en states
were the daily avocations of Chinamen. There is no reason to believe
that in the vast region from Turfan to Kucha the Chinese have departed
from the statesmanlike and beneficent schemes which marked their
re-installation as rulers; and whatever harshness or cruelty they
manifested towards the Tungani rebels and the Kashgarian soldiers was
more than atoned for by the mildness of their treatment of the people.

On the 19th, or more probably the 22nd of October, Kin Shun resumed his
forward movement, encountering no serious opposition. His first halt was
at a village called Hoser, where he halted for one night, which he
employed in inditing the report to Pekin, which described the successes
and movements of the previous three weeks. At the next town, known as
Bai, Kin Shun halted to await the arrival of the rear-guard, under
General Chang Yao. This force came up before the close of October, and
the advance against Aksu was resumed. Up to this point the chief
interest centred in the army south of the Tian Shan, and in the
achievements of Kin Shun. Our principal, in fact our only, authority for
this portion of the campaign is the _Pekin Gazette_.

We have now to describe the movements of the Northern Army, which was
under the immediate command of Tso Tsung Tang, and which was operating
in the north of the state, in complete secrecy. That general had under
him, at the most moderate computation, an army of 28,000 men. By some it
was placed at a higher figure; but a St. Petersburg paper, on the
authority of a Russian merchant, who had been to Manas, computed it to
be of that strength. It was concentrated in the neighbourhood of Manas,
and along the northern skirts of the Tian Shan; and also on the
frontier of the Russian dominions in Kuldja. To all appearance this army
was consigned to a part of enforced inactivity, since it was impossible
to enter Kuldja, and thus proceed by their old routes through the passes
of Bedal or Muzart. But it was not so; the travels of Colonel Prjevalsky
in the commencement of 1877 had not been unobserved by the Chinese, and
it was assumed that where a Russian officer with his Cossack following
could go, there also could go a Chinese army. By those little-known
passes, which are made by the Tekes and Great Yuldus rivers, the Chinese
army, under Tso Tsung Tang, crossed over into Kashgaria; and it is
probable that the two armies joined in the neighbourhood of Bai. It was
by this stroke of s