[Footnote 147: I am told, that there are at present in the four districts of Chinese Tartary about 120,000 soldiers, forming the garrisons of the four principal towns. One part of them, armed with spear and sword, is called Tchan-ping, the others, who bear muskets, are known by the designation of Shüva.]
[Footnote 148: Such, for instance, as (1) the robes being made to reach the kaees, and of blue linen, a costume regarded by the Musselmans with abhorrence as distinctive marks of the Chinese; (2) the permitting the moustache to grow, whereas Islam rigidly enjoins that the hair covering the upper lip shall be cut close.]
In social matters it is easy to conceive how two such discordant elements as the Chinese and Musselmans live together. Warm friendly relations seem, under the circumstances, impossible; but I fancy that I can discern, nevertheless, that no peculiar animosity exists between the two classes. The Chinese, who are the minority, never allow the Tartars to feel that they are rulers, and the authorities distinguish themselves by the greatest impartiality. As conversion to the dominant religion is singularly displeasing to the Chinese, it is not surprising that their efforts carefully tend not only to make the Musselmans exact in the performance of their religious duties, but to punish severely those who, in this respect, offend. Does a Musselman omit to pray, the Chinese are wont to say [{405}] to him, 'Behold how ungrateful thou art; we have some hundreds of gods, and, nevertheless, we satisfy them all. Thou pretendest to have but one God, and yet that one thou canst not content!' Even the Mollahs, as I often had occasion to observe, extol the conscientiousness of the Chinese officials, although they deal with their religion in the most unsparing terms. So, also, the Tartars are never tired of praising the art and cleverness of their rulers, and there is no end to their laudatory strains when they once begin to speak upon the subject of the power of the Djong Kafir (great unbelievers), i.e., the genuine Chinese. [Footnote 149]
[Footnote 149: The taking of Pekin by the Anglo-French army has not remained hidden from them. When I asked Hadji Bilal, how that was reconcilable with the boasted omnipotence of the Chinese, he observed, that the Frenghis had employed cunning, and had begun by stupefying all the inhabitants of Pekin with opium, and then had naturally and easily made their way into the slumbering city.]
And is it not again most astonishing that all the followers of Islamism, including those who are farthest to the west, as well as those to be found on its most distant eastern boundaries, whether Turks, Arabs, Persians, Tartars, or Özbegs, ridicule and mock at their own faults just in the same degree as they praise and extol the virtues and merits of the nations not Mohammedan? This is the account I heard everywhere. They admit that taste for the arts, humanity, and unexampled love of justice are attributes of the Kafir (unbelievers), and yet you hear them, with their eyes glancing fire, using an expression like that attributed to a Frenchman, after the battle of Rosbach, 'God be praised that I am a Musselman! [Footnote 150]
[Footnote 150: 'El hamdü lilla ena Müszlim.']
(c. ) Cities.
Amongst the cities, of which we give a list in the account of routes in Chinese Tartary, the most flourishing are Khoten and Yarkend. The largest are Turfan Ili and Komul; and the objects of most pious veneration, Aksu and Kashgar. In the last, which boasts 105 mosques (probably, however, only mud huts destined for prayer), and twelve Medresse, there is the venerated tomb of Hazreti Afak, the national saint of Chinese Tartary. Hazreti Afak means 'his highness the Horizon,' a phrase by which is meant to be expressed the infinity of the talents of the saint. His actual name was Khodja Sadik. He contributed much to form the religious character of the Tartars. It is said that Kashgar originally was more considerable, and that its population was more numerous, than is the case at present. This decay is owing alone to the invasion of the Khokandi Khodja, who every year surprise the city, drive the Chinese into their fortifications, and remain there plundering and despoiling, until the besieged garrison have despatched their formal interrogatory to Pekin, and have obtained official permission to assume the offensive. The Khokandi Khodja, a troop of greedy adventurers, have thus for years been in the habit of plundering the city, and yet the Chinese never cease to be Chinese.