e about to
follow it up with an ethnological description as well as a historical
statement of the past features of the same region. It is hoped that
these preliminary chapters will clear the way from some obscurity for a
correct appreciation of the career of the late Athalik Ghazi.

Kashgaria may be said to be a portion of Asia which possesses some great
advantages of position and very considerable resources, but by a
singularly hard fortune, except for the brief period of Chinese rule in
modern times, it has been so distracted by intestine disturbances that
it has retrograded further and further with each year. It is quite
possible that its natural wealth has been too hastily taken for granted,
and that it does not possess the necessary means of restoring itself in
some degree to its former position. This is quite possible, but the best
authorities at our disposal seem to point to a more promising
conclusion, and to justify us in assuming that the position, natural
resources, and general condition of Kashgar will enable a strong and
settled rule to raise it into a really important and flourishing
confederacy.

CHAPTER II.

ETHNOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF KASHGAR.

In the extensive region stretching from the Caspian and Black Seas to
the Kizil Yart and Pamir plateaus, and from the Persian Gulf to Siberia,
the two great families, the Aryan and the Turanian, have in past
centuries striven for supremacy. The latter, embracing in its bosom in
this part of the world the more turbulent and warlike tribes, succeeded
in subjecting those who claimed the same parent stock as European
nations. The Tajik or Persian is the chief representative in this region
of the Aryan family, and he has now for many centuries been the subject
of the Turk rulers of the various divisions of Western Turkestan. These
latter are the personifiers of Turanian traditions. The Tajik appears to
have been subdued, not so much by the superiority of his conqueror in
the art of war, as by his own inclination to lead a peaceful and
harmless life. The pure Tajik, hardly to be met with now anywhere in
Asia, except in the mountainous districts of the Hindoo Koosh, is
represented to us to have been of an imposing presence, with a long
flowing beard, aquiline nose, and large eyes. He is generally tall and
graceful; yet in Khokand and Bokhara the Tajik is at present viewed much
as the Saxons were by the Normans. In those states, too, a man is spoken
of by