oasis, however, was already visible in the distance, standing out against a background of lofty, snowcapped mountains that disappeared in the sand-laden atmosphere. Our impatience to reach our goal for the day made us quicken our horses' pace, and after a ride of 3 1/2 miles across the desert we were once more on dusty, but shady roads and soon the grey mud walls of Yangi Hissar appeared among the trees. One more valley that crept up to within about 30o paces of the fortress and might some day afford welcome protection to an advancing enemy, and we crossed an easily destructible bridge over the moat, about 35 feet wide, into the typically Chinese frontier fortress and town of Yangi Hissar.
The town is built in the form of a square, the regular lines of which are only broken by some old fortifications that were used about 35 years ago in building the wall which at present encloses the town. The wall is precisely similar in height and shape to those I saw in Kashgar and Yangi-Shahr. One side faces north. The four corners are decorated with turrets, crenellated like the rest of the wall. Three symmetrically placed gates on the east, west and south are protected by semicircular encasements of the same height as the wall. Between them and the corner turret as well as on the north side there are small turret-like buttresses; these do not project above the level of the wall either, and are intended to outflank the moat and wall passages. The gates, made double by the encasements, do not lead straight under the walls, but from the side into the encasement and then at right angles to the first gate under the actual ramparts. Both gateways are built of baked bricks. The gates themselves are massive wooden structures strongly reinforced with iron. Outside the wall there is a passage, about 21 feet wide, protected by a crenellated parapet similar to the one visible above the wall. Next comes a dry moat, about 35 feet wide and 21 feet deep, that can probably be filled easily with water thanks to the local irrigation system_ A low mud wall runs along the outer edge of the moat. The upper parapet has loopholes
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