THE DRY RIVER AND THE DRY MOUNTAINS 267
south of Tikkenlik on the Konche River. Accordingly, a large fort was built there, and in 1893 the amban of Jan Kul was removed to Dural, which in turn " became a town." For three years the " boom " continued, but by 1897 the soil had become so saline and the crops so poor that the colonists began to move away. In 1898, to offset this loss, over two thousand rebellious Dungans were induced, or forced, to come from Shi-Ning, eight hundred miles to the east, and settle at Dural. The water was so saline, however, and new land so quickly became unproductive, that in 1900 they migrated ninety miles northwest, to Kara-Kum, another site which had just been opened on the Konche. Thereupon, in 1901, the amban was removed to Kara-Kum, and in 1904 the last and poorest of the people of Dural abandoned it and came to Tikkenlik. Kara-Kum became even larger than its predecessors, and from 1901 to 1903 is said to have had a population of five thousand. Nevertheless, the salt proved as bad there as elsewhere, and in 1904 it, too, was abandoned, though the amban and forty or fifty people still remained at the beginning of 1906. Jan Kul, Dural, Kara-Kum, and Tikkenlik represent four abortive attempts during sixteen years to utilize the water of the lower Tarim and Konche rivers. The attempts are especially significant because they failed at a time when the rivers of Turkestan were unusually high, about 1900, as well as when the rivers were low, about 1893. Tikkenlik, being but four or five years old, still survived in 1906, but it was deteriorating. Its five hundred people were either moving away, or else betaking themselves to sheep-raising or fishing, the means of livelihood of the former hamlet before the attempt to establish a town.
IIIFカラー高解像度
