ROUND ABOUT KASHGAR
Arabic is science, Persian is sugar,
Hindustani is salt, but Turki is Art.
_Turki Proverb._
As soon as we had settled down at Kashgar we were anxious to explore
the city and its environs, and Mr. Bohlin proved an invaluable guide in
our various expeditions.
From its position the capital of Chinese Turkestan was a commercial
centre from very early times. The town as we knew it is built on high
ground above the Tuman Su and surrounded by a mud wall and a dry moat,
but there are ruins of old Kashgar close by, and the Oasis has changed
hands many times. The small traders and peasant proprietors, who form
the bulk of the population, are by no means a warlike race, and have
apparently accepted with equanimity the rule of whatever master fate
might send them. Throughout the centuries it never seems to have
occurred to the cities of what is now Chinese Turkestan that they might
with advantage have combined against a common foe, instead of letting
themselves be subjugated piecemeal.
[Illustration: PRIEST AT THE TEMPLE OF PAN CHAO. _Page 67._]
Perhaps the earliest mention of Kie-sha, as it was then called, was
when the famous Chinese general Pan Chao in the first century of our
era conquered the Oasis and marched his armies almost as far as the
Caspian. Accordingly we made our first expedition to the picturesque
temple erected by the Chinese to this hero, who, we were told, defended
the city most valiantly against fierce attacks from the Kirghiz tribes.
This monument is quite modern, the Mohamedan conqueror Yakub Beg having
destroyed the original temple during the ’sixties, and the legend that
places the remains of the great soldier in the high mound on which the
temple stands is open to doubt.
The dirty, black-clad priest in charge of the building pointed out to
us the gods in their ill-kept shrines, life-size plaster figures clad
in gorgeous silken robes with finger-nails of monstrous length. The
god of war was a jet-black deity of peculiarly repulsive appearance,
and all had stands before them in which worshippers could burn
joss-sticks. There was an upper story to the temple, which we reached
by means of a rickety wooden staircase not fastened to the wall in
any way, and giving me the impression of being a most insecure mode
of communication, and here I remember the quaint figure of the god of
schoolboys, appropriately armed with a formidable cane. But the view
was what held us enchained. From our post of vantage we could see over
the entire town, with its shrines and mosques standing out from the
thousands of mean, flat-roofed, mud dwellings, and as the sky was clear
that morning the serrated peaks rose up grandly, ramparts, as it were,
of the Roof of the World, that we were to visit later on.
We looked down upon the castellated city wall, which is some eighteen
feet wide between its high parapets, and I was told the legend
according to which it was built by half-starved slaves who were urged
to their task by overseers armed with whips. If one of the labourers
died, as frequently happened, his fellows were not allowed to remove
the body, but were forced to build it into the wet mud in order that
it might form part of the fabric, and the narrative haunted me when I
stood upon the wall itself.
Though modern artillery would bring down this defence of the city, and
the outer moat is always dry, as water would undermine the ramparts,
the wall with its square bastions has nevertheless an imposing
appearance: so also have the four great bronze-covered gates giving
entrance to the town, which are shut at sunset to the accompaniment of
Chinese crackers.
[Illustration: KASHGAR CITY. (Showing the city wall and Tuman Su.)
