Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 239 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

0239	Among the Celestials : vol.1

CHAP. VIII.] YARKAND. 199

has had, and, contrary to the usual custom of

the Chinese officials, he had taken considerable

pains to construct canals for the extension of

cultivation, and to build new bazaars in the

city.

Yarkand is the largest town I had seen in

Turkestan. There are, as everywhere in this

country, two towns, the native and the Chinese,

but at Yarkand these are connected by a bazaar

a few hundred yards in length. The latter is

almost entirely new, but the native town is old

and dilapidated. The houses are built of mud,

as a rule, and there are no very striking

buildings to , arrest one's interest. All the

streets have that dusty, dirty, uncared-for

appearance so characteristic of Central Asian

towns, and outside the bazaars there is little

life. Yarkand, however, is the centre of a

considerable trade, and in the autumn large

caravans start for and arrive from India at

frequent intervals, and the bazaars are then

crowded.

A number of the merchants engaged in this

trade gave me one day a sumptuous feast in a

fruit garden a short distance outside Yarkand.

Few people better know the way to enjoy life

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