in perfect concord with the Wangs,
and through them with the people. But the internal relations between
these various personages became more complicated and less cordial
through the importation, about the beginning of this century, of a fresh
factor into the question. The Chinese had granted the cities west of,
and including, Aksu very considerable privileges in carrying on trade
with Khokand; and in the course of commercial intercourse a Khokandian
element was slowly imported into these cities, when it became a people
within a people, enjoying the prosperity to be derived from the Chinese
Empire, but not experiencing any sentiment of gratitude towards those by
whom the favours were conferred. After some years, when these Khokandian
immigrants had become numerous, the Chinese acquiesced in their
selecting a responsible head for each community, and this head, or
Aksakal, was nominated by the Khan of Khokand, the only temporal
sovereign these people recognized. The creation of this third power in
the state, which was first sanctioned as a matter of convenience, was to
be fraught with the direst consequences for the Chinese. The Khitay
would be justified in saying that the Aksakals were "the cause of all
their woe," in Kashgar at all events. The Aksakals were far too prudent
to challenge the supremacy of the Chinese officials, and their first
object was rather to make themselves independent of the Wangs than to
compete with the Ambans. In this they were successful, for the Chinese
neglected to take into account the dangers that might arise from these
same bustling, intriguing, and alien Aksakals. The Wangs had always been
obedient vassals, but the plausibility of the Aksakals put them on a par
with their rivals. The Chinese washed their hands of the quarrel, and
may have imagined that their rule was made more assured by divisions
among the Mussulmans. In this they were mistaken. The Aksakals, who
after a time repudiated their obligations to the Wangs, became the
centre of all the intrigue that marked the last half-century of Chinese
rule, and, puffed up by their triumph over the Wangs, did not hesitate
to challenge the right of the Ambans to exercise jurisdiction over them.
But of this more later on.

While the Chinese adopted these liberal measures in their dealings with
the Mussulman population, they did not neglect those other duties which
belong to the government by right. The greatest benefit they could
confer was of