HISTORY OF KASHGAR.
The great difficulty encountered in giving a description of the past
history of Kashgar is to evolve, out of the series of successive
conquests and subjections that have marked the existence of that state
for almost two thousand years, a narrative which shall, without
confusing the reader with a mere repetition of names that convey little
meaning, place the chief features of its history before us in a light
that may make its more recent condition intelligible to us. We may say
in commencement, that those who desire a historical account in all its
fulness of Kashgar must turn to that contributed by Dr. Bellew to the
Official Report of Sir Douglas Forsyth on his embassy to Yarkand. They
will there find ample details of the events that took place in this
region of Central Asia from the commencement of our era; but a mere
reiteration of the various calamities, with brief and intermittent
periods of prosperity, each wave of which bore so striking a similarity
to its predecessor, would not serve the purpose we have at present in
view--viz., of considering its own history, for the purpose of better
understanding its relations with its neighbours and with China, and how
the state consolidated by the Athalik Ghazi was constructed on ruins
handed down by an almost indistinguishable antiquity.
For a considerable number of years anterior to the ninth century, the
Chinese Empire extended to the borders of Khokand and Cashmere. But the
dissensions that marked the latter years of the Tang dynasty were not
long in producing such weakness at the extremity of this vast empire
that the subject races and their proper ruling families were enabled to
obtain either their personal liberty or their lost positions once more,
unhappily without in any case achieving with the severance of their
connection with China any perceptible amelioration in their lot--indeed,
on almost every occasion only binding themselves with harder fetters,
and sinking into a deeper state of servitude. When the petty princelets
of Kashgar, Yarkand, Turfan, and the rest broke away from their
allegiance to Pekin, and when the imperial resources were unable to
coerce their rebellious subjects, the whole country passed under the
hands of their feudatories, who split up into innumerable factions,
waged continuous war, and sacrificed the happiness and welfare of the
subject people to a desire to promote their own individual interests. As
the barons and counts of Italy in the Middle Ages devastated some of the
fairest provinces of Europe, so these Oigur princes fought for their own
hand in the valleys of the Artosh and the Ili. It is very possible that
this state of things would have continued until China became
sufficiently strong and settled to reassert once more her dormant rights
over her lost provinces, but that a new force appeared on the western
frontiers of Kashgar. As early as 676 the Arabs, under Abdulla Zizad,
had crossed over from Persia, and were carrying destruction and terror
in their course along the banks of the Oxus. At that moment a beautiful
and gifted queen, named Khaton, ruled for her son in Bokhara. She had
not long been left a widow when her country was threatened by this
unexpected and terrible invasion. Although assistance came to the queen
from all the neighbouring States, including Kashgar, she was defeated
twice in the open field, and compelled to seek safety within the walls
of her capital. But the Arab leader was unable to take the city by
storm, and slowly retired, with a large number of captives and an
immense quantity of booty, back to Persia. Some years later the Arabs
again returned, but withdrew on the payment of a heavy indemnity.
Another chief, Kutaiba, was still more successful, for on one occasion
he carried fire and sword through Kashgar to beyond Kucha. This was the
first occasion on which the doctrines of Mahomed had been carried into
the realms of China, and with so cogent an argument as the sword it is
not wonderful that some hold was secured on the country. Subsequent
expeditions in the next few centuries strengthened this beginning, and
it was not long before the ruling classes of Kashgar became infected
with the new doctrine.
In the tenth century, Satuk Bughra Khan, the ruling prince of Kashgar,
who had been converted to Islam, forced his people to adopt that
religion, although it is tolerably clear that up to this time there had
been no acknowledgment of supremacy to the representative of Mahomed on
earth. A disunited state, which had on several occasions felt the heavy
hand of the authority of its generals, and at whose very gates its power
was consolidated, could not but be in some sort of dependence to the
stronger power, as there was no ally to be found sufficiently powerful
to protect it, now that the Chinese had retrogressed into Kansuh.
Towards the end of the tenth century the Mahomedans met with a series of
reverses from the Manchoo and Khoten troops, who still preserved their
relations, political and commercial, with China. It was in the
neighbourhood of Yangy Hissar that their general, Khalkhalu, inflicted
the most serious defeat on the Mahomedan rulers of Kashgar, but within
the next twenty years, assistance having come from Khokand, these
defeats were retrieved, and Khoten itself for the first time passed
under the rule of Islam. The family of Bughra Khan was now firmly
established as rulers of Eastern Turkestan, and their limits were almost
identical with those of the late Yakoob Beg.
