-way on the road to Yarkand is Yangy Hissar, a town
which has always been of importance both as a military position and as a
place of trade. It has greatly fallen into decay, however, but still
possesses a certain amount of its former influence from being a military
post, and from the exceptional fertility of the neighbouring country.

Yarkand, about eighty miles as the crow flies, and 120 by road, to the
south-east of Kashgar, is still the most populous of all the cities of
Eastern Turkestan. It lies in the open plain on the Yarkand river, and
its walls, four miles in circuit, testify to its former greatness. Under
the Chinese it was quite the most flourishing town in the region, and
even now Sir Douglas Forsyth estimates that it contains 40,000 people,
while the surrounding country has nearly 200,000 more. The fruit gardens
and orchards, which extend in a wide belt round it, give an air of
peculiar prosperity to the country, and quite possibly induce travellers
to take a too sanguine view of the resources of the country. In addition
to the abundance of fruit and grain produce that is brought into the
city for sale, there is a large and profitable business carried on in
leather. Yarkand has almost a monopoly of this article, and the
consumption of it is very great indeed. The Ameer himself took large
quantities yearly for his army, for, in addition to that required for
boots and saddles, many of his regiments wore uniforms of that
substance.

But, although Yarkand is the chief market-place of the richest province,
and although its population is thriving and energetic, there is a
general _consensus_ of opinion that it has become much less prosperous
and much more of a rural town since the transference of the seat of
government to Kashgar, and the disappearance of Chinese merchants with
the Chinese ruler. A very intelligent merchant of the town replied as
follows to questions put to him, as to the Chinese and native rulers,
and it will be seen that it was especially favourable to the claims of
the Chinese as the better masters.

"What you see on market-day now, is nothing to the life and activity
there was in the time of the Khitay. To-day the peasantry come in with
their fowls and eggs, with their cotton and yarn, or with their sheep
and cattle and horses for sale, and they go back with printed cotton, a
fur cap, or city made boots, or whatever domestic necessaries they may
require, and always with a good dinner insid