at every one of the farms along the cliff-tops. % * * * * Baltit, 22nd June. The charm of the Hunza valley lies in its amazing combination of the most diverse elements in a landscape; in its villages embedded in foliage and neat terraced fields overhung by glaciers and needle- peaks ribbed with ice; its orchards perched on dizzy cliff-tops, and romantic castles built on crags above the gorge; its plume-like water- falls spraying vineyards cocked at terrifying angles; its irrigation- channels carried along the face of vertical cliffs to homesteads where merely to stroll in the garden after dinner must require a good head. The Baltit reach of the Hunza valley is the finest of all. At Murte- zabad you cross from the south or Nagar side of the river by a sus- pension bridge (the northernmost and last of the Indian Public Works Department bridges on this road) to the Hunza side. All is bare and terrible here, and the sides of the deep gorge are unstable and gashed with landslides. Then tiny orchards and neatly-terraced cornfields begin once more; suddenly you turn a corner and—there in front of you is the heart of Hunza. Imagine a spacious valley with sides from ten to eighteen thousand feet high, a winding canyon with a fierce pale- brown river threading it below, its sides green-clad up to two thousand feet or more above the stream ;} four miles away, right opposite you, an ancient castle on a hill covered with flat-roofed houses and trees, behind which rises a seemingly vertical mountain-face three miles high, crowned with ice-cliffs and snow cornices away up in the blue heavens ! At Aliabad a little further on we halted an hour or two for lunch, while mounted couriers dashed ahead to Baltit to inform the Mir of our approach. He met us a mile out of his capital. We took to him from the very first. Mir Muhammad Nazim Khan is a half-brother of the exiled tyrant Safdar Ali, in whose stead he was installed as Chief of Hunza by Colonel Durand after the campaign of 1891. He is a kindly, courteous, quiet-mannered man, vigorous and alert though advancing in years, of keen intelligence and wide interests, proud of his long lineage and the ancient independence of his people, but equally proud of the esteem in which he is held by the British Government and by his many European friends and acquaintances, There is much to admire on Hunza’s leafy, winding highway, and we arrived sooner than we expected at the Mir’s summer residence on its green spur below the little town. Tents had been pitched for us under 26 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA trees, and as our baggage arrived very soon after us we were soon comfortably installed. * 4 % * i This evening at eight o’clock we were bidden to dinner with the Mir and his eldest son. Not knowing our host, we expected something rather barbaric, and would not have been surprised if we had been confronted with mountainous pilaus and nothing but our fingers to help ourselves with. Imagine our surprise, therefore, when we were ushered into a brightly-lit dining-room containing a well-appointed table laid for five in correct English style, on which in due course was served a dinner which would have done credit to any ‘‘ Sahib’s ” house in the less sophisticated parts of India, The Occidental illusion would have been complete had it not been for the Arabian Nights music discoursed most pleasantly outside in the garden by the Mir’s orchestra, which consists of “ rababs”’ (Persian guitars) with an accompaniment of small drums and cymbals. The Chief Musician plays “‘ first rabab”’ and sings Persian and Afghan ballads in a soft dreamy voice the while. He was once a shining light among the Amir’s musicians at Kabul, whence (no doubt for some excellent reason) he had one day to flee. Making a living by his music and his songs, he wandered up and down the frontier from Zaimukht to Chitral until one day he found himself at Gilgit. There at the annual falsa or gathering of the tribes the Mir heard him play, and at once engaged him to be Chief Musician at Baltit. Since then he has trained several Hunza youths, and a “‘ State Band” (not that his master calls it by any such grandiloquent title) has come into being which is the joy and pride of the music-loving Mir. The Chief Musician’s favourite song, which is called ‘‘ Sultan Aziz Jan,” tells of a wild romance of the Court of Kabul; it is full of lilt and haunting cadences. Another attractive entertainment at the Mir’s dinner-parties is the dancing of boys dressed up as Turki girls in brightly-coloured Khotan silk robes with long braids of hair imported from Kashgar down their backs; pretty girls they make, too, and gracefully they dance. Suliaw Aziz Jan Baltit, 237d June. * ® * * € In the afternoon we were taken to see the old Palace, which {s surely the most impressively-situated medieval castle in the world. Its three storeys are built entirely of timber (if the building had been of stone it would have been destroyed by earthquakes long ago) and stands on a crag, round the base of which cluster picturesquely the not less ancient wooden houses of the Wazir and other functionaries, Immediately behind the castle is an abyss, the bottom of which cannot CASTLE OF THE MIRS OF HUNZA, BALTIT [p. 26 ah eS : ant A 4 On i bay Nn ,* Oi she, } . y a IN THE HEART OF THE KARAKORAM 27 be seen however much you crane your neck, and close behind that again rise ice-crowned cliffs and glaciers to a height of 24,000 feet above the sea, second only to those of Rakaposhi in appalling perpendicu- larity. The woodwork of the castle’s interior is black with age, and the balustrades are highly polished by the touch of countless hands ; nor is this surprising, for the place is six hundred years old. On the top floor we found a suite of guest rooms, simply furnished with bright-coloured modern Khotan rugs and chairs locally made and carved. On the walls hang portraits of former Mirs and photo- graphs presented to the Mir by “‘ Sahibs’”’ of his acquaintance. There is also a little collection of clocks, cups and other souvenirs of European friendships, and a few heirlooms such as a richly damascened sword and a dagger ornamented with the silver wire-work of Arabia, which have been handed down from Mir to Mir for centuries. But the glory of the Mir’s castle is the view from its windows. One of them opens on twenty miles of the Hunza Valley with marvellous Rakaposhi above it; another shows the valley of Nagar crowned by the mighty snows of Hispar; a third looks up the gorges which lead to Cathay. What King, what Emperor has such a landscape to look upon from the windows of his palace ? ** * * * * Baltit, 24th June. * * He ** * ¢ After lunch we all went down to Altit, where a game of Hunza polo had been got up specially for our benefit. Never have I played such strange polo, nor on so romantic a ground. Any number can play at the same time; the sticks used have heavy fish-shaped heads set at a sharp angle, almost impossible to hit the ball with when you first try ; the ground is very long but (of necessity in a country like Hunza) narrow, and is bounded by four-foot walls of rough stones, off which the ball comes at remarkable angles; there is no penalty for ‘‘ crossing’’ or any other foul; after one side has scored a goal, its captain picks up the ball in the same hand in which he holds his stick, gallops full speed up the ground followed by his side and at the half-way mark throws the ball up and smites it full-pitch towards the enemy’s goal. I saw the veteran Mir, who in spite of his years is still a wonderful player, perform this feat, known as the tamboh, eight times in succession, and never once did he hit the ball less than a hundred yards. There are no chukkers, the game continuing until one side or the other has scored nine goals. The result is that the ponies, though many of them are of the Badakhshi breed famed for their stamina and spirit, become dead-beat and the game flags some- what after the first twenty minutes or so. While they last, however, the game is a most exciting and invigorating one. A day full of new impressions concluded worthily with a sword- dance in one of the courtyards performed by nine stalwarts of the Mir’s bodyguard. I had never seen such a dance—it was thrilling, finer even than the well-known Cuttack dancing of the North-West Frontier. By the light of three bonfires, with the sixteen-thousand- foot precipices behind the Castle gleaming above them in the moon- light, those Hunza guardsmen danced like men possessed, and yet in perfect time and with every step, every twist and whirl of their swords correct. The wild music, the flickering light of the fires, the 28 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA rows of watching faces, the swaying of the tall dancers and the rhyth- mic, inexorable sweep of the swords were for us a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Our visit to the hospitable Mir came to an end only too soon, and we then found ourselves faced with the most difficult section of the whole journey. As if to balance the increased arduousness of the road, however, we received at Baltit an important addition to the strength of our party. Not only did the Mir send with us as far as the Chinese frontier a tall cheerful Havildar, with instructions that if anything happened to us he would be hanged, drawn and quartered and lose his job into the bargain, but he generously lent us for the whole of our time at Kashgar the services of two of his most valuable henchmen. Sangi Khan, whom I gladly engaged on the spot as Consular orderly, was a member of the Mir’s bodyguard and a model of discipline, honesty and unflagging devotion. Stalwart, fair, good-looking and as strong as a horse, he was not only a born cragsman (in which capacity he was afterwards to prove invaluable) but an intrepid horseman with an unshakable seat. From the outset he installed himself as D.’s particular henchman, and his strong arm was never absent when there was a mauvats pas for her tocross. As for horsemanship, his boyish delight in showing off his skill was such that we used sometimes, when there was a suitable “ gallery,’’ purposely to drop gloves or hats for him to pick up, Cossack-fashion, from the saddle. Though far from brilliant, Sangi Khan was no fool; he could read and write the Arabic script and spoke, besides his native Burushaski, Urdu, Turki, and even a little Persian. Our other new ac- quisition was Murad Shah, who became our camp cook in place of the digestion-destroying Muhammad Rahim. Murad showed up less than Sangi Khan, but was no less useful, nay indispensable to us throughout our travels. A_ stocky, plain, quiet and unassuming but astonishingly hard-working and conscientious little man, he never failed us even under the most difficult conditions on the road; while as assistant to Daud Akhun, the Consular chef at Kashgar, he did at least three quarters of the hard work of the kitchen. In fact, his devotion to duty was a standing joke in our ménage, for even in the middle of the hottest summer afternoon when every one else was asleep Murad would be found scrubbing, peeling or cooking something or other in the kitchen. CHAPTER III OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE ch: 22 miles of track between Baltit and the next inhabited settlement, Galmit, lie through the most terrific country imaginable, The turbid Hunza River rushes through a gorge of which the sides are mountains 24,000 and 25,000 feet high. The pathway, which is entirely native- built, varies from 18 inches to 4 feet in width and is in many places carried for hundreds of yards at a stretch on stakes let into the cliff-face. Elsewhere it climbs narrow steeply-pitched clefts in the rock by means of a ladder-like arrangement of small branches and stones called rafik. The cliffs along the face of which so much of the track is thus laid are known as paris. Every time the path reaches the outside of a curve of the river, it has to climb high up the fam to avoid the water which laps against perpendicular and sometimes overhanging rock; on the inside of the next bend it drops down no less steeply to the stony river-bank for a stretch ; then comes another part, and so on. One of these on our first march took an hour to cross, and we climbed 800 feet in the process. I was not sorry that the whole march was only g miles in length, so that we did it comfortably enough; leaving Baltit at noon we lunched in deep beds of clover under apricot trees on the way and were in by half-past five. Wecamped near the river under a waterfall at a place called Ata’abad; we were told that there was a village of that name, but it was perched on a ledge of the cliffs g00 feet almost vertically above our heads, so that we could not see it. It was pleasant to camp that night for the first time in our cosy, double-fly 80-lb. tents, and dine by the dim light of hurricane lanterns on our X-pattern table under the stars. Tired though we were, we thrilled to think that we had left dak-bungalows and Public Works Department roads behind and had all Central Asia before us. On next day’s march the grandeur of the Hunza gorges came 29 30 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA to a climax. At each corner it was more difficult than at the last to believe that any way could be found through the ap- parently solid wall of cliff, thousands of feet high, in front of us. Except for a mile of stony hill-track at Bulchidas in the middle of the day, the path was one continuous succession of vafiks or ladders. It was too bad even for led horses, and our three had to be taken up to the village of Ata’abad and thence by a long détour high up among the mountains. As a matter of fact, from Hafiz’ account the track they went by cannot have been so very much better than ours, for in several places they had to take the horses over one by one, two men at the head and two at the tail. However, they all arrived safely late in the evening. . Ghalmit is an attractive village boasting about 300 acres of fields and orchards well shaded with planes and poplars. It is walled round with lofty jagged peaks of a yellowish tint, fantastically fretted and carved into minarets and towers. The villagers, curiously enough, are mostly Wakhis who came originally from Guhyal near the headwaters of the Oxus, away up on the Roof of the World beyond the Hindu Kush ; hence the name of this part of Hunza, Little Guhyal. They are a fine, tall, full-bearded race like the better type of cul- tivator in some parts of Eastern Persia. They speak among themselves Wakhi, an archaic dialect of Persian, of which I could not make out much ; to me they spoke the debased and Indianized Persian current in Chitral and other parts of the far North-West. | Next day’s march (27th June) was a memorable one. We started at 7.15, crossed one glacier, skirted round the foot of another, crossed a third and reached Khaibar at 8 p.m. It must have been a back-breaking day’s work for our fifty-one porters, each of whom carried the regulation load of about fifty pounds—no bagatelle, as anyone who has tried to carry a box of that weight up a steep and stony mountain-side will testify. The porters who usually take loads from Ghalmit to Khaibar come from an Arcadian village buried in orchards called Ghulkin, the music of whose plashing stream belies the cacophony of its name, and they must be a powerful race. We were disappointed with our first glacier, the Sasaini or Hussaini. Only a short section of it is visible from the moraine, and on the glacier itself, instead of the pure greenish- white pinnacles and grottoes and walls of ice that we had expected, all we could see was a tumbled waste of mud and N THE HUNZA GORGES BETWEEN ATA’ABAD AND GALMIT [p. 29 : { 4 1 Mk? Saar . Me ae * Mt ra} ' oF ’ ie ss Nt ve a eh ei las ( , 1 hye Oe i 4 ' ct if Mane wt et : \ a LE yt , “ > . : ‘ - i ok rae é ‘ eh ip Nghe cA } a i r 2 wy r gee) nat vy cide : 4" * : : 4 ed Ve , * s i : } i % ’ ‘ \ on Vf - + i { 4 1 ’ ‘ 4 é 4 ; ; : & » [ 7 iz 4 1 j My ; er # f : \ “ \ 4 7 é \ ‘ ‘ A Oa t ' J a o¢ : ~~. , a) ‘ « n> al ‘ ; oh \ h .