l, yet important part in the histories of Khokand, Jungaria, and
Eastern Turkestan. Preserving their independence in the inaccessible
region lying west of Lake Issik Kul, and along the Kizil Yart plateau
and range, this tribe has always been a source of trouble to its
neighbours, whosoever they might be. On various occasions, too, they
have joined the career of conquest to their usual avocation of plunder,
and under the few great leaders that have arisen amongst them they have
appeared as conquerors, both of Eastern and Western Turkestan. But their
achievements have never been of a permanent nature. Like the irregular
undisciplined mass of horsemen which constitute their fighting force,
their chief strength lay in a sharp and decisive attack. They had not
the organization or the resources necessary for the accomplishment of
any conquest of a permanent kind. Their incursions, even when most
formidable and most sweeping, were essentially mere marauding
onslaughts. Their object was plunder, not empire; and having secured the
former, they recked little of the value of the latter. At one time they
were able to carry their raids in almost any direction with perfect
impunity; but as settled governments arose around their fastnesses, and
curtailed their field of operations, what had been a life of adventure
through simple love of excitement, became a struggle for sheer
existence. The region where they dwelt was far too barren to support
throughout the year even the limited numbers of the Kirghiz, and yearly
they had to issue forth against prepared and disciplined enemies in
search of the sustenance that, to preserve their existence, had to be
obtained. But for the intestine quarrels that were sapping the life
strength of the Asiatic states slowly away, there is no doubt that the
Kirghiz would have been gradually exterminated. Soon, however, they had
the skill to avail themselves of these disagreements to sell their
services as soldiers to the highest bidders; and although they were not
equal to the Kipchak tribes in valour, their alliance was considered of
importance, and on many a dubious occasion sufficed to turn the fortune
of the day. By such measures of policy their existence has been
preserved, and at the present time they perform much the same functions,
and are regarded in much the same manner by their neighbours, as in the
past.

The Kipchaks, another great tribe, who however are scarcely represented
at all in Kashgari