Kashgar

Kashgar, the political capital of eastern or Chinese Turkestan, and, next to Yarkand, the second place of importance, is divided into Kuhnâ Shehir ('old city') and Yenghi Shehir ('new city'). The town and district of Kashgar have a population of 120,000 souls. The old city is a small fortified place overlooking the Kizil River, by which it is separated from the new city, said to have been built in 1838. In this last-mentioned part of the town stands the Orda—i.e. the palace of the Chinese governor of the whole province, as well as the Friday Mosque (Juma Mesjid). The people, mostly Turks, intermixed with Tajiks, Kashgaris, Hindus, and Andijanis, excel in certain branches of industry, as the making of cottons, silks, carpets, saddlery, &c., and carry on trade, chiefly with Russia through Almati and the Terek Davan Pass, a trade supported by a permanent Russian consul, the only European diplomatist in this part of Asia. Kashgar, the centre of Mohammedan learning in eastern Turkestan, is besides a famous pilgrimage place to the shrine of Hazreti Appak Khodja, who died here in 1693. The capital and the country round it are noted for great fertility and for a variety of excellent fruits, owing to a rich irrigation derived from several rivers and canals flowing from the north and the west. Its most flourishing period embraces the time from the conquest of Arabs under Kuteiba until the appearance of Genghis Khan, from which time it experienced all the revolutions and wars raging on the confines of Islam and Chinese Buddhism. In 1758 the Chinese took possession of Kashgar, and with short interruption it has remained in their power. The last successful rebellion was that of Yakub Kushbeghi in 1864. Kashgar was visited by the mission of Sir T. D. Forsyth in 1873, resulting in a treaty between England and Yakub; but since the Mohammedan ruler was vanquished and the country retaken by the Chinese in 1877, Kashgar has been left entirely to the political and commercial influence of Russia. See Colonel Kuropatkin's Kashgaria (Eng. trans. from Russian, 1883).