314 THE PULSE OF ASIA
merely an episode accompanying the reduction of the mountains to a state where they were too dry to be inhabited by nomads. As an historic incident, it is scarcely worth recording; but it appears to typify events which have taken place on a scale involving continents. During the last century and a half, the absence of enemies in the mountains and the new means of controlling nature which the Turfanliks have found in the kariz have allowed the population to increase in spite of unfavorable climatic conditions.
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