| good time then." The Afghans spoke of the conduct of the Chinese as very zabardast (oppressive), and said the Turks were like sheep in submitting to it. One of the Afghans had known Sir Douglas Forsyth, and had heard of his death. The Turk Kotwal came to see me, to report to the Chinese who I was, and what I was doing. He was the most good-natured old gentleman, and took down my answer as if it were a most unnecessary business to satisfy Chinese curiosity. I said I was returning to India, where I lived. Kuchê town and district has, probably, sixty thousand inhabitants. The Hajji told me that numbers of people went up into the hills during the hot weather. The Chinese town is some seven hundred yards square, with a wall twenty-five feet high, with no bastions, and no protection to the gateways, but a ditch some twenty feet deep. The interior is filled with houses, and has a few bad shops. The houses of the Turk city run right up to the ditch. About eight hundred yards north of the Chinese city are barracks for five hundred men ; I estimate the whole garrison at one thousand five hundred ; they are armed with old Enfield rifles, with the Tower mark. There are remains of the walls of the old Turk city south-east of the Chinese, but the greater number of houses and all the shops are outside of this. The shops are small, like those in India, and nothing of native manufacture is sold, excepting sheepskins, which are very cheap. My boy bought two for his parents, seven taels each ; he says in Peking they would cost twelve or fifteen taels. I also bought one. Silks and cotton goods come from Andijan, Russia, and China. August 2.—Started at 7.30 p.m., passing through the Chinese city, and afterwards through a well-cultivated country for three miles, when the desert began again. We now gradually ascended towards a range of hills, up the bed of a stream. Going very heavy. |
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