* s M ra, | : h al ‘ Dy woe 7 oa : ‘ ‘4 sh r 2 =, 4 j j x iP: 7 7» » Mj Ti ey ~~ y wake 5 i ey, ma ‘ ] “7c ‘ , ’ p ; ; ¥ a y . Fa , 74 a ; 4 pM a ’ } i - j ‘ é - *, \ a, 7 i - LU i % % a " i; ; ¥ ¥ - “4 * ‘ i ' % : be d » c ‘ Ay ba 4 ' , ’ nt j > ' ; ‘ . ” i ; i Tor | ; ay | q 1 y, t ; au } y ; aaa j iE . : & : ey hae a piye ia ag : 5 a le . f oy big A Mi SHA Cees : af ys i eS ; ; a i y ¢ is ve ver: er : y rd ie ¥* } vy ior ey a hal y yi 7 j ‘ ’ NS f | Poy et , THs! a ed iat j i ti Ny oe iP ae 7 ta avy? ’ pA? ) ‘ Sl; P 4 veok ‘ o> } i “wy. - Lo ® ’ 7 ‘i : ‘ eT rit 1 “whit if in “rel Mt Da ; ws yy” Oy te, Pe Uy alk pias ¥ La 4 i i iy e Pa y i tee oar i ty) / iid P, “ PPR EY Mme de tty Y, “ys Ae Laat) ATP OTe 4 oO ye Pal ce PT a, Li) me aa a sre ai ‘e mS A Lean TTA ge Ag ry A al ie y A ; 4 s Tale hae Diy, ¥ 7 h y vA veg ? P j ; [a F o - Fi iP OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE 31 stones with here and there what looked like blocks of obsidian rising through it. The latter turned out on closer examination to consist of black ice, while the mud and stones proved to be merely a thin layer covering unknown depths of the same substance ; but it is first impressions that count, and ours were disappointing. The Pasu glacier is a more satisfactory speci- men of its kind; it is broader and whiter then the Hussaini, and a much longer stretch of it is visible from the high lateral moraine. It was in the afternoon, however, that we were introduced to the greatest of them all, the Batura. The upper reaches of this glacier are unexplored, even by the native mountaineers of Hunza; its length is unknown, but is esti- mated at 50 miles.1_ As one views it from the top of the high lateral moraine, it comes round in a great sweep between two ranges of black serrated cliffs ; on this occasion mists veiled the snow-peaks beyond, and the great river seemed to pour down from a world of ice infinitely high and infinitely remote. For a moment, one had the impression of a flood of deadly cold- ness invading this earth from Outer Space. Crossing the Batura with a caravan is a strange and some- what arduous experience. As the surface of the glacier is always changing, there is no fixed path, and the leading coolies pick their way across as best they can. Very soon after the moraine was left behind we found ourselves in a fantastic world of glassy black cliffs alternating with forests of crystal pyramids, brooklets of pale emerald water flowing in beds of aquamarine contrasting with steep banks and ridges of dirt and stones, hideous to behold. For what seemed an age the coolies scrambled and slid and toiled ever up and down, up and down, now treading gingerly along razor-edge ridges of ice, now splashing through the pools at the bottom of shallow crevasses. Finally all the loads and—more anxious work— the horses were piloted safely across, and after a steep ascent we found ourselves on the top of the north moraine. From here it was 6 miles of easy going to Khaibar, and we treated ourselves to a picnic tea under a rock in a hollow of the moor, while the weary coolies filed slowly on. We could understand their being tired, for we were not exactly sprightly ourselves when at eight o’clock we straggled into the little lonely village 1 Since the writer’s return to England the Batura Glacier has been explored by Mr. Ph. C. Visser and party, who have found it to be 37 miles in length. The longest glacier in the Himalaya is 16 and in the Alps to miles long. 32 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA of Khaibar, herding the last of the coolies with alternate objurgation and encouragement. Nevertheless we had the tents up, boxes open, beds put up and ready to sleep on and were eating a hot dinner by 9:15—not a bad record. That night and the next day it was rainy and cold, so we contented ourselves with an 8-mile march to the pretty plateau- village of Gircha. The valley with its steep crumbling sides and turbid river was the very picture of desolation and had an end-of-the-world feel about it, an impression which was deepened by the gloominess of the weather and the mists which shrouded the sinister shapes of the jagged peaks to the south. At the sixth mile from Khaibar a few huts and scanty cultivation afford welcome relief; the place is called Murkhun, and from here a forbidding gorge leads north-east- wards up among wild mountains twenty thousand feet high towards Shimshal and the Raskam country. The Shimshal route is practically the only means of access to the Raskam gorges of the upper Yarkand river, and even it is almost im- passable in summer. Next morning barely enough coolies were available for our loads, and it was half-past eight before our caravan took the road. The going was at first surprisingly good, but at the pleasant little orchards of Sost the track led up a deep and difficult valley to the north and for five miles was scarcely anywhere more than two feet broad, with breakneck slopes above and below. Shortly before we reached the junction of the Kilik and Khunjerab rivers we crossed the main stream by a swaying suspension bridge, the approach to which is dis- tinctly alarming ; one slip on the steep rocks, and if you missed the bridge you would return to India, by water, considerably quicker than you came. Then came a terrific pavi with the most imposing views up the Khunjerab gorges, and a descent of a thousand feet to the right bank of the Kilik. Once’ past the junction the going was slightly better, but there were several awkward little avis and land-slides before we reached the bridge below Misgar. As we came to it we heard a rattling sound from the opposite bank, and looking up saw that the path there crossed a narrow but high stone-shoot. Stones, none of them very large, but some quite big enough to puncture one’s skull, were rattling merrily down from a point out of sight among the cliffs above, and it was ten minutes before this performance ceased sufficiently to allow us to proceed. A stiff pull up across the cliff-face brought us on to OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE 33 the bleak plateau of Misgar, where at a height of 10,150 feet twenty or thirty hardy Hunza families scrape a precarious livelihood out of the rock-debris of the crags above. We had now passed out of the Wakhi enclave and were in Hunza-in- habited country oncemore. The fields of barley were half-grown and the struggle that their production must have cost was betrayed by the size of the stone walls, or rather ramparts, which divided them and by the heaps of stones dotted about everywhere. The houses are similarly scattered about the fields, and in fact look like nothing more than rather larger heaps of stones roughly arranged into walls and covered with thatch; these, however, are only inhabited in the summer, the people in the Arctic winter of this place moving into an entirely separate group of houses huddled together under the lee of a ravine-bank at the north end of the plateau. The wind was bitterly cold when we arrived shortly before sunset, and we were grateful for the shelter of the telegraph station, a solidly-built three-roomed house of stone. The Indian Christian clerk in charge and his assistant seemed to be quite happy at this, the remotest and probably the bleakest station on all the far-flung Indian telegraph system. The work consists entirely in receiving and despatching Kashgar messages by the weekly ‘“ dakchis’”’ or couriers, who take twelve days, winter and summer, to do the journey across the Roof of the World. As we approached the Mintaka the path became narrower and the going more uneven ; but the Mir of Hunza’s men had kept it, such as it was, in good repair and we were nowhere seriously held up. Four miles from Misgar the valley of the Kilk River bends up to the right (north) and after a series of cataracts opens out and becomes, as it were, cleaner and better ventilated. Wild roses, primulas, gentians and other flowers which we had not seen since the Burzil begin to appear, star-scattered over the greensward, and groves of graceful birches line the banks of a more pellucid river. Murkushi is a pleasant thicket of willow and ash at the junction of the Kilik and the Mintaka streams, where one’s tents can be pitched on grass in shelter from the chill winds which sweep ever up to or down from the passes that lead to the Pamirs. To D.’s huge delight, next morning there appeared two magnificent yaks belonging to the Mir, which he had kindly ordered to be brought down from their grazing-grounds for us to ride over the Mintaka, The two great beasts, “ lovely 3 34. CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA hairy cows ”’ as she irreverently called them, were an inspiring sight as they minced towards us over the meadow, their absurdly short legs carrying their massive bodies as lightly as any cat’s—well meriting the Mir’s epithet with which he described them to us, billi-patta or, exactly, “‘ pussy-foot.”’ D. chose the black one (she has a Mazeppa-ish preference for black steeds which extends even to yaks), and before the sun had risen above the cliff-tops she and G. were trotting nimbly up the mountain-side, followed by myself on the black horse. The pace at which a yak can carry up a steep and rough path not only his own enormous weight—that were surprising enough —but a full-sized rider as well, must be seen to be believed. Above the wide flat meadow of Builip, where the bordering cliffs are hollowed into cave-dwellings for the shepherds— northermost inhabitants of the Indian Empire—the valley steepens. Boulder-strewn slopes alternate with vivid green meadows, quite flat ; cascades plash merrily down from butt- ends of glaciers far above, and the cliffs are ornamented with flourishing beds of ice-flowers even in June. We contented ourselves with a short and easy march to Gul Khwaja, for in the circumstances there was no question of crossing the Min- taka in one day from Murkushi. The foot of the Mintaka Glacier loomed cold and grey above the rough-built Govern- ment hut, and the narrow camping-ground, amid a chaos of boulders looked from a distance most uninviting ; but under an over-hanging rock in the bright afternoon sun we were as warm and comfortable as on a Riviera beach, though the place was 13,650 feet above the sea. Apart from a little breathlessness which D. experienced during the night, none of us suffered from the altitude; but I developed towards nightfall one of the terrible headaches from which I suffered every time I crossed a high pass, and afterwards found to be caused not by altitude but by eye-strain due to wearing too strong sun-glasses. I got it under by means of aspirin and so achieved sleep, but alas ! the unevenness of the tent-floor was too much for my rickety borrowed camp-bed, which chose the smallest of the small hours to collapse under me. Now when a Rurki-pattern bed collapses, it does it thoroughly, and it takes three strong men twenty minutes to put it together again ; so there was nothing for it but wearily and with splitting head to extract the tangled mess of poles and cord and canvas from under my mattress and doss down on the very knobby floor. During the rest of the night I had OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE 35 ample time to meditate upon my folly in accepting a job which entailed spending the night reclining upon ground as high, and probably at least as bumpy, as the top of the Matterhorn. Glorious weather favoured our crossing of the Mintaka Pass, the Great Divide which separates India from China. Only the last 1,200 feet of the ascent are really steep, though the going is rough all the way, and the rarity of the air makes the pace slow at the end. From the col, for which my aneroid gave a height of 15,600 feet, an unrivalled view of the whole Mintaka Glacier and forests of strangely-fretted dolomitic peaks tempted us to linger, but we hurried on over the slushy remains of snow-fields on the flat top of the pass, for we longed to see what was beyond. It was a great moment when we stood for the first time on the soil, or rather rocks, of China and gazed northwards upon the Pamirs. The contrast be- tween them and the Hunza-Nagar country through which we had just passed leapt to the eye. What strikes one at once about the Pamirs is their cleanness and their spaciousness. The soil, the water, the contours of the hills are all cleaner and purer than the crumbling, decaying rocks, the muddy rivers and the black sinister mountains of the terrible country to the south of Mintaka. Again, the general level of the ‘‘ Roof of the World”’ is so high, from 10,000 to 14,000 feet, that though the mountains go up to 18,000 and 19,000 feet they do not give the impression of overpowering height; they are dwarfed by the vast spaces all round them. At the northern foot of the pass we found awaiting us the party which had come out from Tashqurghan to meet us. There was Sharif Beg, a big handsome young Kirghiz volum- inous in a quilted coat, Russian boots and a big astrakhan- rimmed cap ; he was the “‘ Beg” of Mintaka and represented the Chinese Amban or magistrate of Sariqol district. Then there was Nadir Beg, who figures on the Consulate roll as “Watchman in Sarigol”’ on the lordly salary of Rs.15 (£1) a month, but is a considerable landowner, keeps several horses and looks more like a retired Indian officer than anyone else. Various other Kirghiz and Tajik Begs had come out from their camp at Mintaka Aghzi, stout hairy good-humoured people who seemed genuinely glad to see us. With this escort we made short work of the mile or so of bare but green and smiling valley which led to Lopgaz, where Kirghiz tents (aq-o1) had been set up for our occupation.} 1For a description of the Kirghiz aq-oi see Ch, XI, p. 155. 36 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA As soon as we were settled into camp we asked the Begs to tea. They were shy at first, but once they had got over this and had learnt how to spread a Scottish scone with English bottled honey, they enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Like most of the Sarigolis they could all speak more or less intelligible Persian, so there was no difficulty about conversation. Next day (3rd July) for the first time our whole caravan consisted of yaks, in all six riding and eighteen baggage animals, and they did the 27 miles to Paik in 104 hours. For us the brilliant clearness and invigorating purity of the air, the springy turf extending for miles under our horse’s hoofs, the sense of illimitable freedom given by a gallop over the spacious Pamirs, all combined to make that morning’s ride from Lop- gaz down to Mintaka Aghzia memorable one. Just below the junction of the Karchanai and Mintaka streams we break- fasted largely under a rock, little knowing what was in store forus. Hardly had we travelled a mile further, when we came upon four or five ag-o1s looking ike enormous button mush- rooms on the wide meadow, with countless sheep and goats and a few yaks grazing peacefully around. It was the encampment of one of the Begs whom we had entertained to tea the afternoon before, and it was out of the question to refuse a return of hospitality; accordingly we were soon sitting cross-legged on the floor of the largest ag-oi and absorb- ing enormous quantities of excellent flat circular loaves, tea, cream, dried apricots and fot or rich curdled yak’s milk. Thanks to the air of the Pamirs, G. and I at any rate did ourselves well, to the satisfaction of our hosts; indeed, poz sprinkled with sugar and spread thickly over fresh Kirghiz bread makes a meal fit for a king. All the while our hosts remained standing and hungry, according to the universal and somewhat embarrassing custom of hosts in Central Asia. The women interested us as much as we, and especially of course D. in her quasi-masculine riding attire, interested them. They are not veiled, or even particularly shy ; of a good-looking, square-faced, high-cheekboned type, quite fair, were it not for their quaint garb they might have stepped out of any Scandinavian village. Their costume is certainly delightfully picturesque. Unlike the men, they wear turbans, but of a fashion not seen in India or Persia; of snow-white calico, tightly and neatly wound and flat-topped, the feminine head- gear of the Pamir Kirghiz looks for all the world like a large NANGA PARBAT (26,620 FEET) FROM BUNJI, INDUS VALLEY D. AND G.C.P. AT BREAKFAST BEFORE CROSSING THE MINTAKA PASS (15,600 FEET) ine ’ ' a, Me itete: 4 nd ie fh 7 epi ts: - a. A ; " fe ty } . “ey Tig y eS a, OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE 37 china cream-bowl perched on the wearer’s head. One expects it to slop over any moment; yet its fair wearer not only balances it without difficulty, but also hangs a long strip of gaily embroidered silk down from the back of it, almost to her heels. Their party-frocks are also of this many-coloured type, of Bokhara silk or cotton ; altogether, a bevy of Kirghiz beauties on the greensward in the brilliant sunlight of their native Pamirs is a gay sight indeed. The Kirghiz have an eye for colour: their huts are hung inside with richly-tinted red and blue strips of carpet, pieces of Andijan satin, coloured leather articles and, most effective of all, large reed mats decorated with characteristic designs in dyed woollen thread. With great difficulty and protestations of eternal friendship we at last tore ourselves away from the hospitable tent of our friend—only to be confronted a mile farther on by an even larger and more opulent encampment belonging to another of our Begs, where the same performance had to be repeated. It would, of course, have been highly invidious to have eaten less pot and Kirghiz bread spread with cream here than we had absorbed in the tent of a rival Beg, and by the time we had finished being tactful we could hardly hoist ourselves on to our horses. We were visibly, I fear, relieved when in answer to our anxious inquiries we were informed that the 17 miles of road to Paik held no more hospitality in store for us. At Mintaka Aghzi (“‘ the mouth of the Mintaka’’) we were within a few miles of the frontiers both of Afghan Wakhan and of the Russian Pamirs; so that three Empires and one Kingdom very nearly (but not quite) met close to us. The pleasant green land seemed to be populated, apart from the few Kirghiz and their flocks and herds, entirely by golden marmots (Arctomys aurea). These little animals made us laugh with their curious cry, like a street-urchin’s derisive whistle, the intriguing black tips to their tails and the cheeky way in which they sat up and gazed at us from the edges of their burrows, ready if we made a sign to pop down like a jack-in-the-box. At the very draughty little Chinese post of Paik, 12,650 feet above the sea, we did not envy the lot of the N.C.O. and his ten seedy-looking men. He looked as if he smoked opium, and no wonder. This detachment was withdrawn not very long after we passed; its existence at Paik for a few years was an indirect result of the Great War. Next morning on the march to Dafdar, 22 miles, we at first 38 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA had great trouble with the caravan, which consisted this time of six camels and five yaks. I wrote feelingly about it in a letter home as follows : “The people of this country have no idea how to load a camel. They seem to think it ought to be done by perching as many packages on top of the beast’s spine as possible, then tying a single rope round the whole and finishing up by hanging a lot more odd articles from any projecting corner they can find; the result is that before the animal has gone half a mile, various tin cans, lanterns, baskets, hat- boxes and other odds and ends have become unshipped and the balance of the load, such as it was, is destroyed. Round slips the whole affair under the camel’s stomach, whereupon he takes fright and bolts. Now a camel bolting at the ungainly, lumbering trot of the species with several hundredweight of assorted luggage raining off him like leaves in autumn is one of the funniest sights imaginable when it is somebody else’s luggage; but when it is one’s own cases of whisky, medicine chests or favourite yakdans that are dangling from the beast’s tummy, the humour of the situation is not so striking. This happened to every one of the camels, and to most of the yaks as well, within the first two miles of the march, and we all expended much energy and language helping the men to put the loads on again. Once the camels had been loaded in the proper way, 1.e., with the load in two separately tied up and compact parts hanging on each side of the animal and balancing each other, all went well; but do you suppose the owners took the lesson to heart? Nota bit of it. Next morning all the luggage was perched on the top of the camels exactly the same as of old.” A mile or so below Ujadbai we passed a high, craggy moun- tain on the west side of the river called Qizqurghan or the ‘““ Maidens’ Castle.’ Nadir Beg pointed out to me the ruins of a fortress high up on its face, and told me there was a local legend about it which he had once heard but had forgotten. It was something about a Persian princess who had long ago reigned over Sariqol from this impregnable castle with a body- — guard of maidens, Amazons as it were, and had allowed no man to come near. Water they had obtained by means of deep wells and Persian wheels; it was said that remains of these wheels (otherwise unknown in the Pamirs) were still to be seen among the mountains. Remembering this story of Nadir’s I was much interested to read afterwards in Sir Aurel Stein’s Ruins of Desert Cathay (vol. I, p. 90) a description of these ruins, which he reached after a difficult climb. The walls, he says, extend for 450 feet, average 16 feet in thickness and are over 20 feet high where best preserved. They contain thin layers of juniper twigs, like the ancient Chinese border wall in the Lop desert, and probably belong to the same period. OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE 39 More interesting still, the famous Buddhist pilgrim Hsuan- tsang, who returned to China from India via Afghanistan and the Pamirs in A.D. 642, saw this same fortress, which was even then in ruins, and relates the legend he heard locally about it. This was to the effect that a Chinese princess of the Han Dynasty had been betrothed to the King of Persia and was being escorted to his capital from Peking. At Chieh-p’an-t’o (Sarikol, Chinese Pamirs) the way was blocked by robbers and the princess’ Sarikoli escort placed her for safety on an isolated peak protected by precipices. Here, well-guarded though she was, the Sun-god visited her, and when at last the way was clear and the escort came to fetch her, they found her with child. They were so impressed that they begged her to stay and rule over them. The chiefs reigning in Sarikol in the pilgrim’s time were descended from the son then born to her. Sir Aurel also mentions that the Afrasiab hill near Tashgurghan is supposed to be called after the son of the Princess, who was buried there. He says nothing about remains of Persian wheels. From Dafdar, where there is a flourishing colony of Wakhi immigrants from Afghanistan who have made the desert blossom like the rose; the road is flat and almost featureless the whole 34 miles to Tashqurghan. Only the finely-scarped Sariqolrange on the left and, on clear days,a distant glimpse of the great white dome of Muz Tagh Ata in front, relieve the monotony of the view. Three miles from Tashqurghan, at an outlying farmstead of Tughlan Shahr, we were met by a reception-party consisting of the Aqsaqal or British agent at Tashqurghan, the local Piy or chief of the Maulai sect and a few other Maulais and British subjects. In the farm-house we were entertained at our first chah-jan, the wayside reception- feast which is such a feature of the elaborate ceremonial of Chinese Central Asia. We had only just eaten our sandwiches, but rather than disappoint the good British subjects we did our best with the #z/aus, sour cream and local bread. Hardly had we consumed the last mouthful of which we were capable when we were informed that the Pir of the Maulais had invited us to a similar feast at his house a mile away! There was nothing for it but to climb on to our steeds and proceed to the Pir’s house with as much grateful alacrity as we could muster. A regular procession followed us across the fields. Meanwhile a thunderstorm had been brewing, and before we were half-way a heavy shower of rain and hail came on, There being appar- 40 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA ently only one table and three chairs in Tughlan Shahr, these had to do duty at both entertainments, and we were regaled with the sight of our dining-table galloping ahead of us on a frisky horse, closely followed by the chairs. A hundred yards from home the table began to come to pieces, and its legs soon strewed the fields; the sportsman who carried it, however, was quite unperturbed; excited small boys collected the pieces and we were astonished to find the hard-worked piece of furniture, richly dight with loud-hued table cloth and almost literally groaning with food, awaiting us in the Pir’s innermost drawing-room when we arrived ! Between Tughlan Shahr and Tashqurghan the river flows in many channels across meadows of close-cropped grass, covered with cows, ponies and donkeys grazing. Tashqurghan is the seat of a Chinese Amban or District Magistrate, and this gentleman ought, we were informed, to have fired a salute of three guns and had the troops out in honour of our arrival ; rather to our relief, he considered we were not important enough and omitted todo so. Hecontented himself with send- ing his large red paper visiting card by the hand of his secretary and interpreter, a sly-looking person with a remarkable fluency in Persian, Turki and Chinese as well as his native Tajik. The house of the Aqsaqal, which is used as a rest-house by British travellers and is well situated on a bluff overlooking the bazaar, is a small place consisting of an outer courtyard with servants’ quarters and an inner one, pleasantly shaded by willows, with two small “ sahibs’ rooms”’ and a kitchen. Here we made ourselves comfortable enough for the three nights we stayed at Tashqurghan. CHAPTER IV THE MOUNTAIN ROAD TO CATHAY HE name Tashqurghan means in Turki “ stone fort’, and the place is probably identical with the AdOwog mbeyos of which Ptolemy speaks as having been the extreme western emporium of Seriké (China). At that time it was called by the Chinese Hopanto and was the capital of the frontier district of that name.1- Now once more it is the headquarters of the Chinese Amban of Pu-li or Sariqol, who rules a long strip of country along the eastern rim of the Pamir plateau. Sariqol was made into an administrative district at the beginning of the present century, when it came into prominence from the Chinese point of view owing to the occupation of the neighbouring Pamirs by Russia. For years, indeed, the Tsar’s Government kept a detachment of infantry at Tashqurghan, regardless of the fact that it was Chinese territory ; the solid mud-brick fort built by them is still in good repair though it has been empty since its evacu- ation in 1920 by the last remnants of the former Cossack garrison of the Pamirs. Ethnically, the district is interesting as being populated in about equal proportions by two contrast- ing races. These are, firstly, the Tajiks, who are remarkably pure specimens of the original Homo alpinus stock and have inhabitated this remote corner of High Asia since the dawn of history ; secondly, the Kirghiz. These latter belong to the tribe called by the Russians Kara-Kazak; they are the southernmost branch of the great Kirghiz race, and they can only live as far south as the Pamirs, theimmense elevation of which makes up for the low latitude and produces a climate as rigorous as that of the Steppes. Two entirely different routes, each about ten marches in length, connect Tashqurghan with Kashgar. The one usually followed in summer is the eastern or Chichiklik route which, 1Stein, ‘ Sand-buried Ruins of Khotan,” pp. 71-2. 41 42 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA after crossing four passes between 12,000 and 16,000 feet high and traversing three different valleys sparsely inhabited by Kirghiz, debouches upon the great plain of Central Asia near the flourishing town of Yangi Hissar. The winter route goes north from Tashqurghan over the easy Ulugh Rabat Pass » (circ. 13,500 feet) to the Rangkul Pamir, past the beautiful lakes of Little Qarakul and Basikul, and then down through the tremendous gorge of the Gez River which cuts through the Kashgar Range between the great ice-clad massifs of Qungur (25,146 feet) and Chakragil (22,180 feet). It comes out on to the Kashgarian plain at Tashmalik, whence the city is reached in two marches. Sarigol is about the most unpopular district among Chinese officials in all Eastern Turkistan. Its capital is 10,250 feet above the sea and has a climate which may be described as three months spring and nine months winter; most of the ten days’ journey from the nearest civilization has to be performed on horseback instead of in the Peking cart beloved of the travelling Celestial ; last but not least, the inhabitants are an unruly lot, very different from the timid and peaceable Turkis of the plains. Small wonder then that the Governor of Chinese Turkistan at Urumchi has the utmost difficulty in finding men for the post. But he does find them, and what is more he removes and replaces them if (as may be expected sometimes in a place so remote from supervision) they mis- behave themselves ; a fact which throws a remarkable light upon the effectiveness of Governor Yang’s control over a district which is no less than two months’ journey from his headquarters. But though the Ambans may regard themselves as Ugo- linos condemned to an Inferno of cold, the summer visitor to Tashqurghan will find much that is pleasing in the marvel- lous clearness and purity of its air, its spacious greensward threaded with pellucid streams and the beautiful shapes of the mountains which stand in glittering ranks all round, yet not too near it. Conspicuous among these is Muz Tagh Ata, ‘‘ Father of the Ice Mountains,” blazing in all its mighty mass of whiteness over the vivid green of the meadows. Though it is 24,388 feet high, the enormous width of Muz Tagh Ata detracts from its beauty as a mountain, and it does not compare for a moment with Rakaposhi or Nanga Parbat ; but its very size is impressive, and the vast extent of its snow- fields and glaciers, the whiteness of which has an intense THE MOUNTAIN ROAD TO CATHAY 43 quality not seen in lower snows, makes it an impressive spec- tacle. The wide floor of the Sariqol Valley is dotted with homely little farmsteads, each nestling snugly beside a clump of willows. The soil is remarkably good ; wheat, barley and oats sown in May are reaped in October, and two crops of lucerne are usually taken. Sweet-smelling purple orchises, gentians, vetches of all colours and primulas of large size line the paths in June and July. The Amban of Sariqol, our first acquaintance in the Chinese official world, was not a favourable example of his kind. He was an opium-smoker, and shortly after our arrival at Kashgar was relieved of his post. I called on him my first morning, as I was determined to be polite in spite of his having practically ignored us the previous day. As I arrived only half an hour after the appointed time, nothing was ready, and the Aqsaqal and I had to stand in the waiting-room of the ““Yamen ”’ or magistrate’s quarters amid an interested crowd of bottle-washers and hangers-on, while a servant hurriedly brought in a small table, two chairs and some uninviting- looking sweetmeats. Finally the Amban came in and we both sat down. Pale green tea tasting strongly of hot water was our tipple; conversation, I regret to say, somewhat flagged, the old Amban being obviously under the influence of opium while my style was cramped by the “ gallery ”’ standing close around and following every syllable, every mouthful. I was relieved to be able to escape after twenty minutes or so of this entertainment. The Amban was in better form when he returned my call the same afternoon, and did his best to make amends for his previous remissness. This encouraged us to invite him, his young son, the Commandant of the Garrison and his adjutant, and the Pir of the Maulais to tea the following after- noon. I found out afterwards that it was a mistake to ask the Pir, as the Chinese seldom sit at table with their subjects. D. spent the whole morning making scones and sweets, and the party was a great success. Conversation flourished, the Amban being quite talkative. He spoke in Chinese to the Adjutant, who translated into Turki to Nadir Beg, who translated into Persian to me and I into English to D. So :— AMBAN (to Adjutant): How old is the Taz-tai (lady) ? ADJUTANT (to Nadir Beg): How old is the Khanum ? NADIR BEG (to me): How old is the Mem-sahiba ? I (to D.) How old are you? 4A CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA D. (to me): Twenty-five. I (to Nadir Beg): Bist o panj. Napir Bec (to Adjutant): Zhigima-besh. ApjJuTANT (to Amban) Twenty-five (whatever it is in Chinese !) Next question, by the same route, from the Amban: “ How is it that whereas, owing to the intense cold of this barbarous country, we and our subjects wear quantities of clothes right up to the chin, the Tai-tai wears nothing but a skirt and a closely-fitting garment cut low at the neck ?”’ Sensation on arrival of this question! After some deliberation we concoct a suitable reply, to the effect that the country from which the Tai-tai comes, Scotland, is intensely cold, far colder than the Chinese Pamirs, and that this country seems quite hot to her— hence the scantiness of her attire ! After tea D. visited the wives of the O.C. Garrison and the Adjutant. She told me afterwards that both were Tajiks and the Adjutant’s wife very pretty. After the visit at their house the ladies came back with D. to her room, and D. had to show them her dresses and keep them amused till a quarter past eight, when they finally departed. The last lap of our long trek, from Tashqurghan to Kashgar by the Chichiklik route, was in many ways the most interesting of all. We slept each night in Kirghiz tents which had been collected for us by the Beg of the neighbourhood ; this was arranged each day, in the Tashqurghan district, by an excel- lent Tajik orderly or yayieh sent with us by the Magistrate of Tashqurghan. Our transport was similarly arranged, ponies, yaks, camels or donkeys according to what was available. As soon as we entered the Yangi Hissar district an orderly from the Amban of that place met us and performed similar services. A tower of strength to the party was Nadir Beg, already mentioned as having met us at the Mintaka, who looked after us in a most fatherly manner and to whom we took a great liking. A tall, handsome, black-bearded, cheerful, energetic man of about forty, a good horseman and hard as nails, Nadir is a splendid specimen of the Tajik race; he is parti- cularly useful on the march in Sariqol, for he seems to have known every one of the people, Tajiks and Kirghiz alike, from their childhood up. He also has a strong sense of humour. I shall never forget the glee with which he told us what his small son had said to him on seeing Gerard Price wearing an oiled-silk waterproof cover over his sun-helmet. ‘‘ Daddy,” THE MOUNTAIN ROAD TO CATHAY 45 said the little boy, ‘“‘ why does the Sahib wear a lamb’s tummy on his head ?’”’ The problem of supplies was not so difficult as we had expected. Milk, cream and butter were always to be had from the Kirghiz, but we only once or twice got eggs and never a chicken. At the shop of the one Hindu bunnia at Tashqurghan D. was able to replenish her store of flour, oil, dried fruits, walnuts and matches for the onward journey. On goth July we left Tashqurghan in state, our caravan now consisting of 17 ponies and one donkey. The Amban made amends for having ignored our arrival by arranging an elaborate chah-jan or farewell tea-drinking, combined with a parade of the entire garrison of Tashqurghan. This took place by the road-side about a mile from the bazaar. In the three-walled mud hut used for these ceremonies D. and I sat on the edge of a platform on each side of a wooden tray containing a china bowl of green tea for each of us, and two or three saucers of currants, almonds and strange Chinese confectionery tasting mostly of dust. On one side of the interior of the ‘‘ reception- pavilion ’’ sat the Amban and O.C. Tashqurghan, on the other G. and our Aqsaqal, while the Turki-speaking interpreter, standing, did his best with the Aqsaqal to keep the very sticky conversational ball rolling between us and the Chinese. The parade consisted of about thirty men and four enormous red -banners ; the drill was most successful, until an unexpected evolution had to be performed in connexion with the photo- graph I took of the army, which caused the O.C. to march and counter-march his troops over half the area under his command before he finally got them to face the camera. Farewells and much hand-shaking completed the proceedings. It may be mentioned here that when a Chinaman shakes hands, he shakes his own hand, the other person doing the same opposite him, both parties bowing deeply the while. Escaped at last from ceremonial, we revelled once more in an exhilarating canter over the grassy pamir ; past Tiznaf and Chashman, groups of tiny farmsteads, each with its willow- clump, standing amid wide fields of corn and rich pasture ; past bend after bend of the river, running clear as crystal through the meadows with many a fine pool, a possible trout- stream wickedly wasted in unstocked emptiness. Leaving the Sariqol valley ten miles north of Tashqurghan we mounted steadily for five hours and camped at 12,300 feet in the narrow Darshart ravine. Next day we crossed the 46 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA K6k Moinak pass (15,400 feet) which was quite free of snow. There was only one serious obstacle on the way up, and that was within a couple of miles of the Darshart camping-place. The path had been entirely washed away by the stream, which cascaded fora hundred yards between perpendicular walls, and it was further partially blocked by masses of ice jutting out over the stream-bed. It took us, working hard, over an hour to get the caravan up through these narrows. Our camp that night, at 14,500 feet on the Chichiklik (“ speckled,” i.e. flowery) plateau, was the highest we had yet had. From Chichiklik the shortest route to Toilebulung is down through the Tangitar or ‘ Dark Gorge,’’ which from all accounts is well named, so narrow and dark is it and so rough and boulder-strewn the stream-bed. In the high-water season it is dangerous, and we preferred to go two marches round by the Yambulak Jilgha (valley). On the way we crossed the Yangi Davan (New Pass) the top of which was covered with wide but firm-surfaced snow-fields and proved to be 16,100 feet above the sea. This was the highest pass we crossed between Srinagar and Kashgar. From the top, to our surprise and delight, we saw below us to the north a beautiful lake of purest sapphire lapped in the snowy peaks at the head of the Yambulak valley. This lake is not shown on any map; it is quite half a mile broad and when we saw it was still, owing to the great elevation (15,500 feet), partially covered with the ice of winter. In the Yambulak Jilgha we made our first acquaintance with unspoilt, off-the-beaten-track Kirghiz of the type we were afterwards to know and like so well. Five miles down from the pass, in the middle of one of the sudden but short- lived summer blizzards of the Pamirs, we found the headman of the little community, Ibrahim Beg, and his son Juma waiting for us with tea and a small carpet spread out on the wet ground. Politeness dictated a halt of at least five minutes while we made a pretence of sipping the salty tea (the Kirghiz cannot afford sugar in their tea, so they use salt, though they much prefer their tea sweet) and felt the snowflakes insinuating themselves down our necks. Two miles further down at a height of 12,650 feet, we came to the ag-ois, pitched on either side of the brawling stream in a sheltered bend of the valley. The afternoon sun now shone strongly again, and as we passed the first huts its rays illumined exquisitely an idyllic scene— three or four Kirghiz girls in their quaint dresses and turbans UNMAPPED LAKE AT HEAD OF YAMBULAK VALLEY; SPURS OF MUZ TAGH ATA IN BACKGROUND Nah Wei ve aN : BY ee, ny er eat ry ; we PGs yf my) wt, : THE MOUNTAIN ROAD TO CATHAY 47 milking the sheep and goats by the water’s edge while the men and children looked on. Next morning we awoke to find a brilliant sun shining on a cheerful scene composed of yaks, yak-calves, donkeys, ponies, sheep, goats, curly-headed children, rainbow-clothed white- turbaned women and one to two shaggy men (the rest were still in bed), against a background of fat mushroom-like ag-ois, foaming river and steep green hill-side. I had decided to halt a day at this pleasant spot, partly to give the caravan a rest, partly in order toreconnoitre on foot a pass called the Merki Davan by which I hoped to cross into the upper Qara- tash valley and thus gain access to one of the blank patches on the map which Sir Aurel Stein had advised me to explore. To cut a long story short, Gerard Price and I, assisted by Juma Beg with his men and yaks, reached a height of 16,500 feet on a snowy spur, from which point we could see that the “pass ”’ was quite out of the question for our caravan. It was nothing but a lofty ridge of rock at least 17,000 feet high, deep in snow even on the south side and defended also by steep ice-slopes. Meanwhile D. passed a strenuous but amusing day with the Kirghiz ladies, all of whom clamoured (mostly quite unneces- sarily) for medical treatment and seemed to appreciate presents of quinine tabloids and castor oil even more than the beads and other small gifts which D. had brought for them. At any rate, she made herself very popular, for next morning when we marched down the valley their farewells were most affec- tionate and they walked at her stirrup quite a long way down the valley. One of the younger ones was perfectly lovely ; the coloured sketch of her which was done by D. on this occasion and is reproduced as a frontispiece to this book does not flatter her unduly. As a rule, however, the faces of the Kirghiz women, though broad-browed and pleasing, are too flat for beauty. As we filed down the Yambulak valley it became ever narrower and its sides higher and steeper. The profusion of wild flowers was a revelation ; anemones, primulas, king- cups, columbines, antirrhinums, campanulas, asphodel and many others of which we did not know the names grew in masses, especially in places where the sheep and goats could not get at them. Cascades of wild roses grew out of every 1 For an account of this climb, see ‘‘ Geographical Journal,’? Novem- ber, 1925, p. 388. 48 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA cranny in the perpendicular rocks. Among the very few people we saw was an interesting figure; this was the Qazi or native judge of Koserab on his way with three or four men on horses to Tashqurghan, whither he had been sum- moned by the Amban to try cases according to the Shar’iat or law of the Qur’an. The party forded the river just before meeting us, a picturesque sight ; the white-bearded old village judge, with his book of dala’il (precedents) and his Qur’an wrapped in a cloth under his arm, rode straight-backed and vigorous at the head of his following. That night (14th July) we camped in wild and grand, but less green and flowery, country at Toilebulung, the winter headquarters of the Yambulak Kirghiz who grow their crops there and bury their dead in curious little domed mausolea. The elevation was only 9,650 feet, the first time we had been down to four figures since Gircha in the Hunza valley, sixteen days before. We mopped our brows and complained of the stuffiness of these low-lying valleys, until some one pointed out that we were still far higher up than the most elevated Indian hill-station. Next day we bid adieu to the Yambulak Kirghiz with many invitations and promises to visit them again one day. I had already given old Ibrahim Beg with much ceremony an official present in the shape of a watch. Just before leaving I dis- covered that he had already disposed of it to Hafiz for five taels (about 15s.). Asit was only worth about four taels, and as I wanted to impress upon the Kirghiz the enormity of the insult to the British Empire, I publicly reproved Ibrahim, took back the watch, made him repay the 5 taels to Hafiz, and then gave him a cash present of 4 taels instead of the watch. I then, supposing that Hafiz really wanted a watch to tell the time by, sold him the Government watch for 4 taels. The following day one of the other orderlies told me that Ibrahim had bought back the watch from Hafiz for 44 taels, evidently thinking that as there was such a to-do about the article, it must be a good investment. It was not till after we reached Kashgar, however, that I heard the sequel from Harding, who passed Yambulak two days after us. This was that Ibrahim Beg changed his mind once more about the watch and sold it to Harding’s orderly for 34 taels! Turkis and Kirghiz alike are born traders and would sell the noses off their faces if they could get good money for them. On each of the next two days we crossed passes, the Ter THE MOUNTAIN ROAD TO CATHAY 49 Art (13,340 feet) and the Kashka Su (12,900 feet) respectively. They were very much alike; winding ravines among high rocky hills; a glen thickly carpeted with alpine flowers, narrowing and steepening as we ascended it; a last back- breaking ascent, and then the col, a rounded ridge with out- cropping rocks and turf enamelled with tiny blooms. We lingered long on the Kashka Su; we had been travelling over or among mountains for such an age—a golden age—that it was difficult to believe that we were crossing our very last pass. From the summit we looked with interest towards the north, hoping to see the plains of Kashgaria spread out below us, but as far as the eye could reach lay a jumble of green ridges surmounted here and there by a snow-flecked crag and deeply seamed by silver torrents, the music of which floated gently up tous. Behind us to the south and south-east a magnificent array of giant peaks, the little-known mountains of the Upper Yarkand River valley, bounded the horizon with walls of cliff and glacier. Descending steeply for 1,500 feet over meadows covered with asphodel we found a small tent pitched for us and a way- side tea-drinking prepared by a delightful old Father Christmas of a Beg called Mirza Ahmad Beg of Taumtara, a side-glen to the north-west. We greeted our host in the tent and were at once confronted with a mountainous collation of freshly- killed and exceedingly tough mutton, leather-like bread, a kind of oily and very indigestible pastry and tea with salt in it. Being fortunately left to ourselves with this repast, we were able, ostensibly at any rate, to do our duty as guests by disposing of quite a large quantity of the food ; this we effected by the simple process of eating our own sandwiches and putting the Beg’s viands in the haversack thus emptied. Meanwhile the Beg’s wife and sister, who must have heard of D.’s fame from Yambulak, were round the corner in gorgeous robes and exaggerated Kirghiz head-dresses, awaiting their opportunity. As we emerged from the tent after our deceitful meal, we saw them in all their glory crossing the stream on their ponies, a picturesque sight. A lengthy interview with D. in the tent followed, while I talked to the old Beg outside. When the ladies had at last finished sampling D.’s medicinal stock and wisdom (for that is what they had really come after), we continued on our way. D. said that they had been rather heavy on hand and had no small-talk; they gave her the impression of being mazlum-kishis indeed (I may explain that 4 50 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA mazlum-kishi is the Turki for ““ woman” and means literally ‘“‘ oppressed person ’’). However, small-talk is not so neces- sary when you have plenty of diseases, as these oppressed ones apparently had, and D. scored another social success. A couple of hours later we were settling into comfortable aq-ois provided by Father Christmas on a meadow by the Kinkol River. Near by grew many mushrooms, arare treat. On the mountain-sides all round we could hear the red-legged par- tridges calling ; I accepted their invitation, anda brace of them soon graced our camp larder. I may mention that between Yambulak and Kichik Karaul not a day passed that we did not bag partridges or hares, or both, for the pot. Next day I had a misfortune in the shape of a nasty fall with the black horse, which came down suddenly at the trot and threw me on to a sharp stone, which bruised my thigh somewhat severely, causing me to faint twice with the pain. I rode the rest of the march (and the two following days) on a yak or pony with my leg in a sling, neither a comfortable nor a rapid mode of progression. This delayed us very much and we took a day longer to get into Kashgar than we would otherwise have done. Further down the valley became very wild and rugged, and raging glacier-torrents from the Qizil Tagh or “‘ Red Moun- tains’ on our right had to be crossed as well as the main stream. Here, at a place called Sasik Tika, we noticed a single poverty- stricken ag-ot. I distinctly remember commenting on the sinister look of the valley at this point. I was reminded of this the following spring, when I was present at the trial by the Magistrate of Yangi Hissar of the Kirghiz to whom the agq-o1 belonged for the murder of a Chitrali traveller. Soon after leaving the next camp, Toqoi Bashi, the first real trees we had seen since Tashqurghan appeared, and after that we were never without some. Short, thick-set trees they were, with fluted bark and small, pointed leaves ; further down the valley some of them attained great size. We did not then know to what species they belonged, but they afterwards became very familiar. They were the desert poplar (P. varifolia, Turki toghraq) which is the characteristic tree of the Tarim Basin and, outside the oases, the only one that grows at all freely. That night we camped at the first settled village of Kash- garia, Kichik Qaraul or “‘ The Little Fort’”’ It was pleasant to sit on the grass and munch juicy melons, nectarines and 1For an account of this trial, see Ch. X. THE MOUNTAIN ROAD TO CATHAY 51 peaches while we watched the sunset glow fade upon rich fields of maize and peas, on cosy little farms nestling under clumps of tall bushy poplars and on warm yellow river-bluffs along the foot of which springs of pure water bubbled up among the meadows. By mid-day on 18th July the hills on either side of us had sunk to insignificance and we came to a place where the Chinese of former days had built, more suo, a wall across the open valley, a wall the ends of which were quite in the air, and which could never have been defensible, even when first built. Here, at a small medieval-looking fort called Chong (Big) Qaraul, an amiable Chinese Muhammadan garaulcht or barrier officer fed us on melons and apricots on a platform under spreading planes. Before us extended a vast indefinite expanse, pale yellow and brown with wide shadows lying on it where the oases were ; nearest to us, a long line of trees some ten miles away marked Ighiz Yar, our halting-place. We thrilled to think that we were looking upon the great plain of Central Asia, the mighty belt of oasis-fringed desert which stretches for 2,000 miles from Kashgar to the mountains of Inner Mongolia. Ighiz Yar (‘The High Bluff’’) proved to be a pleasant stretch of cultivated land dotted with farmsteads of mud-brick joined by leafy lanes down which ran brooks of clear water. Except that the soil was obviously far more fertile—the loess of Kashgaria is as a matter of fact one of the most fertile soils in the world—it might have been a Persian village. Our lodging proved to be a small house near the lower end of the oasis, consisting of one very large room with a raised floor and a large square skylight, and a small windowless room opening out of it. There was a third chamber, but this was not avail- able as the entire family moved into it when we took possession ; as their ingress and egress was through the big room, the privacy of the latter left something to be desired. Our two rooms opened on to a courtyard in which (as the house boasted no garden) our retinue took up their quarters; they also opened on a cow-byre. ~ Harding caught us up at Ighiz Yar, and next day all four of us went on together to Yangi Hissar. The (Hindu) British Aqsaqal of the place, a wealthy Shikarpuri banker called Ratan Chand, sent a smart buggy to meet us half-way, and in this D. and I, drawn by the fieriest of Ferghana stallions, performed the rest of the march in what must surely have 52 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA been record time. Gerard’s pony also tried to break the flat- racing record for Kashgaria on this stretch, with the result that four miles out of Suget we came up with G. standing ruefully by his steed and holding half of one of its hoofs in his hand ; it had put its foot into a hole, split its hoof, crossed its legs and turned head over heels all at once, it appeared. Fortunately the ground was soft. In a leafy suburb of Yangi Hissar we were welcomed with mounds of toffee, melons of vast size and many loyal speeches by the Indian Shylocks of the town. Further on the District Magistrate and the Commandant of the Garrison met us and we went through the formality of the official tea-drinking. The Amban was a complete contrast to him of Tashqurghan ; he was a stout, clean-shaven, intelligent type of person, rather like a medieval monk. He had once, he told us, been a student at the Peking law-schools and had served as a judge somewhere on the coast. The Celestial effect of his black satin coat and his cream-coloured silk skirt covering close-fitting white calico trousers was somewhat spoilt by a bowler hat which had seen better days. Escorted by the local soldiery we moved slowly in procession into Yangi Hissar. It was a relief to enter the cool, dustless streets of the bazaars, which here are not domed as in Persia but roofed after a fashion with sacking and wattles. The shops struck us as neater and cleaner than those of India or Persia, the counters of the many food-shops, fruiterers, butchers, etc., being well scrubbed. The Chinese shops are particularly neat and tidy, and reminded