e
personal dislike for their chief even among his Khitay following. At the
second meeting they seemed, indeed, more willing to acquiesce in his
proposed strong measures, and this may have been caused by their
observation of the state of public opinion in the interval. But even
then no final decision could be arrived at, and the Khitay never had a
chance after that of making any defence in Yarkand. The Tungan troops
were not long in hearing, through their chief officer, Mah Dalay, that
there was a plot on foot among the Khitay to disarm, or, as others said,
to massacre them, and they then learnt of the Mahomedan revolt in China
and along the road thither. They immediately determined to be beforehand
with the Amban and his lukewarm council, and no weak hesitation marred
the execution of their plot, as it had that of the Chinese governor.

The Khitay troops, unarmed, were surprised during the night, and cut
down without quarter, and the small body of survivors sought refuge in
the Yangyshahr fort. This was in August, 1863, and no fewer than 7,000
Khitay soldiers are computed to have fallen on this single occasion. The
Tungan troops were thereupon joined by the townspeople, and the question
then to be decided was, who was to be supreme, the Tungani or the
Andijan-Kashgari Mahomedans. The former were simply an unlettered and
rather savage soldiery; the latter possessed keen intellects for
manipulating a fanatical people, and for improvising an administration
of a superficial character. The balance of power was evenly distributed
until reinforcements arrived from Aksu and Kucha to the anti-Tungan
party. Two Khojas who had been banished from Kucha, for endeavouring to
promote their own interests in the name of Khokand, had fled to Aksu,
where they met the same fate. In this latter flight many of similar
principles joined them, so that when they reached Yarkand they had a
numerous force at their back. The Khojas in the first place joined their
forces to the Tungani, to storm the remaining Khitay in the Yangyshahr.
The Khitay after a gallant resistance perceived that further opposition
was impossible. Then occurred one of those deeds, which, if Europe
instead of Asia had been the scene, would have been handed down to
posterity as a rare example of military devotion and courage, but which,
although not unique even in the annals of the campaign we are entering
upon, having occurred in little-known Eastern Turkestan, is not realized