Volume 1 — CHAPTER IV. GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF MANCHURIA, MONGOLIA, ÍLÍ, AND TIBET.

The portions of the Chinese Empire beyond the limits of the Eighteen Provinces, though of far greater extent than China Proper, are comparatively of minor importance. Their vast regions are peopled by different races, whose languages are mutually unintelligible, and whose tribes are held together under the Chinese sway rather by interest and reciprocal hostilities or dislike, than by force. European geographers have vaguely termed all that space lying north of Tibet to Siberia, and east of the Tsung ling to the Pacific, Chinese Tartary; while the countries west of the Tsung ling or Belur tag, to the Aral Sea, have been collectively called Independent Tartary. Both these names have already become nearly obsolete on good maps of those regions; the more accurate knowledge brought home by recent travellers having ascertained that their inhabitants are neither all Tartars (or Mongols) nor Turks, and further that the native names and divisions are preferable to a single comprehensive one. Such names as Manchuria, Mongolia, Songaria, and Turkestan, derived from the leading tribes dwelling in those countries, are more definite, though these are not permanent, owing to the migratory, changeable habits of the people. From their ignorance of scientific geography, the Chinese have no general designations for extensive countries, long chains of mountains, or devious rivers, but apply many names where, if they were better informed, they would be content with one.

The following table presents a general view of these countries, giving their leading divisions and forms of government. They cannot be classed, however, in the same manner as the provinces, nor are the divisions and capitals here given to be regarded as definitely settled. Their united area is 3,951,130 square miles, or a little more than all Europe; their separate areas cannot be precisely given. Manchuria contains about 400,000 square miles; Mongolia between 1,300,000 and 1,500,000 square miles; Ílí about 1,070,000 square miles; and Tibet from 500,000 to 700,000 square miles.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE COLONIES AND THEIR SUBDIVISIONS.

COLONIES.PROVINCES.DIVISIONS.CAPITALS.FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

Manchuria.ShingkingTwo fu departments and 15 districts; and 13 garrisonsMukden or FungtienManchuria is ruled by military boards, and generals at the garrisons.

KirinThree ting departments, or 8 garrisoned postsKirin ula hotunUnder three generals at the prefectures.

TsitsiharSix commanderiesTsitsihar hotunUnder six generals.

Mongolia.Inner MongoliaSix corps, subdivided into 24 tribes and 49 standardsNo common capitalEach tribe has its own chieftain or general, and is governed by the Lí-fan Yuen in Peking.

Outer MongoliaFour khanates, viz.: Tuchétu, Sainnoin, Tsetsen, and DsassaktuUrga or KurunFour khans under the Kutuktu.

Koko-norOne residency, having 29 standardsSíning in KansuhUnder a Manchu residency.

UliasutaiCobdo, having 11 tribes and 31 standards. Ulianghai tribes under 21 tso-lingUliasutaiBy an amban over the chieftains.

ÍlíNorthern Circuit or SongariaÍlíKuldjaRuled by a military governor, 2 councillors, and 34 residents in the cities. Under residents subordinate to the governor.

Kur-kara usuKur-kara usu

TarbagataiSui-tsing ching

Southern Circuit or Eastern TurkestanTen cities, viz.: Harashar, Kuché, Sairim, Bai, Ushi, Aksu, Khoten, Kashgar, Yangi Hissar, and YarkandYarkandEach city under a resident amenable to the governor at Ílí, and native begs.

TibetAnterior TibetWei and Kham, divided into eight cantons and 39 feudal townshipsH’lassaRuled by the Dalai-lama and his hierarchy, overseen by Chinese residents.

Ulterior TibetTsang and Nari, divided into six cantonsShigatséRuled by the Teshu-lama, assisted by a resident from Peking.

EXTENT OF MANCHURIA.

Manchuria is so termed from the leading race who dwell there, the Mandjurs or Manchus; it is a word of foreign origin, the Chinese having no general appellation for the vice-royalty ruled from Mukden. It comprises the eastern portion of the high table land of Central Asia, and lies between latitudes 39° and 52° N., and longitudes 120° to 134° E. These points include the limits in both directions, giving the region a rectangular shape lying in a north-east and south-west direction; roughly speaking, its dimensions are 800 by 500 miles. It is bounded on the south by the Gulf of Pechele, and the highlands of Corea on the north bank of the Yaluh River; on the east by a line running from the Russian town of Possiet northerly to the River Usuri, so as to include Hinka Lake; thence from its headwaters to its junction with the Amur. This river forms the northern frontier; its tributary, the River Argun, together with the large lakes Hurun and Puyur, lie on the west; from the latter lake an artificial line stretching nearly due east for six degrees in lat. 47° strikes the town of Tsitsihar on the River Nonni. The rest of the western border follows the rivers Nonni and Songari to the Palisade. This obsolete boundary commences at Shan-hai kwan on the Gulf of Liatung and runs north-easterly; it nominally separates the Mongols from the Manchus for nearly 300 miles, and really exists only at the passes where the roads are guarded by military.

But a portion of this region has yet been traversed by Europeans, and most of it is a wilderness. The entire population is not stated in the census of 1812, and from the nature of the country and wandering habits of the people, many tribes of whom render no allegiance to the Emperor, it would be impossible to take a regular census. Parts of Manchuria, as here defined, have been known under many names at different periods. Liautung (‘East of the River Liau’) has been applied to the country between that river, Corea, and the Sea of Japan; Tungking (‘Eastern Capital’) referred to the chief town of that region, under the Ming dynasty; and Kwantung (‘East of the Pass’), denoting the same country, is still a common designation for the whole territory.

Manchuria is now chiefly comprised in the valleys between the Usuri and Nonni Rivers, up to the Amur on the north, while the basin of the Liau on the south embraces the rest. There are three principal mountain chains. Beginning nearly a hundred miles east of Mukden, in lat. 43°, are the Long White Mountains[95] (Chang-peh shan of the Chinese, or Kolmin-shang-uin alin of the Manchus), which form the watershed between the Songari and Yaluh Rivers and serve for the northern frontier of Corea as far as Russian territory. There it divides and takes the name of Sih-hih-teh, or Sihoti Mountains, for the eastern spur which runs near the ocean, east of the River Usuri; and the name of Hurkar Mountains for the western and lower spurs between that river and the Hurkar. One noted peak, called Mount Chakoran, rising over 10,000 feet, lies south-east of San-săng on the Amur. On the plain, north of Kirin, numerous buttes occur, sometimes isolated, and often in lines fifteen or twenty miles apart; most of them are wooded.

In the western part of Tsitsihar lies the third great range of mountains in Manchuria, called the Sialkoi Mountains, a continuation of the Inner Hing-an range of Mongolia, and separating the Argun and Nonni basins. The Sialkoi range extends over a great part of Mongolia, commencing near the bend of the Yellow River, and reaching in a north-easterly direction, it forms in Manchuria three sides of the extensive valley of the Nonni, ending between the Amur and Songari Rivers at their junction. These regions are more arid than the eastern portions, and the mountains are rather lower; but our information is vague and scanty. As a whole, Manchuria should be called hilly rather than mountainous, its intervales alone repaying cultivation.

THE AMUR AND ITS AFFLUENTS.

The country north of the Chang-peh shan as far as the Stanovoi Mountains is drained by one river, viz., the Sagalien, Amur, Kwăntung, or Hehlung kiang (for it is known by all these names), and its affluents; Sagalien ula in Manchu and Hehlung kiang in Chinese, each mean ‘Black’ or ‘Black Dragon River.’ The Amur drains the north-eastern slope of Central Asia by a circuitous course, aided by many large tributaries. Its source is in lat. 50° N. and long. 111° E., in a spur of the Daourian Mountains, called Kenteh, where it is called the Onon. After an east and north-east course of nearly five hundred miles, the Onon is joined in long. 115° E. by the Ingoda, a stream coming from the east of Lake Baikal, where it takes its rise by a peak called Tshokondo, the highest of the Yablonsi Khrebet Mountains. Beyond this junction, under the Russian name of Shilka, it flows about two hundred and sixty miles north-east till it meets the Argun. The Argun rises about three degrees south of the Onon, on the south side of the Kenteh, and under the name of Kerlon runs a solitary north-east course for four hundred and thirty miles to Lake Hurun, Kerlon, or Dalai-nur; the Kalka here comes in from Lake Puyur or Pir, and their waters leave Lake Hurun at Ust-Strelotchnoi (the Arrow’s Mouth) under the name of the Argun, flowing north nearly four hundred miles to the union with the Shilka in lat. 53°; from its exit as the Argun and onward to the entrance of the Usuri, it forms the boundary between China and Russia for 1,593 versts, or 1,062 miles.

Beyond this town the united stream takes the name of the Amur (i.e., Great River) or Sagalien of the Manchus, running nearly east about 550 miles beyond Albazin, when its course is south-east till it joins the Songari. Most of the affluents are on the north bank; the main channel grows wider as its size increases, having so many islands and banks as seriously to interfere with navigation. The valley thus watered possesses great natural advantages in soil, climate, and productions, which are now gradually attracting Russian settlers. In lat. 47½° the Songari River (Sung-hwa kiang of the Chinese) unites with the Amur on the right bank, 950 miles from Ust-Strelotchnoi, bringing the drainings of the greater portion of Manchuria, and doubling the main volume of water. The headwaters of this stream issue from the northern slopes of the Chang-peh shan; quickly combined in a single channel, these waters flow past the town of Kirin, scarcely a hundred miles from the mountains, in a river twelve feet deep and 900 wide. Near Petuné the River Nonni joins it from Tsitsihar, and their united stream takes the Chinese name of Kwantung (‘Mingled Union’); it is a mile and a half wide here and only three or four feet deep, a sluggish river full of islands. Then going east by north, growing deeper by its affluents, the Hurka, Mayen, Tunni, Hulan, and other smaller ones, it unites with the Amur at Changchu, a hundred miles west from the Usuri. All accounts agree in giving the Songari the superiority. At Sansing, it is a deep and rapid river, but further down islands and banks interfere with the navigation. The Hurka drains the original country of the Manchus.[96]

The district south-east of the desert, and north of the Great Wall, is drained and fertilized by the Sira-muren, or Liau River, which is nearly valueless for navigation. Its main and western branch divides near the Ín shan Mountains into the Hwang ho and Lahar; the former rises near the Pecha peak, a noted point in those mountains. The Sira-muren runs through a dry region for nearly 400 miles before it turns south, and in a zigzag channel reaches the Gulf of Liautung, a powerful stream carrying its quota of deposit into the ocean; the width at Yingtsz’ is 650 feet. The depth is 16 feet on the bar at high tide. The Yaluh kiang, nearly three hundred miles long, runs in a very crooked channel along the northern frontiers of Corea. But little is known about the two lakes, Hurun and Pir, except that their waters are fresh and full of fish; the River Urshun unites them, and several smaller streams run into the latter.