one of village “general shops ’’ at home. Hardly had we arrived at the garden of the empty Swedish Mission bungalow when the Amban and Commandant, most courteously according to Chinese ideas, came to call. Fortunately the Aqsaqal had prepared tea and a noble spread of fruit and sweets. During this function we were treated to a little bit of Chinese servants’ manners which very nearly upset our equilibrium for good and all. When he sat down, the Amban took off his bowler and handed it to his servant, who stood behind his chair. The servant, who already wore a decrepit Homburg, took the Amban’s hat and coolly, as if it were the most natural thing to do with it, clapped it on top of his own! During the rest of the meal we all had to keep our eyes firmly averted from the two-hatted servant, for anything more ludicrous than the sight of his solemn, old-family-butler face surmounted by the Amban’s seedy THE MOUNTAIN ROAD TO CATHAY 53 bowler and his own archaic Homburg, one on top of the other, cannot be imagined. We thought we were going to have the comfortable Mission house to sleep in, but it appeared that owing to a mistake the keys had not been obtained from the missionaries at Kashgar, who are kind enough always to put the house at the disposal of the Consulate if required. Nothing else having been arranged we had eventually to doss down in a small farm-house on the outskirts of the town. It was not very confortable, but we made the best of it and by half-past six I was able to change my clothes and drive round to call on the Amban, the Commandant and an ex-Amban who was still living in the town. In almost every district we visited in our subsequent wanderings we found one, sometimes two, ex-Ambans. Apparently it takes months, even years, to hand over charge, owing presumably to the mess in which each Magis- trate gets his work, particularly the financial side of it. So much so, I believe, that it is the custom in China for his friends to congratulate an official formally on the successful handing over of his charge. Next day before proceeding on our journey, we attended an official lunch at the Yamen, where we were received with much pomp and ceremony including a salute of three ‘‘ guns,” or rather bangs from small mortars stuck upright in the ground. The decorations of the room in which we lunched, though faded, were in excellent taste ; red chairs covered with black silk ; a few panels of decorative Chinese writing ; windows of a kind of fretwork in chaste geometrical designs, with ancient lace instead of glass, and little else in the room beyond the table. A Chinese feast is so long and com- plicated an affair that it merits more detailed description than I can afford it here, and I must therefore refer the reader to a later chapter.1 Suffice it to say that we were as much im- pressed by the courtesy and considerateness of our host as by the fearful tinned and dried delicacies from China Proper such as shark’s fin, sea-slugs, fish-entrails, seaweed and bam- boo-root on which he appeared to pride himself most. All these plats seemed to us to consist of substances either glutin- ous or messy, or both, and to taste of nothing in particular. Wayside tea-drinkings similar to those of the day before, but in the reverse order, heralded our departure from Yangi Hissarin a landau kindly sent out for us from Kashgar by the Taoyin. Twenty miles of perfectly flat country, alternating 1See Ch. VI, pp. 82-84. 54 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA . between rich cultivation and howling wilderness in the true Central Asian fashion, brought us to the village of Yapchan just before dark. Here we were somewhat depressed to find that instead of the house and garden we had been promised, we were to spend the night in two or three tiny, unventilated rooms in a very small and dirty public seraz. It appeared that the owner of the house at which Europeans usually stay had inconsiderately died just before our arrival. Half the loafers and children of Yapchan enjoyed an excellent close- up view of the three of us unpacking, dining and going to bed. Next morning D. said that she had not been by any means the only occupant of her room; she counted, I think, seventy-one others. On 21st July, 1922, we rode and drove the last 24 miles to Old Kashgar. Some three miles out we were met with an elabor- ate wayside reception by Mr. Fitzmaurice, the outgoing Vice- Consul who had been holding charge of the Consulate General pending my arrival, supported by the office staff, the Aqsaqal and other British subjects of Kashgar. A mile further and we were being greeted at a pleasant pavilion among willow- groves by the Chinese officials, representatives of the Swedish missionaries and the Russian colony, and others. Here we were entertained at an excellently-cooked and almost European lunch by the friendly and genial Taoyin of Kashgar, after which we listened and replied to speeches of welcome in various unfamiliar tongues. A long and dusty procession through ~ bazaars and surburbs brought us late in the afternoon to “ Chini Bagh,” by which name the British Consulate General is locally known. Our journey from Srinagar had occupied 49 days from Srinagar, including eight days’ halts on the road. We could have done it easily enough in, say, forty-two, but we should not have enjoyed it nearly as much as we did. Including the value of stores consumed on the road, but not the wages and travelling allowances of private servants and Government order- lies, the cost according to the careful accounts I kept worked out at {120 for the three of us—much less than I had expected. aVOHSVHA GIO AO STIVM AHL ¥ iy ah “ ip 4 py CHAPTE’R V KASHGAR () c= first impression on arrival at the Consulate Generalis of greenery and shade ; of limes and acacias, willows and planes and fruit-trees of all kinds ; of tall bushy poplars rising like a wall against the sun, and slender poplars with little white-backed leaves which flutter silently in the faintest breeze like the waving of fairies’ hands; of confused gardens on three different levels, with an orchard and a vine-pergola and a little meadow and a dense thicket of Babylonian willow and a pond with lotuses in it and a carved Chinese summer-house, all mixed up with trees and an amazing riot of flowers and vegetables. The house itself is comfortable enough, expecially after the long pilgrimage over mountain and desert which leads to it; the bedrooms are perhaps a little inadequate, according to English ideas at any rate, compared with the magnificent hall, dining-room and drawing-room, but the latter certainly impress Chinese and Russian visitors with the dignity of the British Empire. So does the imposing gateway flanked by a long line of clerks’ quarters on one side and by the office buildings on the other. But the glory of the Consulate-General is undoubtedly the terrace along its north-western side. The approaches and south-eastern facade of the house afford no inkling of the view of which a first glimpse is obtained through the French win- dows of the drawing-room. Stepping out on to the long terrace with its sundial and parapet of sun-dried brick, you find yourself on the top of a low bluff looking out over the wide shallow valley of the Tiimen River. Immediately below you are the trees of the lower garden and its enclosing wall; then comes a narrow road-way with country people going to and from the busy town all day long ; beyond it a patch of melon- beds and willow-fringed rice-fields, into which from the left juts a promontory of river-bluffs crowned with houses and 59 56 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA trees and at the very tip a small mud-built shrine. Then comes the winding river, brimming in summer with the melted snows of the Tien Shan. On the further bank more rice-fields and a line of loess bluffs, below which here and there nestle cottages and water-mills buried in willows; beyond, trees and farmsteads stretch away to the northern edge of the oasis five miles distant, where in stark contrast a great sweep of gravelly desert slopes down from the curiously-corrugated foothills of the Tien Shan. What a joy that terrace was! The bedrooms all opened on it, or ona small verandah just above, in which I slept in all but the coldest weather. How pleasant it was, as one sipped one’s early tea, to watch the sunlight flood the valley and listen to the various noises of the morning as they floated up from field and homestead, the harsher ones softened by distance ; birds twittering, cocks crowing, women calling to one another, donkeys braying, boys singing, dogs barking, cart- wheels creaking and, on Wednesdays, the musical wailings of women worshippers at the little shrine of Sultan Buwam down by the river; best of all, that peculiar sound which for us seemed to hold the very essence of Kashgar’s charm—the note of the millers’ horns as they called to their customers to bring their grain for grinding. It is the horn of a mountain-goat that the miller of Kashgar winds for this purpose, and to us the gentle sounds which floated up in the morning from the little mills by the river were as the Horns of Elf-land faintly blowing. In the evening, too, the terrace was a favourite haunt, when the river-bluffs opposite glowed with the sun’s last rays and pearly clouds floated over the far-off Tien Shan ; when the patter of ponies’ and donkeys’ feet and the voices of the villagers riding home from market came up from the road beyond the garden, and the call to prayer echoed along the valley from the mosques of the city. But if the view from the terrace was wide, that from the roof of the tower was, or could be, immense. Per- fectly clear weather is, alas, rare in Kashgaria owing to the fine loess dust which almost always slightly thickens the atmo- sphere; but at two seasons of the year, early summer and late autumn, the atmosphere in the mornings could be as clear as crystal and the farthest mountains plainly visible from the top of the tower. And what a panorama they made, in November at least when the leaves were off the trees which KASHGAR 57 partially masked them! From south right round by west to north-east they stretched, the walls that screen Kashgar from the rest of Asia. To the north indeed the snowless outer ranges of the Tien Shan were not impressive, and higher peaks could only here and there be espied beyond. But right across the south-western horizon, sixty to a hundred miles away, stretched a mighty rampart of eternal snow, here irregular and serrated, there smooth-topped and broken only by the very highest massifs, which stood out like the marble bastions of a Citadel of the Gods. It was the Kashgar Range, a hun- dred miles long and from 18,000 to more than 25,000 feet high, which walls off the lofty table-land of the Pamirs from deserts and oases of the Tarim Basin. It is difficult to analyse the fascination of lofty mountains seen afar off; so much depends upon their associations. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the climber thinks of the arétes and chimneys and ice-slopes that await his scaling; the naturalist, the geologist and the surveyor of the new and varied world they offer, and the stalker of the mighty heads that surely lurk among their inmost sanc- tuaries. But to none do “the Hills’? mean more than to Western dwellers in Eastern lands; and not only to those for whom they are a relief from the soul-destroying monotony of the plains, but also to all those who have heard the call of the Desert. To one who knows them both, the limitless freedom of desert horizons is the more exhilarating by contrast with the narrow paths of the mountains, while the springs and streams, the woods and flowers and grassy shoulders of the hills are the lovelier for the memory of arid wastes and empty sun-baked water-courses. So it was that for us, who knew so well the parched lands of Baluchistan and south-eastern Persia, much of the glamour of that distant line of snows lay in the promise they held of flowery meadows and deep glens full of greenery for our exploring, of “ fresh woods and pas- tures new’”’ tucked away among their crags and splintered ridges. " But the enchantment of the Kashgarian landscape is not solely of the kind that is lent by distance. The soil is of the curious formation known as ‘‘loess,’’ which consists of nothing but fine desert dust, deposited from the air and firmly caked in layers of varying thickness. Loess has two peculiarities : one is its extraordinary fertility, which is such that you have only to poke a stick into the ground and water it regularly, 58 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA and it will grow into a full-sized tree ; the other is its tendency to vertical rather than horizontal cleavage. The result of the first is that wherever water can be brought (the climate of the plains is almost rainless, but water from the encircling mountains is plentiful for irrigation) the land is closely cultivated, willows and poplars line every water-channel and the farmsteads are buried in foliage. The second peculiarity results in the land- scape being broken up most picturesquely in the neighbourhood of the many rivers by perpendicular cliffs or river-bluffs, seldom more than thirty or forty feet high, but bold of outline and of a rich yellowish hue, with farmsteads perched on top of them and mills nestling below, trees and crops growing to their very edge and greenery in every cranny. The whole aspect of the better-watered parts of the oases is one of immemorial peace and contentment and of a civiliza- tion, such as it is, that has persisted unchanged for centuries. Nowhere could be found a more striking illustration of the strength and permanence of a rural population with its roots deep in the soil, especially when that soil can only be made productive by means of an elaborate system of irrigation. Politically, Kashgaria has had as stormy a history as any country in the world. During the last 2,000 years or a little more the Chinese have conquered it five times, and four times they have been evicted from it. The total period of their occupations up to date only amounts to about 425 years; during the remainder of the time Kashgaria has been the prey of one conquering people after another. Huns, Yiiehchih or Indo-Scythians, Hephthalites or White Huns, Tibetans, Uigur Turks, Qara Khitai,1 Mongols under Chingiz Khan, Dzungar Mongols and Turkis from the Transcaspian Khanates have all won and lost it in turn. Apart from these more cataclysmic changes, civil war has at various periods raged between the larger towns, Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan and Aqsu. Yet down through the ages generation after generation of peasants have yearly tapped the summer floods from the mountains and have raised their crops of wheat and barley, rice and millet, cotton and maize and melons, while wave after wave of con- quest has rolled over their head. Whenever any conqueror or tyrant has interfered overmuch with the cultivator, his greed has been his downfall. A striking recent example of this 1 The twelfth-century conquerors who gave their name to ‘‘ Cathay.’’ Stein, “‘ Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,” June, 1925, P- 495. KASHGAR 59 was in the case of Yakub Beg, the Khokandi adventurer who led a successful revolt against the Chinese in 1865 and ruled the country after the traditional manner of the Oriental despot for the next twelve years. Underhistyranny, according to Stein,} the population of some of the oases sank to one-half of what it had once been, and the cultivated area everywhere shrank greatly. The result was that when in 1877 the Chinese came back in force, they were welcomed with open arms by the people and the power of the self-styled “‘ Amir ”’ collapsed like a house of cards. Nothing is more impressive than the persistence with which through the ages China has enforced her claim to Eastern Tur- kistan. Whether to safeguard the transcontinental “ Silk Road,” which in the palmy days of Imperial Rome carried the produce of her looms to the Atlantic shore, or whether because she must extend her effective occupation to the westernmost mountain barriers of her empire on pain of losing their protection, China has always returned to the charge, even after a thousand years. Despite the gigantic distances involved—for even now, with several hundred miles of railway to help, the journey from Peking to Kashgar takes five months —her armies have time after time pushed westward; the might of the Emperors of Cathay has leant up against the flimsy structures of one Central Asian power after another and has flattened them out as though they had never been. Since their last re-conquest in 1877 the Chinese have governed Sinkiang, the “New Dominion,” from Urumchi fifty marches north-east of Kashgar. Standing on the site of Bishbaligh, one of the chief centres of the Uigur civilization in the Middle Ages, Urumchi commands the vital Kansu- Shensi corridor leading from Central Asia into the heart of Inner China. Cut off from the rest of China, except for this one long trail, by the vast extent of the Mongolian Desert, where a man may travel for fifty days without meeting a single human being, the New Dominion has recked little of the civil wars which during the last twelve years have rent the mother- country from end to end. The only effect on Sinkiang of the Revolution of r91r and the consequent weakening of the Central Government has been to permit a Governor of out- standing ability to establish himself as the virtually independent ruler of Chinese Central Asia. The result of Yang Tseng- hsin’s twelve years’ rule has been that the military and other 1** Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,’ June, 1925, p. 498. 