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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

From the volcanic region between Kúchá and Karashahr the markets of the western cities are supplied with alum, sal ammoniac, sulphate of copper, and yellow ochre ; and mines of lead and copper which are worked by the Chinese are indicated in this vicinity ; viz., those of lead at Tajik Tágh, ten tásh north-east of Aksú, and those of copper at Onbásh on the Múzárt river near Báv. Lead and sulphur are, it is said, still procured for the Káshghar market from the former Chinese workings in some low hills near Kalpin on the Aksay river south of Aksú, and a lead mine, now unworked, is said to exist in the hills near Oksalor on the Mingyol road to the Tirik Dawán. The ore is also brought in, with crude sulphur from the hills to the west of Opal, by the Kirghiz of that vicinity, as is metallic antimony picked up on the surface in the form of small rolled pebbles.

Iron is brought to the Kizili smelting furnaces from Kiziltágh and Túmur Tágh, or "Red Hill" and "Iron Hill," respectively, at the sources of the Shahnaz river. Further south again, at Kosharab, are old forsaken mines of lead and silver, whilst at Khoja Mazár on the Tiznáf river south of Kokyár are the copper mines discovered and worked by the Chinese. On our way up this valley we saw the ruins of the smelting furnaces on the river bank, where fuel was in plenty, a little below Khoja Mazár ; but none of the people with us could point out the site of the mines which had been abandoned since the disappearance of the Chinese from the country.

An impure kind of alimentary salt is gathered on the surface of desiccated pools on the desert south and west of Marálbáshi ; and gypsum, or plaster of Paris, is found in extensive beds in many localities along the hill skirts. It is the cement generally used instead of lime for plastering walls, &c., in all the western towns of the country.

Industrial productions.—These may be briefly noticed under two separate heads of agriculture and manufacture.

Agriculture.—This is the most important and most widely spread industry of the country, and the one on which the inhabitants depend for existence, as there are no imports of breadstuffs from neighbouring countries. Consequently all the settled population, other than urban, is agriculturalist and nothing else. Cattle-breeding is the care of the wandering Kirghiz and Kalmák, and manufactures are the business of the city people.

The agriculturalists or peasantry are spread over the settlements and city suburbs in a fashion peculiar to the country. Each family has a separate homestead, called oe, and these homesteads stand either singly or in clusters of two or three or more together, in the midst of the fields and plantations and orchards by which they are surrounded. None of the homesteads, or clusters of them, is enclosed, or in any way protected by fortified walls of defence ; nor in any settlement are the tenements massed together as in an Indian village. Generally from four to sixty or eighty homesteads are planted at short intervals of a hundred to two or three hundred yards or more along the course of a rivulet or canal, and each such group forms a parish or ward called mahalla, and its community is superintended by an elder, called ávaodl or "grey-beard." A collection of these mahalla forms a village or yaz, and a succession of two or three or more of these form a township or kand. In each kand there is a market or bazar ; it usually consists of a main-street of stalls and cross-streets opening into it, and about them are crowded together the residences of the Government officials, and of the resident shopkeepers, victuallers, artizans, &c. The several residences are enclosed within walls and are called hauli ; towards the exterior they separate from each other and gradually merge into the homesteads scattered around. The bazar is never fortified, but in some of the strategically important townships there is a separate little fort. The Government of each kand is supervised by a district governor, who is called beg, or mir, or sarkár, according to his rank and the importance of his charge ; and he has under him a staff of officials for the maintenance of order, collection of revenue, &c. A market is held once a week in the bazar, and is attended by the peasantry of the township and neighbouring settlements, who here barter their farm produce for the productions of the city, and lay in a stock of provisions for the ensuing week, and at sunset disperse to their homes. Each kand has its mosque, and school, and guest-house, with their respective priests, tutors, and servitors, and is, in fact, so far as the requirements of life are concerned, a complete integer of the many that go to form a division or provincial Government ; or in other words, the bazar is to the constituent elements of the township what the capital is to the component parts of the