oreign merchants, had become out of
date to a certain degree, the Athalik Ghazi had to place his fiscal
arrangements on a more practical and honourable basis. While he laboured
under some disadvantages, already enumerated, as compared with the
Chinese, he had the great advantage over them that he strove for an
object more easily accomplished than the restoration of Kashgar to its
pristine welfare; and in his budget he had only steadily to keep in view
how much he required to maintain so many _jigits_, and so many police in
his pay, and to keep in his exchequer a small surplus for any untoward
emergency. He left the roads to take care of themselves; the irrigation
works, sadly wanted in various parts of the state, must be reserved for
his successors; and all proposals for the amelioration of the people
were shelved for a more opportune occasion. But so many thousand
_jigits_ must be in the ranks; so many fresh guns and cartridges must be
placed in the arsenals; and so many adventurers must be induced by good
pay to take service in the army as non-commissioned officers, in order
that the rank and file should be well drilled. The very necessities of
his position compelled Yakoob Beg to make all these military
preparations; but the cost was great, and the sacrifices thus imposed on
ruler and on people were a terrible strain. Recent events make us
inclined to believe that a less active military and foreign policy, and
a more peaceable and domestic one, would have tended to have added more
strength to the Athalik Ghazi's rule than the somewhat ostentatious
military parade to which he had recourse. Be that as it may, Yakoob Beg
instituted in 1867 two taxes, which may be supposed to represent the two
chief classes of receipts during his tenure of authority. The first of
these was a tithe on all the cereal produce of the country; this tax was
called the _Ushr_. The second, called the _Zakat_, was a customs due
levied on all merchandise entering Kashgar. The _Ushr_ was payable on
all land except that occupied by the Church, or by those who owed
military service to the crown instead of other payment; and even those
who rented land from the noble classes were obliged to surrender a tithe
to the ruler. It would appear, therefore, from this that it was not so
much the land as its legal possessor who was exempt from liability to
the usual obligations of citizenship. The danger contained in the
acquisition of all the crown lands by Andij