_Page 68._]
[Illustration: WOMEN AT THE SHRINE OF _HAZRAT APAK_. _Page 69._]
The centre of Moslem veneration is _Hazrat_ Apak, the shrine where the
Priest-King of Kashgar, who died at the end of the seventeenth century,
is buried, together with many of his descendants. Apak not only ruled
over Chinese Turkestan, but had disciples in China and India. He was
credited with powers of healing, and even of bringing the dead to life,
and the Kashgaris regard him as second only to Mohamed and count him
equal to _Hazrat_ Isa (Jesus Christ): he is said to have converted many
thousands from Buddhism to Islam. The road leading to the shrine is a
vast cemetery, about two miles in length and stretching some distance
inland on either side, and along this _Via Appia_, as Sir Aurel Stein
has named it, burial is a costly affair and can be afforded only by
the well-to-do. The domed mud tombs have an underground chamber in
which are four niches, and here the principal members of a family
are buried, each body being laid in turn in the receptacle that faces
Mecca. As we passed along the road we heard women weeping loudly at
some of the graves, in reality performing a kind of ancestor worship in
imitation of their Chinese masters and not in accordance with Moslem
practice. The idea is that deceased relatives will take more interest
in the welfare of the survivors than do the saints, and accordingly the
graves of the former are visited on holidays, and in this particular
city of the dead also on Fridays and Saturdays. If any special blessing
has been vouchsafed to a family, such as recovery from illness or a
safe return from a journey, its members go in a body to express their
gratitude at the tomb of parent or ancestor.
A number of beggars ran after our horses along this road; some of them
dwell in small houses in the cemetery and are paid to keep certain
graves in order. It is hinted that when the tombs crumble away these
men are in the habit of turning them into dwellings, in order to sell
the land again for burial plots after a decent interval has elapsed.
We dismounted at the imposing-looking gateway leading to the shrine,
and were received by the _mutawali bashi_, or chief custodian, who
takes a third of the large revenues, and a couple of turbaned,
green-robed _shaykhs_. These escorted us up a poplar avenue past a big
tank of water to a large building with a façade covered with blue and
white tiles bearing Arabic inscriptions, the dome and the borders of
the façade being in green, which contrasted curiously with the main
colour scheme.
This was the famous shrine, and we were invited to step inside, where
we saw a crowded mass of blue-tiled tombs, that of the Saint-King being
draped with red and white cloths. There were numbers of flags and
banners before the tombs, and on one side was a palanquin in which a
great-grandson of Apak had travelled to and from Peking. While there he
had married his daughter to a Chinaman, and at the date of our visit a
Celestial had arrived in Kashgar accompanied by a band of relatives,
to demand his share of the great wealth of the shrine. His credentials
were unexceptionable, and during a century and a half his ancestors
had been given pensions by the Chinese Government; but owing to the
revolution these subsidies had been stopped. Hence his appearance,
which was causing much perturbation among the managers of the shrine
funds.
We were shown the pool where the saint was wont to make his ablutions
before praying, and close by was a great trophy of the horns of _ovis
poli_ and other wild sheep, the offerings of many huntsmen. There were
two wooden mosques in the enclosure, the roofs and pillars of the
verandahs being carved and brilliantly coloured in the characteristic
native fashion. Between them once lay the grave of Yakub Beg, but when
the Chinese recovered Turkestan they destroyed the tomb and flung away
the ashes of that masterful ruler.
On another occasion we visited the Chinese cemetery, which was very
small when compared with the acres round _Hazrat_ Apak that are covered
by Moslem tombs. But the rulers of Chinese Turkestan are conspicuous by
their absence in Old Kashgar and, moreover, they are always anxious,
if possible, to have their remains interred in their native land. The
enclosure, surrounded by a high wall, had usually a custodian of most
hideous appearance standing at the open gateway, and the place had a
tragic story attached to it. It was called _Gul Bagh_ (Flower Garden),
and was formerly the cantonment of Chinese troops in Kashgar. But when
Yakub Beg wrested Turkestan from China he killed many soldiers of the
Celestial Empire, and their remains were left unburied within this
enclosure until the Chinese regained the Province in 1877. Then all the
scattered bones were collected and placed under three big mud domes,
the site of the former barracks being turned into a graveyard for
Celestials.
Just inside the entrance was a temple with a wall on which was an
inscription to keep off evil spirits, and at the end of each long, low,
mud tomb was a tiny door facing south, through which the spirit of the
dead man was supposed to emerge. In the mortuary chambers near the gate
were placed the corpses of rich men who wished to be buried in China
and whose coffins were awaiting fitting escort for the long journey.
