brigandage has readied such a point that there is no sort of security, the authorities resort to a ruse. By dint of promises and fair words, the chief who is the instigator of the trouble is enticed into the town and got rid of in some way or other. For instance, he is put into a cage between two impaling poles, and, by way of warning to offenders, he is left to die in this horrible posture. Sometimes it is a week before his agony ends in death. Having lost their leader the nomads are thrown more or less into confusion, and advantage is taken of this to obtain some kind of submission.
The Chinese authorities have succeeded in embodying a certain number of Kirghis, in registering them, so to speak. Thus we observed that the horsemen whom we meet wear round the neck a small tablet in a felt bag. When I ask what that means, I am told that for some time past every Kirghis who is going into the town must first appear before his leader and ask him for one of these tablets, upon which his name is written in Turkish, in Chinese, and in Mongolian. It is a passport which enables him to move about freely in the bazaars, and if in times of disturbance he should be caught without it he is arrested by the Chinese soldiers and visited with the most terrible punishments. On returning to his tribe, the traveller has to return the passport to his chief, and in this way it is possible to ascertain who are absent, and to exercise some sort of police control in the mountains. These men, riding about with the tablet napping against their chest, enable one to realise the enormous power of an administration when opposed to the weakness of private interests without cohesion. The Chinese authorities have succeeded by dint of patience in getting the whip hand of these nomads, who used to make mock of them, and have put the yoke of the law upon their necks.
September 15.—To-day we left Mazar, and if the bridge over the Kash had not been carried away by a storm, we should
