Through deserts and oases of central Asia

by Ella Sykes; Sir Percy Sykes

We arrived at the capital of Chinese Turkestan in the spring, with the best of the year before us. The trees that bordered the countless irrigation channels were all in leaf, the jigdah, or Babylonian willow, was bursting into flower with gusts of perfume, one species bearing later on a yellow fruit something like a date in appearance and called nan, or bread, by the Kashgaris; the sickly-sweet white, and the big purple mulberries were ripening; the fields brilliantly green with lucerne and young corn, and the many gardens enclosed by low mud walls pink with fruit blossom. The picturesque loess cliffs—such a characteristic feature of Chinese Turkestan—broke up the country in every direction and the two branches of the river added great charm to the landscape, the frequent haze of dust giving a curious glamour to the scene.

During our rides outside the city we often came across some little mosque with carved wooden columns and roof, the building overlooking a large hauz or tank of water planted round with tall silver-stemmed poplars, or a vacant space in some village lane would be occupied by a huge spreading poplar, or the beautiful elm of the country, or the rather rare weeping-willow. There were few flowers to be seen, save the small mauve irises that were always found in the graveyards, where they spread themselves in sheets of blue among the tombs; but along the sandy tracks big bushes of wild roses with their faint scent reminded us of home.

There were plenty of birds, hoopoes and doves being the commonest, if one excepts the ubiquitous crows and sparrows; the cuckoo was heard occasionally and the swallows skimmed after flies. I was interested in a pair of hawks that had made a rough nest in a tall poplar in the garden, their wild “keening” sounding all day long as they came backwards and forwards with food for their offspring. On one occasion they attacked M. Romanoff as he was standing on the terrace below their nest and looking through a pair of field-glasses. He said that they swooped down upon him again and again, brushing his head with their wings and uttering piercing cries, and they even pursued him to the roof of the Consulate whither he retreated to continue his survey of the country. His idea was that the hawks must have imagined the glasses to be a weapon directed at the nest. Mr. Bohlin once observed one of these birds swoop down in the midst of the crowded bazar and snatch a piece of meat from a boy, and he had often seen men washing the carcasses of sheep in the river and calling to the hawks that caught bits of offal flung into the air.

There were only harmless snakes in the Oasis, and not many of them. The boys were fond of winding them round their heads under their skull-caps, and they keep them in their shirts. On the other hand, the big six-inch-long lizards were feared, as their bite was said to be very poisonous. We sometimes saw the pretty jerboa, and there is a kind of small rat indigenous to the country, called “bag-mouth” by the natives, from its habit of filling the pouches in its cheeks with grain that it stores away. On one occasion Mr. Bohlin discovered that a large box of garden-seeds was nearly empty, and setting a watch he caught the ingenious little thief busily filling its pouches. On killing it he recovered a surprising quantity of the stolen goods!

The newly built Consulate was agreeably free from scorpions, which usually come out at night and can move at a great rate with a curious rustling noise; but we had plenty of spiders. The very large ones that could run at lightning speed I was assured were harmless; but one of the missionaries told me that the pain she had suffered from this spider’s bite was intense, and that her finger had had a lump on it for many a long day after. An entomologist endorsed her experience, saying that these were hunting spiders, and killed their prey with a bite that was poisonous. Their size may be judged from the fact that Mr. Bohlin once saw a sparrow try to attack one, but the spider defended itself by waving its legs, and by this manœuvre apparently so much alarmed the bird that it flew off! I used to call Sattur to the rescue when my rooms were invaded by one of these creatures, and he often had an exciting chase with the broom before he could dislodge his agile prey from its niche, its long leaps filling me with fear lest it might alight upon my head and then wreak vengeance upon me. Finally, it would be caught in a cloth and flung outside the house, my henchman refusing to destroy it, as the world-wide superstition that it is unlucky to kill a spider holds good in Kashgar. A comparatively small, but very hairy spider, I was told, was extremely poisonous. Great black bees and dragon-flies flew about the garden, big horse-flies often attacked our mounts as we rode, and, when the first cold of autumn set in, we suffered from a regular invasion of wasps crawling about on windows and floors, all in a half-torpid condition.

During the summer it was almost impossible to read in the evenings, because a light attracted swarms of midges, little beetles and other insects; but we could sit or walk on the terrace in the darkness unmolested, nor were we troubled by mosquitoes.

Until I became accustomed to it, the noise of Kashgar disturbed me a good deal. At dawn the whole world was up and about, men and boys singing lustily, or yelling at their donkeys, which from their continual braying are nicknamed the “nightingales of Kashgar,” the bird of the poets not being a visitor to these regions. A jingling of bells would denote the passing of the blue-tilted Chinese mapas drawn by sturdy ponies, or a deeper booming would indicate that a caravan of camels was on its way across the desert, perhaps to far Khotan, or even to Peking. The city gun, really a Chinese cracker, went off with a bang at sunrise to announce that the city gates were open, and it seemed to let loose a perfect pandemonium of sound. Women shrieked to one another, children cried and quarrelled, dogs barked, horses neighed and cocks crew; the flocks of small birds twittered unceasingly, there was an all-pervading hum of insects, in which one could distinguish the shrill chirp of the tree-cricket, and multitudes of frogs croaked from the watercourses.

At intervals throughout the day would be heard the blowing of an ibex horn, resembling the hoot of a motor. This was a signal from one of the many mills, to inform customers that the miller was ready to grind their grain, or perhaps that the flour was waiting to be carried away. These mills are ramshackle mud buildings on the river or on a water channel, everything being open to the air and no provision made to keep out wind and rain and dust. The wheat is poured into boxes which feed the millstones, and these cast the flour, when ground, on to flat tables, upon one of which I noticed a dirty old cap being used to sweep it up. The Kashgar millers had by no means a good reputation for honesty. A customer’s grain is weighed before grinding, yet when it is returned to him as flour it will probably be mixed with some inferior cereal or even with sand, of which there is enough and to spare.

With the noonday heat there always came a welcome lull in the concert of noise, this being the hour of siesta for most living things. But when the sun descended towards the west all the world awoke, and a crescendo of sound would be reached by sunset, all the sounds of the early morning recurring, the legions of cocks seeming to salute the parting day as vociferously as they greeted its appearance. The Kashgaris, by the way, have a very inferior breed of poultry, and their rendering of our saying: “To count your chickens before they are hatched” is “To count your chickens in the autumn.” They speak of a coward as being “chicken-livered,” just as we do.

There must be added to the noises I have already enumerated the thudding of drums, the drone of bagpipes, the twanging of sitars and the singing of choruses, often most agreeable to western ears. Nor must I omit to mention the muezzins calling men to prayer from the minarets of the mosques, their powerful voices ringing out over the city with a solemn beauty as they testify that there is but one God and that Mohamed is His Prophet.