URUMCHI. 289 



selves among the inhabitants of the town, Sha>ig-/m. 3. 

 Chinese vagrants Avho have been colonized here, An-cha-hu. 

 4. Exiles, including those whose term of banishment has 

 expired, and who have joined the class of agriculturists, 

 Tsian-Jiu. Each class forms a separate commune with an 

 elder, called Tou-mii, or Siang-yu, to whom reference is 

 made in cases of official interference, whence their authority 

 is very great. 



Besides the classes we have enumerated, there are the 

 gardeners, Yiian-Im, who hire land from government, but 

 as they do not form part of the regular population, they are 

 not included among the natives. The tradesmen and 

 operatives mostly belong to the class of exiles, and these 

 also supply servants for the townspeople. 



The colonists do not live in villages but in detached 

 farms, each on his own land. They never fertilise the soil 

 with manure, but sow their crops in regular rotation. 

 Owing to the depth to which the ground is frozen in winter 

 no corn is sown in autumn but all in spring. Those 

 colonists who belong to the class of exiles return to Urum- 

 chi after the harvest is over, and engage in other occu- 

 pations, repairing to their fields again in spring for the 

 sowing. The merchants often buy the growing crops of 

 the peasants, paying for them as they come up and after- 

 Avards gathering them themselves. 



Wheat and oats are chiefly cultivated at a place called 

 Gau-tai; rice is also sown, but what kind of rice, the dry or 

 the watery, the author does not mention. Oats are used 

 for feeding cattle and distilling brandy. Oatmeal also 

 .serves the inhabitants for food. Of the vegetables pro- 

 duced by the gardeners, the author praises the cabbage 

 and turnip in particular. Two kinds of poppy are also 

 cultivated. But in its fruit and all the other produce of its 

 soil, this country is far behind the neighbouring Turkestan.' 

 The tobacco cultivated at Urumchi is said to be excellent. 

 Asafoetida and madder arc also among its productions, the 



' This is of course Eastern Turkestan, or Kashgaria, and must not 

 be confounded with Russian Turkestan to the west of the famir. 



VOL. II. и 



