Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/661

Rh EAST.] TURKESTAN 639 grown in the gardens. KASHGAR (q.v. ), surrounded by a series of ]&amp;gt;opulous villages, is the chief commercial centre, owing to its posi tion on the highway to Lake Issyk-kul. It is surrounded by forts, one standing at the confluence of the Kashgar and Yarkand rivers. KHOTAN (q.v.) or Iltchi (also Yu-thian), a very populous city under the Han dynasty of China (206 B.O.-1 A.D.), has much declined of late. It is renowned for its gold mines, and especially for its jade and its musk. Copper kettles, carpets, some silk, and felt ware are manufactured. Sanju (7000 houses), Kilian, Pialma, Guma, Kargatyk, and Posgan, on the sloj&amp;gt;es of the Kuen-Lun between Yarkand and Khotan, are the richest parts of the region. Naya, Kiria, Tchira, all on small rivers flowing from the Kuen-Lun, con tinue the line of oases towards the east, terminating in Tchertchen, which now consists of but a few score of houses. The oases at the base of the Tian-Shan are Utch-Turfan (Ust-Turfan), Ak-su (formerly the capital of Sairam), Bai, Kutcha with Shah-yar, Bugur, Kurta, Karashar, and Turfan. Their inhabitants grow corn to a consider able amount, and keep numerous herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. The chief exports are wool, fowls, and the horns of the maral deer. Ou the lower Tarim, where a few settlements, supported chiefly by fishing, continue to struggle against the encroaching desert, the ruins of formerly populous towns testify that the region was not always the dreary waste it now is. The population is mixed, Aryans and Turanians being thoroughly intermingled. On the slopes of the Pamir, about Sary-kol, there is a purely Aryan population of Persian Galtchas. Kirghiz and Kara- Kirghiz inhabit the slopes of the Tian-Shan. Kalmucks occur in the north-east ; and in the central parts the population consists of Turkish Sarts and Uzbegs and of Persian Tajak, the Mongolian clement increasing towards the north-east The language is Turkish, like that spoken in West Turkestan, with several varieties of patois and a considerable addition of Chinese words. As a rule, the inhabitants of East Turkestan have an air of jioverty. There are no rich mosques in their towns, such as those of Samarkand and Bokhara ; the houses are of unbaked brick and poorly furnished. The dress is that customary in West Turkestan. But the habits of the people differ to some extent and the women enjoy greater liberty than in other Mohammedan countries : they go in the streets unveiled ; free marriages, contracted for short terms, are not un- frequent. As a rule, the position of women is more independent a feature noticed even by the earliest travellers in the country. The aggregate population of East Turkestan, estimated between 575,000 and 1,500,000 in 1825, is now (1887) hardly more than 1 ,000,000. Kuropatkin estimates it at 1,200,000, Forsyth at 600,000. The population of the chief towns may be stated approximately as follows Yarkand, 60,000 ; Kashgar, 50,000 ; Khotan, 40,000 ; Sanju, 35,000 ; Ak-su, 20,000 ; Kiria, 15,000 ; Yanghi-hissar, 10,000 ; Kargatyk, 10,000 ; Kurta, 6000. It appears very probable that at the dawn of history East Turke stan was inhabited by an Aryan population, the ancestors of the present Slavonic and Teutonic races, and that a civilization not inferior to that of Bactriana had already developed at that time in the region of the Tarim. l Our knowledge, however, of the history of the region is very fragmentary until about the beginning of the Christian era. When the Huns (Hiong-nu) occupied west and east Mongolia in 177 B.C., they drove before them the Yue-chi (Yutes, Yetes, or Ghetes), who divided into two hordes, one of which in vaded the valley of the Indus, while the other met the Sacse in East Turkestan and drove them over the Tian-Shan into the valley of the Hi. Thus by the beginning of our era the Tarim region had a mixed population of Aryans and Ural-Altaians, some being settled agriculturists and others nomads. There were also several inde- lendent cities, of which Khotan was the most important. One portion of the Aryans emigrated and settled in what is now Wakhan (on the Pamir plateau), the present language of which seems very old, dating anterior to the separation of the Yedic and Zend languages. In the 1st century the Chinese extended their rule westwards over East Turkestan as far as Kashgar. But their dominion seems to have been merely nominal, for it was soon shaken off. By the end of the 5th century the western parts fell under the sway of the &quot;White Huns&quot; or Ephthalites, while the eastern parts were under Tangut (Thygun) dominion. The Chinese, how ever, still retained the region about Lob- Nor. Buddhism penetrated into the country at an early date ; but in East Turkestan there were also followers of Zoroastrianism, of Nestorian Christianity,
 * ind even of Manichseism. An active trade was carried on by means