NATURAL RESOURCES OF MANCHURIA.

The larger part of Manchuria is covered by forests, the abode of wild animals, whose capture affords employment, clothing, and food to their hunters. The rivers and coasts abound in fish; among which carp, sturgeon, salmon, pike, and other species, as well as shell-fish, are plenty; the pearl-fishery is sufficiently remunerative to employ many fishermen; the Chinese Government used to take cognizance of their success, and collect a revenue in kind. The argali and jiggetai are found here as well as in Mongolia; bears, wolves, tigers, deer, and numerous fur-bearing animals are hunted for their skins. The troops are required to furnish 2,400 stags annually to the Emperor, who reserves for his own use only the fleshy part of the tail as a delicacy. Larks, pheasants, and crows of various species, with pigeons, thrushes, and grouse, abound. The condor is the largest bird of prey, and for its size and fierceness rivals its congener of the Andes.

The greater half of Shingking and the south of Kirin is cultivated; maize, Setaria wheat, barley, pulse, millet, and buckwheat are the principal crops. Ginseng and rhubarb are collected by troops sent out in detachments under the charge of their proper officers. These sections support, moreover, large herds of various domestic animals. The timber which covers the mountains will prove a source of wealth as soon as a remunerative market stimulates the skill and enterprise of settlers; even now, logs over three feet in diameter find their way up to Peking, brought from the Liau valley.

THE PROVINCE OF SHINGKING.

Manchuria is divided into three provinces, Shingking, Kirin, and Tsitsihar. The province of Shingking includes the ancient Liautung, and is bounded north by Mongolia; north-east and east by Kirin; south by the Gulf of Liautung and Corea, from which latter it is separated by the Yaluh River; and west by Chahar in Chihlí. It contains two departments, viz., Fungtien and Kinchau, subdivided into fifteen districts; there are also twelve garrisoned posts at the twelve gates in the Palisade, whose inmates collect a small tax on travellers and goods. Manchuria is under a strictly military government, every male above eighteen being liable for military service, and being, in fact, enrolled under that one of the eight standards to which by birth he belongs. The administration of Shingking is partly civil and partly military; that of Kirin and Tsitsihar is entirely military.

The population of the province has been estimated by T. T. Meadows[97] at twelve millions, consisting of Manchus and Chinese. The coast districts are now mostly occupied and cultivated by emigrants from Shantung, who are pushing the Manchus toward the Amur, or compelling them to leave their hunting and take to farming if they wish to stay where they were born. The conquerors are being civilized and developed by their subjects, losing the use of their own meagre language, and becoming more comfortable as they learn to be industrious. But few aboriginal settlements now remain who still resist these influences. The inhabitants collect near the river, or along the great roads, where food or a market are easiest found.

The capital of Shingking is usually known on the spot as Shin-yang, an older name than the Manchu Mukden, or the Chinese name Fungtien. As the metropolis of Manchuria, it is also known as Shingking (the ‘Affluent Capital’), distinguished from the name of the province by the addition of pun-ching, or ‘head-garrison.’ It lies in lat. 41° 50½′ N. and long. 123° 30′ E., on the banks of the Shin, a small branch of the Liau, and is reckoned to be five hundred miles north-east from Peking. The town is surrounded by a low mud wall about ten miles in circuit, at least half a mile distant from the main city wall, whose eight gates have double archways so that the crowd may not interfere in passing; this wall is about three miles around, and its towers and bastions are in good condition. It is 35 or 40 feet high, and 15 feet wide at the top, of brick throughout; a crenulated parapet protects the guard. But for its smaller scale, the walls and buildings here are precisely similar to those at Peking. The streets are wide, clean, and the main business avenues lined with large, well built shops, their counters, windows, and other arrangements indicating a great trade. This capital contains a large proportion of governmental establishments, yamuns, and nearly all the officials belong to the ruling race. Main streets run across the city from gate to gate, with narrow roads or hu-tung intersecting them. The palace of the early Manchu sovereigns occupies the centre; while the large warehouses are outside of the inner city. Everywhere marks of prosperity and security indicate an enterprising population, and for its tidy look, industrious and courteous population, Mukden takes high rank among Chinese cities. Its population is estimated to be under 200,000, mostly Chinese. The Manchu monarchs made it the seat of their government in 1631, and the Emperors have since done everything in their power to enlarge and beautify it. The Emperor Kienlung rendered himself celebrated among his subjects, and made the city of Mukden better known abroad, by a poetical eulogy upon the city and province, which was printed in sixty-four different forms of Chinese writing. This curious piece of imperial vanity and literary effort was translated into French by Amyot.

The town of Hingking,[98] sixty miles east of it, is one of the favored places in Shingking, from its being the family residence of the Manchu monarchs, and the burial-ground of their ancestors. It is pleasantly situated in an elevated valley, the tombs being three miles north of it upon a mountain called Tsz’yun shan. The circuit of the walls is about three miles. Hingking lies near the Palisade which separates the province from Kirin, and its officers have the rule over the surrounding country, and the entrances into that province. It has now dwindled to a small hamlet, and the guards connected with the tombs comprise most of the inhabitants.

Kinchau, fifteen leagues from Mukden, carries on considerable trade in cattle, pulse, and drugs. Gutzlaff[99] describes the harbor as shallow, and exposed to southern gales; the houses in the town are built of stone, the environs well cultivated and settled by Chinese from Shantung, while natives of Fuhkien conduct the trade. The Manchus lead an idle life, but keep on good terms with the Chinese. When he was there in 1832, the authorities had ordered all the females to seclude themselves in order to put a stop to debauchery among the native sailors. Horses and camels are numerous and cheap, but the carriages are clumsy. Kaichau, another port lying on the east side of the gulf, possesses a better harbor, but is not so much frequented.

TRADE AND CLIMATE OF MANCHURIA.

Since the treaty of 1858 opened the port of Niuchwang or Yingtsz’, on the River Liau, to foreign trade, the development of Shingking has rapidly increased. The trade in pulse and bean-cake and oil employs many vessels annually. Opium, silk, and paper are prepared for export through this mart, besides foreign goods. Fung-hwang ting, lying near the Yaluh River, commands all the trade with Corea, which must pass through it. There are many restrictions upon this intercourse by both governments, and the Chinese forbid their subjects passing the frontiers. The trade is conducted at fairs, under the supervision of officers and soldiers; the short time allowed for concluding the bargains, and the great numbers resorting to them, render these bazaars more like the frays of opposing clans than the scenes of peaceable trade. There is a market-town in Corea itself, called Kí-iu wăn, about four leagues from the frontier, where the Chinese “supply the Coreans with dogs, cats, pipes, leather, stags’ horns, copper, horses, mules, and asses; and receive in exchange, baskets, kitchen utensils, rice, corn, swine, paper, mats, oxen, furs, and small horses.” Merchants are allowed not more than four or five hours in which to conduct this fair, and the Corean officers under whose charge it is placed, drive all strangers back to the frontier as soon as the day closes.[100]

The borders of the sea consist of alluvial soil, efflorescing a nitrous white salt near the beach, but very fertile inland, well cultivated and populous. Beyond, the hill-country is extremely picturesque. Ever-changing views, torrents and fountains, varied and abounding vegetation, flocks of black cattle grazing on the hillsides, goats perched on the overhanging crags, horses, asses, and sheep lower down in the intervales, numerous well-built hamlets, everywhere enliven the scene. The department of Kinchau lies along the Gulf of Liautung, between the Palisade and the sea, and contains four small district towns, with forts, around whose garrisons of agricultural troops have collected a few settlers. On the south, toward Chihlí and the Wall, the country is better cultivated.

The climate of Manchuria, as a whole, is healthy and moderate, far removed from the rigor of the plateau on its west, and not so moist as the outlying islands on the east. In summer the ranges are 70° to 90° F., thence down to 10° or 20° below zero. The rivers remain frozen from December nearly to April, and the fall of snow is less than in Eastern America. The seasons are really six weeks of spring, five months of summer, six weeks of autumn and four months of winter; the last is in some respects the enjoyable period, and is used by the farmers to bring produce to market. If the houses were tighter, their inmates would suffer little during the cold season. Huc speaks of hail storms which killed flocks of sheep in Mongolia, near Chahar. Darwin (Naturalist’s Voyage, 2d ed., 1845, p. 115) corroborates the possibility of his statement by a somewhat similar experience near Buenos Ayres. He here saw many deer and other wild animals killed by “hail as large as small apples and extremely hard.” Of the denuded country, near the Liau River, Abbé Huc says: “Although it is uncertain where God placed paradise, we may be sure that he chose some other country than Liautung; for of all savage regions, this takes a distinguished rank for the aridity of the soil and rigor of the climate. On his entrance, the traveller remarks the barren aspect of most of the hills, and the nakedness of the plains, where not a tree nor a thicket, and hardly a slip of a herb is to be seen. The natives are superior to any Europeans I have ever seen for their powers of eating; beef and pork abound on their tables, and I think dogs and horses, too, under some other name; rich people eat rice, the poor are content with boiled millet, or with another grain called hac-bam, about thrice the size of millet and tasting like wheat, which I never saw elsewhere. The vine is cultivated, but must be covered from October to April; the grapes are so watery that a hundred litres of juice produce by distillation only forty of poor spirit. The leaves of an oak are used to rear wild silkworms, and this is a considerable branch of industry. The people relish the worms as food after the cocoons have been boiled, drawing them out with a pin, and sucking the whole until nothing but the pellicle is left.”[101] Another says, the ground freezes seven feet in Kirin, and about three in Shingking; the thermometer in winter is thirty degrees below zero. The snow is raised into the air by the north-east winds, and becomes so fine that it penetrates the clothes, houses, and enters even the lungs. When travelling, the eyebrows become a mass of ice, the beard a large flake, and the eyelashes are frozen together; the wind cuts and pierces the skin like razors or needles. The earth is frozen during eight months, but vegetation in summer is rapid, and the streams are swollen by the thawing drifts of snow.

