448 
THROUGH ASIA 
mails are carried quickly and punctually. Since the 
Chinese Government, at the suggestion of the British 
Government, introduced telegraphic communication, the 
old postal service no longer possesses the importance 
it used to have, particularly between Kashgar and Ak-su, 
and from thence to Kara-shahr, Urumchi, Khami, 
Su-chow (Su-chau), and Liang-chow-fu. It was strange 
to see telegraph-posts so far in the interior of Asia. They 
were put up in as straight a line as possible and with 
scrupulous care. When the Chinese were working at 
them, they were accompanied by an army of Sarts, with 
arbas, who provided them with victuals and tools. 
February 23rd. The forest ceased some distance 
before reaching Maral-bashi. From the point where it 
did cease the road was bad, and the country bare and 
uninteresting. We crossed the Kashgar-daria a second 
time, at a spot where it was dry, by a small wooden 
bridge, and drove past the Chinese fort of Maral-bashi, 
with its battlemented walls of kiln-made bricks and small 
towers at the corners. It was said to have a g-arrison 
of 300 men. The chief bazaar of the town, which ran 
from west to east, was very long, very straight, and very 
dirty, and was lined with the shops of the Chinese and 
Sarts. Off it opened the gates of the caravanserais. We 
were allowed a couple of rooms for ourselves and our 
paraphernalia in a miserable hovel. 
February 24th. Maral-bashi, together with the neigh- 
bouring kishlaks, was said to amount to a thousand 
households. The town is also called Dolon, and in 
certain parts of East Turkestan, for instance in Yarkand, 
this name is the only one in use. The word dolon signifies 
“a wild wooded tract, without villages,” and is used here 
in contrast with Kashgar and Ak-su. The inhabitants, 
who are proud of being called Colons, have the same 
language, customs, and religion as the rest of the 
population of East Turkestan, but seem to be somewhat 
differentiated from them, in that they approach more 
nearly to the pure Uigur type. 
I took a walk through the little town, which is not 
