IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
176 THE PULSE OF ASIA
people from Dumuka, who cultivated fields in both places. In 1900, the population amounted to twenty-five families; but since then the supply of water has again decreased, part of the people have gone back to their old homes, and the cultivated area has diminished from three thousand to fourteen hundred "mulaks."
In answer to my further inquiries as to the history of the region, Ismail Beg sent for a "tezgireh" like that of Imamla, a dull, but apparently accurate contemporary chronicle of the Mohammedan invasion. It is written in the Turki language in monotonous couplets, of which the following is a sample, with a translation in the same metre:—
" Lâchinâta yûrdilér,
Kéya [Keriya] déyasi géldilér." ~
"Lâchinata conquered, they Kéya-ward pursue their way."
The chronicle describes how, in the tenth century, the C
Moslem invaders advanced along the line of oases from b;
Kashgar through Yarkand and Khotan to Keriya. They killed some of the Buddhist " Kafirs," or " infidels," con-
verted
others, and caused the rest to flee north across the ¢i
desert. Chira is described at length with reference to local sites well known to-day, so that we may assume it to have been much the same as at present. Having conquered Chira, the invaders sacked Lachinata and Ulugh Mazar, or Terkhi Turkhan and Kenan, as they are also called. Of the inhabitants of Kenan, which is said to have been a city with a gate of gold, two hundred and forty-one adult men were killed, and five or six hundred became Mohammedans. If Lachinata were equally large, as appears from the ruins, the
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