The province of Kirin, or Girin, comprises the country north-east of Shingking, as far as the Amur and Usuri, which bound it on the north and east, while Corea and Shingking lie on the south-east (better separated by the Chang-peh shan than any political confine) and Mongolia on the west. All signs of the line of palisades have disappeared (save at the Passes) in the entire trajet between the Songari and Shan-hai kwan. The region is mountainous, except in the link of that river after the Nonni joins it till the Usuri comes in, measuring about one-fourth of the whole. This extensive region is thinly inhabited by Manchus settled in garrisons along the bottoms of the rivers, by Goldies, Mangoons, Ghiliaks, and tribes having affinity with them, who subsist principally by hunting and fishing, and acknowledge their fealty by a tribute of peltry, but who have no officers of government placed over them. Du Halde calls them Kíching Tatse, Yupí Tatse, and other names, which seem, indeed, to have been their ancient designations. The Yu-pí Tahtsí, or ‘Fish-skin Tartars,’[102] are said to inhabit the extensive valley of the Usuri, and do not allow the subjects of the Emperor to live among them. In winter they nestle together in kraals like the Bushmen, and subsist upon the products of their summer’s fishing, having cut down fuel enough to last them till warm weather. Shut out, as they have been during the past, from all elevating influences, these people are likely to be ere long amalgamated and lost, as well among Russian and other settlers coming in from the north, as amid the Chinese immigrants who occupy their land in the south. The entire population of this province cannot be reckoned, from present information, as high as three millions, the greater part of which live along the Songari valley.

TOWNS AND PRODUCTIONS OF KIRIN PROVINCE.

Kirin is divided into three ruling ting departments or commanderies, viz., Kirin ula, or the garrison of Kirin, Petuné or Pedné, and Changchun ting. Kirin, the largest of the three, is subdivided into eight garrison districts. The town, called Chuen Chwang, or ‘Navy Yard,’ in Chinese, is finely situated on the Songari, in lat. 43° 45′ N., and long. 127° 25′ E., at the foot of encircling hills, where the river is a thousand feet wide. The streets are narrow and irregular, the shops low and small, and much ground in the city is unoccupied. Two great streets cross each other at right angles, one of them running far into the river on the west supported by piles. The highways are paved with wooden blocks, and adorned with flowers, gold fish, and squares; its population is about 50,000.

The four other important places in Kirin are Petuné, Larin, Altchuku, or A-shi-ho, and Sansing, the latter at the confluent of the Songari and Hurka. Altchuku is the largest, and Petuné next in size, each town having not far from 35,000 inhabitants; Larin is perhaps half as large, and like the others steadily increasing in numbers and importance. Ninguta on the river Hurka has wide regions under its sway where ginseng is gathered; near the stockaded town is a subterranean body of water that furnishes large fish. A great and influential portion of the Chinese population is Moslem, but no Manchus reside in the place. The former control trade and travel in every town.

Petuné, in lat. 45° 20′ N., and long. 125° 10′ E., is inhabited by troops and many persons banished from China for their crimes. Its favorable position renders it a place of considerable trade, and during the summer months it is a busy mart for these thinly peopled regions. It consists of two main streets, with the chief market at their crossing. A large mosque attracts attention. The third commandery of Changchun, west of Kirin and south of Petuné, just beyond the Palisade, is a mere post for overseeing the Manchus and Mongols passing to and fro on the edge of the steppe.

The resources of this wide domain in timber, minerals, metals, cattle and grain have not yet been explored or developed. The hills are wooded to the top, the bottoms bring forth two crops annually, and the rivers take down timber and grain to the Russian settlers. Sorghum, millet, barley, maize, pulse, indigo, and tobacco are the chief crops; and latterly opium, which has rapidly extended, because it pays well. Oil and whiskey are extensively manufactured, packed in wicker baskets lined with paper and transported on wheelbarrows. The wild and domestic animals are numerous. Among the latter the hogs and mules, more than any other kind, furnish food and transportation; while tigers, panthers, and leopards, bears, wolves, and foxes reward the hunters for their pains in killing them.

THE PROVINCE OF TSI-TSI-HAR.

The province of Tsi-tsi-har, or Hehlung kiang, comprises the northwest of Manchuria, extending four hundred miles from east to west, and about five hundred from north to south. It is bounded north by the Amur, from Shilka to its junction with the Songari; east and southeast by Kirin, from which the Songari partly separates it; southwest by Mongolia, and west by the River Argun, dividing it from Russia. The greatest part of it is occupied by the valley of the Nonni, Noun or Nún; its area of about two hundred thousand square miles is mostly an uninhabited, mountainous wilderness. It is divided into six commanderies, viz.: Tsitsihar, Hulan, Putek, Merguen, Sagalien ula, and Hurun-pir, whose officers have control over the tribes within their limits; of these, Sagalien or Igoon is the chief town in the northeast districts, and is used by the government of Peking as a penal settlement. The town stands on a plain but a rood or so above the river, which sweeps off to the mountains in the distance. Here is posted a large force of officers and men, their extensive barracks indicating the importance attached to the place. The garrison has gradually attracted a population of natives and Chinese from the south, who live by fishing and hunting, as well as farming.

Tsitsihar, the capital of the province, lies on the River Nonni, in lat. 47° 20′ N., and long. 124° E., and is a place of some trade, resorted to by the tribes near the river. Merguen, Hurun-pir, and Hulan are situated upon rivers, and accessible when the waters are free from ice. Tsitsihar was built in 1692 by Kanghí to overawe the neighboring tribes. It is inclosed by a stockade and a ditch. The one-storied houses are constructed of logs, or of brick stuccoed, where timber is dear, and warmed by the brick beds; the tall chimneys outside the main buildings give a peculiar appearance to villages. Pulse, maize, tobacco, millet, and wheat, and latterly poppy are common crops. The valley of the Nonni is cultivated by the Taguri Manchus, among whom six thousand six hundred families of Yakutes settled in 1687, when they emigrated from Siberia. The Korchin Mongols occupy the country south and west of this valley. Some of its streams produce large pearls. The region lying between the Sialkoi Mountains and the River Argun is rough and sterile, presenting few inducements to agriculturalists. Fish abound in all the rivers, and furs are sought in the hills. Pasturage is excellent in the bottoms. Fairs, between the natives and Cossacks, are constantly held at convenient places on the Argun and other rivers. The racial distinction between the Mongols and Manchus is here seen in the agricultural labors of the latter, so opposed to the nomadic habits of the former. This region has, within the last half century, attracted Chinese settlers from Shantung and Chihlí. These colonists are fast filling up the vacant lands along the rivers, dispossessing the Manchus by their thrift and industry, and making the country far more valuable. They will in this way secure its possession to the Peking Government, and bring it, by degrees, under Chinese control, greatly to the benefit of all. In early days the policy of the Manchus, like that of the E. I. Company in India towards British immigration, discountenanced the entrance of Chinese settlers, and in both cases to the disadvantage of the ruling power.

The administration of Manchuria consists of a supreme civil government at Mukden, and three provincial military ones, though Shingking is under both civil and military. There are five Boards, each under a president, whose duties are analogous to those at Peking. The oversight of the city itself is under a fuyin or mayor, superior to the prefect. The three provinces are under as many marshals, whose subordinates rule the commanderies, and these last have garrison officers subject to them, whose rank and power correspond to the size and importance of their districts. These delegate part of their power to “assistant directors,” or residents, who are stationed in every town; on the frontier posts, the officers have a higher grade, and report directly to the marshals or their lieutenants. All the officers, both civil and military, are Manchus, and a great portion of them belong to the imperial clan, or are intimately connected with it. By this arrangement, the Manchus are in a measure disconnected with the general government of the provinces, furnished with offices and titles, and induced to recommend themselves for promotion in the Empire by their zeal and fidelity in their distant posts.[103]

Mongolia is the first in order of the colonies, by which are meant those parts of the Empire under the control of the Lí-fan Yuen, or Foreign Office.[104] According to the statistics of the Empire, it comprises the region lying between lats. 35° and 52° N., and from long. 82° to 123° E.; bounded north by the Russian governments of Trans-Baikalia, Irkutsk, Yeniseisk, Tomsk, and Semipolatinsk; northeast and east by Manchuria; south by the provinces of Chihlí and Shansí, and the Yellow River; southwest by Kansuh; and west by Cobdo and Ílí. These limits are not very strictly marked at all points, but the length from east to west is about seventeen hundred miles, and one thousand in its greatest breadth, inclosing an area of 1,400,000 square miles, supporting an estimated population of two millions. This elevated plain is almost destitute of wood or water, inclosed southward by the mountains of Tibet, and northward by offsets from the Altai range. The central part is occupied by the desert of Gobi, a barren steppe having an average height of 4,000 feet above the sea level, and destitute of all running water. Owing to its elevation, extremely variable climate, and the absence of oases, it may be considered quite as terrible as Sahara, although the sand-waste here is, perhaps, hardly as unmitigated.

CLIMATE AND DIVISIONS OF MONGOLIA.

The climate of Mongolia is excessively cold for the latitude, arising partly from its elevation and dry atmosphere, and, on the steppes, to the want of shelter from the winds. But this has its compensation in an unclouded sky and the genial rays of the sun, which support and cheer the people to exertion when the thermometer is far below zero. The air has been drained of its moisture by the ridges on every side; day after day the sun’s heat reaches the earth with smaller loss than obtains in moister regions in the same latitudes. Otherwise these wastes would support no life at all at such an elevation. In the districts bordering on Chihlí, the people make their houses partly under ground, in order to avoid the inclemency of the season. The soil in and upon the confines of this high land is unfit for agricultural purposes, neither snow nor rain falling in sufficient quantities, except on the acclivities of the mountain ranges; but millet, barley, and wheat might be raised north and south of it. The nomads rejoice in their freedom from tillage, however, and move about with their herds and possessions within the limits marked out by the Chinese for each tribe to occupy.

