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0082 Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1
Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1 / Page 82 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000231
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CHAPTER III

KASHGAR—THE YELLOW PERIL—TAOTAI AND
CONSUL GENERAL

KASHGAR is the seat of a provincial govern-
ment whose head is a Taotai. His power
extends to that western verge of empire over whose
rough border we have just passed. Among all the
Chinese governors he is farthest removed by distance
from the source of authority in Pekin. To what-
ever difficulty this condition may create is added
that inherent in the task of governing a population
alien in race and religion, and the yet greater diffi-
culty due to the aggressiveness of the neighbour-
ing Russians. Between the Taotai and the throne
there is, in the official hierarchy, one other magnate
—a viceroy, stationed about six hundred miles east-
ward, and having all of Chinese Turkestan within
his administration. As numbers go in Chinese pro-
vinces, this proconsulate cannot be ranked high,
with its one or two million souls, as against an aver-
age of fifteen or twenty millions for the Eighteen
Provinces. But its peculiar constitution and its
exposed situation must give it importance as long
as there exists in Pekin a government cherishing
the prestige of the Great Empire. It was through
this region that Mohammedanism has blazed its way
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