5;^4 Sir George Macartney [May 9,. 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, May 9, 1919. 



Sir James Reid, Bart., G.C.Y.O. K.C.B. M.D. LL.D., 



Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Sir George Macartney, K.C.I.E. 

 Chinese Turkistan : Past and Present. 



Central Asia extends roughly from the Caspian Sea on the West 

 to the borders of Manchuria on the East. The whole of this exten- 

 sive area has many physiographic and climatic conditions in common, 

 whether the particular portion be Russian Turkistan, or Chinese 

 Turkistan, or the north-west corner of Inner China. There is 

 nothing surprising in this when we consider that the area in question 

 is in the temperate zone, hemmed in by lofty ranges of mountains, 

 and is, moreover, at the very heart of the largest of continents. 

 These factors combine to induce great extremes of temperature, a 

 minimized rain-fall and a consequent aridity of soil. 



It would be futile to attempt the description of a stretch of country 

 as large as that which lies between the Caspian and Manchuria ; but 

 I shall take its middle section, the Lob Basin, as Chinese Turkistan 

 is sometimes called, because those of its rivers that do not lose their 

 way in the sands drain into Lake Lob. Turkistan has somewhat 

 the shape of a wedge, inserted between the Tienshan range and the 

 Kurugh Tagh on the North, and the Kuen-lun and the Karakorum 

 ranges on the South, the point of the wedge resting on the Pamir 

 Mountains just where the " Three Empires meet." The basin itself 

 is an inclined plane, with an elevation on the Pamir side of some 

 4500 ft. sloping eastwards towards Lob Nor, where the height is no 

 more than 2000 ft. The towns themselves, approximately some 

 twenty-five in number, supporting a population close upon a million, 

 cling close to the skirt of the mountains, dotted on the banks of 

 the rivers as they emerge from the ring of uplands. The centre of 

 the basin is an absolute desert, a wilderness of sand-dunes. What 

 rather strikes the imagination in Turkistan is the close proximity of 

 some of the highest and the lowest points in the world. 



The Turkistanis are generally supposed to be an Indo-European 

 race, connected with the stock from whicli sprang the races of 

 Western Asia and Europe, and though they have from time to time 

 intermarried with the tribes of Huns, Chinese, Tibetans and Kalmaks 



