IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
162 YARKAND AND KARGHALIK [CHAP. X.
bearing of this previously fixed position coincided exactly with that derived from our survey.
For several miles before and after Toguchak the road traverses country that has only within the last few years been brought under cultivation by means of newly opened canals from the Yarkand River. It was a pleasure to see a sandy waste thus reclaimed by dint of skilful labour. The crests of the low sand-dunes still retain their original scrub-covered surface, but everywhere around them spread carefully
terraced fields, which were said to have already yielded this year a bountiful crop of wheat. The arrangement of the
canals along the road, often crossing each other at different
levels, indicated a systematic scheme of irrigation. The result is creditable to the enterprise of Liu-Darin, then Amban
of Yarkand, who seems to have carried through a piece of truly productive work with remarkable energy. The labour employed, it is true, is said to have been wholly unpaid, i.e.,
` Begar.' Yet are not all great engineering feats of the East due to this agency 2 The cultivators to whom I talked
acknowledged that they had been forced to the work. But
now they were glad to occupy the ground they had reclaimed for cultivation, and thus to reap the direct benefit of their
labours. The saying of the Kashmir cultivators, " We do not want money, we want the slipper," i.e., compulsion, for any work of general utility, evidently holds true also in Turkestan.
When I had crossed a broad canal from the Yarkand River known as Opa, about three miles from the city, I found the
whole colony of Indian traders, with Munshi Bunyad Ali, the " Newswriter " employed by Mr. Macartney, at their head, waiting to give me a formal reception. Most of the traders from the Punjab had already left for Ladak, and the fresh contingent of the year had not yet arrived from across the mountains. All the same it was quite an imposing cavalcade, at the head of which I rode into Yarkand. There were hardy
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