I was told that when a Chinaman of importance dies, or, as it is put
poetically, “drives the fairy chariot on a long journey,” the body is
kept in the house for several days, during which a priest offers up
prayers before it, music being played and crackers let off. At the
funeral a cock is brought to the cemetery on the coffin and killed at
the moment of burial, in order that the spirit of chanticleer may be
ready to waken the spirit of the dead man in the next world. Paper
houses, attendants, soldiers, horses, carriages, beds, boxes, money--in
fact every kind of thing pertaining to the daily life and use of the
deceased--are burnt before the coffin, in order that the spirit may
have all these in the next world and may thus be enabled to take its
proper position there. In the case of a wealthy man this ceremony is
repeated on the three anniversaries following his death, and in front
of a temple outside Kashgar a small pagoda-like tower was pointed out
to me in which masses of paper prayers were burnt for the benefit of
the deceased founder.
The Chinese are not considered particularly brave, but, though a man
will avoid death by any possible means, yet he will meet it calmly when
inevitable, and suicide is looked upon as rather a meritorious act
than otherwise. If a man is condemned to death he is strangled; but
for serious crimes short of murder the culprits are beaten severely on
the legs, and men who have expiated their misdeeds in this way have
frequently been brought into the Swedish hospital with their leg-bones
broken in two or three places, and in some cases so badly injured that
death ensues.
“There is something of a baby and something of an old man in every
Chinaman,” quoted Mr. Bohlin on one occasion, and I was naturally
interested when we were entertained at a lunch given by the _Taoyin_,
or Governor, of Kashgar. The invitation, written on a strip of scarlet
paper, described my brother as _Sa Ta-jen_ (the Big Man), while my
title _Gu Ta-tai_ (Sister of the Big Man) appeared below.
I had hoped that we were bidden to a real Chinese dinner where
sharks’ fins, swallows’ nests and such like delicacies would figure
in the menu, though I was somewhat staggered at being told that a
first-class dinner would comprise no fewer than a hundred and twenty
courses, second and third class banquets having sixty and thirty
courses respectively. No wonder that after such orgies the yamen is
wont to remain closed for three days. But in this case, though the
dinner lasted with an interlude from one o’clock to four, it was,
as far as the food went, an inferior Russian repast. It began with
many _zakuskas_, consisting principally of dubious-looking tinned
fish, followed by soup, several meat courses, jelly, ices, tea and
champagne. The Russian Consul-General and his staff were present, and
all the Europeans were placed on one side of a long table under an
awning, while their Chinese hosts sat opposite. These latter amused me
by getting up at intervals. Some would take the Governor’s children
on their knees--he was the proud father of four sons--and give them
tit-bits from the table; others smoked opium in curious pipes and had
choking fits, during which they retired into the garden to cough in
peace; while others would leave the table to give instructions to the
servants in charge of two gramophones that discoursed popular European
airs all the time.
The commander-in-chief, a quaint-looking figure with grey locks, a
putty-coloured complexion and claw-like nails that made me shudder,
strolled up and down in a khaki uniform and made amiable remarks to the
guests; other officials rose to ply all and sundry with vodka and wine,
and the only one that kept his seat was a small boy clad charmingly in
blue and purple silk and wearing a sailor hat woven in blue and mauve
straw. He ate manfully of every course, and even demanded a second
helping of some of the more indigestible of the delicacies, but looked
so strong and rosy that I suspected he was not accustomed to indulge
his appetite in this way very often.
There is a great mortality among Chinese babies if their mothers are
unable to feed them; for Celestials have the strongest repulsion to
cows’ milk. “We do not wish to become calves,” they say, and if a
mother dies her offspring is nourished on rice and sugar.
