Page:From Kulja, across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879).djvu/22

Rh facilities they afforded for smuggling merchandise through the frontier custom-houses. Their real object, as a mere cloak for purposes of trade, was soon recognized by the Chinese Government, and since the large number of foreigners entering the country in the train of the envoys gave rise to numerous disputes and much inconvenience, orders were issued for placing them under severe restrictions, and the operation of these regulations soon led to their discontinuance.

The most noted amongst these independent tribes seem to have been the Uighurs, whose chief, Satuk Boghra Khan, was the first Tartar prince who brought the Uighur people together as a nation. His empire extended from the shores of the Caspian to the Desert of Gobi, and the frontiers of China. He, moreover, introduced Islam into Eastern Turkestan towards the end of the tenth century.

The government of the Uighur passed into the hands of the Gurkhan of the Kara Khitai about the beginning of the thirteenth century. These Uighurs were Turks, and were known to the Chinese as Hoei-hoei. In the second half of the eighth century and beginning of the ninth they were all powerful in Eastern Asia, and had their capital in Karakorum.

Nestorian Christianity was widely spread among them, and it was from the Nestorians that they doubtless derived their alphabet, which is founded