a palace. As was well said of Timour, the Athalik
Ghazi placed the "foot of courage in the stirrup of patience," and he
evidently set himself to copy the great lessons of military success that
might be learnt from the careers of Genghis Khan, Timour, and Baber.
Such is some account of the commander-in-chief to the expedition of
Buzurg Khan. The Khoja, himself, was a man about the same age as his
lieutenant, but in every other respect as different as he well could be.
Personally a coward, fond of show and every kind of luxury, and of the
treacherous, fickle nature that marked his race, he had done nothing
during his past life to compensate for the want of the most ordinary
virtues. Although he participated in the expedition of Wali Khan, he
showed no possession of merit, and in the subsequent occupation that the
Khojas maintained in Kashgar during a few weeks, he, perhaps more than
any other of his kinsmen, disgusted the people by his open and unbridled
licentiousness. Such were the two men who, in the latter days of 1864,
set out from Tashkent for the recovery of a kingdom. Of their chances of
success few would have ventured then to predict a settlement in their
favour; none, certainly, such as was obtained by Yakoob Beg. It is now
time for us to relate how they fared in Eastern Turkestan.

CHAPTER VII.

THE INVASION OF KASHGAR BY BUZURG KHAN AND YAKOOB BEG.

The Chinese were on several occasions, as we have seen, threatened in
Eastern Turkestan by the pretensions of the Khojas, and the secret or
open machinations of Khokand. But they had at all times triumphed over
every combination of circumstances, so long as they themselves were
united. The temporary success of Jehangir Khan was obliterated by the
excesses which characterized his occupation of the country, and by the
energy and large display of force, with which the Chinese pacified the
state on his flight; and the last, under Wali Khan, can scarcely be
dignified by any other appellation than that of a marauding incursion.
But a great and important change had occurred in the few years that had
elapsed since 1859. The Chinese no longer presented a collected force to
the onslaught of an assailant. In every quarter of their empire,
victorious rebels had established themselves, and had detracted in an
immeasurable degree from the effective strength of the Government. A
Mahomedan ruler swayed over the Panthays, in Yunnan, from his capital at
Ta-li-foo; the Tae