Few are the spots in this world as difficult of access as Kashgaria, that is Chinese, or Eastern, Turkestan. Even aeroplanes, which do not fear the snowy deserts of the poles, and penetrate the innermost recesses of the Dark Continent, have barely reached this happy land. The ancient history of Kashgaria is closely connected with that of Old Persia, although cut off by great distances and the enormous mountain ranges of the Pamir, the Roof of the World. How often it is the irony of fate that a “liberated” people have caused bitterly to lament its liberation! In the long history of Kashgar this happened more than once. Properly speaking, the whole vast plain in which the city of Kashgar stands with its surrounding towns and villages is nothing but a desert, for even the banks of the rivers which flow through it, the Tiumen, the Kizil-Su and Gez, are dead and barren.