The Kara Khitay, who had migrated from the country bordering on the
Amoor and the north of China, after long wanderings, had settled in the
western parts of Jungaria, and, having founded the city of Ili, in
course of time formed, in union with some Turkish tribes, a powerful and
cohesive administration. Their chief was styled Gorkhan, Lord of Lords,
and their religion was Buddhism. It was of this tribe, according to
some, that the celebrated Prester John, or King John, was supposed to be
the chief in the Middle Ages. Some neighbours who had been harassed by
predatory tribes came to Gorkhan for assistance, which was willingly
conceded; but, having successfully repulsed the Kipchaks and other
tribes, this leader did not withdraw from the country he had occupied as
a friend and ally. Not only did he then annex Kashgar and Khoten, but he
crossed the Pamir into the province of Ferghana, and in a short period
brought Bokhara, Samarcand, and Tashkent under his dominion. This
extensive empire was of very brief duration however, and civil war was
waged for more than half a century after the first successes of Gorkhan,
in which Khiva, or Khwaresm, and the Kara Khitay fought for supremacy. A
chief of the Naiman tribe of Christians, Koshluk by name, then entered
the lists against the aged Gorkhan, who was, after some hard fighting,
defeated and captured. This was in the year 1214. Koshluk's triumph was
also, however, of very brief duration, for he now came into contact with
one of the most formidable antagonists that the soil of Asia has ever
produced, Genghis Khan.
The Mongols or Mughols began to appear as a distinct tribe about the
same time that the Kara Khitay migrated to Jungaria, and as early as the
commencement of the twelfth century they had carried destruction into
the Chinese provinces of Shensi and Kansuh. When Genghis Khan appeared
upon the scene he found the tribe which he was destined to lead to such
great triumphs in a state of singular strength, and its neighbours
either at discord among themselves or only just recovering from a long
period of anarchy. The Chinese were particularly divided at that moment,
and Genghis Khan, who had family connections in that empire, soon found
it an easy task to lead successful inroads into the heart of his rich
but defenceless neighbour. Genghis Khan was born at Dylon Yulduc, in the
year 1154. His father, Mysoka Bahadur, was a great warrior, and waged
several successful wars with the Tartars. The earlier years of Genghis
Khan were occupied exclusively in overcoming the difficulties of his own
position. His tribe, divided into several distinct bodies, formed only
one confederacy when a foe had to be encountered in the field. It
required years to remove the dislike they experienced at submission to a
distinct authority; and it was only when the renown of his military
achievements threw a halo over his name that these tribes could be
induced to acknowledge a supremacy which they had become powerless to
resist. But during these years, when he led a life unknown and
insignificant as the chief of a small nomad clan, he was all the time
preparing for a wider career, and for a more extended authority. It was
while he was residing in the remote district round the salt springs of
Baljuna that he drew up the code on which his administrative system was
founded. It was based on the fundamental principle of obedience to the
head, on the maintenance of order and sobriety in the ranks of the
warriors, and on the equal participation in the spoils of battle by all;
but its regulations were so strict on the former points, and the gain of
the individual had to be so completely sacrificed for the advantage of
the many, that at first the establishment of this code of order had
rather the effect of driving his followers from him, than of attracting
to his standard zealots capable of the conquest of a world. It was not
until the year 1203, when he was nearly forty-nine years of age, that
Genghis Khan succeeded in bringing all the Mongol tribes under his
leadership. No sooner had he accomplished this much than he embarked on
military enterprises, which, in the course of a very few years, placed
the greater part of Asia at his disposal. Having subjugated various
Tartar and Tangut tribes, he included them in his military organization,
and by making them embrace his system of compulsory service in the army,
he found himself in the possession of an enormous following. Genghis
Khan therefore ruled at the time we have specified over Kashgar,
including Khoten, Jungaria, and the Tangut country; and there was no
force capable of opposing his except, in the east China, and in the west
the government of Khiva, at this period omnipotent in Western Turkestan.
