TIEN-SHAN PEH LU AND THE TOWN OF KULDJA.
Tien-shan Peh Lu is divided by the Chinese into three commanderies, Ílí on the west, Tarbagatai on the north, and Kur-kara usu on the east, between Ílí and the west end of Kansuh. The government of the North and South Circuits is under the control of Manchu military officers residing at Ílí. This city, called by the Chinese Hwuiyuen ching, and Gouldja (or Kuldja) and Kuren by the natives, lies on the north bank of the Ílí River, in lat. 43° 55′ N., and long. 81½° E.; it contains about fifty thousand inhabitants, and carries on considerable trade with China through the towns in Kansuh. The city was defended by six strong fortresses in its neighborhood, and the solidity of the stone walls enabled it to resist a vigorous assault in the Dungani rebellion. Its circuit is nearly four miles, and two wide avenues cross its centre, dividing it into four equal parts, through each of which run many lanes. Its houses indicate the Turkish origin of its builders in their clay or adobe walls and flat roofs, and this impression is increased by the Jumma mosque of the Taranchis, and the Dungan mosque, outside of the walls. The last has a wonderful minaret built of small-roofed pavilions one over another; both of them affect the Chinese architecture in their roofs, and their walls are faced with diamond-shaped tiles. The Buddhist temple has hardly been rebuilt since the city has returned to Chinese rule. The supply of meats and vegetables is constant, and the variety and quality exceed that of most other towns in the region. The population is gradually increasing with the return of peace and trade, but is still under twenty thousand, of which not one-fifth are Chinese and Manchus: the Taranchis constitute half of the whole, and Dunganis are the next in number. The province is the richest and best cultivated of all this region of Ílí; its coal, metals, and fruits are sources of prosperity, and with its return to Chinese sway under new relations in respect to Russian trade, its future is promising.
The destruction of life was dreadful at the capture of Kuldja and other towns, which were then left a heap of ruins.[119] Schuyler estimates that not more than a hundred thousand people remained in the province, out of a third of a million in 1860. It is stated in Chinese works that when Amursana, the discontented chief of the Songares, applied, in 1775, to Kienlung for assistance against his rival Tawats or Davatsi, and was sent back with a Chinese army, in the engagements which ensued, more than a million of people were destroyed, and the whole country depopulated. At that time, Kuldja was built by Kienlung, and soon became a place of note. Outside of the town are the barracks for the troops, which consist of Eleuths and Mohammedans, as well as Manchus and Chinese. Coal is found in this region, and most of the inland rivers produce abundance of fish, while wild animals and birds are numerous. The resources of the country are, however, insufficient to meet the expenses of the military establishment, and the presents made to the begs, and the deficit is supplied from China.[120]
Subordinate to the control of the commandant at Kuldja are nine garrisoned places situated in the same valley, at each of which are bodies of Chinese convicts. The two remaining districts of Tarbagatai and Kur-kara usu are small compared with Ílí; the first lies between Cobdo and the Kirghís steppe, and is inhabited mostly by emigrants from the steppes of the latter, who render merely a nominal subjection to the garrisons placed over them, but are easily governed through their tribal rulers. The Tourgouths, who emigrated from Russia in 1772, into China, are located in this district and Cobdo, as well as in the valleys of the Tekes and Kunges rivers. They have become more or less assimilated with other tribes since they were placed here. In the war with the Songares, many of the people fled from the valley of Ílí to this region, and after that country was settled, they submitted to the Emperor, and partly returned to Ílí. The chief town, called Tuguchuk by the Kirghís, and Suitsing ching by the Chinese, is situated not far from the southern base of the Tarbagatai Mountains, and contains about six hundred houses, half of which belong to the garrison. It is one of the nine fortified towns under the control of the commandant at Kuldja, and a place of some trade with the Kirghís. There are two residents stationed here, with high powers to oversee the trade across the frontier, but their duties are inferior in importance to those of the officials at Urga. 2,500 Manchu and Chinese troops remain at this post, and since the conquest of the country in 1772 by Kienlung, its agricultural products have gradually increased under the industry of the Chinese. The tribes dwelling in this distant province are restricted within certain limits, and their obedience secured by presents. The climate of Tarbagatai is changeable, and the cold weather comprises more than half the year. The basin of Lake Ala-kul, or Alaktu-kul, occupies the southwest, and part of the Irtysh and Lake Dzaisang the northeast, so that it is well watered. The trade consists chiefly of domestic animals and cloths.
The town of Kur-kara usu lies on the River Kur, northeast from Kuldja and on the road between it and Urumtsi; it is called Kingsui ching by the Chinese. The number of troops stationed at all these posts is estimated at sixty thousand, and the total population of Songaria under two millions.
