Transbaikal

“ The readers of my book on Central Asia will have already formed some idea how far this fear of captivity among the Turkomans is well-founded. The lot of the negro, confined in the close hold of a ship during his passage from Africa to America, is sufficiently hard, yet it is not less hard to be bound behind the saddle of a nomad with the feet tied under the belly of the horse, to be insufficiently supplied with food and water, and to be thus transported for days across the weary desert, far from one's dear country and the bosom of one's family. ”

“ That I have done my utmost in dealing both with the Tibetans and the Chinese to gain access to the country north of the Tsangpo is no consolation to me. If one can storm the opposing bulwark of Nature, one should be able to overcome the obstinacy of man. Up yonder in the north, behind Kailas, the Trans-Himalaya extends its granite ramparts, and I must go there though it cost me my life. I must go there, if I clothe myself in the rags of a mendicant lama and beg my way from one black tent to another. ”

“ The number of the natives in the Transvaal was estimated at about 800,000, and that of the whites less than 50,000. Difficulties with the Zulus and frontier tribes would again arise, and, looking as they must to South Africa as a whole, the Government, after a careful consideration of the question, came to the conclusion that we could not relinquish the Transvaal. Nothing could be more unfortunate than uncertainty in respect to such a matter. ”

“ With respect to Basutoland, it is understood that no revenue from that country is to go to the Colony, therefore it can be no object to Colony to insist on the installation of magistrates in that country. If the magistrates of Transkei are the cause of discontent among the natives, then what object is there in insisting on their installation in Basutoland? The Pondos, a far inferior people, are happy under their own chiefs—far happier than the natives of Transkei. Why should the Colony insist on sending men who are more likely to goad the Basutos into rebellion than anything else? ”

“ People.—The Tibetan race, which probably belongs to the Turko-Mongol stock, is divided between the nomadic tent dwelling Tibetans of the lake region and transition zone between it and the river region, and the settled sedentary population of the valleys. The tent-dwelling Tibetans, called Dokpa or Drupa (spelt hbrog-pa) , or “Steppe-dwellers,” are generally of a more Mongolized type than the people of the lowlands. The males measure about 5 ft. 5 in., except in eastern Tibet, where 5 ft. 9 in. is a common stature; the females are appreciably less. ”

“ But the general public, by ingeniously manipulated statistics, were led to believe in a huge influx of unauthorised Asiatics into the Transvaal, to which some colour was let by the dispersal of the Indian residents of the Johannesburg Indian location throughout the Colony, after it was burnt down at the time of the plague outbreak in 1904, and meetings all over the Transvaal were held with the object of closing the door against all Asiatic immigration, and compelling Indians to trade and reside exclusively in locations. ”

“ Matters in the Transvaal are hardly any better. Laws have been passed which prohibit the Indian from engaging in trade or residing otherwise than in specific localities. On the latter point, however, proceedings are pending in the law-courts. A special registration fee of £7 has to be paid, the 9 o’clock rule is operative, walking on the foot-path is forbidden (at least this is so in Johannesburg) , and travelling first and second class on the railways is not permitted. So you will see that the Indian’s life in the Transvaal is not altogether a pleasant one. ”

“ There is scarcely an Uitlander in the Transvaal who would not view with dismay the raising of the big question upon such grounds as the treatment of the natives, the Cape boys, or the Indians; and the fact that the Transvaal Government know this may account for much of the provocation on these questions. It is nevertheless undeniable that white British subjects in the Transvaal do suffer fresh humiliation and are substantially lowered in the eyes of the coloured races, because appeals are made on their behalf to the British Government, and those appeals are useless. ”

“ Across the desert a train of the Transcaspian railway was gliding smoothly along toward the city.
MOSQUE CONTAINING THE TOMB OF TAMERLANE AT SAMARKAND. A hearty welcome back to civilized life was given us the next evening by General Kuropatkine himself, the Governor-General of Transcaspia. During the course of a dinner with him and his friends, he kindly assured us that no further recommendation was needed than the fact that we were American citizens to entitle us to travel from one end of the Russian empire to the other. ”

“ The Transvaal is the main wheel in the South African machinery. Whenever the Transvaal is disturbed, Cape Colony, Natal, and the Orange Free State are similarly affected, because they are dependent upon the Boer country for almost their breath of life. When the Transvaal flourishes, South Africa flourishes, and when the Transvaal suffers, then the rest of the country is in dire straits. ”

“ As their love for slavery, and desire to treat the native races in a manner which British humanity could not tolerate, lay at the root of the determination of the Boers to reject British dominion, so the same feelings have prevailed amongst them ever since, and have been mainly instrumental in causing the state of anarchy, confusion, and perpetual warfare between black and white men which really brought about the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877. ”

“ In proof of that one need only point to Canada, where the French language and French laws, and even, so far as is compatible with the existence of a province which forms only part of a great dominion, French institutions generally, are preserved in loyal subjection to the Queen But the other ideal, the Transvaal ideal, is racial, not only in its result if it should succeed, but in its object It is founded, as was practically admitted at the Bloemfontein Conference, on the desire to maintain the Dutch language, the Dutch social and political system, and its mode of treatment of the natives. ”

“ And I am told that they could ride on asses in certain towns and walk on foot in others. Now they wear the oriental turban and roll in their carriages if their purse allows of it. Who would hinder them now they are subjects of the White Czar, Russian citizens, rejoicing in civil and political rights equal to those of their Turkoman compatriots?
There are a few Tadjiks of Persian origin, the handsomest men you can imagine. They have booked for Merv, or Bokhara, or Samarkand, or Tachkend, or Kokhand, and will not pass the Russo-Chinese frontier. As a rule they are second-class passengers. ”