The rumours which reached the Shah of Khwaresm of the formation of this
new confederacy in Mugholistan induced him to send an embassy to
discover the true facts of the case, and accordingly, while Genghis Khan
was prosecuting a war against the Chinese, there arrived in his camp the
emissaries of Western Asia. Haughty and imperious as this conqueror
undoubtedly was, he received the embassy affably, and with expressions
of the deepest friendship. He sent them back with rich presents and the
following characteristic message:--"I am King of the East. Thou art King
of the West. Let merchants come and go between us and exchange the
products of our countries." In furtherance of this wish he sent a
mission composed of merchants and officials to represent the advantages
that would be derived from mutual intercourse. But the Shah of Khiva,
either incredulous of the formidableness of the adversary with whom he
had to deal, or mistaking his own strength, did not reciprocate the
amicable expressions of Genghis Khan, nor, when the merchants who had
been despatched to his country were murdered, did he make any offer of
reparation. Such treatment would not be tolerated by any civilized ruler
of the nineteenth century, much less was it brooked by an irresponsible
conqueror, whose will was his sole law, in the thirteenth. As soon as
his campaign with China had closed with success, Genghis Khan made
every preparation for the punishment of this act of treachery. It was
then that Genghis Khan, with an armed horde of many hundred thousands,
burst upon the astonished peoples of Western Asia like a meteor from the
east. It was then that some of the fairest regions of the earth were
given over to a soldiery to devastate, a soldiery who had raised the
work of destruction to the level of one of the fine arts; and whose
handiwork in Bokhara, Balkh, Samarcand, Khiva and the lost cities of the
desert, is to be seen clearly imprinted in the ruins which mark the site
of ancient capitals, even at the present moment, 700 years after the
Tartar conqueror swept all resistance from his path. Afghanistan, and
the mountain ranges which are now considered to be impassable by
Russians, did not retard the progress of this "Scourge of God." Cabul,
Candahar, Ghizni fell to the warriors of far distant Mongolia, as they
fell not forty years ago to British valour, and as they must again fall
when the onset shall be made with equal intrepidity and with equal
discipline. And not content with having defaced the map of Asia, with
having converted rich and populous cities into masses of ruins, and with
having depopulated regions once prolific in all that makes life
enjoyable, Genghis Khan carried the terror of his name into the most
remote recesses of the Hindoo Koosh. He wintered in the district of Swat
on our north-west frontier, a territory which is quite unknown to us
except by hearsay, and which has only been occupied by the Mongol and
Macedonian conquerors. From his headquarters on the banks of the
Panjkora he sent messengers to Delhi; and it is uncertain whether he did
not meditate the addition of an Indian triumph to those already
obtained.
A rebellion in the far eastern portion of his dominions distracted his
attention from the Indus, and he was compelled to hasten with all speed
to quell in person the rising that was jeopardising his position in the
seat of his power. He hastily broke up from his quarters in Swat, and,
by the valley of the Kunar and Chitral, he entered Kashgar, through the
Baroghil Pass. Although he suffered much loss from a journey across
mountain roads, which were scarcely practicable in the early spring, he
succeeded in reaching Yarkand, with his main body, and hastening across
Turkestan arrived at Karakoram, his capital, in time to quell the
disturbance. After this his life was spent in conquering China, a feat
which he never accomplished. But in several campaigns, extending over a
period of about twenty years, he worsted the Imperial troops so
continually, that before his death, in 1227, he had occupied all the
northern provinces of that empire, with Pekin, and left to his son and
successor, Ogdai Khan, the task of completing the work which he had
commenced. On the death of Genghis Khan, his vast possessions were
divided amongst his children, and Kashgar, including Jungaria, Khwaresm,
and Afghanistan, fell to the lot of Chaghtai Khan. This ruler was able
to hold during his life the extensive territory he had succeeded to; but
on his death dissensions broke out in all quarters of the country, and
produced a fresh distribution of the various provinces. It may be
mentioned that, although Chaghtai was a fanatical Buddhist and a
confirmed debauchee, he was a prudent and sagacious ruler, and no
unworthy successor to his distinguished father. The dissensions that
broke out on his decease continued, with more or less violence, for a
period of almost 100 years after that event took place, and they finally
only received a momentary solution in the formation of a new kingdom of
Mugholistan, or Jattah Ulus, as it was more specifically called, under
one of Chaghtai's descendants.
