ABSTRACT
“China’s hold upon her nomad population is of the slightest and, although a handful of men is maintained on the Pamirs at Tashkurgan, there is little sign of Chinese authority until one drops into the great plain of Central Asia, and finds at Kashgar a Chinese Taotai, a garrison, and a walled city on the regular Chinese model, set in that green ribbon where the line of irrigation brings wealth and prosperity and the most luscious fruits to a dense Mohammedan population, on the very borders of the deserts of Takla Makan. Here we find the Chinese in their furthest outpost, their westernmost extremity, a position which they have lost and won time after time throughout the ages”