The space on the north of Gobi to the confines of Russia, about one hundred and fifty miles wide, is warmer than the desert, and supports a greater population than the southern sides. Cattle are numerous on the hilly tracts, but none are found in the desert, where wild animals and birds hold undisputed possession. The thermometer in winter sinks to thirty and forty degrees below zero (Fr.), and sudden and great changes are frequent. No month in the year is free from snow or frost; but on the steppes, the heat in summer is almost intolerable, owing to the radiation from the sandy or stony surface. The snow does not fall very deep, and even in cold weather the cattle find food under it; the flocks and herds are not, however, large.

The principal divisions of Mongolia are four, viz.: 1, Inner Mongolia, lying between the Wall and south of the desert; 2, Outer Mongolia, between the desert and the Altai Mountains, and reaching from the Inner Hing-an to the Tien shan; 3, the country about Koko-nor, between Kansuh, Sz’chuen, and Tibet; and, 4, the dependencies of Uliasutai, lying northwestward of the Kalkas khanates. The whole of this region has been included under the comprehensive name of Tartary, and if the limits of Inner and Outer Mongolia had been the bounds of Tartary, the appellation would have been somewhat appropriate. But when Genghis arose to power, he called his own tribe Kukai Mongöl, ‘Celestial People,’ and designated all the other tribes Tatars, that is ‘tributaries.’[105] The three tribes of Kalkas, Tsakhars, and Sunnites, now constitute the great body of Mongols under Chinese rule.

TRIBES OF INNER MONGOLIA.

Inner Mongolia, or Nui Mungku, is bounded north by Tsitsihar, the Tsetsen khanate, and Gobi, their frontiers being almost undefinable; east by Kirin and Shingking; south by Chihlí and Shansí; and west by Kansuh. Wherever it runs the Wall is popularly regarded as the boundary between China and Mongolia. The country is divided into six ming or chalkans, like our corps, and twenty-four aimaks[106] (tribes), which are again placed under forty-nine standards or khochoun, each of which generally includes about two thousand families, commanded by hereditary princes, or dsassaks. The principal tribes are the Kortchin and Ortous. The large tribe of the Tsakhars, which occupies the region north of the Wall, is governed by a tutung, or general, residing at Kalgan, and their pasture grounds are now nominally included in the province of Chihlí. The province of Shansí in like manner includes the lands occupied by the Toumets, who are under the control of a general stationed at Suiyuen, beyond the Yellow River. In the pastures northwest from Kalgan, in the vicinity of Lakes Chazau and Ichí, and reaching more than a hundred miles from the Great Wall, lie the tracts appropriated to raising horses for the “Yellow Banner Corps.” Excepting such grazing lands or the vast hunting grounds near Jeh-ho, reserved in like manner by the government, small settlements of Chinese are continually squatting over the plains of Inner Mongolia, from whence they have already succeeded in driving many of the aboriginal Mongol tribes off to the north. Those natives who will not retire are fain to save themselves from starvation or absorption by cultivating the soil after the fashion of their neighbors, the Chinese immigrants. It was, indeed, this influx of settlers which led Kanghí to erect the southern portion of Inner Mongolia into prefectures and districts like China Proper. This alteration of habits among its population seems destined, ere long, to modify the aspect of the country.

Most of the smaller tribes, except the Ortous, live between the western frontiers of Manchuria, and the steppes reaching north to the Sialkoi range, and south to Chahar. These tribes are peculiarly favored by the Manchus, from their having joined them in their conquest of China, and their leading men are often promoted to high stations in the government of the country.

OUTER MONGOLIA.

Outer Mongolia, or Wai Mungku, is the wild tract lying north of the last as far as Russia. It is bounded north by Russia, east by Tsitsihar, southeast and south by Inner Mongolia, southwest by Barkul in Kansuh, west by Tarbagatai, and northwest by Cobdo and Uliasutai. The desert of Gobi occupies the southern half of the region. It is divided into four lu, or circuits, each of which is governed by a khan or prince, claiming direct descent from Genghis, and superintending the internal management of his own khanate. The Tsetsen khanate lies west of Hurun-pir in Tsitsihar, extending from Russia south to Inner Mongolia. West of it, reaching from Siberia across the desert to Inner Mongolia, lies the Tuchétu (or Tusiétu of Klaproth[107]) khanate, the most considerable of the four; the road from Kiakhta to Kalgan lies within its borders. West of the last, and bounded south by Gobi and northeast by Uliasutai, lies the region of the Kalkas of Sainnoin; and on its northwest lies the Dsassaktu khanate, south of Uliasutai, and reaching to Barkul and Cobdo on the south and west. All of them are politically under the control of two Manchu residents stationed at Urga, who direct the mutual interests of the Mongols, Chinese, and Russians.

Urga, or Kuren, the capital, is situated in the Tuchétu khanate, in lat. 48° 20′ N., and long. 107½° E., on the Tola River, a branch of the Selenga. It is the largest and most important place in Mongolia, and is divided into Maimai chin, the Chinese quarter, and Bogdo-Kuren, the Mongol settlement, nearly three miles from the other. Its total population is estimated at 30,000, the Chinese inhabitants of which are forbidden by law to live with their families; of the Mongols here, by far the larger part is composed of lamas. In the estimation of these people Urga stands next to H’lassa in degree of sanctity, being the seat of the third person in the Tibetan patriarchate. According to the Lama doctrine this dignitary—the Kutuktu—is the terrestrial impersonation of the Godhead and never dies, but passes, after his apparent decease, into the body of some newly born boy, who is sought for afterwards according to the prophetic indications of the Dalai-lama in Tibet. This holy potentate, though of limited education and entirely under the control of the attendant lamas, exercises an unbounded influence over the Kalkas. It is, indeed, by means of him that the Chinese officials control the native races of Mongolia. His wealth, owing to contributions of enthusiastic devotees, is enormous; in and about Urga he owns 150,000 slaves, an abundance of worldly goods, and the most pretentious palace in Mongolia. Outside of its religious buildings, Urga is disgustingly dirty; the filth is thrown into the streets, and the habits of the people are loathsome. Decrepid beggars and starving dogs infest the ways; dead bodies, instead of being interred, are flung to birds and beasts of prey; huts and hovels afford shelter for both rich and poor.[108]

The four khanates constitute one aimak or tribe, subdivided into eighty-six standards, each of which is restricted to a certain territory, within which it wanders about at pleasure. There are altogether one hundred and thirty-five standards of the Mongols. The Kalkas chiefly live between the Altai Mountains and Gobi, but do not cultivate the soil to much effect. They are devoted to Buddhism, and the lamas hold most of the power in their hands through the Kutuktu. They render an annual tribute to the Emperor of horses, camels, sheep, and other animals or their skins, and receive presents in return of many times its value, so that they are kept in subjection by constant bribing; the least restiveness on their part is visited by a reduction of presents and other penalties. An energetic government, however, is not wanting in addition. The supreme tribunal is at Urga; it is the yamun, par excellence, and has both civil and military jurisdiction. The decisions are subject to the revision of the two Chinese residents, and sentences are usually carried into execution after their confirmation. The punishments are horribly severe; but only a decided and cruel hand over these wild tribes can keep them from constant strife.

Letters are encouraged among them by the Manchus, but with little success. Many Buddhist books have been translated into Mongolian by order of the Emperors; nor can we wonder at the indifference to literature when this stuff is the aliment provided them. Their tents, or yurts, are made of wooden laths fastened together so as to form a coarse lattice-work; the framework consists of several lengths secured with ropes, leaving a door about three feet square. The average size is twelve feet across and ten feet high; its shape is round and the conical roof admits light where it emits smoke. The poles or rafters are looped to the sides, and fastened to a hoop at the top. Upon this framework sheets of heavy felt are secured according to the season. A hearth in the centre holds the fire which heats the kettle hanging over it, and warms the inmates squatted round, who usually place only felt and sheepskins under them. The felt protects from cold, rain, snow, and heat in a wonderful manner. A first-class yurt is by no means an uncomfortable dwelling, with its furniture, lining, shrine, and hot kettle in the centre. A carpet for sleeping and sitting on is sometimes seen in yurts of the wealthier classes; in these, too, the walls are lined with cotton or silk, and the floors are of wood. The lodges of the rich Kalkas have several apartments, and are elegantly furnished, but destitute of cleanliness, comfort, or airiness. Most of their cloths, utensils, and arms are procured from the Chinese. The Sunnites are fewer than the Kalkas, and roam the wide wastes of Gobi. Both derive some revenue from conducting caravans across their country, but depend for their livelihood chiefly upon the produce of their herds and hunting. Their princes are obliged to reside in Urga, or keep hostages there, in order that the residents may direct and restrain their conduct; but their devotion to the Kutuktu, and the easy life they lead, are the strongest inducements to remain.

KIAKHTA AND THE TRADE WITH RUSSIA.

The trade with Russia formerly all passed through Kiakhta, a town near the frontier, and was carried on by special agents and officials appointed by each nation. The whole business was managed in the interest of the government, and its ramifications furnished employment, position, and support to so many persons as to form a bond of union and guaranty of peace between them and their subjects. Timkowski’s journey with the decennial mission to Peking in 1820-21 furnishes one of the best accounts of this trade and intercourse now accessible, and with Klaproth’s notes, given in the English translation published in 1827, has long been the chief reliable authority for the divisions and organization of the Mongol tribes. Since the opening of the Suez Canal, through which Russian steamers carry goods to and fro between Odessa and China, the largest portion of the Chinese produce no longer goes to Kiakhta. That which is required for Siberia is sent from Hankow by way of Shansí, or from Kalgan and Tientsin, under the direction of Russian merchants at those places. Furs, which once formed the richest part of this produce, are gradually diminishing in quality and quantity with the increase of settlers. In 1843 the export of black tea for Russian consumption was only eight millions of pounds, besides the brick tea taken by the Mongols. Cottrell states the total value of the trade, annually, at that period, at a hundred millions of rubles, reckoned then to be equal to $20,830,000, on which the Russians paid, in 1836, about $2,500,000 as import duty. The data respecting this trade of forty years ago are not very accurate, probably; the monopoly was upheld mostly for the benefit of the officials, as private traders found it too much burdened.

