126 STAY AT KASHGAR [CHAP. VIII.
with the making of the wooden covers needed for their safe transport, was a task that taxed the combined resources of my blacksmith ` Ustads ' for weeks.
But luckily the necessity of attending to all these practical arrangements did not prevent me from finding time also for more congenial and equally pressing tasks. Sitting in the cool shade of the poplar groves of Mr. Macartney's garden, I spent long and pleasant hours, refreshing by systematic study my knowledge of the ancient accounts of Eastern Turkestan, such as the Chinese historical Annals, the narratives of old Chinese pilgrims and of the earliest European travellers, have preserved for us. To me it is always a source of pleasure to be able to read such old records on the very soil to which they refer. At Cliini-Bagh I enjoyed exceptional advantages for this favourite occupation ; for Mr. Macartney, whom long residence and the power of keen observation have made thoroughly conversant with the economic and social conditions of modern Turkestan, was ever ready to allow me to ransack the storehouse of his knowledge for that information without which the ancient accounts of the country cannot be properly understood. Often when matters of Chinese lore were concerned Mr. Macartney would summon to our discussion SunSsu-yieh, the " Chinese Munshi " of the Agency, a literatus thoroughly versed in his classics, and yet keenly alive to the things of this world. As I listened to his vivacious explanations, which Mr. Macartney kindly interpreted, I could not help thinking of my dear old Kashmirian Pandit Govind Kaul, and the converse I used to hold with him in Sanskrit during the long years of common scholarly labour. Bitterly I regretted the great gap in my philological equipment, my ignorance of Chinese. But how should I ever find the leisure to fill it, except perhaps in that " fresh birth " to which, in accordance with the Indian notion, I used to refer my Chinese friends ?
It was an important object of my stay at Kashgar to
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