Kashgar

“ To those who have been to Kashgar, nothing has remained more vividly impressed on their mind, than the exceedingly prosperous appearance of the farms in the belt of country from Yarkand to Kashgar; but at the same time this wealth of foliage and of blossom has only made the barrenness of the intervening and surrounding country more palpable. The farms are certainly not small in extent, but rather isolated from each other, and surrounded by orchards of plums, apples, and other fruit trees, in which they are completely embowered. ”

“ The Queen is as the sun, in whose genial rays such poor people as I flourish. I particularly desire the friendship of the English. It is essential to me. Your rule is just. The road is open to every one, and from here to London any one can come and go with perfect freedom."
On the 13th of December our representatives paid their first visit to the city of Kashgar. The country round Kashgar is very fertile, highly cultivated, and thickly populated, and the mission was not less struck by the air of prosperity prevalent here than it had been at Yarkand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In that year, too, he had not only overcome all resistance in the more important districts of Kashgaria, but he had to a greater extent than before, become responsible for the political actions of the people of this state through the deposition of Buzurg Khan. As early as 1866, it may be assumed that the new ruler of Kashgar had his attention directed to the movements of his old antagonist, by their successes against the Khokandians and Bokhariots ”

“ In the old days, Kashgar used to be a strongly fortified position, but the only remains of its former strength are the ruins which are strewn freely all around. Kashgar is, therefore, an open and quite defenceless town, and lies completely at the mercy of any invader who might come along the high road from Aksu or Bartchuk, or across the mountains from Khokand or Kuldja; but at Yangy Shahr, about five miles south of Kashgar, Yakoob Beg constructed a strong fort, where he deposited all his treasure, and this may be taken to be the citadel of Kashgar as well as the residence of the ruler. ”

“ The day had gone by when English travellers entertained doubts of entering Kashgar in company at the same [Pg 223] time, lest they should arouse the apprehensions of the people. Mr. Forsyth came vested with all the authority of his Sovereign and the Viceroy, to negotiate a treaty of amity with the ruler of Kashgar, and the people generally saw in that fact a guarantee of the preservation of their liberties and independence.
So far as Shahidoola, the journey was in a well known region, and outside the frontier of Yakoob Beg. ”

“ The great drawback in the geographical position of Kashgar, is the want of a cheap and convenient outlet by water. The country itself suffers in a less degree from the same cause, but with a more perfect system of irrigation, the rivers, such as the Artosh, &c., which in spring carry down the mountain snows, might be made to give a more extended supply throughout western Kashgar at all events. The climate is equable, and the people suffer from no very prevalent disease, except in the more mountainous parts, and in Yarkand, where goitre is of frequent occurrence. ”

“ We come now to the trade of the province, concerning which my remarks refer mainly to the three cities of Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan. Kashgar, the residence of the Governor, is not only the chief town, but the centre of Russian trade. Owing to its favoured position with regard to the railway at Andijan and the wealth of its rich oasis, the city is increasing in population, which is now estimated at 80,000. Land is rising in price and there is hardly a vacant house. ”

“ The earliest authentic mention of Kashgar is during the second period of ascendancy of the Han dynasty, when the Chinese conquered the Hiungnu, Yutien (Khotan) , Sulei (Kashgar) , and a group of states in the Tarim basin almost up to the foot of the Tian Shan mountains. This happened in 76 B.C. Kashgar does not appear to have been known in the West at this time but Ptolemy speaks of Scythia beyond the Imaus, which is in a Kasia Regio, possibly exhibiting the name whence Kashgar and Kashgaria (often applied to the district) are formed. ”

“ After the “rebellion of the seven khojas” in 1847 nearly 20,000 families from Kashgar, Yarkand and Ak-su fled to West Turkestan through the Terek-davan pass, many of them perishing on the way. In 1857 another insurrection broke out; but a few months later the Chinese again took Kashgar. In the course of the Dzungarian outbreak of 1864 the Chinese were again expelled; and Yakub Beg became master of Kashgar in 1872. But five years later he had again to sustain war with China, in which he was defeated, and East Turkestan once more became a Chinese province. ”

“ The long-feared and long-expected Khitay were drawing nigh to the capital, in irresistible strength; and the apprehensions of a cowed people made them know, too surely, that their end was at hand. The dissensions among the people themselves, the discord in the ruling house, and the dissentient elements in every effort towards unity, had all operated in favour of the invader. While the Chinese had plotted and prepared in the deliberate manner of a great nation, the people of Kashgar had entered into cabals and schemes of party tactics that were well nigh ludicrous. ”

“ Kashgar fell into his possession by a coup de main, and once more a Khoja prince was seated in the orda at Kashgar. Artosh and Yangy Hissar fell into his possession, and he threatened Yarkand. But everywhere the Chinese garrisons remained unconquered in the forts, biding the exhaustion of their foe and the arrival of reinforcements. After a rule of nearly four months the armies of Wali Khan having been then defeated by the Chinese, the Khoja fled to the remote state of Darwas, where he was surrendered to Khokand by its chief Ismail Shah. ”

“ The little party of adventurers crossed the Tian Shan in mid-winter without encountering any opposition, and in January 1865 reached the neighbourhood of Kashgar. Meanwhile Sadik Beg had repented of the invitation given to the Khoja prince, and pointed out that the Chinese were sure to reconquer Kashgar, where they would exact stern retribution. But Yakub Beg, moulded in the school of adversity, disregarded the warning and insisted on entering Kashgar, where Buzurg Khan was received with enthusiasm and proclaimed Khan. ”

