Charming as spring is in Chinese Turkestan, it has a serious drawback in the violent sandstorms that are particularly frequent during March and April, in fact it has been computed that there are only a hundred really clear days during the year. For several days after our arrival the air was thick with dust that veiled the sun and accounted for the strictures passed by travellers on the “grey atmosphere” and depressing climate of Kashgar. Either by day or by night a furious wind would arise, bringing clouds of sand from the desert and coating everything in our rooms with a layer of reddish grit that hurt our eyes if we chanced to be caught in the open. I was told, however, that the inhabitants liked this haze that enshrouded their city as being a welcome change from the brilliant sunshine, and also as tempering the heat that was beginning to be considerable during the middle of the day. We noticed great changes in the temperature, sometimes experiencing a drop of as much as twenty degrees from one day to another. This I found out to my cost when I had a tiresome attack of rheumatism caused by riding on a cold morning in the thin linen coat that had been just the thing on the previous day.
These sandstorms raging through the centuries are supposed to have made the loess formation which is so characteristic of Chinese Turkestan, and so amenable to the spade of the cultivator when irrigated. The countless layers of compressed sand are capable of producing splendid crops, and the apparently lifeless desert of Central Asia is able to support large populations if the beneficent agency of water be provided.
WATERING HORSES IN THE TUMAN SU.
Page 56.
The loess is also most useful in another way; for, when mixed with chaff and water, it forms the staple building material of Chinese Turkestan, and edifices of sun-dried loess bricks will endure through the centuries, if repaired at intervals. I have often seen a peasant mending a wall in most primitive fashion by filling the breach with wet mud, which he slapped into position with his hands. Naturally this style of building is suitable only in a dry climate, and a prolonged period of heavy rain, such as sometimes occurs in winter, works havoc with it, the flat roofs of houses staving in and walls frequently collapsing. To the traveller, the loess, though picturesque when broken up into crevasses and castellated forms, has its drawbacks. Unless cultivated it is inexpressibly dreary, in dry weather the traffic stirs it up into clouds of suffocating dust, and in wet it turns into a sea of slippery mud, in which the surest-footed horse may come down. If the rain be of long duration the soil is apt to turn into a veritable morass, which engulfs many a poor little donkey and chokes it to death.
I was fond of riding through the bazar on a Thursday, the day of the weekly fair, when crowds of people poured in from the many hamlets in the Oasis, making a feast of colour. Among the men there was a great mixture of types, the upper-class Kashgaris usually having handsome features and full beards and moustaches; a group of Afghans with hawk-like profiles and proud bearing would catch the eye, reminding me of birds of prey when contrasted with the flat-faced, ruddy-cheeked, hairless Kirghiz; and the lower classes with the high cheek-bones of the Mongol seemed a link between the Iranian and the Chinese.
The men wore long coats, purple, red, green, or striped in many colours, with gay handkerchiefs serving as waistbands. Snowy turbans denoted mullas and merchants, but the others in fur-edged velvet hats or prettily embroidered skull-caps made gay splashes of colour as they rode by on spirited stallions or donkeys. The women were, if possible, more brightly clad than the men; their under shirts and trousers contrasting with their coats and hats. One belle, for example, had an emerald green coat lined with a flowered pink cotton; her under-garment was a vivid orange, and her hat purple, with a spray of blossom coquettishly stuck under the brim. It seems almost incredible, but she fitted in well with her surroundings in the brilliant sunshine and the spring green of foliage and crops.
The only visible differences between the dress of the men and of the women were the long white cotton shawls of the latter which they wore over their heads, and the small face-veils usually made of hand-embroidery, sometimes with a handsome border and fringe. These coverings were fastened to the brim of the hat, and were usually flung back over it, only to be hastily pulled down by some very orthodox dame at sight of my brother; but if I happened to be riding behind him it would usually be pushed aside to enable its wearer to have a good look at the English khatun. Girls of good family veil and are kept secluded; but there were few “gentry” in Kashgar, for when the Chinese retook the province on the death of Yakub Beg nearly all the upper-class Kashgaris fled to Andijan. Both men and women wore abnormally long sleeves, answering the purpose of gloves in cold weather, and long leather riding-boots. The latter were often made of scarlet leather and were more like stockings than boots, and over them was worn a shoe with stout sole and heel. Indeed these long boots were seen everywhere and constituted a special feature of the country, being worn by men, women and children alike.
