g his
treachery towards their ruler, and the instant he disappeared they
hastened to take their revenge. When the Kashgarian garrison was
withdrawn the towns-people simply deposed their _dadkwah_, and nominated
a ruler of their own, who retained authority until the triumph of the
Chinese made it politic for them and him to bow to the rising sun. The
example of Khoten had been followed by Sanju and the vicinity; and thus
the whole southern portion of the state acquiesced in the Chinese
conquest, after the fall of Kashgar, without the necessity for a single
Chinese soldier to be advanced south of Yarkand. It seems probable that
at this very moment the Chinese troops have remained content with the
submission of these districts, and have not garrisoned those important
towns which skirt the Kuen Lun range with their own soldiers.

When Beg Bacha returned post haste to Kashgar, to encounter the Kirghiz,
we said that Sadic Beg fled to the Kizil Yart; but he did not remain
there long, for soon we find him back again at the capital in high
favour with the Ameer, with whom he had come to terms. His Kirghiz
followers were taken into the pay of the state, and just as this
alliance had been struck up, tidings came of events that made that
alliance, however futile and insignificant, a matter of the first
necessity, both to Kirghiz and Kashgar. The Chinese army was at last
advancing. The danger that had for five months been hanging in suspense
over the devoted heads of a Mussulman people was close upon them. The
long-feared and long-expected Khitay were drawing nigh to the capital,
in irresistible strength; and the apprehensions of a cowed people made
them know, too surely, that their end was at hand. The dissensions among
the people themselves, the discord in the ruling house, and the
dissentient elements in every effort towards unity, had all operated in
favour of the invader. While the Chinese had plotted and prepared in the
deliberate manner of a great nation, the people of Kashgar had entered
into cabals and schemes of party tactics that were well nigh ludicrous.
And all the time that the sap of their vigour was being expended, the
Chinese generals were drawing the noose more closely together that was
to strangle the newly erected state beyond all chance of recovery. It
would almost seem as if the Kashgari and their rulers had recovered from
their first shock at the Chinese invasion, and were becoming reconciled
to their presence