April 11, 1859.] FATE OF ADOLPHE SCHLAGINTWEIT. 173 



dullah is the bearer of his letter. From these statements, which 

 appeared to me substantially trustful, it seems that M. Schlagint- 

 weit was impelled by a desire to find a road to Yarkand which need 

 not pass through Ladak ; that he reached Yarkand — found that 

 country harried by Crescentaders (sic) from Kokan, and passed on 

 to Kashgar, where the same fanatical raids were going on ; and the 

 leader of one of them, a Synd, named Wulli Khan, seized M. 

 Schlagintweit, and barbarously caused him to be beheaded, without 

 any other offence apparently than that of being a foreigner. If any- 

 thing could soothe the distress of M. Schlagintweit's friends in 

 Europe, it would surely be the noble contrast between the en- 

 lightened purpose and humane search for knowledge which bore 

 him into those wilds with his life in his open hand, and the bar- 

 barian's frenzy for the propagation of error by the blood of his 

 fellow men. I have sent by separate parcel a slip of paper and a 

 broken pocket-telescope, which were the only relics Abdullah could 

 bring away with him. 



I have, &c., 



Peshawr, Dec. 1858. Herbert B. Edwardes. 



The statement of Abdullah Mahomed, an attendant of M. 

 Adolphe Schlagintweit, is to the following effect : — 



. . . He then, with the informant and four others, resumed 

 his journey, and, at a distance of three days' journey from Yarkand, 

 turned towards Sokut, and thence to Shumla Khoja. From this place 

 he sent a servant to Yarkand to obtain information of the wars that 

 were then going on, and learnt on his return that it was the Khan 

 of Kokan who had been the aggressor, consequently he set out for 

 Yarkand without hesitation. Passing Kirgan and Kuigluk, he 

 arrived at the camp of one Tilla Khan, Synd of Kokan, who had 

 come with an armed multitude to make a religious war with Yar- 

 kand. A sortie was made from the city against Tilla Khan, and 

 obliged him to fly. M. Schlagintweit left his baggage, and fled with 

 his followers to Kashgar. Here he found that another Synd of Kokan, 

 called Wulli Khan, was then the king. He had himself just come 

 on a religious war, and had conquered the place. M. Schlagintweit 

 desired an interview with him, but he was refused, and was carried 

 as a prisoner to the Khan, who, without any questioning or any 

 apparent reason, ordered him to be beheaded. The execution took 

 place immediately, outside the city of Kashgar. The informant 

 was sold as a slave, but after various difficulties contrived to reach 

 India. 



Mahomed Amir of Yarkand, one of the above-mentioned four 



