Across the Roof of the World. 



handkerchiefs of gaudy hue, tea, leather, trinkets of indifferent 

 qviality, horses and sheep, and some other items of insufficient 

 importance to warrant special mention. 



With regard to exports, these comprise brick tea, oil mainly 

 used for lamps and culinary purposes, paper, skins, grain, and, 

 what is most deplorable, wapiti horns, in the exportation of 

 which there is a considerable trade, for, as I have said, the Chinese 

 regard them as possessed of medicinal properties, the result 

 being the horns command high prices. 



In the more settled portions of the Hi Valley one sees evidence 

 of the rebellions which formerly reduced the country to a state of 

 anarchy and barbarism, and appear to have permanently affected 

 it, since the influx of emigrants has been small, the efforts to colonise 

 the district meeting with but slight success notwithstanding 

 special incentives to do so held out by the Chinese authorities. 



The population of Hi consists of Sarts, Taranchis, Tungans, 

 Chinese, Kalmuks, Kazaks and Kirghiz. The first are natives 

 of Russian Central Asia, speaking the Turki language, and with 

 manners and customs similar to the Kashgarians, of which an 

 account has been given in a previous chapter. 



The Taranchis owe their designation to their pursuit of agri- 

 culture, or sowers of millet, the term " taran " signifying millet. 

 They were imported from Kashgaria in 1756 as part of the new 

 population destined to fill the devastated territories of Dzungaria 

 after the revolution. 



In religion they are Mohammedan, but this has been some- 

 what modified from association with the Chinese. Their dress 

 consists of the flowing robes affected by the Kashgarians, with 

 the same top boot. The head is shaven and a fur cap worn, 

 except by the mullahs or priests, who wear the large white 

 turban. 



The women are dressed similarly to those of Kashgaria, but 

 their caps are of a stiff, cylindrical pattern, some of them being 

 beautifully embroidered, one now in my possession constituting 

 a fine specimen of the needlewoman's art. They are not veiled as 



300 