There was a crowd of soldiers at this party, some quite aged men,
clad in black cotton uniforms, their heads bound up in handkerchiefs
and holding curious weapons, such as steel prongs at the end of long
sticks, and all having a highly unmilitary appearance. The army is
looked down upon in China, it being a common saying, “We do not make
nails from good iron or soldiers from good men,” and in consequence
of this strong pacifist feeling no man of decent standing would enter
the profession of arms, except in the higher ranks where successful
generals have temples built in their honour.
Our host gave the European ladies fans and silk handkerchiefs as
souvenirs, showing us how to unfurl a fan to its full extent with a
movement of the wrist, and then escorted us to the house to visit his
wife, who met us at the entrance. She was a pleasant-faced lady, with
well-oiled hair brushed back from her forehead, and was dressed in a
black silk coat and tightly-fitting trousers. As she clambered with
difficulty over the extremely high door-step, and tottered towards us
on the tiniest of feet, I was unkind enough to reflect that my Russian
friends with their narrow skirts and heels of abnormal height did not
progress much better.
[Illustration: CHINESE SOLDIERS AT THE KASHGAR YAMEN. _Page 74._]
We were invited to drink tea in a room adorned with a couple of
charming Chinese pictures, together with a mass of European
photographs and knick-knacks in bad taste, and afterwards passed into
two large bedrooms, where we were received by the daughter-in-law, and
inspected huge bedsteads hung round with curtains and furnished with
long silk-covered bolsters and neatly-folded piles of silken quilts.
My entire ignorance of the language prevented me from enjoying this
glimpse of a Chinese home in the way I might otherwise have done, and
my thoughts centred on the neat little “hoofs” shod in black satin
that served our hostesses for feet. I had heard Mrs. Archibald Little
lecture on this fashion, and her account of the tortures inflicted on
so many thousands of tiny girls to bring about the repulsive mutilation
which the Chinese euphemistically call “golden lilies” had filled me
with an abiding indignation. And yet a recent traveller in China says
that these crippled feet possess for him a “quite extraordinary exotic
charm,” and he exhausts himself in conjecture as to which mistress of
an Emperor’s heart introduced a custom that “entailed a new charm on
her sex.” I have no theory to offer as to the origin of the custom, but
from the position of women in China it seemed to me that some man must
have been responsible for a plan that would firmly tether his womankind
to their homes, just as the veiling of Mohamedan women was a masculine
device.
During our visit to his house the Governor, who could talk Russian,
kept the ball rolling with Princess Mestchersky while we sipped
our tea. He had met her some years before in China and afterwards
she quoted to me one of his remarks, of which she had not entirely
approved. He had said, “When we were in China we were young, but now
in Kashgar we are old!” I thought the Governor distinctly lacking
in tact, but how easily can one jump to wrong conclusions through
ignorance. Later on I heard that there is such reverence for age in the
Celestial Empire that it is a high compliment to impute many years; an
aged man, even if poor and blind, being regarded as a fortunate being.
To this veneration for age is united an intense respect for parents,
especially for the head of a house. No son would retire to rest before
his father, nor would he sleep upon the roof if his parent occupied a
room below.
The death of a father is one of the greatest calamities that can
befall a man, and Sir Aurel Stein illustrated this by an incident that
occurred when he was returning to Kashgar from one of his long desert
expeditions. It became known that his Chinese interpreter’s father had
passed away, and all along the road there was a friendly conspiracy to
keep all letters from Jongsi until his journey was at an end and he
could indulge his grief at home.
When we said good-bye to our host we drove off, as we had arrived, to
the accompaniment of three loud detonations, and this time the crackers
were exploded so close to us that I marvelled that our horse did not
smash the carriage and its occupants in its terror.
