with the new doctrine.

In the tenth century, Satuk Bughra Khan, the ruling prince of Kashgar,
who had been converted to Islam, forced his people to adopt that
religion, although it is tolerably clear that up to this time there had
been no acknowledgment of supremacy to the representative of Mahomed on
earth. A disunited state, which had on several occasions felt the heavy
hand of the authority of its generals, and at whose very gates its power
was consolidated, could not but be in some sort of dependence to the
stronger power, as there was no ally to be found sufficiently powerful
to protect it, now that the Chinese had retrogressed into Kansuh.
Towards the end of the tenth century the Mahomedans met with a series of
reverses from the Manchoo and Khoten troops, who still preserved their
relations, political and commercial, with China. It was in the
neighbourhood of Yangy Hissar that their general, Khalkhalu, inflicted
the most serious defeat on the Mahomedan rulers of Kashgar, but within
the next twenty years, assistance having come from Khokand, these
defeats were retrieved, and Khoten itself for the first time passed
under the rule of Islam. The family of Bughra Khan was now firmly
established as rulers of Eastern Turkestan, and their limits were almost
identical with those of the late Yakoob Beg.

The Kara Khitay, who had migrated from the country bordering on the
Amoor and the north of China, after long wanderings, had settled in the
western parts of Jungaria, and, having founded the city of Ili, in
course of time formed, in union with some Turkish tribes, a powerful and
cohesive administration. Their chief was styled Gorkhan, Lord of Lords,
and their religion was Buddhism. It was of this tribe, according to
some, that the celebrated Prester John, or King John, was supposed to be
the chief in the Middle Ages. Some neighbours who had been harassed by
predatory tribes came to Gorkhan for assistance, which was willingly
conceded; but, having successfully repulsed the Kipchaks and other
tribes, this leader did not withdraw from the country he had occupied as
a friend and ally. Not only did he then annex Kashgar and Khoten, but he
crossed the Pamir into the province of Ferghana, and in a short period
brought Bokhara, Samarcand, and Tashkent under his dominion. This
extensive empire was of very brief duration however, and civil war was
waged for more than half a century after the first successes of Gorkhan,
in which Kh