Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/317

Rh among the inhabitants of the town, Shang-hu. 3. Chinese vagrants who have been colonized here, An-cha-hu. 4. Exiles, including those whose term of banishment has expired, and who have joined the class of agriculturists, Tsian-hu. Each class forms a separate commune with an elder, called Tou-mu, or Siang-yu, to whom reference is made in cases of official interference, whence their authority is very great.

Besides the classes we have enumerated, there are the gardeners, Yuan-hu, who hire land from government, but as they do not form part of the regular population, they are not included among the natives. The tradesmen and operatives mostly belong to the class of exiles, and these also supply servants for the townspeople.

The colonists do not live in villages but in detached farms, each on his own land. They never fertilise the soil with manure, but sow their crops in regular rotation. Owing to the depth to which the ground is frozen in winter no corn is sown in autumn but all in spring. Those colonists who belong to the class of exiles return to Urumchi after the harvest is over, and engage in other occupations, repairing to their fields again in spring for the sowing. The merchants often buy the growing crops of the peasants, paying for them as they come up and afterwards gathering them themselves.

Wheat and oats are chiefly cultivated at a place called Gau-tai; rice is also sown, but what kind of rice, the dry or the watery, the author does not mention. Oats are used for feeding cattle and distilling brandy. Oatmeal also serves the inhabitants for food. Of the vegetables produced by the gardeners, the author praises the cabbage and turnip in particular. Two kinds of poppy are also cultivated. But in its fruit and all the other produce of its soil, this country is far behind the neighbouring Turkestan. The tobacco cultivated at Urumchi is said to be excellent. Asafœtida and madder are also among its productions, the