at the period in question, the custom of sending tribute-bearing missions to China had degenerated, in the Khanates of Eastern Turkistan, to mere trading adventures, and that the Chinese must have been aware of the abuse the custom had undergone.[1] Even one of the circumstances that gave rise to Goës' mission, hinged upon a fraudulent embassy of this kind. A Musulman merchant, on his return to Lahore from China, gave the Jesuits there, information regarding the road to 'Cathay,' which appears to have had much influence in deciding them to send forward Benedict Goës. The man, on appearing at Akbar's court, and on being asked by the Emperor how he obtained admission to the Chinese capital, replied with frankness, that he had gone in the character of an ambassador from the King of Kashghar.
It may, therefore, be possible that spurious tribute-missions arrived at Peking from so many petty chiefs, or governors of towns, that the Chinese had actually recorded as large a number as seventy-five for the Turfán region, at the time Père Amyot speaks of; though this would in no way demonstrate that the State of Turfán, or Uighuristán, had, in reality, been split up into small divisions.
Though a separate and self-contained State, the Khanate of Uighuristán was in no way disconnected, physically, from the rest of Eastern Turkistan, or Alti-Shahr. No range of mountains or great river divided the two States, and even their people, in race and language, must have been practically one. No doubt there were slight variations in type and dialect, as is the case at the present day, between the natives of Turfán and those of Kashghar and Khotan; but all were of the Uighur stock, and those of the eastern Khanate, occupying, as they did, one of the ancient seats of the nation, perhaps retained the characteristics of the race in greater purity than the communities of the more western provinces. They lived, as it were, on the ruins of ancient Uighuria, and were less accessible than the communities further west to foreign influences, except perhaps, to those emanating from China—which must, however, have been slight. Their land, placed as it is, in the very centre of Asia, is less known, even nowadays, than almost any other part of the continent; the few modern travellers who have visited
- ↑ Sir H. Yule cites Abel Rémusat to show that the same thing had happened in the days of the Sung Emperors—i.e. the last native Chinese dynasty prior to the Mings. (Cathay, p. 583.)