Kiakhta is a hamlet of no importance apart from the trade. The frontier here is marked by a row of granite columns; a stockade separates it from Maimai chin. Pumpelly says: “One can hardly imagine a sharper line than is here drawn. On the one side of the stockade wall, the houses, churches, and people are European, on the other, Chinese. With one step the traveller passes really from Asia and Asiatic customs and language, into a refined European society.” The goods pay duty at the Russian douane in a suburb of fifty houses, near Kiakhta. The Chinese town is also a small place, numbering between twelve and fifteen hundred men (no women being allowed in the settlement) who lived in idleness most of the year. This curious hamlet has two principal streets crossing at right angles, and gates at the four ends, in the wooden wall which surrounds it. These streets are badly paved, while their narrowness barely allows the passage of two camels abreast. The one-storied houses are constructed of wood, roofed with turf or boards, and consist of two small rooms, one used as a shop and the other as a bedroom. The windows in the rear apartment are made of oiled paper or mica, but the door is the only opening in the shop. The dwellings are kept clean, the furniture is of a superior description, and considerable taste and show are seen in displaying the goods. The traders live luxuriously, and attract a great crowd there during the fair in February, when the goods are exchanged. They are under the control of a Manchu, called the dzarguchí, who is appointed for three years, and superintends the police of the settlement as well as the commercial proceedings. There are two Buddhist temples here served by lamas, and containing five colossal images sitting cross-legged, and numerous smaller idols.[109]

The western portion of Mongolia, between the meridians of 84° and 96° E., extending from near the western extremity of Kansuh province to the confines of Russia, comprising Uliasutai and its dependencies, Cobdo, and the Kalkas and Tourgouths of the Tangnu Mountains, is less known than any other part of it. The residence of the superintending officer of this province is at Uliasutai (i.e., ‘Poplar Grove’), a town lying northwest of the Selenga, in the khanate of Sainnoin, in a well cultivated and pleasant valley.

THE PROVINCE OF COBDO.

Cobdo, according to the Chinese maps, lies in the northwest of Mongolia; it is bounded north and west by the government Yeniseisk, northeast by Ulianghai, and southeast by the Dsassaktu khanate, south by Kansuh, and west by Tarbagatai. The part occupied by the Ulianghai or Uriyangkit tribes of the Tangnu Mountains lies northeast of Cobdo, and north of the Sainnoin and Dsassaktu khanates, and separated from Russia by the Altai. These tribes are allied to the Samoyeds, and the rule over them is administered by twenty-five subordinate military officers, subject to the resident at Uliasutai. This city is said to contain about two thousand houses, is regularly built, and carries on some trade with Urga; it lies on the Iro, a tributary of the Jabkan. Cobdo comprises eleven tribes of Kalkas divided into thirty-one standards, whose princes obey an amban at Cobdo City, himself subordinate to the resident at Uliasutai. The Chinese rule over these tribes is conducted on the same principles as that over the other Mongols, and they all render fealty to the Emperor through the chief resident at Uliasutai, but how much obedience is really paid his orders is not known. The Kalkas submitted to the Emperor in 1688 to avoid extinction in their war with the Eleuths, by whom they had been defeated.

Cobdo contains several lakes, many of which receive rivers without having any outlet. The largest is Upsa-nor, which receives from the east the River Tes, and the Íkí-aral-nor into which the Jabkan runs. The River Irtysh falls into Lake Dzaisang. The existence of so many rivers indicates a more fertile country north of the Altai or Ektag Mountains, but no bounties of nature would avail to induce the inhabitants to adopt settled modes of living and cultivate the soil, if such a clannish state of society exists among them as is described by M. Lévchine to be the case among their neighbors, the Kirghís. The tribes in Cobdo resemble the American Indians in their habits, disputes, and modes of life, more than the eastern Kalkas, who approximate in their migratory character to the Arabs.

THE PROVINCE AND LAKE OF KOKO-NOR.

The province of Tsing hai, or Koko-nor (called Tsok-gum-bam by the Tanguts), is not included in Mongolia by European geographers, nor in the Chinese statistical works is it comprised within its borders; the inhabitants are, however, mostly Mongols, both Buddhist and Moslem, and the government is conducted on the same plan as that over the Kalkas tribes further north. This region is known in the histories of Central Asia under the names of Tangout, Sifan, Turfan, etc. On Chinese maps it is politically called Tsing hai (‘Azure Sea’), but in their books is named Sí Yu or Sí Yih, ‘Western Limits.’ The borders are now limited on the north by Kansuh, southeast by Sz’chuen, south by Anterior Tibet, and west by the desert, comprising about four degrees of latitude and eleven of longitude.

It includes within its limits several large lakes, which receive rivers into their bosoms, and many of them having no outlets. The Azure Sea is the largest, lying at an altitude of 10,500 feet and overlooked by high mountains, which in winter are covered with snow, and in summer form an emerald frame that deepens the blueness of the water. It is over 200 miles in circuit, and its evaporation is replaced by the inflowing waters of eight large streams; one small islet contains a monastery, whose inmates are freed from their solitude only when the ice makes a bridge, as no boat is known to have floated on its salt water. The wide, moist plains on the east and west furnish pasturage for domestic and wild animals, and constant collisions occur between the tribes resorting there for food. The travels of Abbé Huc and Col. Prejevalsky furnish nearly all that is known concerning the productions and inhabitants of Koko-nor. The country is nominally divided into thirty-four banners, and its Chinese rulers reside at Síning, east of the lake; but they have more to do in defending themselves than in protecting their subjects. The whole country is occupied by the Tanguts of Tibetan origin, who are brigands by profession, and roam over the mountains around the headwaters of the Yangtsz’ and Yellow Rivers; by the Mohammedan Dunganis, who have latterly been nearly destroyed in their recent rebellion; and by tribes of Mongols under the various names of Eleuths, Kolos, Kalkas, Surgouths, and Koits. The Chinese maps are filled with names of various tribes, but their statistical accounts are as meagre of information as the maps are deficient in accurate and satisfactory delineations.

The topographical features of this region are still imperfectly known, and its inhospitable climate is rendered more dangerous by man’s barbarity. High mountain masses alternate with narrow valleys and a few large depressions containing lakes; the country lying south of the Azure Sea, as far as Burmah, is exceedingly mountainous. West and southwest of the lake extends the plain of Tsaidam, which at a recent geological age has been the bed of a huge lake; it is now covered with morasses, shaking bogs, small rivers, and sheets of water—the most considerable of the latter being Lake Kara, in the extreme western portion. The saline argillaceous soil of this region is not adapted to vegetation. Large animals are scarce, due in part to the plague of insects which compels even the natives to retreat to the mountains with their herds during certain seasons. Its inhabitants are the same as those of Eastern Koko-nor; they are divided into five banners, and number about 1,000 yurts, or 5,000 souls.

The Burkhan-buddha range forms the southern boundary of this plain, and the northernmost limit of the lofty plateau of Tibet. Its length from east to west is not far from 130 miles, its eastern extremity being near the Yegrai-ula (the near sources of the Yellow River) and Toso-nor. The range has no lofty peaks, and stretches in an unbroken chain at a height of 15,000 to 16,000 feet; it is terribly barren, but does not attain the line of perpetual snow. The southern range, which separates the headwaters of the Yellow and Yangtsz’ Rivers, is called the Bayan-kara Mountains; that northwest of this is called on Chinese maps, Kílien shan and Nan shan, and bounds the desert on the south. On the northern declivities of the Nan shan range are several towns lying on or near the road leading across Central Asia, which leaves the valley of the Yellow River at Lanchau, in Kansuh, and runs N.N.W. over a rough country to Liangchau, a town of some importance situated in a fertile and populous district. From this place it goes northwest to Kanchau, noted for its manufactures of felted cloths which are in demand among the Mongol tribes of Koko-nor, and where large quantities of rhubarb, horses, sheep, and other commodities are procured. Going still northwest, the traveller reaches Suhchau, the last large place before passing the Great Wall, which renders it a mart for provisions and all articles brought from the west in exchange for the manufactures of China. This city was the last stronghold of the Dungani Moslems, and when they were destroyed in 1873 it began to revive out of its ruins. About fifty miles from this town is the pass of Kiayü, beyond which the road to Hami, Urumtsi, and Ílí leads directly across the desert, here about three hundred miles wide. This route has been for ages the line of internal communication between the west of China and the regions lying around and in the basins of the Tarim River and the Caspian.[110] A better idea of the security of traffic and caravans within the Empire, and consequently of the goodness of the Chinese rule, is obtained by comparing the usually safe travel on this route with the hazards, robberies, and poverty formerly met with on the great roads in Bokhara, and the regions south and west of the Belur tag.

THE TANGUTS AND NOMADS OF KOKO-NOR.