60 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA brigands who infest Kansu, Szechwan and other western provinces are unknown in Sinkiang, which a European may traverse unescorted and unmolested from end to end. Con- ditions, indeed, vary in the different districts according to the energy and efficiency of the Magistrate of the time. Like crows round a corpse, thieves flock to a district to which an opium-smoker has been appointed, while they desert that of an energetic ‘“‘Amban”’ as rats a sinking ship; but in general it may be said that life is safe everywhere and property as secure as in most European countries. Moreover, to Governor Yang and his subordinates must be given credit for what is probably a higher degree of prosperity and content- ment than the country has known, at any rate since ancient times. They do not make the mistake of crippling agriculture by oppression and otherwise killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. They come of a race which has two thousand years of administrative experience behind it, and knows well how to base its power upon the strong rock of agricultural prosperity. Oppression exists, but it is chiefly by Turki minor officials, and the District Magistrate is usually there to appeal to in case of need. The predecessors of these same ““Begs’”’ were far more rapacious in the days of Yakub Beg, who was of the same class and type as themselves. Then, there was no appeal. Instances of serious and prolonged op- pression by Chinese officials under the present régime are rare. A notable case in our time was that of General Ma Titai, the history of whose crimes and of the doom which avenged them will be found in a later chapter. With the exception of land revenue, the taxation is almost entirely indirect ; the incidence of the former is light, even taking into consideration the varying proportions over-collected by the Ambans for their own pockets ; while the taxes on internal trade are farmed by Turki contractors who, like the Begs, dare not go too far in the mulcting of their own fellow-countrymen. At any rate, the fact remains that the population is steadily increasing and every year more and more land is being taken into cultivation. We saw the process going on in several of the districts we visited, notably in Maralbashi, Posgam and Karakash.! District 1 Already the Merket subdivision of the Maralbashi district, two marches down-river from Yarkand, is too big to be administered effectively from Maralbashi, and there is talk of its being erected into a separate third-class district, just as was done a few years ago with Posgam when it was separated from Karghalik, a new bazaar built and a third-class magistrate installed. KASHGAR ~- 61 Magistrates who succeed in bringing a certain area of new land into cultivation—35,000 mu or about 6,000 acres, I believe— receive a good mark at headquarters and are singled out for promotion. This results occasionally in money being wasted on canals along which the water will not run—‘‘ Amban’s Follies’? we used to call them—but it meant that ambitious Magistrates encourage the spread of cultivation in every way and see that new settlers are left alone by the tax-gatherer. For three years a settler on new ground pays no revenue, and half-rates for the next three. It is true that moral and intellectual progress does not existin Kashgaria. There are no schools except those attached to mosques, at which nothing is taught by the mullas but reading, writing and the Qur’an. By means of a strict censor- ship not only are books and all written or printed matter dealing with current events kept from the hands of Chinese and Muhammadans alike, but the dissemination in writing of news or of any ideas whatever among the inhabitants is effectually prevented. All this, no doubt, is highly reprehensible from the point of view of the democratic idealist. But after all, if the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the summum bonum for any community, as some people are still old- fashioned enough to believe, there is a good deal to be said for it. At any rate, in this twentieth-century world of hustle and the Yellow Press, of merciless competition and all-pervading publicity, one may be forgiven for hoping—selfishly, perhaps —that a corner of the earth may long be spared in which a peaceful, contented, simple, lovable and by no means un- civilized population exists without motor-cars or cinemas, without newspapers or telephones, without broadcasting or advertisements, without a mile of railway or even of metalled road, a land steeped in the Middle Ages, picturesque and quaint almost beyond belief—truly an Arcady of Cathay. Of our life and work at Kashgar the part that D. and I liked best was the touring, of which we had plenty. Though the trade between India and Chinese Turkistan is strictly limited by the great length and difficulty of the Leh route, the number of Indians connected with it who are permanently or temporarily resident in the oases of the Tarim Basin is surprising. At Yarkand alone there are usually between I00 and 150 Hindu traders, most of them representing firms in one or other of two Punjab towns, Amritsar and Hoshiarpur. Sindhi money-lenders from Shikarpur ply their trade at Yangi 62 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA Hissar, Karghalik and elsewhere. Besides these there are colonies of Muhammadan British subjects in nearly all the districts, some of them purely agricultural immigrants from Northern Kashmir and Chitral, others (and these among the wealthiest in the land) merchants engaged in the Indian trade. Many of the latter have married Turki wives, own land and houses, and have a considerable stake in the country. All these people cling tenaciously to their British nationality and their right to the protection of the Consular court, which under the existing arrangement exercises extra-territorial jurisdiction over them. This is not the place to discuss the ins and outs of the extra-territorial system in general or the details of its application to Kashgaria. Suffice it to say that the Consul-General is kept very busy maintaining order among the British subjects of the various districts, settling their civil disputes, trying cases brought against them by Chinese subjects, helping them to obtain redress in the Chinese courts and generally watching over their interests. Al- though theoretically the Consul-General deals only with the Taoyin, the representative of the Governor of the province, in practice very few cases, and those only the most important ones of an “international’”’ nature, are heard at Kashgar. The Consul-General works informally with the District Magis- trates, either directly or through the British agents (“‘ Aqsa- qals ’’) in the various towns. As the majority of the British subjects live from five to twenty marches from Kashgar, it can readily be understood that the most effective and ex- peditious method of dealing with their cases is regularly to visit the districts in which they reside and settle matters on the spot, either with the District Magistrates or among the British subjects themselves as the case may be. In fact, it was only by travelling once a year down each of the two main roads, Yarkand-Khotan-Keriya and Maralbashi-Aksu- Kucha, with halts varying from one to fifteen days at each district headquarters and with an occasional extra visit to the chief centre of the Indian trade, Yarkand, that I found it possible to keep in touch with the Indian colonies and (what is no less important) on friendly personal terms with the Chinese magistrates. Nearly half of the two and a quarter years we were in Kashgaria was thus spent on tour, and D. and I covered, apart from holiday jaunts to the hills, some 3,400 miles, almost entirely on horseback with our baggage in Peking carts or on the back of pack-ponies. There was KASHGAR 63 no difficulty or hardship about any of these journeys among the oases of the plains, for, apart from being looked after very well by our own people, we were not only assisted and escorted everywhere we went by the local authorities, but actually treated as guests, having frequently the utmost difficulty in getting payment accepted for the loads of flour, vegetables, rice, fruit, fodder for horses, etc., which met us at every town. Either the Chinese official rest-house or _ a private residence was placed at our disposal at most stages, though in the larger centres the Aqsaqal or some other influen- tial British subject usually insisted on putting us up. Escorts were provided everywhere, whether we wanted them or not ; the troops, at any rate down the Khotan road, were invariably turned out in our honour. Last but not least, at every town we visited except two or three in the remoter northern districts, the officials not only came out to meet usand to see us off with the peculiar roadside tea-drinkings which are de rigueur on these occasions, but also gave special dinner-parties in our honour. As will be seen later, these attentions were some- times rather embarrassing than otherwise, but one could not help appreciating the goodwill that prompted them. Alto- gether, the friendliness and courtesy with which we were received practically everywhere by the Chinese authorities were most cheering, and testified eloquently to the popularity and respect gained for the British Consulate-General by its founder, Sir George Macartney, as a result of twenty-eight years of able and single-minded service. Life at Kashgar itself was physically less strenuous than on tour, when work and long marches had to be combined, but I was always kept very busy, especially after I was deprived in July, 1923, of the valuable assistance of the Vice-Consul, Mr. Harding, whose post was afterwards left vacant. The number of different languages in which we carried on our work indicates the variety and interest of our daily routine, On any one of our files there might be, and often were, papers in six different languages: English, Chinese, Turki, Persian, Urdu and Russian. As for the ‘‘ spoken word,” Turki, Urdu and Persian were all in regular use with visitors, litigants and witnesses during office hours. Some of the more cosmo- politan of my friends, indeed, used all these three languages in the same conversation, switching from one to the other in a most disconcerting manner. The Consulate staff, whom I must now introduce, were as follows: the Mir Munshi (Head ~ 64 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA Clerk), Khan Sahib Muhammad Nasir Khan ; the Accountant, Treasury Officer and Second Clerk all in one, M. Firoz ud Din ; the Chinese ‘‘ Writer,” i.e. Secretary and Intrepreter, Mr. George Chu of Peking, late Intrepreter with the Chinese Labour Corps in France; and the Doctor, Khan Sahib Fazl-i-[ahi. In spite of the conditions of exile under which they worked, two months’ journey or more from their homes—for with the exception of the Doctor none of them had been able to bring their wives or families to Kashgar—they laboured uncomplain- ingly and loyally, and made things very easy for their chief. For some years before our arrival there had been a platoon of Kashmir Imperial Service infantry under a native officer as Consular Escort, but this was “ axed ”’ in 1922 and replaced by eight mounted orderlies under a zemadar, recruited locally and armed with swords and revolvers. The pay and conditions of service being very good according to local ideas, we had the pick of the British subjects and some good Turki candi- dates to choose from, so that a really excellent set of men were got together. The best of them were Hafiz and Sangi Khan, who have already been introduced, and the Jemadar, a steady, nice, wise old Ladakhi called Ghulam Muhammad. These men, together with the dakchis or postal couriers and other Government employees and our private servants, all had quarters within the Consulate enclosure. Altogether our population was generally between seventy and eighty, including women and children ; some of the men had other wives in the town, but nobody was allowed more than one within the precincts of the Consulate-General. In fact, we had a regular village on the premises, with its own gate and water-supply, each house enclosing a courtyard and some of them a tiny garden as well. Government officials who live at the end of telegraph and (worse) telephone wires, as nearly all do nowadays even in the remotest parts of the Empire, will envy the Consul-General at Kashgar when they hear that practically all his official telegrams take between 11 and 1g days to reach him. There certainly is a Chinese telegraph line between Peking and Kashgar via Urumchi, but messages usually arrive in such a mangled state after a week or more en route and several re- transmissions, that it is seldom used for official correspondence, which comes through the nearest Indian telegraph station, Misgar. The Government of India maintains a service of couriers who bring the mails from Gilgit in 15-17 days and. eae NS NHWOAL JO MNVA HLIYON (ydvasojoy gaya [) WOU IVYHNAS-ALVINSNOOD HSILIVE KASHGAR 65 the telegrams from Misgar in 11-13 days. Hunza men carry the bags on foot or horseback as far as Tashqurghan, Consulate couriers the rest of the distance. Except in early spring, when the mails are sometimes held up for a week or two by snow on the passes and the telegraph line over the Burzil is broken by the same agency, the service is remarkably regular. Accidents do happen, but are fortunately rare; in I92I a Hunza courier with his mail-bag fell off the path near Ata’abad and was dashed to pieces, and another was lost in the snow on the Mintaka Pass in the spring of 1923. Needless to say, these men are well paid, and the Kashgaris on the Tashqurghan section, who do the double journey by the Gez route once a month all the year round, have in addition comfortable married quarters in the Consulate “ village,’ a coveted privilege. Legation correspondence and other mails from China Proper, on the other hand, came by the Chinese post, which was regular and remarkably speedy, considering the vast distances involved. Letters took two months to reach Kashgar from Peking, and parcels (which came by cart) five to six months. Except for two private couriers whom we maintained for our heavy correspondence with Yarkand, we depended entirely on the Chinese post within the borders of Sinkiang. Our letters reached Keriya, for example, in ten days, though the distance is well over 400 miles, including 150 miles of sandy desert. The service between railhead at Pingtang and Keriya, via Kansu, Hami, Maralbashi and Yarkand, some 3,000 miles, is by far the longest courier-borne postal service in the world. Its effi- ciency is all the more creditable in view of the enormous difficulties with which the Department has to contend. The head of the Postal Department in Sinkiang during our time was an Italian and is always a European official of the Chinese Board of Communications; and the Chinese Postmasters whom we met at Kashgar were all men of up-to-date Western education with a good knowledge of English. “Society” at Kashgar consisted of the Chinese official world, the Swedish Mission, the Russian colony and the British Consulate-General. The Chinese officials of whom we saw most were the Taoyin, usually known by the honorific title of Tao Tai; his Foreign Affairs Secretary, who spoke English ; the Magistrates of the Old and New Cities, which are the headquarters of separate districts though only six miles apart ; the Commandant of the Old City garrison ; the Postmaster (another English-speaker), the Master of the Mint, 5 66 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA and one or two others. The Swedish Church Mission has branches at both the old and the new towns, as well as at Yarkand and Yangi Hissar. They were short-handed during our time owing to the Russian road being closed and transit vid India both difficult and expensive, and there were only three ladies and two men at the Old City Mission. We had some very good friends among the Swedes; most of them spoke English, and we came to regard them almost as our fellow-countrymen. Before the Revolution of 1917 the Russians were very strongly represented at Kashgar. The Consul-General was usually a diplomat of high rank with an escort of a hundred Cossacks and a very considerable retinue. Owing to this and to the relative proximity of the Transcaspian centres of Russian culture, the Tsarist Consulate-General was the preponderating element in Kashgar society. By 1920, however, it had died a natural death and the Russian colony had dwindled to twenty- three, of whom seven were children. The former Trade Agree- ment between Russia and the Sinkiang Government having been abrogated in 1922 and no new agreement having yet been concluded with Moscow, the Soviet Government was entirely unrepresented in southern Sinkiang during our time, though this was by no means the casenorth ofthe Tien Shan.1 More- over, the whole Russo-Chinese frontier from the Pamirs to Aqsu was closed by the Chinese, who allowed no Russians of the new régime to enter Kashgaria, so that the surviving colony consisted almost entirely of pre-Revolution residents who either could not or would not return to their own country. Like the Chinese, hardly any of them spoke any language but their own, a fact which added considerably to the complications of official entertaining. Indeed, had it not been for two of the Russians, who spoke English and Turki respectively and acted as interpreters, intercourse would have been impossible, for neither D. nor I could speak a word of Russian. In spite of the language difficulty, the official and foreign community met frequently and on the most friendly terms. We all “ did our bit ’” in the matter of entertaining, including