ABSTRACT
By the spring of 1924 it had become abundantly clear that the Pekin Government was hand and glove with the Soviets. Once these were recognized by the Chinese, the appearance of a Bolshevik Consulate in Kashgar was inevitable, with its usual crowd of myrmidons, agents of the O.G.P.U., agitators and spies. The soil of the Yarkand oasis is very fertile, well watered and supplies the inhabitants generously. Life is easy for them, so that they are easy-going and not very enterprising. In Kashgar, on the other hand, the poverty of the soil has compelled the inhabitants to develop their local industries, such as hides and matá, a coarse textile made from cotton. But the men of Yarkand, whose fertile soil yields an abundant harvest of all that he may require, together with a generous water supply, does not bother his head about anything else than his fields and his gardens.
