KASHGAR-THE YELLOW PERIL-TAOTAI AND
CONSUL GENERAL
KASHGAR is the seat of a provincial government whose head is a Taotai. His power extends to that western verge of empire over whose rough border we have just passed. Among all the Chinese governors he is farthest removed by distance from the source of authority in Pekin. To whatever difficulty this condition may create is added that inherent in the task of governing a population alien in race and religion, and the yet greater difficulty due to the aggressiveness of the neighbouring Russians. Between the Taotai and the throne there is, in the official hierarchy, one other magnate —a viceroy, stationed about six hundred miles eastward, and having all of Chinese Turkestan within his administration. As numbers go in Chinese provinces, this proconsulate cannot be ranked high, with its one or two million souls, as against an average of fifteen or twenty millions for the Eighteen Provinces. But its peculiar constitution and its exposed situation must give it importance as long as there exists in Pekin a government cherishing the prestige of the Great Empire. It was through this region that Mohammedanism has blazed its way
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