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Industrial
importance
of Khotan.

Jade fishing' and mining.

Export of Khotanjade.

132   THE KHOTAN OASIS : ITS GEOGRAPHY AND PEOPLE [Chap. VI

We should obtain a very imperfect idea of the Khotan oasis and its material resources if our estimate were based solely on the agricultural activity of its inhabitants, Khotan has in modern times been undoubtedly the chief industrial centre within Eastern Turkestan 4, and everything points to the conclusion that it occupied this position from a very early period. The mining of oriental jade might well be mentioned in the first place among the industrial occupations of Khotan ; for it is the oldest of which we have distinct historical notices, and its product has more than anything else made Khotan famous throughout the East.

The jade of Khotan (the yü of the Chinese, called hash in Turki) is obtained from the beds of its rivers either by searching and diving for pieces of the precious stone among the pebbles which the rivers wash down during the summer floods, or else by regular digging in the beds of rubble deposited along the banks of the Yurung-kash. Such beds are worked immediately above the débouchement of the river, and also lower down within the Yurung-kash canton along a deserted channel6. The kinds of jade most prized, white or of other light colours, are furnished by the bed of the Yurung-kash, which owes to this fact its actual name `[the river of] White Jade'. Jade of green or other dark colour is more frequently found in the Kara-kâsh river, and accounts for the latter's name [the river of] Black Jade's. High up in the valley of the Kara-kâsh, not far from the Karakorum route, green jade is quarried from a mountain side ; but this rock jade is reckoned of inferior quality and does not appear to be mentioned in the early Chinese accounts'.

Khotan has, probably since the earliest times, been the chief source of supply of the yü stone or oriental jade, which in China even more than elsewhere in the East has been, and still remains, one of the most valued of precious stones. It is hence with good reason that

those days, the population and prosperity of the oasis have greatly increased owing to the improved system of administration. An average of eight persons is the conventional

Total number of houses 27,500   12,000

My informants could not state the old traditional estimate for Sampula and Lop, which, owing to the administrative separation above mentioned, had ceased to come within the sphere of local official interests ; but they were agreed in giving 12,000 houses as the conventional figure for the administrative unit comprising the whole Khotan oasis as it existed under Chinese rule in pre-rebellion days,

4 For a still useful synopsis of Khotan industries, compiled from Surveyor Râmchand's notes, see Yarkand Mission

Report, pp. 446 sqq. Interesting notes on a number of the more important industries, with excellent illustrations, will be found in Grenard, Mission D. de Rhins, ii. pp. 184 sqq.

b I have described the jade-diggings situated near the débouchement of the Yurung-kash, a short distance above the old site of Chalma-kazân, in Ruins of Khotan, pp. 252 sqq. For an account of the jade-pits of Kalta-kunzal, not far from Tam-öghil, see Hedin, Reisen in Z.-A., p. 28.

e The Yurung-kâsh and Kara-kâsh rivers are apparently first referred to by the Chinese equivalents of their present names in the Annals of the Posterior Tsin Dynasty (936947 A. D.) ; see Rémusat, Ville de Khotan, p. 81, and for later references, ib. pp. 107, 1 12. By the third river, that ` of green jade ', which these accounts mention between the two former rivers, must be meant the broad side channel of the Kara-kâsh known as Yangi-Darya (see map), which passes through the Sipâ canton and carries water during the flood season ; see below, chap. VIII. sec. iii. The white and green jade of Khotan is distinguished by Hsüan-tsang, Him. ii. p. 223, Beal, ii. p. 309.

For Gomati, the ancient name of the Kara-kâsh, see below, chap. VIII. sec. i.

7 For a Chinese account of this jade-quarry extracted from the Hsiyil wen chien lu (1778 A. D.), see Ritter, Asien, v. pp. 381 sqq. ; a detailed description of it has been given by Dr. Stoliczka in Yarkand Mission Report, pp. 464 sqq. The manner in which this inferior jade is obtained was correctly related by Goéz, who speaks of the place as Cansanghi Cascio', i, e. Kan sang-i-kash; see Yule, Cathay, ii. p. 565.