RECORDS OF THE JOURNEY
payers, and demanded to be placed on an equal footing with all other Chinese subjects. The palace was besieged by a mob of several hundred, though it did not dare to resort to any hostile action beyond blocking the gateways with stones, from the outside. Chinese troops hurried up under the command of the Hsietai and, after warning the mob to disperse, fired a few shots, wounding or killing about a dozen Sarts. This settled the disturbance and the population was again resigned to contributing its mite to the Prince's store.
On hearing of the matter the Governor of Urumchi ordered the Djentai at Barkul to proceed to Hami, as he had for a long time commanded the local garrison in his capacity as Hsietai. His tchi of cavalry that accompanied him had returned to Barkul and all was now calm and peaceful. It is suspected that the population was roused by the local mandarin who had persuaded it to throw off its subjection to the Prince in the hope that he would himself be granted the right of collecting taxes for the Government. The Prince's sympathies seem to be on the side of the Chinese. He speaks of them with gratitude and appears to be full of admiration for the new ludziun troops who passed recently on their way from Chihli to Urumchi. He expressed the conviction that the Chinese would soon possess troops here fully equal to any European troops.
The Hsietai looked a fine, well fed epicure. He had travelled much, had been a member of some mission and had visited St. Petersburg, Berlin, Brussels and the Hague. In addition to pleasant memories and a couple of framed photographs of male and female cyclists, he had acquired a measure of European manners, could count up to 5 in Russian and introduced a few Russian words in season and out of season. As a military man he seemed to be as far behind the times as all his worthy colleagues, but the ludziun troops that passed recently as already stated, seemed to have made some impression even on him. He assured me that in three years' time the province of Sinkiang would have 3 divisions of fully Europeanised troops at its disposal, for all the present »loin» troops would by that time have been replaced by ludziun. I noticed a young man of exceptionally lively appearance among his attendants. He proved to be a newly arrived instructor for the ludziun troops recently sent here from Chihli. He was quite incapable of reading a map, so his military training cannot have been very thorough and it is to be presumed that in the hands of completely ignorant officers he will not achieve any marked results.
The Djentai from Barkul is an old officer of the most ordinary sort. I handed him a letter from Lan gungje which he spelt out in a subdued sing-song, while his attendants elbowed each other and almost helped him to read it. I asked him to explain the mutual position of several places and he did so without being able to state their position with regard to the points of the compass. I mention this as an unusual instance, for, although these people use no maps, they usually know the points of the compass at any place or at any time, often even better than Europeans. With commendable modesty the old man told me that he could read, but was not much good at writing, adding »We soldiers do not need to be able to read and write». Both he and the Hsietai assured me in the most categorical manner that, when the province was reconquered, the three commanders-in-chief of the Chinese army, Tso tchun tan, Liu tchin tan and Tchang You, had led their troops over Ansi and Hami. The first troops had left Hami for Barkul. A number of railings
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