FROM KASHGAR TO IGHIZ-YAR 251 
The sun’s rays were still very hot, although it was 
nearing sunset, when the caravan moved off between 
the poplars and willows which line the broad highroad, 
one of the great public works of Yakub Beg. It being 
market-day, the road was enlivened with a brisk trafffc. 
There were mandarins of different “buttons,” drivino- 
along in their little blue carts, each drawn by a mule 
bedizened with trappings and bells ; there were small 
troops of Chinese officers and soldiers in gay uniforms, 
all mounted. But not the least striking features were 
the huge, picturesque arbas (carts) crowded with Sarts 
or Chinese on their way to Yanghi-hissar or Yarkand. 
Each vehicle was arched over with a tunnel-like roof of 
straw, and drawn by four horses, hung all over with 
bells of various sizes ; one horse being harnessed between 
the shafts, the other three a considerable distance in 
front, pulling by means of long, roughly-made ropes. 
These clumsy but serviceable vehicles are the diligences 
of East Turkestan. By them, for the extremely modest 
fare of ten Kashgar tengeh (about 2s. 3«'.), you can ride 
all the way from Kashgar to Yarkand, a distance of four 
long days of travel. We met one caravan of merchandise 
after another. Along the sides of the roads were swarms 
of beggars and cripples of every kind and degree, water- 
sellers with their big earthenware jars, bakers and fruit- 
dealers, displaying their wares on tiny stalls ; whilst a 
swarm of sun-browned urchins paddled in the muddy 
water that stagnated in the ditches by the roadside. 
We passed a line of saints’ tombs; the monument which 
the Russian consul-general, Mr. Petrovsky, erected in 
1887 to the memory of the murdered Adolf Schlagintweit, 
now undermined by the spring floods; and Yakub Beg’s 
ruined castle of Dovlet-bagh (the Garden of Riches). 
We crossed the Kizil-su, a reddish-brown mud-stream, 
crawling underneath the double-arched bridge. Finally, 
leaving the Chinese town, Yanghi-shahr, on the left 
hand, we struck the desolate, lifeless country, which 
stretched away southwards and eastwards, flat and bound- 
less, as far as the eye could see. By that time, nine 