[Illustration: JAFAR BAI DISPLAYING THE VISITING CARD. _Page 77._]
Later on my brother attended real Chinese feasts, where the procedure
was quite different from that I have just described. He would drive
into the outer courtyard of the yamen, where musicians would be
discoursing weird music from a latticed gallery, and the great doors
of the inner courtyard would be flung wide to the deafening sound
of crackers. The etiquette was to leave the carriage and proceed
across a stage with an altar on one side, Jafar Bai walking ahead
waving his master’s red visiting-card, and calling out his name and
title, while the _Amban_ met his guest half-way and escorted him to
the repast. My brother’s name, as rendered in Chinese, was _Si-Ki-Su_,
and we were told that it is considered _chic_ to have a name of two
or three syllables, whereas a name running into four is not good and
a five-syllable name would expose its bearer to derision, as the slip
of paper on which it was written would be so long. The custom of
visiting-cards is supposed to have originated in the Celestial Empire
centuries before the coming of Christ.
As is the habit in Persia, the Chinese spend about half-an-hour before
the meal in discussing fruit, nuts, tea, wine and native spirit, this
last being served hot and poured from a kettle. The host takes the
lowest seat at table, helps his guests to tea, putting in the sugar
with his fingers. Later on he serves them the various dishes and is
full of attentions towards them. The dinner proper is placed on the
table in bowls, from which every one supplies himself by means of
chopsticks, fishing out what he fancies and transferring it to the
small saucer placed before him.
Sharks’ fins, turtle fat, a _plat_ prepared from the stomach of a fish,
fried fowls’ livers, year old eggs, edible seaweed and preserved duck
were some of the numerous dishes. My brother always carefully avoided
this last, as the Consulate interpreter had had an illness which
resulted in deafness from partaking on one occasion too freely of the
delicacy, and perhaps it was this comestible that caused Captain Deasy
to write so feelingly of the ill-effects that he experienced from
Chinese banquets. Swallows’-nest soup is almost unprocurable nowadays
and prohibitive in price; bread is seldom served, and if it appears it
is rather like dough.
When the meat courses are concluded the servants bring in a basin of
water in which they wash all the chopsticks and spoons, and then the
sweets appear, beans in syrup and a kind of plum-pudding being among
them. The last course is a bowl of rice, the national dish; when it
makes its appearance it is a sign that the feast has reached its close,
and after partaking of it the guests depart.
Sir George Macartney told me that the Chinese are very fond of playing
games with their fingers at their dinner-parties. One game is for a
man to put forward a certain number of his fingers, his opponent doing
the same, and he who first guesses the total correctly is the winner,
the whole being done at lightning speed. The guests do not call out
five, six or seven as the case may be, but there are elegant titles for
each number, such as Mandarin of the First Empire, and so on. Another
curious game is as follows: The hand, when clenched, is supposed to
represent a stone, two fingers protruded stand for scissors and two
hanging down for a sack. The point of the game is that a _stone_
cannot be cut by _scissors_ but can be put into a _sack_, but on the
other hand, a _sack_ can be cut by _scissors_. If, therefore, a player
responds with _scissors_ to his adversary who has clenched his hand for
_stone_ he loses; but if he replies with _sack_ he wins. It sounds a
childish amusement, but the Chinese will play the game for hours at a
time with tremendous zest.
I have omitted to mention that there is usually a length of wall placed
in front of the gateway leading to any yamen, temple, rest-house, or
graveyard, its purpose being to prevent evil spirits from entering.
Most fortunately these can only go straight forward and cannot turn
corners, so the wall brings them to a full stop and foils them in any
malignant design.
The “name day” of the Tsaritsa fell early in May--Russians keep the
baptismal day, and not the birthday, as we do--and the Cossacks
attached to the Russian Consulate gave in her honour a display
of horsemanship known as _jigitofka_. It was held on their sandy
parade-ground close to the river, where the Russian colony assembled in
full force. The men went through quite a military tournament programme,
springing off and leaping on to galloping steeds, riding at breakneck
pace facing the tails of their mounts, and leaping across kneeling
camels. The “ships of the desert” strongly objected to this particular
feat, and with loud roarings struggled to rise, until the men who held
them bound cloths over their eyes. There were the usual V.C. races,
and we had a glimpse of the war in watching the exciting rescue of a
Cossack attired as a woman from the hands of a troop masquerading as
Huns. The most sensational item was when the soldiers galloped their
horses through a big barrier of flaming bundles of reeds, firing off
blank cartridges, the sight of the flames and the noise of the rifles
driving the animals almost mad.
