KASHGAR WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
Page 58.
On one occasion I was invited to the house of a Turki lady who was kind enough to display her wardrobe for my benefit. All her dresses were beautifully folded and kept tied up in large cloths. A woman of fashion wears five garments visible to the eye, the first two being the long gown and the trousers under it. The gown is made of Bokhara or Chinese silk, brocade, Russian chintz and so on, and over it is worn a waistcoat, often of cloth of gold or silver, edged at the neck with the handsome gold thread embroidery made at Kucha. Then comes a short coat with long sleeves, usually of velvet woven in Germany and decorated with a broad band of gold embroidery. One black brocade coat that I saw was embroidered round the neck with big tinsel butterflies set with artificial stones. The fifth garment is a long velvet or brocade coat covering its wearer to the heels; I noticed a handsome one of magenta velvet, the buttons being big bosses of scarlet coral set in gold filigree and small pearls, a product of the Yarkand bazar. Draped on the head is a big white shawl, often of pretty gauzy material, that falls to the heels, and upon this are set the dainty skull-cap and the big velvet fur-edged cap. To this latter is attached the face-veil of fine-drawn thread edged all round with gold embroidery, the very handsome broad band of needlework at the top being concealed by the brim of the hat. This seemed a waste to my practical English mind, but the lady to whom I pointed this out explained that such was the fashion.
Many of the young Kashgari women were most attractive in appearance, and some of the little girls quite lovely, their plaits of long hair falling from under a jaunty little embroidered cap, their big dark eyes, flashing teeth and piquant olive faces reminding me of Italian or Spanish children. One most beautiful boy stands out in my memory. He was clad in a new shirt and trousers of flowered pink, his crimson velvet cap embroidered with gold, and as he smiled and salaamed to us I thought he looked like a fairy prince. The women wear their hair in two or five plaits much thickened and lengthened by the addition of yak’s hair, but the children in several tiny plaits.
The peasants are fairly well off, as the soil is rich, the abundant water-supply free, and the taxation comparatively light. It was always interesting to meet them taking their live stock into market. Flocks of sheep with tiny lambs, black and white, pattered along the dusty road; here a goat followed its master like a dog, trotting behind the diminutive ass which the farmer bestrode; or boys, clad in the whity-brown native cloth, shouted incessantly at donkeys almost invisible under enormous loads of forage, or carried fowls and ducks in bunches head downwards, a sight that always made me long to come to the rescue of the luckless birds.
WATER-CARRIERS AT KASHGAR.
Page 60.
It was pleasant to see the women riding alone on horseback, managing their mounts to perfection. They formed a sharp contrast to their Persian sisters, who either sit behind their husbands or have their steeds led by the bridle; and instead of keeping silence in public, as is the rule for the shrouded women of Iran, these farmers’ wives chaffered and haggled with the men in the bazar outside the city, transacting business with their veils thrown back.
Certainly the mullas do their best to keep the fair sex in their place, and are in the habit of beating those who show their faces in the Great Bazar. But I was told that poetic justice had lately been meted out to one of these upholders of the law of Islam, for by mistake he chastised a Kashgari woman married to a Chinaman, whereupon the irate husband set upon him with a big stick and castigated him soundly.