Untitled

BOUTES AND PASSES. 69
which seem to have found their way from Orenburg without leaving any trace of
their passage in the Sir and Oxus basins. The East Turkestan dialect, which is
spoken with great uniformity throughout the Tarira basin, possesses no literary
importance. It boasts of neither poets nor prose writers, and even books are
extremely rare in the country.
The strangers here settled come mostly from Ferghana, and are collectively
known as Andijani, from the name of the old capital of Kokhand. Hindus are
met only in the bazaars of the chief towns, but Kashmiri people are numerous, and
some Tibetan settlers from Baltistan raise tobacco and melons in the Yarkand
district. The Jews were till recently almost unknown in the country, Yakub, like
the Emir of Bokhara, having excluded them from his kingdom. But since the
return of the Chinese numerous Jewish families have crossed the eastern slope of
the Pamir from Russian Turkestan. Under Yakub the law for strangers was,
" Islam or death," the Kalmuks alone being allowed to retain their Buddhist
fetishes. The Kashgarians entertain a great aversion for Christians of the
Catholic and Greek rites, who place images or statues in their churches. But they
regard the iconoclastic Protestants as Mohammedans of an inferior order, neglect-
ing the observances, but none the less forming part of the great family of Islam.
But with all their zeal the people are extremely immoral, and thousands have been
brutalised by the use of opium, or of nnshu, a mixture of an extract of hemp and
tobacco, which is highly intoxicating. Apart, however, from the tricks of trade,
robbery and theft are rare. When a pack animal strays from the caravan the load
is left on the spot while they go in search of it. In Yakub's time the method of
dealing with thieves was at once simple and summary
: for the first offence a warn-
ing, for the second the bastinado, for the third loss of both hands, for the fourth
decapitation.
Chinese Turkestan is on the whole a poor country, although Shaw found it
superior to India as regards the well-being of the people. Yet the mud houses are
not even whitewashed, and the dust penetrates everywhere through the fissures.
Even in the large towns the remains of edifices are rarely seen embellished with
enamelled porcelain and arabesques, like those of Samarkand and Bokhara.
Industry seems to have declined, judging at least from the descriptions of the
Chinese records and the valuable treasures often brought to light from the debris
of old buildings buried under the sands. The chief local industries are cotton,
silk, and woollen fabrics, carpets, boots, and saddlery. Notwithstanding the rich
mineral deposits, most of the copper and iron wares are imported, as are also all
the woven goods of finer quality. At present most of these articles come from
Russia, the imports from India being of little value.
ROUTES AND PASSES.
Between Lake Karashar and the sources of the Kashgar-daria, Kuropatkin
enumerates thirteen passes used by the caravans crossing the Tian-shan and its
western prolongation, the Ala'i. All these passes are practicable in summer for