central and most commanding feature of their landscape, and the parent of many of the streams that bring them life.
Yet, in spite of its natural drawbacks of heat and drought, the country appears to have supported, at times during its history, a fairly large population, and to have been one of the chief centres of the Buddhists in the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages; for these communities have left many relics behind them, not only in the shape of buildings, but also of inscriptions and objects of art. The Russian traveller Grijmailo speaks of a place called Singim, lying to the south of Lu-ko-tsin (the old Liu-Chêng),[1] where "leaflets enclosed in horn and wooden boxes," and bearing ancient writings in a language now unknown, are still, from time to time, unearthed;[2] while Dr. Regel, again, tells us of vast ruins at a short distance to the south-east of modern Kara-Khoja (the Ho-Chao of the Chinese), to which he gives the name of 'Old Turfán,' but which are more likely to be those of ancient Kara-Khoja. These remains are described as covering a large tract of ground, with massive walls, gates and bastions, besides underground passages, vaulted and arched; the whole bearing witness to a high development of architectural knowledge. He mentions also other ruins of a similar kind, lying to the south of the town of Turfán.[3] From the Ming history too, we learn that to the east of Ho-Chao there stand the ruins of a city of the past, which are regarded as remains of the ancient Uighur capital, Kao-Chang, and with regard to the aspect of the place in the days of the Mings, the author adds that there were in Ho-Chao more Buddhist temples than dwelling-houses of the people.[4]
With the gradual break up of the power of the Moghuls towards the end of the sixteenth century, and the rise of the Manchu dynasty in China in the first half of the seventeenth, the Khanate of Uighuristán fell more and more under the influence of China. For a time, during the eighteenth century, the Kalmáks, with the help of the Tibetans, obtained a hold over it, but this was of short duration, and on their final subjugation by the Manchus, about 1755, the whole country
- ↑ In Dr. Regel's map this place is marked some thirty-six miles to the north-west of La-ko-tsin (Luktochin), an instance of how uncertain our information is regarding this region. (See map in Petermann, 1881, Band 27, No. X.)
- ↑ P. R. G. S., 1891, p. 223.
- ↑ Loc. cit., p. 207.
- ↑ Bretschneider, ii., p. 187.