The Princess gave away the prizes, chiefly money, daggers, and huge
silver watches, and the simple-looking, fresh-faced youths rode past in
a body when all was over, singing beautifully. They had a natural gift
for song, taking parts as if by instinct, and on quiet evenings I used
to listen for their hymn.
The Kashgaris had assembled in hundreds to see the spectacle, and
opposite to where we sat the high loess cliffs were crowded with
brilliantly clad spectators, who climbed with the agility of monkeys
to apparently inaccessible points of vantage. Horsemanship naturally
appeals strongly to a nation of riders; but the Kashgaris, though as it
were born in the saddle, never appeared to use their horses otherwise
than as a means for getting about, in contrast to the young Persian or
Arab, who is for ever racing his steed. Later on we saw much of the
“goat game” as practised by the Kirghiz, but the only horses which were
galloped in Kashgar were ridden by Cossacks, who occasionally ran riot
in the narrow public roads, to the imminent danger of passers-by.
Our Russian friends drove instead of riding, and, as my brother and
I much preferred our saddles to being jolted in a carriage, we never
organised any joint-picnics. To be perfectly frank, a dinner or a
garden-party always left me quite exhausted in my efforts to play the
hostess, talking French to this one, helping out the inadequate German
of that one, and cudgelling my brains for some Russian sentence of
welcome to those guests, alas, in the majority, who knew no language
save their own. The Russians enjoyed coming to our garden, especially
when the strawberries were in season, and I always took them over the
house, winding up with the roof for the sake of the view. The ladies
were specially interested in the kitchen arrangements, and the Princess
declared that the Consulate was far more convenient in every way than
the grandiose building that was in course of erection for her future
residence. When my brother and I went over it later I was struck with
the difference between British and Russian ideals. We love comfort
and privacy in our homes, but our Slavonic friends appeared to need
constant social intercourse. They had crowded many buildings on to a
small piece of ground, each house raked by the windows of the others,
and at the end of a long avenue stood the imposing-looking Consulate.
I was surprised at its internal plan; for there were four very large
reception rooms, but only three fair-sized bedrooms and a couple of
small servants’ rooms. There was apparently no pantry, scullery, larder
or storeroom; and, as there was no central passage in the house, all
the rooms opened one into another, an intolerable arrangement according
to English ideas.
We were also shown over the Cossack barracks close by, big rooms
with rows of grey blanketed beds, the long tables and benches for
meals being in the same apartments, and the icons in a prominent
position. The Cossacks all looked healthy and hardy, replying to their
officer’s salutations with a formula of greeting that they chanted with
precision, but I fancy that Kashgar must be a place of exile to men who
have left their farms on the Don at the bidding of the Tsar, and they
must look forward to settling down upon them for good when their term
of service is ended.
Shortly after our arrival we had an interesting guest in the person of
M. Romanoff, a young Russian archaeologist whom my brother had met both
in London and Bokhara. He was studying the Moslem art of Central Asia,
and showed us carvings, pottery, carpets and embroideries that he had
bought at Kashgar and Yarkand, and was consequently able to help us
with our own purchases.
The old Khotan carpets, their colours made from vegetable dyes, were
attractive, and the silk carpets are highly prized and very difficult
to obtain. One belonging to our guest had a pale yellow colouring, but
was terribly damaged. The best woollen Khotan carpet that I inspected
had a pattern in a series of panels; indigo, a faded-looking madder and
yellow being the chief tints. There were Chinese vases in the design,
and also the conventionalized _swastika_, that symbol of good luck
which originally came from India, and which later on I saw copied _ad
nauseam_ in glaring aniline dyes. Certainly none of the old carpets
that I came across, whether woven of wool or of silk, could compare
in design, colouring or texture with the beautiful Persian works of
the loom with which I was familiar. The modern Khotan carpet, with its
aniline dyes, is rarely pleasing to the eye. A favourite subject is a
row of magenta, purple and orange pots, with flowers stiffly protruding
from them, the whole design being thrown upon a scarlet background and
making one wonder how the artistic Chinese can descend to such depths.
