ut which later events have seemed to make but the
prelude to a more vigorous life than ever--that these Mahomedan
missionaries among the Tungani knew that the time to reap what they had
sown with patience and persistency was at hand. It is impossible not to
connect this event in some degree with that unaccountable revival of
fanaticism among Mahomedans, which has produced so many important events
during the last thirty years, and of which we are now witnessing some of
the most striking results.

In 1862, a riot occurred in a small village of Kansuh; it was suppressed
with some loss of life, and people were beginning to suppose that it
possessed no significance, when a disturbance broke out on a large scale
at Houchow, or Salara. The Tungani had risen, and the unfortunate
unarmed Khitay were massacred right and left. The rising soon assumed
the proportions of a civil war, and the infection spread to the
neighbouring province of Shensi. Then ensued scenes of the most
atrocious barbarity. The Khitay, who all their lives had lived at peace
and as neighbours with the Tungani, were butchered without mercy. The
Mahomedan priests seized all the governing power into their own hands,
and set their followers the example of unscrupulous ferocity. The
movement, even if we make allowance for the difficulties besetting the
government in other regions, must be considered to have been attended by
unexpected success. It can only be accounted for by the supposition that
the Khitay were taken completely by surprise, and realized neither the
extent nor the nature of the danger to which they were exposed. Before
the end of 1862, a Tungan government was established in Kansuh, and its
jurisdiction was for a time acknowledged in Shensi. The priests formed
an administration amongst themselves, and set themselves to the task of
consolidating what they had won, and of preparing for the time when the
Chinese should come for vengeance. The events happening in Kansuh were
naturally of interest to the Tungani in the country lying beyond it, and
it was not long before the example set them was followed in Hamil,
Turfan, Urumtsi, Manas, and other cities of that district. The same
success attended the movement here as in Kansuh. The Chinese power was
subverted, the Khitay massacred with greater circumstances of cruelty,
if possible, and a new Tungan state was formed in those cities. Each
district retained a nominal independence, under the headship of a
pr