134 TO YARKAND AND KARGHALIK CH. XI
its neat and well-furnished European interior. Within eighteen months of their arrival the cheerful Swedish couple had managed to fit up their residence with whatever seems needful for a simple European household. There were well-made tables and cupboards, framed pictures on the walls, and a table laid out hospitably with all orthodox comforts. Mr. Raquette's widely appreciated work as a medical missionary gave him special opportunities for mixing with all classes, which he was using to compile a Turki dictionary on the basis of local materials. There is much about Yarkand to recall an Indian city, the relative luxuriance of its vegetation and the large colonies of Kashmiris, Baltis, Afghans comprised in its population. So when taking the air of an evening in the Raquettes' little garden, ensconced between silent walls of neighbouring houses, I felt as if I were being entertained by Mission friends in some native city of the Punjab.
My four busy days seemed almost too short a' time for hunting up specimens of that old Chinese and Turkestan art ware which survives among the numerous old families of Yarkand as a sediment from more prosperous days, and the supply had manifestly diminished. Yet I managed to secure half a dozen fine ` Aptabas,' some hand-basins, jugs, etc., characteristic relics of the elaborate ` open ' brass-work which once flourished among the crafts of Khotan. What with accounts of all sorts to settle, the debts of my Yarkandi servants to adjust with their creditors —debts are almost indispensable as marks of respectability in these parts,—and similar tasks to tax my reckoning faculties not yet fully accustomed to the intricacies of the local currency, it was difficult to snatch a few hours' rest during the night preceding my start.
The immediate objective of the journey on which I set out by daybreak on July 2nd was Karghalik, only two marches off to the south. But I intended to use the move also for a visit to the site of Kiziljai, from which a few old manuscript records, apparently in early Turki or Uigur, had been brought to Mr. Macartney some two years before. I knew that the remains there were insignificant, but all the same I wished to satisfy my archaeological conscience
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