As briefly and as clearly as possible, we will endeavour to lay before
the reader the chief events of this troubled epoch, when the numerous
progeny of Genghis Khan warred throughout the whole extent of Central
Asia, and a term was only at last placed to their restlessness by their
disappearance. In the first place, it may be as well to mention, that
the religions of Christ, Buddha, and Mahomed, were equally tolerated in
Eastern Turkestan during the greater part of this period. The Arab
invasion and the advance of Islam, had been hurled back beyond Bokhara
"the Holy," by the victorious arms of the great Buddhist conqueror,
Genghis Khan; and for a long period after the Mongol conquests, little
was heard of attempts at conversion to the tenets of the "true Prophet."
But it must not be supposed that, although Genghis Khan, in the sack of
Bokhara, had almost exterminated the race of Mahomedan priests, he was
disposed to stamp out the new heresy from his realms. Having crushed its
power in the field, he was quite content to let it live on or die out,
so long as his imperial or personal interests were not affected. So we
have the strange picture before us, of the three great doctrines of the
earth flourishing side by side in Eastern Turkestan in the fourteenth
century. The Nestorian Christians of Kashgar, who in the time of Marco
Polo were rich and flourishing, were obliged later on to succumb to the
violent measures of the other members of the community, and have
entirely disappeared for many centuries.
Shortly after the death of Chaghtai Khan, Kaidu, a great-grandson of
Genghis, obtained the throne of Kashgar and Yarkand; and a few years
later on, by a skilful piece of diplomacy, backed up by force, added
thereto the greater part of Khokand and Bokhara. His triumph was,
however, of brief duration, and he was displaced by other competitors.
Dava Khan, the son of Burac, the great-grandson of Chaghtai, had been
appointed governor of Khoten, but his ambition was not satisfied with
less than the throne of Western Turkestan also. He eventually obtained
his desire; but in a rash moment he threw himself in the path of the
Chinese Emperor, Timour Khan, who was returning from a raid carried
almost to the gates of Lahore. He was defeated somewhere in the
neighbourhood of Maralbashi, and was compelled to acknowledge the
supremacy of China. He is of some note to us, as having been the father
of Azmill Khoja, who was selected as ruler by the people themselves,
about the year 1310, and from whom descend that line of Khoja kings of
Kashgar, who have clung to their hereditary claims for a longer time
than any other royal Central Asian house. The last of the Chaghtai Khans
who held the sceptre with any effective purpose, was Kazan Ameer. On his
death another period of trouble broke out, and military governors and
rival princelets of dubious titles advanced their pretensions to the
vacant seat. Up to this all the rulers had, however, been Buddhists.
Toghluc Timour, one of the few remaining representatives of the Genghis
families, had only been saved by the pity of a leading man in Kashgar,
from one of the most extensive massacres of his kinsmen, and for years
he was obliged to lead an uncertain existence in the mountains or
deserts bordering on the state. His associations were all Buddhist; but
one day he was so struck by the definition of the "true faith" given by
the descendant of a Mahomedan priest, spared by Genghis Khan at the
destruction of Bokhara, that he made a vow to become a Mussulman when he
had regained his rights. Not long after this the turn of events in
Kashgar made people seek for some person with recognized claims to be
their ruler, and none in this respect surpassed Toghluc Timour. He, on
succeeding to the throne, openly owned his conversion to Islam, and in a
few years he was gradually imitated by all the leading chiefs of
Turkestan. From this time downwards to the present day, the religion of
the majority in this state has been Mahomedanism, except perhaps during
the Chinese rule, when the number of Chinese merchants, officials, and
soldiers, put the minority of the followers of Buddha on a par with
those of the rival religion. Toghluc died in 1362.
It was about this time that the second great conqueror of Asia appeared
upon the scene. Timour was born in 1333 in the Shahrisebz suburb of
Kish. He was the son of Turghay, governor of that district and chief of
the Birlas tribe, and on the death of his father he himself became
governor of Kish also. During his earlier years he was hospitably
received at the Court of Kazan Ameer, and that ruler, in addition to
giving him several high and distinguished appointments, married him to
his beautiful granddaughter Olja Turkan Khaton. Timour did not continue
long in favour at Court. His restless spirit impelled him to fields of
greater activity than any the Ameer could, or indeed felt disposed to,
place at his disposal. He openly mutinied against the central authority
in his government of Kish, and on being overthrown by the troops of the
state, he sought safety with his wife among the Turcomans of the Khivan
desert. Among these uncertain nomads he felt scarcely secure, and
collecting round him a small band of desperadoes, he entered upon a more
ambitious enterprise by undertaking a marauding expedition into the
Persian province of Seistan. This was attended with considerable
success, but he himself was wounded in the foot by an arrow. From the
effects of this wound he never completely recovered, and was known
henceforth as Timour Lang, Timour the Lame, whence the well-known name
of Tamerlane. The _eclat_ obtained by this marauding expedition stood
him in good stead, for shortly afterwards he was able to raise a
sufficient force to invade Tashkent. He occupied the whole of what is
now Russian Khokand including Ferghana, and he placed a fresh occupant
on the throne, Kabil Shah, in 1363. In the following years he contended
for supremacy with another chief named Husen, and in 1369 had so far
been victorious that he threw off the mask, and declared himself king.
