Serindia : vol.3 / 264 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0264	Serindia : vol.3
セリンディア : vol.3

Cultivation
below Uch-
Turfān.

the town of Uch-Turfān. The way led mainly through a belt of fairly old cultivation skirting the
foot of a barren hill range to the south known as Kara-teke. The more careful appearance of the
fields and the frequency of fine arbours were explained when I learned later from the scholarly
Chinese magistrate at Uch-Turfān, P'êng Ta-jên, an old acquaintance, that the population in this
tract was descended from colonists brought here from Kāshgar and Khotan in the time of the
Emperor Ch'ien-lung after a rebellion which ended with the extermination of all previous settlers.¹⁸ᵃ
That these were of Kirghiz or allied stock was suggested by a number of large domed tombs, or
'Gumbaz', in ruins which I passed near Sugetlik-mazār (Map No. 19. A. 4), and which local tradition
vaguely ascribed to Kipchak princes.

Kirghiz
settlements.

To the north, beyond the narrow belt of cultivated ground, there stretches a wide grassy plain
which receives abundant moisture from the Tushkan-daryā, and which is bound to prove attractive
as a winter grazing-ground for the Kirghiz. These form the great majority of the population higher
up in the valley, where numbers of them appear to have taken to agriculture also. There were
plenty of Kirghiz to be seen at Uch-Turfān itself, and having established my quarters at the country
residence of their Beg, outside the flourishing little town, I was able also to use my two days' stay
for anthropometrical work among them.¹⁹ Most appeared to retain still the characteristics of true
Turk stock in their physical features.²⁰ But in others it was impossible to mistake evidence of inter-
mixture with 'Sarts', as the Kirghiz here call the settled Muhammadan population. The use of
this term, so common in Western Turkestān but heard by me here for the first time in the Tarim
Basin, was apt to recall the close vicinity of the Russian frontier and the Sīr-daryā headwaters.

Natural
stronghold
of Uch-
Turfān.

The usual dust haze of the spring was hiding the view of the great snowy range of the T'ien-
shan northward. It was thus impossible to obtain even a distant glimpse of the Bedel Pass, by
which Hsüan-tsang had once gained the Issik-kul region and thence Sogdiana.²¹ But even without
that imposing background Uch-Turfān presented itself to me as the most picturesque and pleasant
of any district headquarters I had visited in Chinese Turkestān. The view of the fertile green
valley, set off vividly by the chain of barren grey hills which encircle the town from the south, was
particularly striking from the height of the Chinese citadel (Fig. 337). This crowns the top of
a precipitous rocky spur, which adjoins the west wall of the town and projects beyond it like a huge
natural ravelin, rising with its westernmost cliffs to a height of some 250 feet. The citadel and
the flanking defences joining it to the town walls are recent, having been built in the place of forti-
fications destroyed when Uch-Turfān was besieged and taken during the Muhammadan rebellion.
But this natural stronghold is bound to have been utilized since early times.

Chinese
notices of
Uch-Tur-
fān.

Its position may well be assumed to account for the name Ta-shih ch'êng 大石城 'the Big
Stone Town', by which the itinerary of the T'ang Annals previously referred to mentions Uch-
Turfān.²² It adds: 'It is also called Yü-chu 于祝 or else the district town of Wên-su
温宿州.' As noted before, it is by the last name or its variant Wên-su 温宿 that the 'kingdom'
and town are referred to in the Former Han Annals, the Hou Han shu, and the Wei lio.²³ The
Former Han Annals ascribe to it a population of 2,200 families, which seems proportionate, and
indicate its position quite correctly with reference to the Wu-sun capital which lay 610 li to the

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