WANG-YEH-FU AND NING-SHA 1247 
large town of some 60,000 inhabitants ; but the revolt 
was a serious blow to it, a blow from which it has not 
even yet recovered, for its present population is only 
between 12,000 and 15,000. It Is only the middle of the 
town that is occupied ; the outer quarters next the city 
walls are deserted — no inhabitants, no shops, no traffic. 
The revolt broke out in Ning-sha in consequence of the 
imprudence of a mandarin. At the time when a large 
Mohammedan force lay encamped outside the town, a 
mandarin told his Dungan servant, that on the following 
day the Chine.se intended to slay all the Dungans within 
the town. When night came, the servant stole out to the 
camp, and told the Dungan chiefs what he had heard, and 
then stole back again into the town the same way he had 
gone out. Then he and his co-religionists inside burst 
open the gate, and let in the host of the rebels from the 
camp outside. The invaders found entry through “ the 
little northern gate,” which is now walled up to prevent 
any Dungan from storming Ning-sha that way in future. 
The same gate perpetuated another ghastly memory. 
When the Dungans got inside the town, they raged like 
wild beasts, .slaying every creature they met. Out of the 
total population not more than two thousand Chinese 
were left alive ; and most of these only saved their lives 
because they went over to the side of the rebels. The 
numerous ruins still existing in Ning-sha witness to the 
destruction that was wrought on that fatal day. 
At the present time the feeling between the Chinese 
and Dungans is, at any rate outwardly, a feeling of re- 
pressed hatred. In Ning-sha the Chinese are entirely 
in the power of the Dungans ; for the latter, owing to 
their capacity and enterprise, have not only possessed 
themselves of the most profitable occupations, they have 
cot also all the cultivable soil into their hands. It 
O 
reads like the irony of fate, that the Dungans, who are 
Mohammedans, should keep vast herds of swine, and 
grow opium on a more than usually extensive scale, 
and thus produce two of the standard commodities with- 
out which the Chinese can scarcely exist, namely bacon 