He made Samarcand his capital, and converted that once populous city
into the wonder and admiration of Western Asia. Having settled his
internal affairs, he commenced operations against the states lying
beyond his border. The mountaineers of Badakshan were the first to incur
his wrath, and after several stubborn battles they were obliged to
acknowledge his supremacy. He then turned his attention to his northern
frontiers, beyond which the Jattah princes reigned in Jungaria. He
overcame their prince, Kamaruddin, in several encounters, but not with
complete success until his final campaign against him in 1390. As he
advanced they retired to the fastnesses east of Lake Issik Kul, and only
reissued from their hiding-places when the invader had withdrawn.
To return to Kashgar, on the death of Toghluc, his son Khize Khoja was
displaced and did not regain possession of his kingdom till 1383, when
he was thirty years of age. He was a stanch Mussulman, and was on terms
of as much amity and as close alliance with Timour as it was possible
for any neighbour, wishing to preserve his independence, to be. Allied
as he was with, yet not participating in the wars of Timour, against the
Jattahs, he suffered in common with those people from the expedition of
1389-90, when both sides of the Tian Shan were ravaged by the armies of
that ruler. Although for the next fifteen years they maintained friendly
relations, it can easily be imagined that Khize Khoja was not very
comfortable with so formidable a suzerain just over his frontiers. The
irksomeness of the position is well illustrated by the orders
transmitted to Khize Khoja by Timour, to have corn planted and cattle
collected at certain places for the immense army which he was levying
for the invasion of China. It was while engaged in fulfilling these
commands, that news reached the ruler of Kashgar that this "Scourge of
God" had died suddenly on the 5th of February, 1405. Khize Khoja himself
survived but a short time afterwards. For the second time within the
short space of 150 years had the possessions of a great conqueror to
undergo the process of redistribution. In Timour's case it was simpler
than it had been in that of Genghis Khan, for the former ruler left no
worthy representative of his cause as the Mongol conqueror had in Ogdai
and Chaghtai. The branches of the great family of Genghis struck root so
deeply, that down to modern times he has had descendants who perpetuate
his name, but Timour left none such. With the death of his favourite son
Jehangir, his hopes of having a worthy successor expired.
Kashgar was in particular the scene of confusion and trouble, and it was
not until about 1445 that any settled government was attained, when
Seyyid Ali, grandson of the aged and patriotic minister Khudadar,
restored some order and cohesion to the distracted country for a short
period. He died in 1457. During these years Yunus, king of Jungaria,
played a very prominent part in all the disturbances that were occurring
on his borders. He is represented to have been a very enlightened
prince, and emissaries from foreign nations returned from his court
relating with surprise how they had found a courteous and refined man
where they expected to have seen a coarse and savage Mongol. While Yunus
ruled in Jungaria another striking individual was predominant in
Kashgar. Ababakar, son of Saniz, who was the son of Seyyid Ali, ruler of
Kashgar, was one of the few sovereigns of that state whose acts entitle
them to consideration. During a long and troubled tenure of power he had
the good fortune to overcome many difficulties, and although his career
was to become clouded before his death, the brilliant years that
preceded the catastrophe justify us in considering his career for a
little while. He was a great athlete, hunter and soldier, and was so
favoured by his mother on that account that he distanced his brethren in
the race for supremacy. As governor of Khoten he soon absorbed Yarkand,
and long and furious were the wars he waged with Hydar, the ruler of
Kashgar, who was assisted by Yunus of Jungaria. Nor, although successful
on several occasions in the field against the allied forces, could
Ababakar hope to overcome the huge armies at the disposal of Yunus; and
it was not until Hydar himself foolishly broke off from Yunus, that
Ababakar succeeded in asserting his claim to all Eastern Turkestan. War
then broke out between Hydar and Yunus, and the latter with the
assistance of large reinforcements from Jungaria overthrew and captured
his former ally. But these dissensions favoured the cause of Ababakar,
and on the death of Yunus in 1486, his possession of Kashgar became
undisputed. The first serious danger with which he was menaced after his
complete possession of Kashgar, was in 1499, when Ahmad, the son of
Yunus, or Alaja the "slayer," as he was generally called, invaded his
territory at the head of the Jattah Mongols. The campaign was in the
commencement indecisive, but Ababakar before long triumphed over his
northern invader.