i Such is the conclusion reached by Lassen (Indische Alterthttmskiinde), and supported by M. Grigorieff (Hitter s Asien in Russ. transl. ; Addenda to &quot;East Turkestan,&quot; in Russian). In connexion with the objection based upon the sub-boreal character of the regions which were the cradle of the Aryans, as I roved by the so-called palaeontology of the Aryan languages, it may be ob served that by the end of the Glacial, and during the earlier Lacustrine (Post- (Macial) period, the vegetation of Turkestan and of Central Asia was quite different from what it is now. It was Siberian or north European. The researches by M. Krasnoff (see above, p. 635) as to the characters of the former flora of the Tian-Shan, and the changes it has undergone in consequence of the extremely rapid desiccation of Central Asia, must be carefully borne in mind in all speculations founded upon the testimony of language as to the original home of the Aryans. of numerous caravans. The civilization and political organization of the country were dominated by the Chinese, but were also in fluenced to some extent by Gneco-Bactrian civilization. Buddhism spread rapidly in the south-west, and the study of Pali became widely diffused. Our information as to the state of the country from the 2d century to the first half of the 7th is slight, and is chiefly derived from the Journeys of the Buddhist pilgrim Fa-hien in 399, Song-yun in 518, and Hwen-t sang in 629. By this time Buddhism had reached its culminating point : in Khotan there were 100 monasteries and 5000 monks, and the Indian sacred literature was widely diffused ; but already there were tokens of its decay. Even theil the eastern parts of the Tarim basin seem to have been growing less and less populous. To the east of Khotan cities which were prosperous when visited by Song-yun had a century later fallen into ruins, while their inhabitants had migrated westwards. Legend has it that all the inhabitants of Go-lao-lo-tsia were buried in a sandstorm, and this seems to be but a poetical way of represent ing a phenomenon which was steadily going on in East Turkestan. Little is known about these regions during the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries. In the 7th century the Tibetan king, Srong-btsan, with the help of the western Turks, subjugated the western part of the Tarim basin. During the following century the Mohammedans under Kotaiba, after several excursions into West Turkestan, took Samarkand, Ferghana, Tashkend, and Khokand (712-713), and invaded East Turkestan, penetrating as far as Turfan and China. The Chinese supremacy was not shaken by these invasions. But, on the outbreak of internal disturbances in China, the Tibetans took possession of the western provinces of China, and intercepted the communications of the Chinese with Kashgaria, so that they had to send their troops through the lands of the Hui-khe (Hoei-ke, or Hoei-hu). In 790 the Tibetans were masters of East Turkestan ; but their rule was never strong, and towards the 9th century we find the country under the Hoi-he. Who these people were is somewhat uncertain. According to Chinese documents, they came from the Selenga ; but most Orientalists identify them with the Uigurs. In the opinion of M. Grigorieff, whom we follow in this sketch, 2 the Turks who succeeded the Chinese in the western parts of East Turkestan were the Karluk Turks, who extended farther south-west up to Kashmir, while the north-eastern parts of the Tarim region were subdued by the Uigurs. Soon Mongolian hordes, the Kara-Kitais, entered East Turkestan (llth aentury), and then penetrated into West Turkestan, Khiva falling under their dominion. During the following century Jenghiz Khan overran China, Turke stan, India, Persia, Kussia, and Hungary; Kashgaria fell under his rule in 1220, though not without strenuous resistance followed by massacres. The Mongolian rule was, however, not very heavy, the Mongols merely exacting tribute. In fact, Kashgaria flourished under them, and the fanaticism of Islam was considerably abated. Women again acquired greater independence, and the religious toleration then established permitted Christianity and Buddhism to spread freely. This state of affaire lasted until the 14th century, when Tughlak Tiinur, who extended his dominions to the Kuen- Lun, accepted Islam. He transferred his capital from Ak-su to Kashgar, and had a summer residence on the banks of Issyk-kul. His son reigned at Samarkand, but was overthrown by Timur-lang (see TIMTJE), and the reign of the great conqueror was a fertile source of suffering to the region. To put an end to the attacks of the wild Tian-Shan tribes, he undertook in 1389 his renowned march to Dzungaria, which was devastated ; East Turkestan also suffered severely. The re-introduction of Islam was of no benefit to the Tarim region. In the 14th and 15th centuries Bokhara and Samarkand became centres of Moslem scholarship, and sent great numbers of their learned doctors to Kashgaria. Rubruquis, who visited East Turkestan in 1254, Marco Polo between 1271 and 1275, and Hois in 1680, all bore witness to great religious tolerance ; but this entirely disappeared with the invasion of the Bokhariau mollahs. They created in East Turkestan the power of the khojas, who afterwards fomented the many intestine wars waged between the rival factions of the White and the Black Mountaineers. In the 17th century a powerful Kalmuck confederation arose in Dzungaria, and extended its sway over the Hi and Issyk-kul basins, having its capital on the Hi. To this power or to the Kirghiz the &quot;Whites &quot; and &quot;Blacks&quot; alternately appealed in their struggles, in which Yarkand supported the latter and Kashgar the former. These struggles paved the way for a Chinese invasion, which was supported by the White khojas of Kashgar. The Chinese entered Dzungaria in 1758, and there perpetrated a terrible massacre, the victims being estimated at one million. The Kalmucks fled and Dzungaria be came a Chinese province, with a military colonization of Sibos, Solons, Dahurs, Chinese criminals, and Moslem Dzungars. The Chinese next re-conquered East Turkestan, marking their progress by massacres and transporting 12,500 partisans of independence to the Hi valley. Hereupon the dissentient khojas fled to Khokand and there gathered armies of malcontents and fanatic followers of 2 See Hitter s Asien, &quot; East Turkestan &quot; (Russ. trans.), ii. 282 ; also Kurnjiat- kin s Kashgaria.