We were shown the pool where the saint was wont to make his ablutions before praying, and close by was a great trophy of the horns of ovis poli and other wild sheep, the offerings of many huntsmen. There were two wooden mosques in the enclosure, the roofs and pillars of the verandahs being carved and brilliantly coloured in the characteristic native fashion. Between them once lay the grave of Yakub Beg, but when the Chinese recovered Turkestan they destroyed the tomb and flung away the ashes of that masterful ruler.
On another occasion we visited the Chinese cemetery, which was very small when compared with the acres round Hazrat Apak that are covered by Moslem tombs. But the rulers of Chinese Turkestan are conspicuous by their absence in Old Kashgar and, moreover, they are always anxious, if possible, to have their remains interred in their native land. The enclosure, surrounded by a high wall, had usually a custodian of most hideous appearance standing at the open gateway, and the place had a tragic story attached to it. It was called Gul Bagh (Flower Garden), and was formerly the cantonment of Chinese troops in Kashgar. But when Yakub Beg wrested Turkestan from China he killed many soldiers of the Celestial Empire, and their remains were left unburied within this enclosure until the Chinese regained the Province in 1877. Then all the scattered bones were collected and placed under three big mud domes, the site of the former barracks being turned into a graveyard for Celestials.
Just inside the entrance was a temple with a wall on which was an inscription to keep off evil spirits, and at the end of each long, low, mud tomb was a tiny door facing south, through which the spirit of the dead man was supposed to emerge. In the mortuary chambers near the gate were placed the corpses of rich men who wished to be buried in China and whose coffins were awaiting fitting escort for the long journey.
I was told that when a Chinaman of importance dies, or, as it is put poetically, “drives the fairy chariot on a long journey,” the body is kept in the house for several days, during which a priest offers up prayers before it, music being played and crackers let off. At the funeral a cock is brought to the cemetery on the coffin and killed at the moment of burial, in order that the spirit of chanticleer may be ready to waken the spirit of the dead man in the next world. Paper houses, attendants, soldiers, horses, carriages, beds, boxes, money—in fact every kind of thing pertaining to the daily life and use of the deceased—are burnt before the coffin, in order that the spirit may have all these in the next world and may thus be enabled to take its proper position there. In the case of a wealthy man this ceremony is repeated on the three anniversaries following his death, and in front of a temple outside Kashgar a small pagoda-like tower was pointed out to me in which masses of paper prayers were burnt for the benefit of the deceased founder.
The Chinese are not considered particularly brave, but, though a man will avoid death by any possible means, yet he will meet it calmly when inevitable, and suicide is looked upon as rather a meritorious act than otherwise. If a man is condemned to death he is strangled; but for serious crimes short of murder the culprits are beaten severely on the legs, and men who have expiated their misdeeds in this way have frequently been brought into the Swedish hospital with their leg-bones broken in two or three places, and in some cases so badly injured that death ensues.
“There is something of a baby and something of an old man in every Chinaman,” quoted Mr. Bohlin on one occasion, and I was naturally interested when we were entertained at a lunch given by the Taoyin, or Governor, of Kashgar. The invitation, written on a strip of scarlet paper, described my brother as Sa Ta-jen (the Big Man), while my title Gu Ta-tai (Sister of the Big Man) appeared below.
I had hoped that we were bidden to a real Chinese dinner where sharks’ fins, swallows’ nests and such like delicacies would figure in the menu, though I was somewhat staggered at being told that a first-class dinner would comprise no fewer than a hundred and twenty courses, second and third class banquets having sixty and thirty courses respectively. No wonder that after such orgies the yamen is wont to remain closed for three days. But in this case, though the dinner lasted with an interlude from one o’clock to four, it was, as far as the food went, an inferior Russian repast. It began with many zakuskas, consisting principally of dubious-looking tinned fish, followed by soup, several meat courses, jelly, ices, tea and champagne. The Russian Consul-General and his staff were present, and all the Europeans were placed on one side of a long table under an awning, while their Chinese hosts sat opposite. These latter amused me by getting up at intervals. Some would take the Governor’s children on their knees—he was the proud father of four sons—and give them tit-bits from the table; others smoked opium in curious pipes and had choking fits, during which they retired into the garden to cough in peace; while others would leave the table to give instructions to the servants in charge of two gramophones that discoursed popular European airs all the time.
The commander-in-chief, a quaint-looking figure with grey locks, a putty-coloured complexion and claw-like nails that made me shudder, strolled up and down in a khaki uniform and made amiable remarks to the guests; other officials rose to ply all and sundry with vodka and wine, and the only one that kept his seat was a small boy clad charmingly in blue and purple silk and wearing a sailor hat woven in blue and mauve straw. He ate manfully of every course, and even demanded a second helping of some of the more indigestible of the delicacies, but looked so strong and rosy that I suspected he was not accustomed to indulge his appetite in this way very often.
There is a great mortality among Chinese babies if their mothers are unable to feed them; for Celestials have the strongest repulsion to cows’ milk. “We do not wish to become calves,” they say, and if a mother dies her offspring is nourished on rice and sugar.
There was a crowd of soldiers at this party, some quite aged men, clad in black cotton uniforms, their heads bound up in handkerchiefs and holding curious weapons, such as steel prongs at the end of long sticks, and all having a highly unmilitary appearance. The army is looked down upon in China, it being a common saying, “We do not make nails from good iron or soldiers from good men,” and in consequence of this strong pacifist feeling no man of decent standing would enter the profession of arms, except in the higher ranks where successful generals have temples built in their honour.