CHAP. XX.

SOCIAL RELATIONS.

455

But the higher officials do not escape so easily; they are obliged to wear the dress prescribed to their rank, long mustaches, and pigtail; and, most dreadful of all, they must on holidays appear in the pagodas, and perform a sort of homage before the unveiled portrait of the emperor, by touching the ground three times with the forehead. The Mussulmans assert that their countrymen filling high offices hold on such occasions, concealed between their fingers, a small scrap of paper, with "Mecca" written upon it, and that by this sleight of hand their genuflexion becomes an act of veneration, not to the sovereign of the Celestial Empire, but to the holy city of the Arabian Prophet.

In social matters it is easy to conceive how two such discordant elements as the Chinese and Mussulmans live together. Warm, friendly relations seem, under the circumstances, impossible; but I fancy that I can discern, nevertheless, that no peculiar animosity exists between the two classes. The Chinese, who are the minority, never allow the Tartars to feel that they are rulers, and the authorities distinguish themselves by the greatest impartiality. As conversion to the dominant religion is singularly displeasing to the Chinese, it is not surprising that their efforts carefully tend not only to make the Mussulmans exact in the performance of their religious duties, but to punish severely those who, in this respect, offend. Does a Mussulman omit to pray, the Chinese are wont to say to him, "Behold how ungrateful thou art; we have some hundreds of gods, and, nevertheless, we satisfy them all. Thou pretendest to have but one God, and yet that one thou canst not content!"

Even the mollahs, as I often had occasion to obserts extol the conscientiousness of the Chinese officials although they deal with their religion in the mist unsparing terms. So, also, the Tartars are never tired of praising the art and cleverness of their rulers, and there is no end to their laudatory strains when they once begin to speak upon the subject of the power of the djong kafir (great unbelievers), i. e, the genuine Chinese.*

And is it not again most astonishing that all the followers of Islamism, including those who are farthest to the west, as well as those to be found on its most distant eastern boundaries, whether Turks, Arabs, Persians, Tartars, or Özbegs, ridicule and mock at their own faults just in the same degree as they praise and extol the virtues and merits of the nations not Mohammedan? This is the account I heard every where. They admit that taste for the arts, humanity, and unexampled love of justice are attributes of the kafir (unbelievers), and yet you hear them, with their eyes glancing fire, using an expres sion like that attributed to a Frenchman after the battle of Rosbach, "God be praised that I am a Mussulman!"t

* The taking of Pekin by the Anglo-French army has not remained hidden from them. When I asked Hadji Bilal how that was reconcilable with the boasted omnipotence of the Chinese, he observed that the Frenghis had employed cunning, and had begun by stupefying all the inhabitants of Pekin with opium, and then had naturally and easily made their way into the slumbering city.

↑ “El hamdü lilla ena Müszlim.”

CHAP. XX.

CITIES. THE KHOKANDI KHODJA.

457

(c.) Cities.

Among the cities, of which we give a list in the account of routes in Chinese Tartary, the most flourishing are Khoten and Yarkend. The largest are Turfan Ili and Komul; and the objects of most pious veneration, Aksu and Kashgar. In the last, which boasts 105 mosques (probably, however, only mud huts destined for prayer), and twelve medresse, there is the venerated tomb of Hazreti Afak, the national saint of Chinese Tartary. Hazreti Afak means "his highness the horizon," a phrase by which is meant to be expressed the infinity of the talents of the saint. His actual name was Khodja Sadik. He contributed much to form the religious character of the Tartars. It is said that Kashgar originally was more considerable, and that its population was more numerous than is the case at present. This decay is owing alone to the invasion of the Khokandi Khodja, who every year surprise the city, drive the Chinese into their fortifications, and remain there plundering and despoiling, until the besieged garrison have dispatched their formal interrogatory to Pekin, and have obtained official permission to assume the of fensive. The Khokandi Khodja, a troop of greedy adventurers, have thus for years been in the habit of plundering the city, and yet the Chinese never cease to be Chinese.

CHAPTER XXI.

COMMUNICATION OF CENTRAL ASIA WITH RUSSIA, PERSIA, AND INDIA.-ROUTES IN THE THREE KHANATS AND CHINESE TARTARY.

Or all the foreign countries with which Central Asia is in relation, Russia is that with which it has the most active correspondence.

(a) From Khiva the caravans proceed to Astrakhan and Orenburg, whence many wealthy merchants reach Nishnei Novogorod, and even St. Petersburg.

(b) From Bokhara an uninterrupted correspondence particularly active in summer-is kept up with Orenburg. This is the most usual journey, and is performed in from fifty to sixty days. Extraordinary circumstances may, indeed, render it longer or shorter; but, except in times of unusual disturbances among the Kirghis, even the smallest cara

vans undertake it.

(c) From Tashkend caravans go to Orenburg and Kizil Djar (Petropavlosk). They reach the first in from fifty to sixty days, and the latter in from fifty to seventy. These are always the most numerous caravans, the district they traverse being the most dangerous.

(d) The route from Namengan and Aksu to Pulat (Semipalatinsk) is frequented, for the most part, by Khokandi caravans, which proceed under strong escort, and arrive at their destination in forty days.

CHAP. XXI.

COMMUNICATION WITH RUSSIA, ETC.

459

Solitary travelers may pass among the Kirghis unmolested. Of course, I mean when they travel like dervishes. Many of my fellow-travelers had performed the journey to Mecca by Semipalatinsk, Orenburg, Kasan, and Constantinople.

Thus far I have spoken of the communications of Central Asia toward the north. Toward the south they are far less important. Khiva is accustomed to send one or two small caravans to Persia by the way of Astrabad and Deregöz. Bokhara shows somewhat more activity; but no caravans have passed by Merv to Meshed during the last two years, the Tekke having interrupted all communication. The most frequented route is by Herat, at which city the caravans separate, accordingly as they proceed to Persia or Afghanistan and India. The way by Karshi and Balkh to Kabul is only of secondary importance, because the difficulties of surmounting the Hindukush offer constant and serious obstacles, and during the last two years this route has not been much frequented.

Besides the above-named communication on a great scale, we must mention the slender thread of correspondence maintained by single pilgrims or beggars from the most hidden parts of Turkestan with the remotest parts of Asia. Nothing is more interesting than these vagabonds, who leave their native nests without a farthing in their pockets to journey for thousands of miles in countries of which they previously hardly know the names, and among nations entirely different from their own in physiognomy, language, and customs. Without farther consid