Khotan. As the Khotani " infidels" clung to the Buddhist faith, the four saints by power of prayer destroyed their city, then called Khal-khalimachin. Thereupon twelve thousand people became Mohammedans, and built the new city of Khotan. Of the remaining pagan inhabitants, seventeen thousand, with Nuktereshid-Chuktereshid, their king, came to Choka, and built the city whose ruins I discovered. Forty years later, the Imams followed them, and naturally were refused admission. A man of Choka, however, who had secretly become a Mohammedan, came out by stealth, and led them to the water supply of the city. As the water flowed in an underground conduit, its exact course was not evident. The Imams prayed for guidance. At once a tree sprouted, grew to maturity, flowered, and produced fruit, a delicate red crab-apple peculiar to the terrace villages. Knowing that the tree must grow from the water, they dug a hole, and found the conduit, and dropped into it a red crab-apple. The apple swirled round and round in the swift stream, and finally was sucked downward. Thereupon the water dried up. The city was forthwith abandoned, the people moving on eastward through SaiBagh and Nura to Imamla on the Ak-Sai River. Thither, in course of time, the zealous Imams followed them for the final combat. The pagan king was encamped higher up the Ak-Sai than were the few Mohammedans, and the water which came to the latter was polluted. The Imams dispatched a pious subordinate, whose fervent prayer caused the Ak-Sai to be diverted eastward into the Kara Su, where part of it still flows. This did not quench the ardor of the pagans, however, for soon after, when the Mohammedans
IIIF Color HighRes
