Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/268

240 opinion of the Chinese government entertained by its distant subjects:—"The Kalmuk chief is informed by a message couched in terms most complimentary to his conduct, that his presence at court will be highly gratifying to the emperor; and if the chief plead indisposition, he is allowed to defer his visit to the second year, but no longer. On his arrival at Peking he is received with the greatest attention and respect, is lodged and entertained at the expense of the emperor, speedily introduced to the sovereign, is most graciously noticed and loaded with presents, at least to double the value of those he has offered to the acceptance of the monarch, and after a residence of a stated period, seldom exceeding eight days, has his audience of leave, and departs with some increase of titular honour. At every military station, or corps de garde, on the road of which there are said to be the enormous number of three hundred and sixty between Peking and Yarkund, he is furnished with all the accommodations he and his attendants can stand in need of, and amongst which tea constitutes a never-falling article.

'"To some officer of considerable rank the imperial order to administer poison to the unsuspecting Kalmuk has been previously communicated. Its effects, though slow, are sure. So familiar, it would seem, are the Chinese with this instrument of destruction, that its very agents occasionally become its voluntary victims. For when the Chinese governors of places, far removed from the seat of supreme government, have abused their power, and received such an intimation as convinces them that the tribunal to which they are responsible have proof of their delinquency, they, if their crime be of a capital nature, generally prefer the poisoned cup, which preserves their persons from public disgrace, and their property from confiscation, to the risk of losing life, honour, and estates, by the hand of the executioner. I speak here from reports of transactions stated to have occurred on the frontier I am bout to approach. After the heir of the Kalmuk chief has performed the funeral duties, he repairs to Eela, and from Joongjoong. Umbau, or principal Chinese resident, receives the investiture of his late father's office, accompanied by the usual insignia and dresses, along with a donation of ingots of silver, on the part of the emperor, proportioned to his rank and expenses. Gratified by his early elevation, he probably inquires not minutely into its immediate cause, and occupied in the indulgence of those appetites, which for the most part predominate in wealthy and uneducated individuals during the early portion of their lives, he may not feel the impulse of ambition till he nearly reaches that period period when its birth and his life are about to be extinguished together."' government, and generally in tea. His son, who succeeds to his rank, deprived of the power of profiting by his father's experience, acquires information only from his own opportunity and energies; and, whatever his mental acquisitions may be, he generally dies before they are communicated to his heir. By this nefarious system the Chinese prevent, as they conceive, the accumulation of much wisdom and experience in any Kalmuk chief, and the risk of its producing the political elevation of the Kalmuk race.

'The Moosulman population of Khoten now, as in the time of Marco Polo, are principally engaged in works of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, and have little disposition for the profession of arms.

'The domestic animals of the country of Khoten are horses, in great numbers, of a hardy kind, but of a small size. Yaks bred on the mountains, and common neat cattle on the plains. Sheep of the Doomba, or broad-tailed variety, are reared in vast numbers, but the tails of these are much. smaller than those of the Kosak Chief;—their wool is very fine but short, as it is shorn twice a-year.