A CHINESE DINNER-PARTY 
243 
however appear punctually, you will find your host taking 
his midday siesta, and see neither guests, attendants, nor 
signs of dinner. When things are sufficiently advanced 
in your host’s house, he sends off another messenger, who 
comes and shows you his master’s calling-card. This is 
to be interpreted as a signal, that you may now begin to 
dress yourself, though you need not bustle about it. 
We too of the consulate made a truly gorgeous show 
as we rode in procession to the great man's palace. The 
place of honour at the head of the procession was filled 
by a Sart from West Turkestan, the aksakal (chief) of 
all the merchants, subjects of Russia, who dwelt in 
Kashgar. He wore a red velvet khalat (coat), decorated 
with two or three Russian gold medals. Close behind 
him rode a Cossack, carrying the silk banner of the 
consulate, red and white, with a little blue cross stitched 
diagonally across the corner. Consul-general Petrovsky 
and I rode in a sort of landau, escorted by two officers 
and by Adam Ignatieff, in the long white coat with the 
cross and rosary round his neck. Last came a dozen 
Cossacks in white parade uniforms, curbing in their 
snorting horses with a tight rein. 
Thus arrayed in holiday magnificence, we rode, under 
a broiling hot sun, at a gentle pace through the narrow, 
dusty lanes of Kashgar, across the market-place of 
Righistan, with its hundreds of tiny stalls, shaded by 
thatched roofs, each supported by a slanting pole, past 
niosques, madrasas (Mohammedan theological colleges), 
and caravanserais, across the “flea” bazaar, where old 
clothes are on sale, coming occasionally into collision 
t'^ith a caravan of camels or a string of donkeys laden 
With small casks of water, and entered at length the 
Chinese quarter of the city, full of quaint shops, with 
np-curling roofs, painted dragons, and red advertisement 
signs. Finally we drove in at the preat grates of the 
^ao Lai’s yamen (residence), and were there received 
y his Excellency in person, surrounded by a band of 
eardless and wrinkled military attendants dressed in their 
gayest attire. 
