The sunsets of Kashgar were most lovely, with a delicacy and charm all their own. They were not spectacular displays of scarlet, purple and gold as in many parts of the world, but the sky was softly flushed with pale pinks, mauves and yellows, while a wonderful golden haze, due I imagine to the dust particles in the air, shimmered over the whole landscape. The broken loess cliffs, on which stood shabby mud hovels and tombs with no pretensions to architecture, seemed now to be crowned with castles and domes worthy of some city of high romance, the ruined garden-house with its columned verandah standing high above the river was turned into a Greek temple, and the tall poplars silhouetted darkly against the glow resembled cypresses, transporting me in spirit to many an Italian garden in Rome or in the City of Flowers. The chocolate-coloured river flowing below us was now iridescent as the breast of a dove, and across the sands of its wide bed there gleamed the enchanted light that cast a spell over the whole landscape. And then the sun would set, and in an instant a grey, deathlike pallor would creep over everything, making me shiver and turn away with a curious sense of depression.
During the spring the Kashgaris make pleasure expeditions to the different shrines round the city, going rather to eat and gamble than to say their prayers. Bands of friends are in the habit of feasting one another in turn in some garden, meeting four afternoons a week for the purpose, and sometimes on our evening walks we came across these revellers returning home. The Begs and the Sayyids, who claim to be descendants of the Prophet, rode showy stallions or well-fed asses and looked imposing figures in their snowy turbans and long silk coats. They were usually handsome men with well-cut noses, fresh complexions and full beards. The young men had moustaches and invariably stuck a rose or a sprig of blossom under the brim of their embroidered caps, and all alike presented a strong contrast to the flat-faced, yellow-skinned Chinese.
The women, who, as in all Moslem countries, have no social intercourse with the men, took their outings by visiting the shrines, one of which they had all to themselves, the Mazzar of Bibi Anna. The grave of this female saint was situated on a bluff opposite the Consulate, the mud tomb, on which a white flag fluttered, being enclosed with a mud wall. Here widows and divorced women who desired remarriage and girls anxious for a husband were wont to resort: putting their hands into holes built in the tomb, they would implore the holy woman to aid them.
THE SHRINE OF BIBI ANNA.
Page 93.
Try as I would, I was unable to gain any information about the Bibi Khanum, as she was called. The white flag brought her often to my mind, as I could not stand upon the garden-terrace without seeing it, and now and again at night I observed a lighted lamp hanging above her last resting-place. In a Mohamedan country where woman in theory is little regarded, what had the Lady Anna done that a shrine at which miracles were reputed to be performed should be erected to her memory? When did she live? Was she perhaps kin to Hazrat Apak the Priest-King of Kashgar? I can answer none of these questions, and merely know that she was regarded with much veneration.
On one occasion, when many women were assembled at her grave, I asked some of them to put their hands into the holes of the tomb and allow me to photograph them in that position, but realized at once how tactless I had been. With shocked faces the women explained that such a thing would practically amount to sacrilege; but they had no objection to being photographed seated beside the mazzar.
Perhaps the most popular shrine is that of Ali Arslan, a couple of miles to the north of the city, the road leading up to it being bordered on either side by gardens, the property of the mazzar and a great holiday resort. The lofty brick gateway is barred to horses and vehicles by a tree-trunk, over which we clambered, to find ourselves in a large enclosure with a great tank of water planted round with stately poplars, a usual and pleasing characteristic of holy places in Chinese Turkestan. Behind it lay the shrine, an insignificant building entered by an old carved and fretted doorway, one of the best specimens of this form of native art that we came across in the country. An old akhun—his office is to read the Koran at the graves for the benefit of the departed—was kneeling and reciting prayers before it, and inside the small space was filled by a large tomb covered with blue and white tiles, trophies of flags, and horns of the wild sheep.
Sultan Arslan Boghra, the hero-saint, surnamed the Tiger for his bravery, who is honoured here, fought with great valour against the Buddhist inhabitants of Khotan, who did not wish to change their religion for the tenets of Islam. He was one of the earliest Mohamedan conquerors of Kashgar, and it is recorded by Bellew that the pagan ruler of Khotan, who led his force against the Moslems, offered a large reward to the man who could compass the Sultan’s death. At this time the Nestorian Church had its adherents throughout Asia, and the story runs that one of its priests counselled the Buddhists to fall upon their opponents at dawn, as they would then be engaged with their devotions and so would be taken unawares. The advice was followed, and in a great battle on the desert plain of Ordam-Padshah, some fifty miles south-east of Kashgar, the adherents of the Prophet were utterly routed and their gallant leader slain.