During the next fifteen years Ababakar ruled in peace and prosperity in
Kashgar, accumulating great riches and presenting an object of
attraction to his covetous neighbours. During these years the country,
although ruled in an arbitrary way, flourished, and, as one of the
native chronicles put it, "A traveller could go from Andijan to Hamil on
the borders of China without fear of molestation, and without having to
make an extra long march in order to find a place wherein to rest and
obtain refreshment." But in 1513 a storm broke upon his country that
resulted in his complete overthrow. Said, son of Ahmad and brother of
Mansur, who was ruling in Jungaria, undertook the invasion of Kashgar in
that year, and it was not long before he occupied Kashgar, which,
however, Ababakar left but a heap of ruins. His advance on Yangy Hissar
was opposed, but, having defeated the army of Kashgar before that city,
he occupied it without any further opposition, and thus secured what
has been called the key of Yarkand as well as of Kashgar. For some
months Ababakar remained shut up in Yarkand, but on the approach of
Said's army he abandoned that position and fled to Khoten. But not long
afterwards he retired still further into the mountainous country
south-east of Kashgar, and halted some time at Karanghotagh. But being
first plundered and then deserted by his attendants, he withdrew into
the valleys and deserts of the Tibetan table-land. For many months he
wandered, half-starved and solitary, in this deserted region, and at
last it was reported that he had been found murdered by some of the
mountaineers. Such was the end of the once magnificent Ababakar, a
prince who in his fortunes reminds us very much of the great Darius.
That he was avaricious is clear to those who read of the great treasures
he had stored away; that he was bloodthirsty and cruel is impossible of
denial; but that he possessed in his earlier years many of the virtues,
with some of the vices, of a great ruler is equally incontestable. His
son Jehangir, whom he had left in command at Yarkand, on the approach of
the army of Said fled to Sanju, and was in a few months captured and
executed. About this epoch the third great Asiatic conqueror was
appearing on the scene. Babur was born in 1481, and was chosen to
succeed his father Uman Sheikh on the throne of Khokand, by the nobles
of that state, when he was only twelve years of age. This conqueror of
India influenced but indirectly the fortunes or Kashgar. His career was
in another sphere, and it is not necessary here to enter into any
description of his life, such as has been given of his predecessors
Genghis Khan and Timour.
Said, having overcome Ababakar, employed himself in extending his rule
over the neighbouring states. He was seized with the desire of occupying
that mountainous region, which is divided into almost as many petty
states as it contains mountain chains, lying between our Indian
frontier and the Pamir and Badakshan. But although he employed all his
resources in endeavouring to subject the Kafirs of Bolor, or Kafiristan
as it is now called, he was unable to make any permanent additions in
this direction. In other years he carried fire and sword into Tibet and
Cashmere; and it was when returning from one of these expeditions, in
the year 1532, that he expired from the effects of the rarefied
atmosphere, near the Karakoram pass. His death was the signal for the
outbreak of fresh disturbances. His legitimate sons were ousted by
Rashid, the son of Said by a slave, who had already distinguished
himself as a general in the wars against Kafiristan and Tibet, and on
the death of Rashid after a brief reign, the confusion became, if
possible, worse confounded. It would be tedious in the extreme to follow
the variations that now took place. Benedict Goes, a Portuguese
missionary and traveller, found a ruler named Mahomed Khan on the throne
in 1603, by whom he was hospitably received; but as he had placed the
sister of the Khan, when returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, under an
obligation to him, this is scarcely a fair criterion either of the
personal merits of this ruler, or of the state of civilization to which
the country had attained.
It was now that the Khoja family appeared prominently upon the scene.
