Next day we were at Kashgar, and, much though I had enjoyed my late experiences, the comfort and cleanliness of the Consulate appealed strongly to us both, as did also the abundance of tomatoes, cauliflowers, cabbages, egg-plants, cucumbers, pumpkins and carrots in its well-stocked garden. We had returned to a season of plenty; for, although the apricots and the first crop of figs were over, the melons were at their prime, white, yellow, green and pink-fleshed, while the small peaches and nectarines were ripe, to be followed by a larger variety later, and the splendid grapes of many kinds and flavours were almost ready. To the servants it could not have been so pleasant, since we arrived in the middle of the great fast of Ramazan, half of which they had escaped owing to being on a journey. During the following fortnight they were very slack and tired, and, though we spared them as much as we could, I felt ashamed to eat three good meals a day while they might touch nothing, Daoud having to prepare our food, and Sattur having to see us eat it. Certainly it is more trying in the hot weather than in the cold of winter, but at any time of year it is not a light matter to let no food pass the lips between dawn and sunset for a whole lunar month. On the stretch of melon beds that lay below our terraced garden the owners had built shelters of leafy boughs and sang and played the whole night through, the noise of drums, pipes and bagpipes not being particularly conducive to our slumbers. The flies had become a nuisance, though I did my best to cope with them by making the doors and windows of the kitchen and larder practically fly-proof, and I found that carbolic sprinkled on a hot shovel stupefied the insects with its pungent smoke, so that they could be swept up. But, as might have been foreseen, nothing I could do was really efficacious, owing to the vis inertiae of the Oriental, and to his inherent incapacity to shut doors properly.
We found a temperature of 98 degrees somewhat trying at first after the uplands we had left, but we enjoyed some pleasant rides to gardens outside the city, where we drank tea and ate fruit, and were offered trays of pistachios. The shell of these nuts is usually split at one end, and Mr. Bohlin quoted a Turki saying to the effect that “a smiling man is like an open pistachio.” In every garden there was a mud platform covered with felts or carpets, on which the natives lie, and sometimes, instead of this, a large oblong wooden table with very short legs. On these expeditions, Sattur followed in the carriage carrying our tea, and we heard that the townsfolk thought we must esteem him very highly to allow him to drive in state while we merely rode.
The crops of Indian corn were usually of the variety with big heads and no “cobs,” our informant saying that both children and dogs steal and eat the milky cobs to such an extent that it was hardly worth while to grow them. This is the last crop to be reaped, and there is an anecdote describing how one year the devil entered into a compact with a farmer who was to give His Satanic Majesty everything above ground. The wily cultivator then sowed carrots, and the disappointed devil accordingly stipulated that his share during the second year should be everything below ground; whereupon wheat was sown. Upon this, Satan demanded at the beginning of the third year that the top and root of the crops sown should be his. But the farmer again outwitted him by raising Indian corn and taking all the cobs, which grow partway down the plants.
All along the roads, mixing with the lofty durra plants, were the fan-like hemp leaves which emitted a strong odour. The Chinese forbid the cultivation of this plant, for hashish has worse effects upon its victims than opium; but the Kashgaris appear to pay little heed to the prohibition and prepare the deadly drug from the pollen which falls from the flowers upon the leaves. Much flax is grown, but only for the oil which is obtained from the seeds, and the natives were amazed, and even disbelieving, when Mr. Bohlin showed them linen made from its fibre. The oil is squeezed out by means of a wheel turned by a horse in a very narrow space, and when the poor animal gets dizzy, going round and round, it is blindfolded, and in the end it often goes blind in reality. On one occasion an intelligent Armenian brought a machine to Kashgar to extract the oil, but the mullas said it was unclean, and as no one dared to buy the oil the man was ruined. The mullas act more or less as guardians of order. We were told that during the summer there had been a fight about irrigation water—a most fruitful cause of dissension in the East—with the result that several of the townsfolk had been wounded. The priests, anxious to prevent the recurrence of such a scandal, had visited every house in the city and broken the points of all the knives, a somewhat original way of checking quarrels.
After being among the lusty, ruddy Kirghiz, the Kashgaris seemed to us pale and underfed, and I was not surprised to hear that any illness carries them off very quickly. Of course they were all suffering from the effects of Ramazan, but their usual food, a thin broth mixed with flour and piles of boiled macaroni, cannot be very sustaining. It was a great relief to me when August 12 arrived, and the fast was over and all our staff attended a service in the little mosque attached to the Consulate. Poor Jafar Bai looked very old and worn out, and told me that the torture of being unable to quench his thirst had been terrible. He and the other servants came to salaam us clad in new, or at all events clean, clothes, and to show their joy they beat a little hand-drum during the entire day. The townsfolk in their new dresses were a feast of colour for the eyes, and I remember one pretty little girl in yellow silk with a crimson skull-cap worked in gold, while another in a long magenta and green-patterned cotton held a big melon in each hand and gazed at us under a jaunty green cap. Many were fond of combining magenta and scarlet, which looked quite in place among the green trees and crops, and their love of colour greatly added to the charm of our daily rides.
Here are the words of one of the songs sung by children during the month of Ramazan, which was translated for me, its charming tune having haunted me. The chorus, however, struck me as somewhat ironical, for the yearly fast presses with great severity on the poor, who are forced to work for their livelihood, and cannot sleep all day and eat all night as do the rich.
1
These thirty fasts are our guests,
Those who do not keep the fast are animals.
Chorus.