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I told him all I knew of Bokhara, and Samarkand, and Tashkend, and Yarkand. I showed him the passes in the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush. I traced out the rivers, and I calculated distances; we talked over imaginary campaigns, and set up fanciful constitutions. It a was childish game, but I found it interesting enough.
The text is here obviously transposed. While the editor endeavours to illustrate and explain the descriptions of the author, he does not consider himself at liberty to alter the text, even in the most obviously faulty places. Charchan, Charcham, Carcam, Hiarkand, Jarkun, Jerket, Jerken, Urkend; such are the varieties in the editions of these travels, for the Yarkand of modern maps.
They were Turks, and had been sent by those in authority within the city to climb the tallest tree of the group and discover if the enemy was near. For Rob's conjecture had been correct, and the city of Yarkand awaited, with more or less anxiety, a threatened assault from its hereditary enemies, the Tatars.
Unrest began among the Mohammedans throughout the neighbouring western Turkestan, and the same Chinese generals who had fought the Kalmuks marched into Turkestan and captured the Mohammedan city states of Uch, Kashgar, and Yarkand.
In fact, an English embassy under Chapman and Gordon in 1873 and 1874 had been sent from Kashmir to Kachgar by way of Kothan and Yarkand. At this time the English had reason to hope that commercial relations could be established to their advantage.
The amban and his officers were divided in council and dilatory in execution. The Tungani heard of the plot while the governor was summoning the nerve to carry it out. They resolved to anticipate him. The Mohammedans at Yarkand, the largest and most important garrison in the country, rose in August, 1863, and massacred all the Buddhist Chinese. Seven thousand men are computed to have fallen.
This paragraph ought obviously to have followed the account of Cashgar. Cotan, Cotam, Hotum, Khoten, Khotan, from which the useful material of manufacture, cotton, takes its name. But instead of being between the east and north-east direction from Yarkand, as in the text, or E.N.E. it is actually E.S.E. E. Called likewise Ciarciam, Ciartiam, and Sartam, in different editions.
A small band fled to the citadel, which they held for a short time; but at length, overwhelmed by numbers, they preferred death to dishonor, and destroyed themselves by exploding the fort with the magazine. The defection of the Tungani thus lost Kashgaria for the Chinese, as the other garrisons and towns promptly followed the example of Yarkand; but they could not keep it for themselves.
We halted at Lagshung, at the house of a friendly zemindar, who pressed upon me the loan of a big Yarkand horse for the ford, a kindness which nearly proved fatal; and then by shingle paths through lacerating thickets of the horrid Hippophae rhamnoides, we reached a chod-ten on the shingly bank of the river, where the Tibetans renewed their prayers and offerings, and the final orders for the crossing were issued.
In the midst of this picturesque confusion, the short, square-built, Lhassa traders, who face the blazing sun in heavy winter clothing, exchange their expensive tea for Nubra and Baltistan dried apricots, Kashmir saffron, and rich stuffs from India; and merchants from Yarkand on big Turkestan horses offer hemp, which is smoked as opium, and Russian trifles and dress goods, under cloudless skies.
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