The productions of Koko-nor consist of grain and other vegetables raised along the bottoms of the rivers and margins of the lakes; sheep, cattle, horses, camels, and other animals. Alpine hares, wild asses,[111] wild yaks, vultures, lammergeiers, pheasants, antelopes, wolves, mountain sheep, and wild camels are among the denizens of the wilds. The Chinese have settled among the tribes, and Mohammedans of Turkish origin are found in the large towns. There are eight corps between Koko-nor and Uliasutai, comprising all the tribes and banners, and over which are placed as many supreme generals or commanders appointed from Peking. The leading tribes in Koko-nor are Eleuths, Tanguts, and Tourbeths, the former of whom are the remnants of one of the most powerful tribes in Central Asia. Tangout submitted to the Emperor in 1690, and its population since the incorporation has greatly increased. They inhabit the hilly region of Kansuh, Koko-nor, Eastern Tsaidam, and the basin of the Upper Yellow River. They resemble gipsies, being above the average in height, with thick-set features, broad shoulders, hair and whiskers, black, dark eyes, nose straight, lips thick and protruding, face long and never flat, skin tawny. Unlike the Mongols and Chinese they have a strong growth of beard and whiskers which, however, they always shave. They wear no tail, but shave their heads; their dress consists of furs and cloths made into long coats that reach to the knees. Shirts or trowsers are not made use of; their upper legs are generally left bare. Women dress like the men. Their habitations are wooden huts or black cloth tents. The Tangut is cunning, stingy, lazy, and shiftless. His sole occupation that of tending cattle (yaks). He is even more zealous a Buddhist than are the Mongols, and extremely superstitious.[112] The trade at Síning is large, but not equal to that between Yunnan and Burmah at Talí and Bhamo; dates, rhubarb, chowries, precious stones, felts, cloths, etc., are among the commodities seen in the bazaar. It lies about a hundred miles from the sea, at an elevation of 7,800 feet, and near it is the famous lamasary of Kumbum, where MM. Huc and Gabet lived in 1845. The town is well situated upon the Síning ho, and though constructed for the most part of wood, presents a fine appearance owing to the number of official buildings therein. The population numbers some 60,000 souls.[113]

The towns lying between the Great Wall and Ílí, though politically belonging to Kansuh, are more connected with the colonies in their form of government than with the Eighteen Provinces. The first town beyond the Kiayü Pass is Yuhmun, distant about ninety miles, and is the residence of officers, who attend to the caravans going to and from the pass. It is represented as lying near the junction of two streams, which flow northerly into the Purunkí. The other district town of Tunhwang lies across a mountainous country, upwards of two hundred miles distant. The city of Ngansí chau has been built to facilitate the communication across the desert to Hami or Kamil, the first town in Songaria, and the dépôt of troops, arms, and munitions of war. “With the town of Hami,” says an Austrian visitor in these regions, “the traveller comes upon the southern foot-hills of the Tien shan, and the first traces of Siberian civilization. Magnificent mountain scenery accompanies him on his way toward the west to the Russian line. In the government of Semipolatinsk are the express mail-wagons which stand ready at his order to carry him at furious speed to the town of the same name, then to the right bank of the River Irtysh, and so to Omsk.”[114] This route and that stretching towards the southwest bring an important trade to Hami; the country around it is cultivated by poor Mongols.[115] Barkul, or Chinsí fu, in lat. 43° 40′ N., and long. 93° 30′ E., is the most important place in the department; the district is called Ího hien. A thousand Manchus, and three thousand Chinese, guard the post. The town is situated on the south of Lake Barkul, and its vicinity receives some cultivation. Hami and Turfan each form a ting district in the southeast and west of the department. The trade at all these places consists mostly of articles of food and clothing.

Urumtsi, or Tih-hwa chau (the Bich-balik of the Ouigours in 1100[116]), in lat. 43° 45′ N., and long. 89° E., is the westernmost department of Kansuh, divided into three districts, and containing many posts and settlements. In the war with the Eleuths in 1770, the inhabitants around this place were exterminated, and the country afterwards repeopled by upwards of ten thousand troops, with their families, and by exiles; emigrants from Kansuh were also induced to settle there. The Chinese accounts speak of a high mountain near the city, always covered with ice and snow, whose base is wooded, and abounding with pheasants; coal is also obtained in this region. The cold is great, and snow falls as late as July. Many parts produce grain and vegetables. All this department formerly constituted a portion of Songaria. The policy of the Chinese government is to induce the tribes to settle, by placing large bodies of troops with their families at all important points, and sending their exiled criminals to till the soil; the Mongols then find an increasing demand for their cattle and other products, and are induced to become stationary to meet it. So far as is known, this policy had succeeded well in the regions beyond the Wall, and those around Koko-nor; but the rebellion of the Dunganis, who arose in these outlying regions at the moment when the energies of the Peking government were all directed to suppressing the Tai-ping insurrection, destroyed these improvements, and frustrated, for an indefinite period, the promising development of civilization among the inhabitants.

DIVISIONS AND BOUNDARIES OF ÍLÍ.

That part of the Empire called Ílí is a vast region lying on each side of the Tien shan, and including a tract nearly as large as Mongolia, and not much more susceptible of cultivation. Its limits may be stated as extending from lat. 36° to 49° N., and from long. 71° to 96° E., and its entire area, although difficult to estimate from its irregularity, can hardly be less than 900,000 square miles, of which Songaria occupies rather more than one-third. It is divided into two Lu, or ‘Circuits,’ viz., the Tien shan Peh Lu, and Tien shan Nan Lu, or the circuits north and south of the Celestial Mountains. The former is commonly designated Songaria, or Dzungaria, from the Songares or Eleuths, who ruled it till a few scores of years past, and the latter used to be known as Little Bokhara, or Eastern Turkestan.

Ílí is bounded north by the Altai range, separating it from the Kirghís; northeast by the Irtysh River and Outer Mongolia; east and southeast by Urumtsi and Barkul in Kansuh; south by the desert and the Kwănlun range; and west by the Belur-tag, dividing it from Badakshan and Russian territory.[117] In length, the Northern Circuit extends about nine hundred miles, and the width, on an average, is three hundred miles. The Southern Circuit reaches nearly twelve hundred and fifty miles from west to east, and varies from three hundred to five hundred in breadth, as it extends to the Kwănlun range on the south. There is probably most arable land in the Northern Circuit.

TOPOGRAPHY OF ÍLÍ.

Ílí, taken north of the Tarim basin, may be regarded as an inland isthmus, extending southwest from the south of Siberia, off between the Gobi and Caspian deserts, till it reaches the Hindu Kush, leading down to the valley of the Indus. The former of these deserts incloses it on the east and south, the other on the west and northwest, separated from each other by the Belur and Muz-tag ranges, which join with the Tien shan, that divide the isthmus itself into two parts. These deserts united are equal in extent to that of Sahara, but are not as arid and tenantless.

This region has some peculiar features, among which its great elevation, its isolation in respect to its water-courses, and the character of its vegetation, are the most remarkable. Songaria is especially noticeable for the many closed river-basins which occur between the Altai and Tien shan, among the various minor ranges of hills, each of which is entirely isolated, and containing a lake, the receptacle of its drainage. The largest of these singular basins is that of the River Ílí, which runs about three hundred miles westward, from its rise in the Tien shan (lat. 85°) till it falls into Lake Balkash, which also receives some other streams; the superficies of the whole basin is about forty thousand square miles. The other lakes lie north-eastward of Balkash; the largest of them are the Dzaisang, which receives the Irtysh, the Kisilbash, into which the Urungu flows, and four or five smaller ones between them, lying north of the city of Ílí. Lake Temurtu, or Issik-kul, lies now just beyond the southwestern part of this Circuit, and was until recently contained therein. This sheet of water is deep and never freezes; it is brackish, but full of fish; the dimensions are about one hundred miles long, and thirty-five wide; its superabundant waters flow off through the Chu ho into the Kirghís steppe.

The Ala-tau range defines the lake on the north shore. Says a Russian traveller in describing this region, “It would be difficult to imagine anything more splendid than the view of the Tien shan from this spot. The dark blue surface of the Issik-kul, like sapphire, may well bear comparison with the equally blue surface of Geneva Lake, but its expanse—five times as great—seeming almost unlimited, and the matchless splendor of its background, gives it a grandeur which the Swiss lake does not possess. The unbroken, snowy chain here stretches away for at least 200 miles of the length of the Issik-kul; the sharp outlines of the spurs and dark valleys in the front range are softened by a thin mist, which hangs over the water and heightens the clear, sharp outlines of the white heads of the Tien shan giants, as they rise and glisten on the azure canopy of a central Asian sky. The line of perpetual snow commences at three-fifths of their slope up, but as one looks, their snowless base seems to sink the deeper in the far east, till the waves of the lake seem to wash the snowy crests of Khan-Tengsè.” Forty small rivers flow into it, but its size is gradually lessening.[118]

Little is known concerning the topography, the productions, or the civilization of the tribes who inhabit a large part of Songaria, but the efforts of the Chinese government have been systematically directed to developing its agricultural resources, by stationing bodies of troops, who cultivate the soil, there, and by banishing criminals thither, who are obliged to work for and assist the troops. It gives one a higher idea of the rulers of China, themselves wandering nomads originally, when they are seen carrying on such a plan for extending the capabilities of these remote parts of their Empire, and teaching, partly by force, partly by bribes, and partly by example, the Mongol tribes under them the advantages of a settled life.

The productions of Songaria are numerous. Wheat, barley, rice and millet, are the chief corn stuffs; tobacco, cotton, melons, and some fruits, are grown; herds of horses, camels, cattle, and sheep, afford means of locomotion and food to the people, while the mountains and lakes supply game and fish. The inhabitants are composed mostly of Eleuths, with a tribe of Tourgouths, and remnants of the Songares, together with Mongols, Manchus, and Chinese troops, settlers and criminals.

TIEN-SHAN PEH LU AND THE TOWN OF KULDJA.

Tien-shan Peh Lu is divided by the Chinese into three commanderies, Ílí on the west, Tarbagatai on the north, and Kur-kara usu on the east, between Ílí and the west end of Kansuh. The government of the North and South Circuits is under the control of Manchu military officers residing at Ílí. This city, called by the Chinese Hwuiyuen ching, and Gouldja (or Kuldja) and Kuren by the natives, lies on the north bank of the Ílí River, in lat. 43° 55′ N., and long. 81½° E.; it contains about fifty thousand inhabitants, and carries on considerable trade with China through the towns in Kansuh. The city was defended by six strong fortresses in its neighborhood, and the solidity of the stone walls enabled it to resist a vigorous assault in the Dungani rebellion. Its circuit is nearly four miles, and two wide avenues cross its centre, dividing it into four equal parts, through each of which run many lanes. Its houses indicate the Turkish origin of its builders in their clay or adobe walls and flat roofs, and this impression is increased by the Jumma mosque of the Taranchis, and the Dungan mosque, outside of the walls. The last has a wonderful minaret built of small-roofed pavilions one over another; both of them affect the Chinese architecture in their roofs, and their walls are faced with diamond-shaped tiles. The Buddhist temple has hardly been rebuilt since the city has returned to Chinese rule. The supply of meats and vegetables is constant, and the variety and quality exceed that of most other towns in the region. The population is gradually increasing with the return of peace and trade, but is still under twenty thousand, of which not one-fifth are Chinese and Manchus: the Taranchis constitute half of the whole, and Dunganis are the next in number. The province is the richest and best cultivated of all this region of Ílí; its coal, metals, and fruits are sources of prosperity, and with its return to Chinese sway under new relations in respect to Russian trade, its future is promising.

