166 YARKAND AND KARGHALIK [CHAP. x.
the ice mountains. So there was no want of materials for anthropometric work, and I did all I could to benefit by it.
The types of my visitors made me feel far nearer again to India and its borderlands. Hearing Kashmiri, Panjabi, and Pushtu spoken at all hours of the day in a place so closely resembling the native country residences of Northern India I might have felt myself on Indian soil. That European fashions have not yet invaded this corner of Asia helped to throw one back in regard to time too. Turki is, of course, the language of general intercourse among the different colonies of immigrants, and as the latter scarcely ever bring wives from their own homes but marry in the country, it is natural that by the second or third generation the knowledge of their father's tongue is already lost. But physical features are not so easily effaced, and a stroll in • the Bazars' is enough to convince the observer how large an infusion of foreign, particularly Iranian, blood there is in the Yarkand population.
Apart from my visitors, there was for a great part of the day another crowd to fill the outer hall of my temporary palace. Munshi Bunyad Ali had taken care to let it be known that I wished to acquire things of old local art, and in consequence improvised agents of such articles were pouring in every morning. I was specially looking out for specimens of that ornamented brasswork which had once its home at Khotan and which has become well known to lovers of Central-Asian art, though its local connection does not appear to have been • realised. Judging from the quantities of beautifully worked Aptabas,' ` Chaugalis' (tea-pots), ` Chilapchis' (water-basins), jugs, and other metal articles brought to me from houses of once well-to-do families, the supply must still be considerable.
Among the pieces offered for sale I was able to pick out some excellent specimens of open metal work, all showing most clearly the influence of Persian floral design, yet with a distinct individuality of treatment. By the side of these
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