POSITION OF TIEN-SHAN NAN LU.
The Tien-shan Nan Lu, or Southern Circuit of Ílí, the territory of ‘the eight Mohammedan cities,’ was named Sin Kiang (‘New Frontier’) by Kienlung. It is less fertile than the Northern Circuit, the greatest part of its area consisting of rugged mountains or barren wastes, barely affording subsistence for herds of cattle and goats. The principal boundaries are the Kwănlun Mountains, and the desert, separating it from Tibet on the south; Cashmere lies on the southwest, and Badakshan and Kokand are separated from it on the west and northwest by the Belur-tag, all of them defined and partitioned by the mountain ranges over which the passes 12,000 to 16,000 feet high furnish both defence and travel according to the season.
THE RIVER TARIM AND LOB-NOR.
The greater part of this Circuit is occupied with the basin of the Tarim or Ergu, which flows from the Belur range in four principal branches[121] (called from the towns lying upon their banks the Yarkand, Kashgar, Aksu, and Khoten Rivers), and running eastward, receives several affluents from the north and south, and falls into Lake Lob in long. 89° E., after a course, including windings, of between 1,100 and 1,300 miles. Of the river system from which this stream flows Baron Richthofen says, “the region which gives birth to this river is on a scale of grandeur such as no other river in the world can boast. It is girt round by a wide semicircular collar of mountains of the loftiest and grandest character, often rising in ridges of 18,000 to 20,000 feet in height, while the peaks shoot up to 25,000 and even 28,000 feet. The basin which fills in the horse-shoe shaped space encompassed by these gigantic elevations, though deeply depressed below them, stands at a height above the sea varying from 6,000 feet at the margin to about 2,000 in the middle, and formed the bed of an ancient sea. From its wall-like sides on the south, west, and north, the waters rush headlong down, and though the winds blowing from all directions deposit most of their moisture on the remoter sides of the surrounding ranges, viz., the southern foot of the Himalayas, the west side of the Pamir, and the northern slope of the Tien shan, the streams formed thereby winding through the cloud-capped lofty cradle-land, and breaking through the mountain chains, reach the old ocean bed only partly well watered. The smallest of them disappear in the sand, others flow some distance before expanding into a level salt basin and are there absorbed. Only the largest, whose number the Chinese estimate at sixty, unite with the Tarim, a river 1,150 miles long, and therefore in length between the Rhine and Danube, but far surpassing both in the massiveness of surrounding mountains, just as it exceeds the Danube in the extent of its basin. Its tributaries form along the foot of the mountains a number of fruitful oases, and these by means of artificial irrigation have been converted into flourishing, cultivated states, and have played an important part in the history of these regions.”[122] Col. Prejevalsky’s explorations in this totally unknown country have brought out a multitude of facts pregnant with interest both for historical and geographical study. Among the most important results of his discoveries is the location of Lob more than a degree to the south of its position on Chinese maps, and a consequent bend of the Tarim from its due eastern course before it reaches its outlet. This lake, consisting of two sheets of water, the Kara-buran and Kara-kurchin (or Chon-kul), lies on the edge of the desert, in an uninhabited region, and surrounded by great swamps, which extend also northwest along the Tarim to its junction with the Kaidu. It is shallow, overgrown with weeds, and is for the most part a morass, the water being fresh, despite the salt marshes in the vicinity. The people living near it speak a language most like that of Khoten; they are Moslems. Lake Lob is elliptical, 90 to 100 versts long and 20 wide, 2,200 feet above the sea. Enormous flocks of birds come from Khoten on the south-west, as they go north, and make Lob-nor their stopping-place. The desert in this region is poor and desolate in the extreme. Its southern side is formed by the Altyn-tag range, a spur of the Kwănlun Mountains that rises about 14,000 feet in a sheer wall. Wild camels are found in its ravines, whose sight, hearing, and smell are marvellously acute. No other river basins of any size are found within the Circuit, except a large tributary called the Kaidu, which, draining a parallel valley north of Lob-nor, two hundred miles long, runs into a lake nearly as large, called Bostang-nor, from which an outlet on the south continues it into the Tarim, about eighty miles from its mouth. The tributaries of this river are represented as much more serviceable for agricultural purposes than the main trunk is for navigation. The plain through which the Tarim flows is about two hundred miles broad and not far from nine hundred miles long, most of it unfit for cultivation or pasturage. The desert extends considerably west of the two lakes. The climate of this region is exceedingly dry, and its barrenness is owing, apparently, more to the want of moisture than to the nature of the soil. The western parts are colder than those toward Kansuh, the river being passable on ice at Yarkand, in lat. 38°, for three months, while frost is hardly known at Hami, in lat. 43°.