The destruction of life was dreadful at the capture of Kuldja and other towns, which were then left a heap of ruins.[119] Schuyler estimates that not more than a hundred thousand people remained in the province, out of a third of a million in 1860. It is stated in Chinese works that when Amursana, the discontented chief of the Songares, applied, in 1775, to Kienlung for assistance against his rival Tawats or Davatsi, and was sent back with a Chinese army, in the engagements which ensued, more than a million of people were destroyed, and the whole country depopulated. At that time, Kuldja was built by Kienlung, and soon became a place of note. Outside of the town are the barracks for the troops, which consist of Eleuths and Mohammedans, as well as Manchus and Chinese. Coal is found in this region, and most of the inland rivers produce abundance of fish, while wild animals and birds are numerous. The resources of the country are, however, insufficient to meet the expenses of the military establishment, and the presents made to the begs, and the deficit is supplied from China.[120]

Subordinate to the control of the commandant at Kuldja are nine garrisoned places situated in the same valley, at each of which are bodies of Chinese convicts. The two remaining districts of Tarbagatai and Kur-kara usu are small compared with Ílí; the first lies between Cobdo and the Kirghís steppe, and is inhabited mostly by emigrants from the steppes of the latter, who render merely a nominal subjection to the garrisons placed over them, but are easily governed through their tribal rulers. The Tourgouths, who emigrated from Russia in 1772, into China, are located in this district and Cobdo, as well as in the valleys of the Tekes and Kunges rivers. They have become more or less assimilated with other tribes since they were placed here. In the war with the Songares, many of the people fled from the valley of Ílí to this region, and after that country was settled, they submitted to the Emperor, and partly returned to Ílí. The chief town, called Tuguchuk by the Kirghís, and Suitsing ching by the Chinese, is situated not far from the southern base of the Tarbagatai Mountains, and contains about six hundred houses, half of which belong to the garrison. It is one of the nine fortified towns under the control of the commandant at Kuldja, and a place of some trade with the Kirghís. There are two residents stationed here, with high powers to oversee the trade across the frontier, but their duties are inferior in importance to those of the officials at Urga. 2,500 Manchu and Chinese troops remain at this post, and since the conquest of the country in 1772 by Kienlung, its agricultural products have gradually increased under the industry of the Chinese. The tribes dwelling in this distant province are restricted within certain limits, and their obedience secured by presents. The climate of Tarbagatai is changeable, and the cold weather comprises more than half the year. The basin of Lake Ala-kul, or Alaktu-kul, occupies the southwest, and part of the Irtysh and Lake Dzaisang the northeast, so that it is well watered. The trade consists chiefly of domestic animals and cloths.

The town of Kur-kara usu lies on the River Kur, northeast from Kuldja and on the road between it and Urumtsi; it is called Kingsui ching by the Chinese. The number of troops stationed at all these posts is estimated at sixty thousand, and the total population of Songaria under two millions.

POSITION OF TIEN-SHAN NAN LU.

The Tien-shan Nan Lu, or Southern Circuit of Ílí, the territory of ‘the eight Mohammedan cities,’ was named Sin Kiang (‘New Frontier’) by Kienlung. It is less fertile than the Northern Circuit, the greatest part of its area consisting of rugged mountains or barren wastes, barely affording subsistence for herds of cattle and goats. The principal boundaries are the Kwănlun Mountains, and the desert, separating it from Tibet on the south; Cashmere lies on the southwest, and Badakshan and Kokand are separated from it on the west and northwest by the Belur-tag, all of them defined and partitioned by the mountain ranges over which the passes 12,000 to 16,000 feet high furnish both defence and travel according to the season.

THE RIVER TARIM AND LOB-NOR.

The greater part of this Circuit is occupied with the basin of the Tarim or Ergu, which flows from the Belur range in four principal branches[121] (called from the towns lying upon their banks the Yarkand, Kashgar, Aksu, and Khoten Rivers), and running eastward, receives several affluents from the north and south, and falls into Lake Lob in long. 89° E., after a course, including windings, of between 1,100 and 1,300 miles. Of the river system from which this stream flows Baron Richthofen says, “the region which gives birth to this river is on a scale of grandeur such as no other river in the world can boast. It is girt round by a wide semicircular collar of mountains of the loftiest and grandest character, often rising in ridges of 18,000 to 20,000 feet in height, while the peaks shoot up to 25,000 and even 28,000 feet. The basin which fills in the horse-shoe shaped space encompassed by these gigantic elevations, though deeply depressed below them, stands at a height above the sea varying from 6,000 feet at the margin to about 2,000 in the middle, and formed the bed of an ancient sea. From its wall-like sides on the south, west, and north, the waters rush headlong down, and though the winds blowing from all directions deposit most of their moisture on the remoter sides of the surrounding ranges, viz., the southern foot of the Himalayas, the west side of the Pamir, and the northern slope of the Tien shan, the streams formed thereby winding through the cloud-capped lofty cradle-land, and breaking through the mountain chains, reach the old ocean bed only partly well watered. The smallest of them disappear in the sand, others flow some distance before expanding into a level salt basin and are there absorbed. Only the largest, whose number the Chinese estimate at sixty, unite with the Tarim, a river 1,150 miles long, and therefore in length between the Rhine and Danube, but far surpassing both in the massiveness of surrounding mountains, just as it exceeds the Danube in the extent of its basin. Its tributaries form along the foot of the mountains a number of fruitful oases, and these by means of artificial irrigation have been converted into flourishing, cultivated states, and have played an important part in the history of these regions.”[122] Col. Prejevalsky’s explorations in this totally unknown country have brought out a multitude of facts pregnant with interest both for historical and geographical study. Among the most important results of his discoveries is the location of Lob more than a degree to the south of its position on Chinese maps, and a consequent bend of the Tarim from its due eastern course before it reaches its outlet. This lake, consisting of two sheets of water, the Kara-buran and Kara-kurchin (or Chon-kul), lies on the edge of the desert, in an uninhabited region, and surrounded by great swamps, which extend also northwest along the Tarim to its junction with the Kaidu. It is shallow, overgrown with weeds, and is for the most part a morass, the water being fresh, despite the salt marshes in the vicinity. The people living near it speak a language most like that of Khoten; they are Moslems. Lake Lob is elliptical, 90 to 100 versts long and 20 wide, 2,200 feet above the sea. Enormous flocks of birds come from Khoten on the south-west, as they go north, and make Lob-nor their stopping-place. The desert in this region is poor and desolate in the extreme. Its southern side is formed by the Altyn-tag range, a spur of the Kwănlun Mountains that rises about 14,000 feet in a sheer wall. Wild camels are found in its ravines, whose sight, hearing, and smell are marvellously acute. No other river basins of any size are found within the Circuit, except a large tributary called the Kaidu, which, draining a parallel valley north of Lob-nor, two hundred miles long, runs into a lake nearly as large, called Bostang-nor, from which an outlet on the south continues it into the Tarim, about eighty miles from its mouth. The tributaries of this river are represented as much more serviceable for agricultural purposes than the main trunk is for navigation. The plain through which the Tarim flows is about two hundred miles broad and not far from nine hundred miles long, most of it unfit for cultivation or pasturage. The desert extends considerably west of the two lakes. The climate of this region is exceedingly dry, and its barrenness is owing, apparently, more to the want of moisture than to the nature of the soil. The western parts are colder than those toward Kansuh, the river being passable on ice at Yarkand, in lat. 38°, for three months, while frost is hardly known at Hami, in lat. 43°.

The productions of the valley of the Tarim comprise most of the grains and fruits found in Southern Europe; the sesamum is cultivated for oil instead of the olive. Few trees or shrubs cover the mountain acclivities or plains. All the domestic animals abound, except the hog, which is reared in small numbers by the Chinese. The camel and yak are hunted and raised for food and service, their coats affording both skins and hair for garments. The horse, camel, black cattle, ass, and sheep, are found wild on the edge of the desert, where they find a precarious subsistence. The mountains and marshes contain jackals, tigers, bears, wolves, lynxes, and deer, together with some large species of birds of prey. Gold, copper, and iron are brought from this region, but the amount is not large, and as articles of trade they are less important than the sal-ammoniac, saltpetre, sulphur, and asbestos obtained from the volcanic region in the east of the Celestial Mountains. The best specimens of the yuh or nephrite, so highly prized by the Chinese, are obtained in the Southern Circuit.

TOWNS OF THE SOUTHERN CIRCUIT.

The present divisions of this Circuit are regulated by the position of the eight Mohammedan cities. The western departments of Kansuh naturally belong to the same region, and the cities now pertaining to that province are inhabited by entirely similar races, and governed in the same feudal manner, with some advantages in consideration of their early submission to Kienlung. The first town on the road, of note, is Hami; Turfan and Pidshan are less important as trading posts than as garrisons. The eight cities are named in the Statistics of the Empire in the following order, beginning at the east: Harashar, Kuché, Ushí (including Sairim and Bai), Aksu, Khoten, Yarkand, Kashgar, and Yingkeshar or Yangi Hissar. The superior officers live at Yarkand, but the Southern Circuit is divided into four minor governments at Harashar, Ushí, Yarkand, and Khoten, each of whose residents reports both to Kuldja and Peking. There is constant restiveness on the part of the subject races, who are all Moslems, arising from their clannish habits and feuds; they have not the elements of substantial progress and national growth, either under their own rulers or Chinese. They have lately thrown off the Peking Government, but they have generally regretted the rapines and waste caused by the strifes and change, and would probably receive the Kitai (so they term the Chinese) back again. The latter are not hard masters, and bring trade and wealth the longer they remain. One of the Usbek chiefs under Yakub khan gave the pith of the situation between the two, when he replied to Dr. Bellew’s remark that he talked like a Chinese himself, “No, I hate them. But they were not bad rulers. We had everything then; we have nothing now. We never see any signs of the Kitai trade, nor of the wealth they brought here.”