Two factions were playing the parts of Montagu and Capulet in Eastern
Turkestan in the earlier years of the seventeenth century. They were
known as the Aktaghluc and Karataghluc, and in the course of their
strife the leader of the former called in to his aid the Khoja Kalar of
Khodjent, a descendant of Azmill before mentioned. It was in the year
1618 that this Khoja first came to Kashgar, and his grandson,
Hadayatulla, was the chief means of attracting the affections of the
people to this family. That veneration has not disappeared to-day, and
the Hazrat Afak, as he is generally spoken of, is scarcely inferior in
the eyes of the people to Mahomed himself. The great miracles he is
reported to have wrought, and the peculiar sanctity which attached to
him during his life, gave him complete ascendancy throughout the
country, and before his death he was entrusted with the supreme
authority. His son, Yahya or Khan Khoja, succeeded him during his
lifetime, but was murdered in a riot a few months after the death of
Hadayatulla. Then recommenced with fresh vigour the old series of
disturbances. Aspirant after aspirant appeared in the political arena,
but, as each had little claim to lead on account of original merit, a
successful rival always was forthcoming, and so this wearying cycle
continued until 1720.
The course of the history of Kashgar has now been brought down to the
commencement of the eighteenth century, during which a fresh change
occurred in the history of the country by the Chinese conquest. It may
be well, therefore, before narrating that event and the causes which
immediately produced it, to consider the chief lessons taught us by the
history of Eastern Turkestan, as revealed in the preceding pages. The
most cursory reader must have been struck by the fact, that only twice
in the course of eight centuries did the country secure a firm and
settled government, and they were when two conquerors, Genghis Khan and
Tamerlane, reduced every semblance of authority to one bare level of
subjection. At fitful moments there arose, indeed, some leader, Yunus,
Ababakar, or the first Khojas, capable of preserving for a few years his
frontiers against the inroads of hostile neighbours, and of maintaining
an outward show of prosperity and tranquillity to foreign travellers;
but even such gleams of sunshine as these were transitory on the dark
horizon of the condition of mankind in Central Asia. With the fall of
each pretender, too, hopes of an improvement became fainter in the
breasts of the people; and when the successors of the Khoja saint showed
themselves not less amenable to the errors and frailties of their
predecessors than any past ruler had been, it was to some extraneous
circumstance, we may feel sure, that the people looked for aid. There is
an old saying in this part of the world, that when "the people's tithe
of bricks is full, then comes a Moses in the land;" and it cannot be
doubted that in the year 1720 the people of Kashgar had suffered much
and for so long, that relief, so that it came effectually from some
quarter or another, could not be otherwise than welcome. But the Moses
who had been, for centuries almost, expected, had as yet not proved
forthcoming, and as "hope deferred maketh the heart sick," so had the
Kashgari lost the courage even to look forward to a period when their
life of misery, under oppressive tyrants and exorbitant taxation,
aggravated by every form of peculation in its levy, might be changed for
a more favourable state of being. There can be no doubt that if the
chaos which reigned throughout Jungaria and Kashgar had continued much
longer those vast regions would have been completely exhausted. As it
was the population decreased in alarming proportions, and the wealth and
general resources of the country disappeared with no apparent means of
supplying the gap. What is, perhaps, most surprising of all is that all
these later rulers seem to have lived in a sort of fools' paradise with
regard to the resources of their state. The thought never seems to have
occurred to them that there must be an end some day or other to a realm
distracted by continual wars and sedition, and that subjects who have
been tyrannised over for centuries will at last rise up in arms and
teach their tyrants, in the words of the poet, "how much the wretched
dare." These Khans or Ameers of Central Asia are not worthy of one
moment's consideration for their own sake; but, as some account of them
is a proper preparation for the modern history of Kashgar, they have
been described in this chapter. From the disappearance of Chinese
authority in Central and Western Asia in the eighth and ninth
centuries, down to the commencement of the eighteenth century, the
history of Kashgar, in common with that of its neighbours, was a series
of misfortunes. There is nothing to attract our sympathies in any of the
rulers, with the exception perhaps of Yunus; and all our commiseration
is monopolised for the unhappy races who peopled that region. We
therefore have arrived at this crisis in a fit state to appreciate the
feelings of the Kashgari at the changes that occurred in the eighteenth
century; and before we consider, in a fresh chapter, those alterations
we may close this without regret at the disappearance of a long line of
Central Asian Khans, who possessed scarcely one redeeming quality among
many vices.