Peking to Lhasa : vol.1 / Page 138 (Color Image)

0138	Peking to Lhasa : vol.1

104 PEKING TO LHASA

through the suburbs and the eastern gate Pereira

arrived at the house of Père Schram of the Belgian

Mission.

The city of Sining has a population of about

40,000, and Pereira computed its elevation at

7140 feet, though various other travellers have

put it between 6978 feet and 7500 feet. The

district of Sining was not brought under Chinese

rule till about 1720 or 1730. Since then all the

troubles in Kansu have been caused by religious

antipathies. The rivalry between old and new

sects of Mohammedans has been seized on by the

Chinese for their own ends, but this has had the

opposite effect of uniting the Mohammedans against

them. At the time of Pereira's visit the new sect,

of which Ma Ch'i was the leader, was in the ascend-

ant. After the rebellion of the Mohammedans

in 1895, when they attacked and failed to take

Sining, the east suburb where they lived was

totally destroyed. It was rebuilt entirely by

Ma Ch'i, beginning in 1918, and by 1922 was once

more a busy centre with a fine new mosque.

Ma Ch'i was originally a small military officer.

He was pushed on by Ma Fu-hsiang, and when

strong enough to act on his own quarrelled with

the then head of the Kansu Mohammedans, who

favoured the old sect while Ma Ch'i favoured the

new sect. The difference between the two was

that the old put their faith in the Koran whilst

the new thought that book was not of much value

and put their faith in later traditions. But of this

new sect itself there are several varieties, a small

one at T'aochow admitting a mixture of Christi-

anity and Buddhism. The influence of Ma An

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