“ The Chinese might have continued to govern Ili and Kashgar indefinitely, notwithstanding the weakness and decay of their garrison, but for the ambition of a neighbor. The Chinese are to blame, however, not merely for having ignored the obvious aggressiveness of that neighbor, but for having provided it with facilities for carrying out its plans. The Khanate of Khokand, the next-door state in Central Asia, had been intimately connected with Kashgar from ancient times, both in politics and trade. ”

“ Moreover, no one denies the prosperity general throughout Kashgar in those days, a period looked back to with regret by the inhabitants during the most favoured years of Yakoob Beg's rule. It is not in accordance with facts, then, to imply that the Chinese ground Kashgar under them by severe taxation, and whatever petty tyranny there was, was carried on not by the Khitay Ambans, but by the Mahomedan Wangs.
In the hour of distress and destruction the people, indeed, proved traitorous to their best friends, or, more generally, apathetic ”

“ In the narrow valley of the Yamanyar River (Gez Defile) there is scarcely any grazing; its appearance is far more desolate than that of the elevated Pamirs.”—“Marco Polo’s praise (p. 181) of the gardens and vine-yards of Kashgar is well deserved; also the remark about the trading enterprise of its merchants still holds good, if judged by the standard of Chinese Turkestan. Kashgar traders visit Khotan far more frequently than vice versa. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These were the unsuccessful conspirators against Khudayar Khan, who, after the death of Alim Kuli, had obtained his power once more; and these having been driven out of Khokand by his armies, were compelled to seek refuge in Kashgar. Yakoob Beg sent them the laconic message, while they were hovering on the frontier, that "if they came as friends, they were welcome; if as foes, he was ready to fight them." ”

“ In the course of a few generations their numbers became much greater, until, at last, in the cities we have named, they formed the majority of the inhabitants. In Kuldja, too, they were very numerous, but south of the Tian Shan they do not seem to have advanced westward of Kucha in any great force. At Aksu the Andijan influence, supreme in Western Kashgar, presented an impassable barrier to the Tungani, who, it must be remembered, had no sympathy with Khokand. ”

“ The man’s part in life struck me as being by far the easier one. He rides about on his wiry ponies, attends all the wedding and funeral feasts in the district, loves to play the “goat game,” and will drive his yaks and sheep into Kashgar to sell, if he is in need of flour, clothing or boots. He is too wise to wed the pretty Kashgari girls, who would be utterly useless and out of their element in an akhoi, nor do the active, weather-beaten maidens of his tribe hanker after the life of the city. ”

“ The Buddhist religion, then beginning to decay in India, was working its way to a new growth in China, and contemporaneously the Nestorian Christians were establishing bishoprics at Herat, Merv and Samarkand, whence they subsequently proceeded to Kashgar, and finally to China itself. In the 8th century came the Arab invasion from the west, and we find Kashgar and Turkestan lending assistance to the reigning queen of Bokhara, to enable her to repel the enemy. ”

“ He may be a Tajik, or an Usbeg, or a Kirghiz, or a Kipchak, too, but he is only known as a Yarkandi, or a Kashgari. And while we are at once struck by this broad and salient difference in popular custom, and consequently in popular sentiment also, between the Western and Eastern divisions of Turkestan, a slight inquiry is sufficient to show that the antipathies of the various races towards each other have become much more a thing of the past in Kashgaria than they have in the Khanates of Khokand and its neighbours. ”

“ Chinese exactions both in taxation and in forced labour for the erection of cantonments now became very heavy, and many of the oppressed peasants fled to Andijan, where they formed a party of malcontents, who awaited their opportunity.
The first attempt to expel the Chinese was made in 1822 by Jahangir, the Khoja, who, supported by the Kirghiz, raided Kashgar, but was repulsed, and retreated to the country south of Issik Kul, where he defeated a Chinese expedition. In 1826 he again tried to win Kashgar, and this time with success. ”

“ He cannot, in any sense, be compared to the giants produced by Central Asia in days of old; and among moderns Dost Mahomed of Afghanistan probably should rank as high as he does. Yet he gives an individuality to the history of Kashgar that it would otherwise lack. The recent triumphs of the Chinese received all their attraction to Englishmen from the decline and fall of Yakoob Beg, the hero they had erected in the country north of Cashmere. ”

“ On the western edge of the Kashgar plains, the political boundary between Russia and China is defined by the meridional range of Sarikol. This range (known to the ancients as Taurus and in medieval times as Bolor) like many others of the Russo-Chinese boundary. most important great natural mountain divisions of the world, consists of two parallel chains, of which the western is the water-divide of the Pamirs, and the eastern (which has been known as the Kashgar or Kandar range) is split at intervals by lateral gorges to allow of the passage of the main drainage from the eastern Pamir slopes. ”

“ Still, they wouldn't understand why a hunter should off-saddle and go wandering through the bazaar as this one did, guided by his servant. White men, even ovis poli and wapiti hunters, are not frequent visitors in Kashgar, you know. It's a city on the old caravan route from China into India and Persia. It's sort of stuck up there under the hills that overlook Tibet, Turkestan and Kashmir, and the hills themselves are rather a no man's land—tribal areas. ”

“ The frontier line between Kuldja and Kashgar is very clearly marked by the Tian Shan, and the same effectual barrier divides the continent into two well-defined divisions from Aksu to Turfan and beyond. Eastern Turkestan is, therefore, bounded on the north by the Tian Shan, and on the south the Karakoram Mountains form a no less satisfactory bulwark between it and Kohistan and Cashmerian Tibet. As has been said, on the west the steppe of Pamir and on the east the desert of Gobi present distinct and secure defences against aggression from without in those directions. ”