“ And your opinions on the Tibetans too are unsound; you did not certainly see the heart of Tibet, but only a fringe of the trade route. In places like those only the dregs of a nation are to be met. If on seeing the Chinabazar and Barabazar quarters of Calcutta, anybody called every Bengali a liar, would that be correct? ”

“ For most of the Tibetans living in Darjeeling — and there were quite a number of them there — knew that I was learning their language with the intention of some day visiting their country; and it was perfectly manifest that the moment I left that town with my face towards Tibet, they, or some of them at the least, would come after me as far as some point where they might make short work of me, or follow me into Tibet and there betray me to the authorities, for they would be richly rewarded for so doing. ”

“ In the great plain which extends across Europe north of the Alps and Carpathians and across Asia north of the Hindu Kush there are few geographical obstacles to prevent the rapid spread of peoples from any part of its area to any other, and, as we have seen, the Celts and the Hungarians, &c., have, in the historical period, demonstrated the rapidity with which such migrations could be made. Such migration may possibly account for the appearance of a people using a centum language so far east as Turkestan. ”

“ The Trans-Siberian system linked Moscow and Petrograd with Vladivostok and Pekin; the Trans-Caspian and Trans-Persian railways stretched almost to the mountain barrier of northern India; the Trans-Caucasian lines provided the link between the Caspian and Black Seas.
The heart of the central route of Eastern trade in the fifteenth century was the Mesopotamian Valley. ”

“ The Turkomans are notorious among all the races of Central Asia as the most restless adventurers, and rightly; for not only there, but throughout the whole globe, hardly can a second nation be found of such a rapacious nature, of such restless spirit and untameable licentiousness as these children of the desert. To rob, to plunder, to make slaves, is in the eye of the Turkoman an honourable business, by which he has lived for centuries. ”

“ There they are so much respected that they cannot take out a third-class railway ticket. They are gladly received by the Europeans there. They are not required to have passes. Why, your Petitioners humbly ask, should they be differently treated in the Transvaal? Do their sanitary habits become filthy as soon as they enter the Transvaal territory? It often happens that the same Indian is differently treated by the same European in Delagoa Bay and the Transvaal. ”

“ The Usbàks are a confederation of many Turk and Tartar tribes, not one race. They are flat faced, with scanty beard and slanting eyes. They speak the same language as the Turkoman—Turki—and have the same disposition, tastes, and ferocity. They do not, however, lead a wandering life, but dwell in villages, and may be considered the established and civilized [209] inhabitants of Central Asia beyond the Oxus. ”

“ We are always on ticklish ground in dealing with derivations from or through the Chinese. But it is doubtless possible, perhaps even probable, that these names passed into the western form Tibet, through the communication of the Arabs in Turkestan with the tribes on their eastern border. ”

“ It is most probable that this Russian term for the military tribes of various descent on what was the S. frontier of the Empire has come originally from ḳazzāḳ, a word of obscure origin, but which from its adoption in Central Asia we may venture to call Turki. [Schuyler, Turkistan, i. 8.] It appears in Pavet de Courteille's Dict. Turk-Oriental as "vagabond; aventurier ...; onagre que ses compagnons chassent loin d'eux." But in India it became common in the sense of 'a predatory horseman' and freebooter. ”

“ It has laid them open to the attacks of covetous nations, which have not been conducive to a restful existence, but it has made their country what it is to-day—the source from which all the other South African states draw their means of support. The Transvaal is the main wheel in the South African machinery. ”

“ The suppression of the slave trade in Central Asia is, moreover, much easier than many might at first sight suppose. The root of the evil is to be sought, not so much in the Turkomans as in the inhabitants of the cities. All nomad tribes were and are ready for such a trade, if they only find settled tribes who will buy their captives of them. The Bedouins of the Arabian desert could never addict themselves much to the traffic, inasmuch as the markets of the surrounding cities were closed by the religion of Islam against the [229] sale of their booty. ”

“ The terrible extent to which the most exposed provinces suffer from these excursions is explained by the courage and resolution of the Turkomans. No war, no devastation caused by the elements, can be compared to the misery which their depredations occasion. Not only is all trade and commerce on the highways crippled, but even the husbandman must provide himself with a tower in which he can take refuge, when suddenly attacked by them during his labours in the fields. ”

“ On the other hand, all the central Trans-Himalaya is a watershed between the Indian Ocean on the south and the enclosed drainage area of the plateau depression on the north. Only in its western section is the Trans-Himalaya also a watershed between the Indus and some of its right-hand tributaries, and in its eastern between the Salwin and Brahmaputra. Within the boundaries of Tibet there is only one river which takes its rise from the northern flank of the Trans-Himalaya and breaks through the system by a transverse valley ”

“ I may observe that the natives of Tibet, Bhūṭan and Sikkim are allowed to travel in Nepāl, so long as they are in possession of a passport issued by the Commander-in-Chief of Beelganji; but no other foreigners are admitted into that country unless armed with the King’s own pass. ”

“ After forty-four days' march due southwards we came to a part of the country where footprints of men were seen in several places, and Lhasa was only 300 miles away. Up to this time all Europeans who had tried to reach the holy city had been forced by Tibetan horsemen to turn back. The Tibetans are at bottom a good-tempered, decent people, but they will not allow any European to enter their country. They have heard that India and Central Asia have been conquered by white men, and fear that the same fate may befall Tibet. ”

“ There is a curious opinion among Buddhists respecting the mode of transmigrations, and there is no doubt it is a very ancient one, belonging to the genuine productions of the earliest Buddhism. Transmigration, they say, is caused and entirely controlled by the influence of merits and demerits, but in such a way that a being who has come to his end transmits nothing of his entity to the being to be immediately reproduced. ”