FROM KULJA TO KUMUL 443 



cut out to keep the record without a break. The first 

 day we passed seventy camels on their way to Manas 

 to fetch grain, six wagons of merchandise bound for 

 Kulja, and three average-sized caravans carrying cotton 

 and wool to Chuguchak. Farther on we counted twelve 

 wagons of grain going west and seventeen going east, 

 two camel-caravans of seventy and ninety camels each, 

 numberless foot-passengers — mostly colonists from the 

 home provinces, long strings of coal-carts bearing an- 

 thracite from the mines situated to the south of Manas, 

 besides two theatrical companies " on tour." 



Although the country appeared to be busier and the 

 roads more full, the region between Manas and Urumchi 

 presented a spectacle of ruin. The destruction caused 

 by the disturbances of 1865-75 defies all description. 

 Ruined towns dotted the landscape ; we encountered only 

 two villages where the old maps marked five. For this 

 district was, and still is, the centre of Dungan coloniza- 

 tion, and it was here that the hand of the destroyer 

 worked with the most disastrous results. The traces of 

 earlier irrigation-canals were to be seen on lands now 

 lying idle. The country was, however, slowly recover- 

 ing, for small villages and farmsteads were springing up 

 alongside the road, and in time it may assume a more 

 normal aspect. 



Immediately on leaving Manas we sighted the peaks 

 of the Bogdo-ola Mountains, which mark the position 

 of the capital. Our first view of this remarkable alpine 

 summit was that of a single ice-clad peak showing its 

 crest over a far horizon, but on reaching Urumchi we 

 found that it formed an imposing background to the city 

 lying close under its slopes. 



Urumchi, Ulu-muchi, or Tihua-fu, the provincial 



