July 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST, 



TRADE OF CENTRAL ASIA. 555 



doned. A difficulty existed in inducing the Tartars to sell to the British 

 agent, they preferring to trade with the people of the higher tracts. At 

 present the Tartars would gladly supply any amount required. Had 

 the agent, instead of remaining in the lower hills, paid an annual visit 

 to Tartary, and purchased his wool directly from the shepherds them- 

 selves, instead of taking it from the hands of the traders, he would not 

 only have procured a "better, hut a cheaper article. The speculator would 

 not probably be allowed to enter the country under the protection of 

 China, but he might with ease and safety every summer repair to Hung- 

 rung or to Spiti, where the Chinese shepherds would not fail to meet 

 him by appointment, and furnish any quantity of wool he might have 

 ordered in the preceding year. He would thus he able to select his own 

 fleece, and see it shorn before him. For carriage it would be necessary 

 to purchase a large flock of sheep, which during the winter season 

 would find an abundant pasture in the lower tracts, or even in the 

 plains, and in the summer or rainy season would be roaming over the 

 grassy tracts of the upper hills. With the flock might be taken flour, 

 grain, salt, iron, ghee, butter, cloth, sugar, and other articles in demand 

 among the people." * 



In the commodities brought from Yarkand there has of late years 

 been an increase of shawl-wool. This is the produce of the Kara- 

 koram, Pamir, and Mazat or Mastau mountains, of which Captain H. 

 Strachey remarks — " Mr. Wood's description of Badakhshan and Pamir 

 presents a remarkable likeness to a province of the Indian Himalaya 

 (such as Kunawur), communicating by a valley gorge (as that of Tsotso) 

 with a Thibetan upland (like Eupshu). On both the summits we have 

 15,000 feet lakes embedded in 19,000 feet mountains, with the same 

 zoology of domestic yak and wild sheep, and the Kirghiz even is cousin- 

 german of the Champa of Nari." Moorcroft reports that the fleeces of 

 the shawl goats of Khutan are at least equal to those of Ladakh. The 

 Pashm from Yarkand, known as Turfani and Khuchari, is of the finest 

 description, and is entirely consumed in the manufacture of the best 

 shawls in the Maharaja's territories. It has there to a certain extent 

 superseded the Chan-than wool, which is less fine. It is stated 

 that the art of cleaning the raw wool has only been communicated to 

 the Yarkandis since the Dogra conquest of Ladakh ; hence the increased 

 export. 



The shawl trade of Amritsar bears the highest value, and the profits 

 seem to be equally divided between the Maharaja's and our own terri- 

 tory. It might be thought impossible for the manufacturers of Kashmir, 

 who have to pay not only a heavy stamp duty on their shawls, but also 

 a customs' duty on export, to compete with the free industry of the 

 looms in the Punjab, but the fact is that the fabrics of the valley have 



* "Journal of a Trip into Kunawur," by Captain Hutton. 'Journal .Asiatic 

 Society,' Part I., pp. 500-502. 



