e them; and then we shut up
our shops and stow away our goods till next week's market-day brings
back our customers. Some of us, indeed, go out with a small venture in
the interim to the rural markets around, but our great day is market-day
in town. It was very different in the Khitay time. People then bought
and sold every day, and market-day was a much jollier time. There was no
Kazi Rais, with his six Muhtasib, armed with the _dira_ to flog people
off to prayer, and drive the women out of the streets, and nobody was
bastinadoed for drinking spirits and eating forbidden meats. There were
mimics and acrobats, and fortune-tellers and story-tellers, who moved
about amongst the crowd and diverted the people. There were flags and
banners and all sorts of pictures floating at the shop fronts; and there
was the _jallab_, who painted her face and decked herself in silks and
laces to please her customers." And then, replying to a question whether
the morals were not more depraved under this system than under the
strict Mahomedan rule of the Athalik Ghazi, the same witness went on to
say--"Yes, perhaps so. There were many rogues and gamblers too, and
people did get drunk and have their pockets picked. But so they do now,
though not so publicly, because we are under Islam, and the shariat is
strictly enforced."

This very graphic piece of evidence gives a clearer picture of the two
systems of government, than perhaps paragraphs of explanatory writing;
and, to return to the immediate subject before us, it shows that Yarkand
has deteriorated in wealth and population since the Chinese were
expelled from it fifteen years ago.

Khoten is situated 150 miles south-east of Yarkand, and about ninety
miles due east of Sanju. It lies on the northern base of the Kuen Lun
Mountains, and is the most southern city of any importance in Kashgaria.
Under the Chinese, it was one of the most flourishing centres of
industry, and as the _entrepot_ of all trade with Tibet it held a
bustling active community. The Chinese called it Houtan, and even now it
is locally called Ilchi. In addition to the wool and gold imported from
Tibet, it possessed gold mines of its own in the Kuen Lun range, and was
widely celebrated for its musk, silk, and jade. It likewise has suffered
from the departure of the Chinese; and the energy and wealth of that
extraordinary people have found, in the case of this city also, a very
inadequate substitute in the strict military o