A JOURNEY IN SIBERIA. 401 



tit- bits and sweets; the drinks consisted of excellent tea and sick- 

 eningly sweet rice-brandy of the strength of spirits of wine. After 

 the meal, which I, at least, managed to get through with impunity, 

 having fortified myself beforehand with a substantial snack of a 

 less doubtful kind, the hookahs were produced, and we were shown 

 various intelligible and unintelligible objects of interest in that room 

 and the one adjoining. Among these were landscapes and pictures of 

 animals, commendatory letters from the government, the great seal 

 of state wrapped up with comical carefulness in brightly coloured 

 silk, extraordinary arrows of an import which only a Chinese mind 

 can fathom, samples of European industry, and so forth. The con- 

 versation was extremely limited, and unspeakably dignified. Our 

 addresses had to be translated from French to Russian, from Russian 

 to Kirghiz, and from Kirghiz into Chinese; and the answers had to 

 pass through the reverse process. Little wonder, then, that the 

 speeches acquired a tone of great solemnity! After breakfast some 

 Chinese archers came in to display their warlike valour and skill; 

 thereafter the Jandsun himself in all his glory led us to his 

 kitchen-garden to let us taste its produce. At length he bade us 

 farewell, and we rode again through the streets and markets of the 

 town, and found hospitality in the house of a Tartar, where we 

 enjoyed an excellent meal, especially graced by the presence of a 

 young wife, as pretty as a picture, who was summoned to the men's 

 apartments to do us honour. It was towards sunset that we left 

 the town, which is not without historic interest. 



Tchukutchak is that town which in 1867, after a prolonged 

 siege, fell into the hands of the Dungani, a Mongolian tribe, of 

 Mohammedan faith, who had been for long in persistent insurrec- 

 tion against the Chinese rule. It was razed to the ground and no 

 living creature spared. Of the thirty thousand souls who are said 

 to have inhabited the town, over a third had found refuge in flight; 

 the rest, confident in the success with which repeated assaults had 

 been repulsed, remained to their destruction. When the Dungani 

 succeeded in storming the town, they showed the same inhuman 

 cruelty which the Chinese had shown to them. What the sword 

 did not claim was destroyed by fire. When our escort, Captain 



CM 70 ) 26 