the chief Chinese officials. who were most hospitable, and keenly appreciated European hospitality in return, although it must have seemed strange and barbarous to them. Some 1A Trade Agreement has since been concluded between the Soviet Union and the Governor of Sinkiang ; and a Russian Consul (without escort) has been in residence at Kashgar since July 1925. KASHGAR | 67 one of local importance, say one of the older Russian residents, would set the ball rolling with a Gargantuan feast to which every one was invited ; thereupon the Tao Tai and the Hsieh Tai and the Mission and the Bank and ourselves, not to be outdone, would rapidly follow suit, each after the manner of our kind. Social life at Kashgar thus alternated between periods of comparative quiet and bursts of feverish gaiety. Among the most enjoyable parties were those given on behalf of the Chinese by one or other of the leading Turki merchants in their beautiful gardens outside the city. It may be ex- plained that the modest term bagh or garden in Central Asia includes not only what we would call the garden but the house or houses built on it ; and very delightful places some of them are, with large airy rooms, quiet courtyards and deep high- roofed verandahs looking out on wildernesses of roses, pome- granates, vines, orchards and willow-fringed pools. Apart from all this hospitality, there were frequent calls to be paid to or received from Chinese officials from the Tao Tai downwards, either visits of ceremony in connection with Chinese or British festivals, arrivals or departures of officials and so on, or interviews on business. These last, if knotty ‘“international’’ points had to be discussed, might last an hour and a half or two hours, but three-quarters of an hour was the average duration of a Chinese call. Not speaking a word of Chinese—I was told that seven years was the shortest time in which I could hope to acquire enough of the language to be of use to me officially—I relied entirely on the services of an interpreter, either Mr. Chu, the Chinese Writer, or (while he was with us) Mr. Harding, a brilliant Chinese scholar. As I had found when I first went to Persia, the necessity of speaking through an interpreter is not altogether a drawback in diplomacy. Another of my social duties was to exchange ceremonious calls twice a year with the British Aqsaqal and ten or twelve of the leading residents of the town. These latter included the chief Muhammadan religious and legal luminaries, the Yamen Begs and two or three of the wealthiest merchants engaged in the Russian trade. At Christmas they all came to pay their respects at the Consulate, and their calls had to be returned; at the ’Id festival it was my turn to call on them first. These visits were an education in old-world courtesy and dignified kindliness. Most of the old gentlemen were perfectly natural and had plenty to say for themselves, fe 68 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA so that there was nothing stilted about these functions. I was surprised to find that, though they all knew some Arabic, the language of the Qur’an, only one of my Turki friends spoke Persian. That tongue, however, was our regular means of communication with the British subjects of Chitrali or Afghan extraction, including some of the Aqsaqals. We were not very much at headquarters in spring, summer and autumn, but when we were our spare time was fully occupied with rides and walks, tea-basket picnics, tennis with the Indian clerks on our excellent hard court, and so on. In winter there was skating on perfect ice from about 2oth November to roth February, as well as excellent duck- and snipe-shooting. My attempts to make a small practice-rink in the lower garden were not a success ; nothing would induce the water to remain under the ice as it formed. But there are many marsh-lakes throughout the Kashgar oasis which, as early as the middle of November, carry a foot or more of mirror-smooth black ice. The nearest of these natural rinks was six miles along the Aqsu road, and there was another one, much larger, among the marshes of Salarma five miles south- west of the New City. Two or three afternoons a week I _ rode out to one or other of these lakes, and often D. came with me or followed later with guns and the tea-basket. A couple of hours’ exhilarating practice on the perf€ct ice would be followed by tea on a sunny bank, after which we would take our guns and an orderly to neighbouring haunts of duck and teal that we knew of, seldom returning empty- handed. On days when there was not time to go out to the lakes there was plenty of shooting close at hand. The Tiimen Su, which flows past the Consulate-General, the Qizil Su two miles to the south, the Yaman Yar and other rivers, together with the innumerable springs along their banks, are frequented between October and March not only by the mallard and teal which breed in Kashgaria but by countless hosts of duck, geese and snipe of all kinds passing to and fro between the colder lands to the north and the lakes of Afghanistan, East Persia and North-western India. One day in November we counted no less than twenty-three gaggles of geese in the sky at the same moment, winging their way south-eastwards from beyond the Mountains of Heaven. A spring among the frozen rice-fields immediately below our garden wall was the haunt for weeks of several duck and a couple of snipe, KASHGAR 69 which were so confiding that we came to regard them as pets and spared them from the pot; but less than a mile away, under the eastern wall of the city, was a large area of rice- fields kept moist by slightly warm springs, where on good days one could rely on putting up twenty or thirty couple of snipe. As for duck, I counted no less than eight different quiet spots within two miles where we could be reasonably sure of a shot at any time of the day. We had also our various hobbies. I spent hours puzzling out the results of my plane-tabling among the “ Alps of Oungur ”’ and elsewhere, and had also my enlarging apparatus (worked with an incandescent spirit lamp) with which I turned out many hundreds of pictures from my ever-increasing col- lection of negatives. The garden was D.’s chief joy and pride, but she also gathered the Consulate children round her two or three afternoons a week and taught them sewing, gardening, outdoor games and other accomplishments as well as such Girl-Guide and Wolf-Cub ideas as were appropriate in the circumstances. There was also a perfect menagerie of pets, useful or ornamental, to look after ; these included at various times (and mostly at the same time) three cats, four snow-cock, three gazelles, fourteen hens, five ducks, a white pony about the size of a Shetland which I bought at Qizil Bazar for the equivalent of eighteen shillings, eight rabbits and a camel. The gazelles and the poultry all came to a tragic end at one time or another at the jaws of the semi-wild dogs which are such a pest in Kashgaria. These brutes hunt in packs at night when they are supposed to be guarding their masters’ houses, and though I repulsed several of their attacks with my gun and killed some of them, they always came back, scrambling over the high walls of the garden with extraordinary agility. The loss of the poultry was particularly sad, for the cock, a magnficent bird of great size with all the colours of the rainbow in his plumage, had been picked up by us at a farm near Yarkand, while D. had brought back two beautiful hens three hundred miles or more from Khotan and Aqsu respec- tively. D.was breeding from these three birds and had raised two fine sets of chickens, when the dogs broke into their house and killed the whole lot one night. The feline members of the community were perhaps the most important of all; D. and I are both cat-lovers, and there is no doubt that the pussies ruled the Consulate. Their names reflected our polyglot habits at Kashgar, for the big tabby was “ Chong Mao,” the middle- 70 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA sized black ‘‘ Chhota Mao,” while the black kitten which was brought to the door by a poor Kashgar woman in the spring and speedily became first favourite was generally known as “Wee Squeakie.”” Chong, I may explain, is Turki for “ big,” mao Chinese for ‘‘ cat,’’ and chhota Hindustani for ‘ small,’ so that four different languages (or five if you include Scotch) were represented in the nomenclature of the Consulate pussies. They were happy days we spent at Chini Bagh, and only too quickly did they pass; hardly, it seemed, were we back from one tour before it was time to prepare for another. For halcyon days, halcyon weather is needed; and here the climate played its part right nobly. For those who love the sun and yet like a winter that 7s a winter, the climate of Kash- gar approaches perfection. During the whole of our time there was not a single day on which the sun did not shine, if only for an hour, and on four out of five it shone all the time. Not always with its full strength, indeed, because of the dust-haze already described; but it shone. The average rainfall throughout the year at Kashgar is about two inches. Between the beginning of March and the end of July showers and rain-storms are liable to occur, but there is always ample warning, so that they cause a minimum of inconvenience to lovers of la vie au grand air, The Turki farmer likes a drop or two of rain during the early summer, but it must not be overdone. Some years ago during a drought the inhabitants of Kashgar requested a certain popular mulla to pray for rain. He did so with great fervour, and shortly afterwards rain fell in torrents, ruining the crops. Where- upon, at the petition of the Kashgaris, the Amban punished the unfortunate mulla with a thousand stripes! I remember during the first rain we had at Kashgar being astonished to see out of the window the gardener hurrying indoors with the geraniums ; on being questioned he explained that, as every one knew, rain-water was injurious to flowers and he was taking the geraniums in to save their lives. When it does rain, it is inadvisable to go out until the ground has dried, for the loess clay becomes so slippery with wet that it is almost impossible to keep one’s footing. Owing tothe extreme ‘“continentality’’ of the climate—Chinese Turkistan lies further from the sea than any country in the world—the annual range of temperature averages 100° Fahrenheit; the lowest readings in January being in the neighbourhood of zero, while the highest shade temperature in August is 103° KASHGAR 71 c to 105°. Another climatic feature arising from “ continent- ality’ is the fact that April is much hotter than October, which is the warmer month in other regions of the globe. In winter the ground freezes to a depth of a foot and a half, and all irrigation water stops owing to the choking of the canals with ice between 15th November and the end of February. Yet the Kashgar winter is not at all a formidable affair. The skies indeed are sometimes grey with dust-haze, and for several days in January the thermometer does not rise above freezing-point. But the sun shines most of the time, while as for wind, that terror of cold lands, we had none worth mentioning. Ringed round on three sides by lofty ranges, Kashgar is mercifully windless in winter, so that in spite of the hard and prolonged frost the cold is not severe. We made ourselves very cosy in the evenings in front of roaring wood fires. One of the first things we did to the Consulate was to instal good British open fireplaces, not being content with the cheerless Russian stoves we found in the house: vast shiny black cylinders like the funnels of monstrous locomotives, which disfigured and either under- or over-heated every room. There are usually one or two light snowfalls during the winter, but the snow melts very quickly in the strong sun, except where there is underlying ice. In spring and early summer occasional storms with rain or dust or both vary the monotony of the eternal sunshine, and are also to be welcomed for the exquisite clearness of the air which follows them. At any time in July or August the weather may become, for short spells at a time, unpleasantly warm according to European though not to Indian standards; punkahs are unknown, though I must confess I should sometimes have been glad of one. But the nights are seldom oppressively hot, except occasionally just before a storm. Another fly—to use an appropriate meta- phor—in the ointment of a Kashgar summer is the insect life. Mosquitoes and sand-flies are a trial, though not to be compared with those of an Indian plains station ; the former are smaller and less robust than those of Hindustan, and both can be effectively circumvented by a mixture of citronella oil and kerosene. At night muslin sand-fly curtains are advisable, unless one is sleeping in the open air and well away from walls. One would have expected that the cities of Chinese Turki- stan, where ideas regarding sanitation and hygiene are of the most primitive, would be hotbeds of disease and regularly 72 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA swept by all sorts of epidemics. In particular it might be supposed that towns which are dependent for their water- supply upon small rivers, canals and even ponds would be peculiarly liable to the scourge of cholera, as are those of Eastern Persia and Afghanistan where similar conditions prevail. But it is a remarkable fact that cholera, typhus and plague are alike unknown, though they appear regularly in Ferghana and Bokhara immediately to the west. Stranger still, though dogs both tame and semi-wild abound, and though they occasionally go mad and bite people, hydrophobia is unheard of, though common enough on the Russian side of the Tien Shan. The only serious infectious diseases are typhoid and smallpox, which appear to be endemic ; in neither case, however, is the mortality rate high, in spite of the lack of western-trained doctors and hospitals, nor have Europeans muchto fearfromthem. Theonly ailment which seems to give Europeans much trouble is a comparatively mild form of malaria which is prevalent in the districts where there is much rice-cultivation. On the whole, Kashgaria may be said to be one of the healthiest countries in Asia. So, at any rate, we found it, for with the exception of a single chill which kept D. in bed for a week or two our first September neither of us hada day’s illness during the whole of our time in Chinese Turkistan. ARCS a EVENING ON THE TUMEN SU ABOVE KASHGAR CHAPTER VI A CENTRAL ASIAN ARCADY N a clear May morning before breakfast at Kashgar it () is pleasant to lean on the parapet of the flat roof of the Consulate and allow one’s gaze to wander round the vast horizon of oasis and desert, of plains and snowy ranges. Beyond that horizon, north, south, east and west, it is easy to picture the sunlit spaces of High Asia stretching away round the dipping curve of the globe. How remote and iso- lated was the ancient land to which we had come! Some- © times I wondered whether railway or even metalled road would ever scale those lofty ramparts of ice, or bridge the immense gulf of desert between us and the Far East. Whose while would it be worth to spend the millions needed ? There in the north, beyond the Mountains of Heaven, was the fair province of Semirechia, once richest of the Tsar’s Central Asian lands and the home of many thousands of colonists from European Russia—a “‘ white man’s land ”’ indeed. It looked at one time as if Kashgar was going to be made accessible from Europe through Semirechia more easily than by any other route ; the Tsar’s Government were pushing the Chimkend- Vyerni extension of their Transcaspian Railway rapidly eastwards towards the Dzungarian frontier, and southwards from Pishpek on this line they made a rough carriage-road by Fort Narin to the Tien Shan. They even, I believe, carried a route carossable over the Turug Art Pass, while from the Kashgar side they somehow or other—the Russian Consulate- General was very strong in those days—brought about the building of a fine bridge over the Tiimen River just outside the Yarbagh Gate of the Old City. This bridge would have been convenient for visitors, armed or otherwise, who might have happened to approach Kashgar by the Narin Road. It was swept away by a summer flood some years ago, and curiously enough has not been rebuilt by the Chinese. Then there was 73 74 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA Ferghana to the west, an older land than Semirechia and no less fair. The Islamic culture of Kashgar comes from the ancient cities of Ferghana ; its minstrels still sing of Marghilan, the Silver City, its ballads tell of the days when there were Khansin Khokand. The Russians before the War had brought their railway to Andijan, and for years the caravan-route over the Terek Pass from that town was the least arduous of the roads to Kashgar. Thus it is that such little foreign influence as has left its mark upon this place is Russian. But in Central Asia the triumph of politics over nature is short-lived, and the trade between Kashgar and Russian Turkistan is a mere shadow of its former self. To the south of Ferghana lay the secluded mountain lands of Eastern Bokhara, another ancient Khanate. Time was when the Oxus and its affluent the Surkhab saw the caravans passing to and fro between Persia and Cathay; long before the Revolution, the organi- zation by the Russian Government of the Andijan route had diverted traffic from the ancient Silk Road, but the glories of Bokhara and far Samarkand were household words in Kashgar none the less. Now the age-old Chinese policy of seclusion has once more prevailed, and the city of Tamerlane is as remote from Kashgar as Roum—Constantinople—itself. Then, to the south-west beyond the Pamirs, Afghanistan, now emerging from the shelter of her mountain walls into the dusty arena of the twentieth century; then the “ Rough Bounds,” as they would call them in the Highlands, of Dardistan and Baltistan across which we came; and last Tibet, the true Roof of the World, still remote and mysterious in spite of the long but narrow searchlight-beam of publicity which has lately fallen upon it. Ignorance in Kashgaria of the outside world is still profound. Strangers, especially ‘‘ Afghans,” under which generic term Indians, Persians and Bokharans as well as genuine Afghans are grouped, are called “ travellers’’ (musafir), or ‘‘men who have crossed the passes’ (davan-ashti), for the road to Leh and India is often referred to as the “‘ Seven Passes.’’ What little knowledge there is of India and its English protectors is confined to Kashgar, Yarkand and the oases of the south; along the north-east road, in Maralbashi, Aqsu, Kucha, etc., the vaguest ideas prevail. Nor do their Chinese rulers en- lighten the inhabitants ; quite the reverse. Some of those we met had very hazy ideas themselves as to what was “‘ beyond the passes.” Harding told me that they visualized India, if A CENTRAL ASIAN ARCADY 75 at all, as a mountainous frontier province of ‘‘ England,” inhabited entirely by turban-heads (Chan-t’ou) over whom ruled a white race only slightly less barbarous than themselves, I remember once being told by an inspecting officer from Urumchi who called on me about the road across the Gobi Desert to China Proper: “It is not so dangerous as it used to be,” he said, perfectly seriously. ‘‘ The route the caravans used to go by between Hami and Tunhwang became infested by stone dragons, which breathed fire and storm and devoured many travellers. They got so bad, that the government sent out a detachment of troops against them. But the stone dragons devoured the troops too. So the route had to be declared closed and now travellers go by a longer one where there are no stone dragons.”” Another Magistrate with whom I was talking about the elusive “ cloudy tiger’’ of the Tarim River jungles was very contemptuous about this animal, which he admitted he had never seen. “‘ It is like the Turban-head, mild and cowardly,” he said. ‘“‘ The real Chinese tiger is a very different animal. It is twice as big as the Maralbashi tiger, and it bears on its forehead the royal symbol, Wang. Wherever it goes, a strong wind follows it. Thus is it recog- nized.”’ 1 Every now and again some sight or incident would bring forcibly home to me the Arcadian isolation in which the people of the country lived. One day while walking near the Aqsu Gate I came upon a small crowd lining the bank above one of the few short pieces of levelroad near the city. Wondering what they were looking at, I joined them and saw—a young man vigorously pedalling a bicycle up anddown. The crowd gazed in awed silence. I got into conversation with a man who told me that this ‘‘ velocipede ’”’ was the only one in Kashgar and that its owner occasionally gave exhibitions. Hedid not think that anyone else in Kashgar knew how to ride a velocipede. 1So tall were some of the yarns with which I was solemnly regaled by dear old mandarins, that had it not been for the fact that they obviously believed every word they said I would have taken it for granted that they were trying to pull my leg. One, who evidently thought I had never seen a yak, told me some remarkable facts about that animal. He said that a yak will dig his horn into the mountain- side and thus swing his body across a steep face, using his horn as a pivot. More wonderful still, when a loaded yak comes to a corner in a narrow cliff-path where a rock juts out and prevents his getting his load round in the ordinary way, he turns inward, facing the cliff, and stdles round the corner with his hind legs over the edge ! 76 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA In some ways the Tarim Basin is more than old-fashioned— it is medieval. I remember reading the late Elroy Flecker’s play ‘‘ Hassan” and being charmed with its poetry, but a little superior about the romantic glamour which it evidently had for London audiences—the Golden Road to Samarkand, and so on. ‘ Samarkand’s nothing,’ I wrote in a letter home. “ Here at Kashgar we are twice as far beyond Samarkand as Samarkand is far from London. After all, the city of Tamerlane is directly con- nected with Charing Cross by steamship and railway, whereas if you want to come to Kashgar you must undertake a real caravan-journey, and a long one too. Even before the days of railways and steam- ships the caravan journey from Baghdad to Samarkand was not half as long as that from China Proper to this place by Shensi, Tunhwang and Keriya, which is still used occasionally by camel caravans bringing Chinese tea and silks. Then there is the still longer, though cooler, north road across the Mongolian steppes, along which an old Chinese carrier came the other day. He left railhead with his camels last September and turned up smiling in June, talking of his nine months’ journey as if it had been a week-end trip. He told me that he had marched for fifty days once without seeing a human being... . “ About Baghdad, too, it is a little difficult to enthuse if you have been there. Constantinople, yes; but not Baghdad. Anyway, in twentieth-century Yarkand we can match the characters in ‘ Hassan’ and the things they did in eighth-century Baghdad. Take the Chief of the Beggars, for example. The Beggars, or Qalandars, are a guild recognized by the authorities with their Shangia or Chief, just as in old Baghdad, and the Chief of the Beggars is one of the wealthiest men in Yarkand. This is because he and his men are in close alliance with the Shangia of the Pashvaps or Chief of Police (a Turki subor- dinate official) and his men. The two Chiefs co-operate in the organi- zation of burglaries and thefts, sharing the spoil. Practically every- thing that is stolen in Yarkand comes eventually into the hands of one or other of these two men. Since the Chinese made opium con- traband a few years ago, too, they have reaped a rich harvest out of the illicit trade in that drug between Afghanistan and Yarkand. 1The result of the Governor of Sinkiang’s prohibition of opium cultivation and importation has been instructive. Until it became contraband, the consumption of opium in southern Sinkiang was comparatively small and prices were low; but once the import from Afghanistan and Semirechia was prohibited, the price went up and it became “ the thing’ not only to smoke but to smuggle it. There came to be big money in the business, and this, together with the excitements of opium-running among the wild mountains of the Sino- Afghan frontier, attracted the most adventurous spirits in the country. The Urumchi Government and the more efficient of the District Magis- trates do their best to stop the smuggling, which is only as profitable as it is because there is absolutely no cultivation of the poppy in Sinkiang, a fact to which the Goverment point with justifiable pride ; A CENTRAL ASIAN ARCADY 77 “This is how they work. As every one who is acquainted with Muhammadan countries knows, it is a sawab or merit-acquiring action to give alms to any beggar, whether he deserves it or not. Conse- quently the fraternity flourish even as the green bay tree; also, they hear all that is going on. They therefore make admirable spies and allies for the police. Suppose, then, that an opium-running convoy from Afghanistan is reported by the beggars to be approaching Yark- and. The smugglers always break up into parties of two or three among the foothills above the city and endeavour to enter with their loads by night. The Chief of Police then calls the Chief of the Beggars to his garden outside the city and the two of them concoct a plan of campaign something like this: on the nights when the smugglers are expected the Chief of the Beggars will post parties of his men near the most likely of the many holes in the city walls, with orders to intercept any smugglers they can get hold of and drag them off to the garden of the Chief of Police; the pashraps or watchmen are to patrol the streets and environs of the town and do likewise. When the time comes the two Chiefs await the result at the appointed place and divide the spoil, which usually consists of heavy blackmail in kind taken from the captured smugglers. “ Think of the dramas that must be enacted at a place like Yarkand ! There must be enough in one year to make plots for a score of ‘ Has- sans.’ Everything is there, from the comic rivalry between the Chief of Police and the Captain of the Military, who is represented by the Tungling or (Chinese) commandant of the garrison with his locally- recruited soldiers, to the tyrant Harun-ar-Rashid and his torture- chamber. General Ma, Titai of Kashgaria, with the big hay-chopper with which he slices men’s limbs off joint by joint, would play the latter to the life.’’ The oases of the Tarim Basin are a land flowing with milk and, if not honey, almost everything else. D. has a vivid and by no means overdrawn picture of the Kashgar bazaars in one of her letters home. “In the autumn the bazaars, always well supplied, positively overflow with things to eat. Millers sit in their shops behind mountains of flour, next door to them grain-merchants squat surrounded by huge sacks of golden corn-cobs, rice, wheat and millet. The vegetable stalls are weighed down with enormous onions, lettuces, cabbages, bundles of spinach and strange local vegetables which are new to us. Even the tinsmiths, the cloth-merchants, the cap-sellers have fruit and vegetables to sell, and at every corner sits some one with baskets of peaches, melons, pomegranates and grapes. Luscious nectarines fall off the stalls and the street-boys do not even trouble to pick them up. Horses and donkeys snatch at bundles of hay or dried lucerne but the extreme difficulty of the frontier, and the countless secret paths by which determined men riding ponies like mountain goats can inport the drug, make the prevention of smuggling an impossible task. Also there is the co-operation between the two “ Hassan” characters described above. 78 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA as they pass, and nobody minds, for the loss of one or two bundles matters little among so many. In this country everybody seems to be eating all the time. Not only in the town but for miles along the roads leading to it there are wayside food-pedlars every hundred yards, the very poorest of whom has a few handfuls of nuts, slices of melon, and a pomegranate or two to sell; the grander ones have booths or large barrows shaded by umbrella-like canopies of matting and piled up with strange sloppy white sweetmeats and ‘ mantas,’ which are made of minced meat enclosed in thin cases of dough, as well as with the usual melons, peaches and other fruit. No wonder that the Kashgaris are a fat and cheerful race.”’ The cost of living for Europeans at Kashgar is lower even than it was in India thirty years ago. Wages are absurdly low. The only one of our servants who drew a comparatively high wage was Ahmad Bakhsh, who received 60 rupees (£4) a month because he was an Indian and in exile. Our excellent cook, Daud Akhun, drew ro taels or £1 6s. 8d.—and other servants in proportion down to honest, smiling Salih Akhun, who did third gardener, kitchen assistant and odd-job man, for the princely sum of 16s.a month. Salih Akhun’s manners were delightful ; whenever he saw you a grin spread over his rugged face and his right arm moved like clockwork across his lower front in the Turki salute. As for food, here are some of the average prices D. paid in the course of her daily house- keeping : Meat (excellent mutton every day, beef Thursdays only), 2d. per lb. ; ox or yak tongues, 8d.; kidneys, 5 for 2d. Eggs, 2d. a dozen. Chickens, 4d. to 6d. according to size; large fat ducks, 84d. Milk, 1d. per pint; cream, 8d., from which we made our own butter. Wheat flour (poor quality), 4d. per lb., rice ditto. Cabbages, 1d. each, spinach 1d. per 1b., potatoes and tomatoes, 2d. per lb. Apricots, in season, per basket of about 3 lb., 12d.; peaches and nectarines, 2d.; grapes, 3d. Dried fruits (apricots, peaches, raisins), 1d. per lb. Game in season: pheasants and wild duck, 6d.; teal and par- tridge, 4d. ; snow-cock (twice as bigasa pheasant), 1s. 4d. Fresh fish was an item which often appeared on D.’s menus, the best kind being the asman-belek or ‘‘ heaven-fish,” which is very much the same as the “ mahseer”’ of India, and is found in both the rivers which flow past Kashgar, the Qizil Su and A CENTRAL ASIAN ARCADY 79 the Tiimen Su. D. never bought it in the bazaar, but ar- ranged with a particular fisherman to bring along his morning catch now and again. She paid him 4d. a pound for it, straight from the river. In winter the Chinese get frozen fish by post from Ili in the north, and this is regarded as a great delicacy; it is a kind of sturgeon, which if thawed gradually is quite eatable. But we much preferred fresh ‘““heaven-fish.”” There is a theory among the Europeans of Kashgar that the local fish is dangerous to eat, on account of a poisonous gland or something of the kind; this seemed to us to be a myth, for neither we nor our guests ever felt the slightest ill-effects from it. We went out one morning with our friend the fisherman and his mate to study their methods. At 7 a.m. they called for us at the Consulate with their para- phernalia, which consisted of a large bag-shaped net on a triangular frame attached to a pole carried by one man, and a long stick carried by the other. Arrived at the canal (the Oizil Su in which they usually fished was rather a long walk from the Consulate, so the men said they would try the mill- canals of the Tiimen Su) the man with the net entered the water and submerged the net, facing upstream; his mate waded in about fifty yards above and began beating the water with his pole, gradually working down, in order to drive any fish there were into the net. When he had finished the beat the other man lifted the net out of the water to see if there were any fish in it. We watched them do this at several different points, but we evidently brought them no luck, for not one did they catch. In the Kizil Su they used to get quite big fish, eight or ten pounds. The king of Kashgar fruits is undoubtedly the melon known as the Beshak Shirin. It is indeed a super-melon. We used to think in Baluchistan that the melons were good, and at Kerman too I used to get fine ones by the donkey-load as presents from Persian friends. But the best of Persia and Baluchistan were only as the inferior kinds grown at Kashgar. The Beshak Shirin is shaped like the Cantelupe, and is yellow with green markings ; it is on an average twice as big as any Cantelupe one sees in London shops, and when ripe its skin is so thin that its juice oozes out on to the dish. Its flesh, white or pale yellow, you can eat right down to the skin and its flavour is ambrosial. We weighed and measured a fairly good specimen from our own garden—by no means the biggest I have seen ; its circumference was 33 inches and its weight 80 CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA 174 1b. During the lamentably short season of about three. weeks in August-September a Beshak of this size costs 3d. in the bazaar. Melons like a slightly salt soil, but must have a great deal of water ; when we were making an orchard out of the lower garden, which had been under useless and insect- harbouring Babylonian willow, we first sowed melons in order to take the salt out of the soil, and the crop we obtained was a magnificent one. The Beshak Shirin of Kashgar is of the same kind, and probably just as good, as the famous melons of Hami in the extreme east of the province. The latter used to be sent as presents to the Emperor in classical times, as any educated Chinamen will tell you. As the distance is~ 2,000 miles by road, and as the Beshak is a delicate melon and quickly goes bad, I often wondered how they did it ; and I once questioned a Chinese official who had been posted at Hami on the subject. He told me that the reason why Hami melons are so much prized is because they retain their flavour even when dried. There is, or was, a regular trade in dried melons between Hami and China Proper. Presents of fresh melons were, however, sent to the Emperors of the late Ching Dynasty every year by special camel caravan across the Mongolian Desert. Ten times as many as the number in- tended for presentation used to be sent, each packed in a box separately with cotton wool, as only about ten per cent. of those sent used to be fit for the Emperor’s table when they arrived. We grew all our own vegetables in the garden, of which D. was in charge, except potatoes, which were good and cheap in the bazaar and took up too much room in the garden. Beginning with spinach in March we were well supplied through- out the season with asparagus, green peas, cabbages, red tomatoes, French beans, cauliflowers and Brussels sprouts. D. also introd&ced broad beans, yellow ‘‘ Golden Queen ’”’ tomatoes and bfivmal or egg-plant (the French aubergine) from India ; all did ve®well and were greatly appreciated by our Chinese guests. ‘ll As we had no greenhouses, owing to the prohibitive cost of glass, it was necessary to store vegetables throughout the winter by burying them in deep pits. Owing to the inten dryness it was possible to do this without first drying the™ vegetables, and we thus got cabbages, cauliflowers and Brussels sprouts fresh daily right through till March, when the spinach (sown the previous autumn) was ready. The mouths of the \ : \ BAZAR-DAY KASHGAR ON an ¥) a Ca Ale