Harashar (or Karashar) lies on the Kaidu River, not far from Lake Bagarash or Bostang, about two hundred and ninety miles west of Turfan, in lat. 42° 15′ N., and long. 87° E. It is a large district, and has two towns of some note within the jurisdiction of its officers—namely, Korla and Bukur. Harashar is fortified, and from its being a secure position, and the seat of the chief resident, attracts considerable trade. The embroidery is superior; but the tribes living in the district are more addicted to hunting than disposed to sedentary trades. Korla lies southwest of Harashar on the Kaidu, between lakes Bostang and Lob, and the productions of the town and its vicinity indicate a fertile soil; the Chinese say the Mohammedans who live here are fond of singing, but have no ideas of ceremony or urbanity. Bukur lies two hundred miles west of Korla and “might be a rich and delicious country,” says the Chinese account, “but those idle, vagrant Mohammedans only use their strength in theft and plunder; the women blush at nothing.” The town formerly contained upward of ten thousand inhabitants, but Kienlung nearly destroyed it; the district has been since resettled by Hoshoits, Tourbeths, and Turks, and the people carry on some trade in the produce of their herds, skins, copper, and agates.

Kuché, about eighty miles west from Bukur, lat. 41° 37′ N., and long. 83° 20′ E., is a larger and more important city than that of Harashar, for the road which crosses the Tien shan by the pass Muz-daban to Ílí, here joins that coming from Aksu on the west and Hami on the east. It is three miles in circuit, and is defended by ten forts and three hundred troops. The bazaars contain grain, fruits, and vegetables, raised in the vicinity by great labor, for the land requires to be irrigated by hand from wells, pools, and streams. Copper, sulphur, and saltpetre are carried across to Ílí, for use of government as well as traffic, being partly levied from the inhabitants as taxes; linen is manufactured in the town, and sal ammoniac, cinnabar, and quicksilver are procured from the mountains. Kuché is considered the gate of Turkestan, and is the chief town, politically speaking, between Hami and Yarkand. The district and town of Shayar lie south of Kuché, in a marshy valley producing abundance of rice, melons, and fruit; the pears are particularly good. Two small lakes, Baba-kul and Sary-kamysch, lie to the east of this town, and are the only bodies of water between Bostang-nor and Issik-kul. The population is about four thousand, ruled by begs subordinate to the general at Kuché.

The valley of the Aksu contains two large towns, Aksu and Ushí or Ush-turfan, besides several posts and villages. Between the former and Kuché, lie the small garrisons and districts of Bai and Sairim. The first contains from four to five hundred families, ruled by their own chiefs. Sairim or Hanlemuh is subordinate to Ushí in some degree, but its productions, climate, and inhabitants are like those of Kuché. “Their manners are simple,” remarks a Chinese writer, speaking of the people; “they are neither cowards nor rogues like the other Mohammedans; they are fond of singing, drinking, and dancing, like those of Kuché.” Aksu is a large commercial and manufacturing town, containing twenty thousand inhabitants, situated, like Kuché, at the termination of a road leading across the Tien shan to Ílí, and attracting to its market traders from Siberia, Bokhara, and Kokand, as well as along the great road. Its manufactures of cotton, silk, leather, harnesses, crockery, precious stones, and metals are good, and sent abroad in great numbers. The country produces grain, fruits, vegetables, and cattle in perfection, and the people are more civilized than those on the east and north; “they are generous and noble, and both sing and ridicule the oddities and niggardliness of the other Mohammedans.” The Chinese garrison consists of three thousand soldiers, and the officers are accountable to those at Ushí.

Ushí lies about 70 miles due west of Aksu, in lat. 41° 15′ N. and long. 79° 40′ E., and is stated to contain ten thousand inhabitants. The Chinese name is Yung-ning ching (i.e. ‘City of Eternal Tranquillity’). The officers stationed here report to the commandant at Ílí, but they communicate directly with Peking, and receive the Emperor’s sanction to their choice of begs, and to the envoys forwarded to the capital with tribute. Copper money is cast here in ingots, somewhat like the ingots of sycee in the provinces. There are six forts attached to Ushí, to keep in order the wandering tribes of the Kirghís, called Pruth Kirghís,[123] which roam over the frontier regions between Ushí and Yarkand. They pay homage to the officers at Ushí, but give no tribute. Those who do pay tribute are taxed a tenth, but the Kirghís on this frontier are usually allowed to roam where they like, provided they keep the peace. This region was nearly depopulated by Kienlung’s generals, and at present supports a sparse population compared with its fertility and resources.

THE GOVERNMENT AND TOWN OF KASHGAR.

The government of Kashgar, known, at the time of the Arab conquest, as Kichik Bukhara, presents a vast, undulating plain, of which the slope is very gradual toward the east, and of which the general elevation may be reckoned at from three to four thousand feet above the sea. The aspect of its surface is mostly one of unmitigated waste—a vast spread of bare sand and gloomy salts, traversed in all directions by dunes and banks of gravel, with the scantiest vegetation, and all but absence of animal life. Such is the view that meets the eye and joins the horizon everywhere on the plain immediately beyond the river courses and the settlements planted on their banks.[124] The population of this whole district is considerably less than a million and a half. The natural mineral productions here are of great value, and it is a knowledge of this fact which has induced the Chinese to persevere in retaining so expensive and turbulent a frontier province. The gold and jade of Khoten, silver and lead of Cosharab, and copper of Khalistan, have given abundant employment to Chinese settlers; while coal, iron, sulphur, alum, sal ammoniac, and zinc, though worked in unimportant quantities before the insurrection of Yakub khan (Atalik Ghazi), furnished the inhabitants with supplies for domestic use. An important hinderance to building villages in many sections of this territory is the prevalence of sand dunes here. Solitary houses and even whole settlements lying in the path of these moving hills are suddenly overwhelmed and oftentimes totally effaced.

The town of Kashgar is situated at the northwestern angle of the Southern Circuit, on the Kashgar River, a branch of the Tarim, in lat. 39° 25′ N., and long. 76° 5′ E., at the extreme west of the Empire. Several roads meet here. Going in a northwest direction, one leads over the Tien shan to Kokand; a second passes south, through Yarkand and Khoten, to Leh and Cashmere; a third, the great caravan route, from China through Ushí, may be said to end here; and the fourth and most frequented, leads off northwest over the Tien shan through the Rowat Pass, and along the western banks of Lake Issik-kul to Ílí. Kashgar was the capital of the Ouigours for a long time, and its ruler forced his people, as far east as Hami, to accept Islamism about the year 1000. They then came under Genghis’ sway, and this city increased its importance, but when Abubahr Miza took Yarkand, he razed Kashgar to the ground. Under Chinese rule it became one of the richest marts in Central Asia, and its future importance is secured by its position. The city is enclosed with high and massive walls, supported by buttress bastions, and protected by a deep ditch on three sides, the river flowing under the fourth. There are but two gates; the area within is about fifty acres. Around it are populous suburbs.

In the middle of the town is a large square, and four bazaars branch from it through to the gates; the garrison is placed without the walls. The manufactures of Kashgar excel those of any other town in the two Circuits, especially in jade, gold, silk, cotton, gold and silver cloths, and carpets. The country around produces fruit and grain in abundance; “the manners of the people have an appearance of elegance and politeness,” says the Chinese geographer; “the women dance and sing in family parties; they fear and respect the officers, and have not the wild, uncultivated aspect of those in Ushí.” This judgment is in a measure confirmed by Bellew, who credits the people with being singularly free from prejudice against the foreigners, quite indifferent on any score of his nationality or religion, and content so long as he pays his way and does not offend the customs of the natives. Several towns are subordinate to Kashgar, because of its oversight of their rulers, and consumption of their products. Southwest lies Tash-balig, and on the road leading to Yarkand is Yangi Hissar, both of them towns of some importance; the whole distance from Kashgar presents a succession of sandy or saline tracts, alternating with fertile bottoms wherever water runs. Small villages and post houses serve to connect the larger towns, but the soil does not reward the cultivators with much produce.

THE CITY OF YARKAND.

Yarkand, or Yerkiang, is the political capital of the Southern Circuit, as the highest military officers and strongest force are stationed here. It is situated on the Yarkand River, in lat. 36° 30′ N., and long. 77° 15′ E., in the midst of a sand-girt oasis of great fertility. The environs are abundantly supplied with water by canals. The stone walls are three miles in circumference, but its suburbs are much larger; the houses are built of dried bricks, and the town has a more substantial appearance than others in Ílí. There are many mosques and colleges, which, with the public buildings occupied by the government and troops, add to its consideration. Yarkand is one of the ancient cities of Tartary, and was, in remote times, a royal residence of Turk princes of the Afrasyab dynasty. In modern times it owes its rank as a well-built city chiefly to Abubahr Miza, whose short-lived sway from Aksu to Wakhan left its chief results in the mosques and bazaars erected or enlarged by him. By means of quarrying jade in the Karakash valley, and working the bangles, ear-rings and other articles in the city, thousands of families found employment under Chinese rule.

With the overthrow of that sway and then of Yakub khan in its restoration, all this industry disappeared. In the destruction ensuing on these long struggles for supremacy, one learns the explanation of the barbarism which has succeeded the downfall of mighty empires all over Western Asia. The city has no important manufactures; it enjoys a local reputation for its leather, and boots and shoes made here are esteemed all over the province. Among other articles of trade are horses, silk, and wool, and fabrics made from them; but everything found at Kashgar is sold also at this market. In a Chinese notice of the city, the customs at Yarkand are stated to have yielded over $45,000 annually; the taxes are 35,400 sacks of grain, 57,569 pieces of linen, 15,000 lbs. of copper, besides gold, silk, varnish, and hemp, part of which are carried to Ílí. Jade is obtained from the river in large pieces, yellow, white, black, and reddish, and the articles made from it are carried to China. The Chinese authorities have no objection to the resorting thither of natives of Kokand, Badakshan, and other neighboring states, many of whom settle and marry.