[Illustration: STUDY OF KASHGAR WOMEN. (One woman is shown with face
veiled.) _Page 82._]
The pottery brought to us for sale and sold in the bazars was rough and
not particularly good as to pattern, while the tiles on the façades of
mosques and those that covered a few of the tombs were practically all
white and blue, comparing unfavourably with the fine work of much of
Central Asia. What specimens of jewellery I saw were heavy and clumsy
and to me devoid of charm. The native art seemed to find its chief
expression in the columned verandahs of mosques and dwelling-houses,
the pillars and roofs of these being often profusely carved with
charming patterns in the style known as chip-carving; and also in the
fretwork of doors and windows, frequently carried out with a wealth of
intricate design that reminded us strongly of the art of Kashmir, and
may possibly have been influenced by that country.
The old brass and copper utensils are often very beautiful, with
open metal work showing Persian influence; in fact my brother and I
sometimes thought that they must have been brought from Iran, so much
did they resemble those we had picked up at Kashan.
It seemed to me that the embroideries produced by the women were
more typical of the race than anything else. Shaw mentions that in
the ’sixties the women wore wide trousers, the borders of which were
embroidered, and though the trousers are now narrower and worn without
adornment, we were able to collect many specimens of the old work.
Moreover, the long gowns worn by the women were formerly profusely
embroidered, conventional flowers appearing with charming effect on
the red, green or yellow silk of which the costume was made. Now,
alas, this beautiful handicraft seems almost to have died out, and is
reserved for the pretty skull-caps which are worn by both sexes, and
over which both alike place the “little pork-pie hat” with fur border
mentioned by Shaw.
In spite of the Turki proverb that heads this chapter, it appeared to
me that Chinese Turkestan had evolved no art of its own, everything of
the kind being influenced by its neighbours, China, India or Persia.
The province is a back-water of the Chinese Empire, and the race of
petty farmers who inhabit it cultivate the soil as if by instinct. The
so-called cities are comparatively small towns, where the trade is not
on a large scale. They are separated one from another by the Takla
Makan desert, and have been conquered and re-conquered during their
whole history at bewilderingly short intervals, an experience which
does not make for progress in art.
We rode all over Kashgar and its environs, and also visited every
building of any pretensions in Yarkand and Khotan, but found nothing
of real architectural merit; nor could any mosque or shrine compare
with the magnificent monuments of India or Persia. As to Chinese
architecture, it must be borne in mind that the conquerors would
scarcely raise fine temples in a country which they looked upon as
a land of temporary exile; moreover, buildings constructed of mud
crumble away in the course of centuries, and it has been the custom of
some of the many rulers of Turkestan to destroy the places of worship
erected by those of another religion. For example, Yakub Beg, when
he made himself ruler of Turkestan, set to work to raze all Chinese
monuments to the ground, and perhaps the two ruined Buddhist _stupas_
to the north and south of the Consulate owe their dilapidated condition
partly to the fury of the early Mohamedan conquerors. At present these
_Tims_, as the Kashgaris call them, are shapeless mounds giving no idea
of their original form. Sir Aurel Stein, who has carefully examined
them, believes that they date from between 600 and 800 A.D.; but too
little was left for him to have any opinion as to what they looked like
when erected. It seems curious that, although Kashgar is supposed to be
on the site of Kie-sha, visited by Hiuen-Tsiang, yet these two _stupas_
are apparently all that remains of the hundreds of Buddhist monasteries
that he mentions.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE BUDDHIST _TIM_, KASHGAR. _Page 85._]