all. When settled they are mostly designated Sarts a name which has reference more to manner of life than to anthropological classification, although a much stronger admixture of Iranian blood is evident in the Sarts, who also speak Persian at Khojent and Samarkand. Their numbers amount to very nearly 1,000,000. Taranchi or Taranji (“labourer” in Chinese) is the name given to those Sarts who were settled in the Kulja region by the Chinese government after the rising of 1758. They constitute about two-fifths of the population of Kulja. The origin of the Dzungans is somewhat problematical. They number nearly 20,000, and inhabit the valley of the Ili in Kulja and partly are settled in Russian Turkestan. They are Mahommedans, but have adopted Chinese manners of life. The Mongol branch is represented in Turkestan by Kalmucks (191,000) and Torgutes (Torgod) in the north-east and in Kulja, where they are intermingled with Solons, Sibos and Chinese. The Aryan Tajik, the aborigines of the fertile parts of Turkestan, were subdued by the Turko-Mongol invaders and partly compelled to emigrate to the mountains, where they are now known as Galchas. They number over 350,000 and constitute the intellectual element of the country and are the principal owners of the irrigated land—the Uzbegs being their labourers—merchants, and mollahs or priests. They are Sunnite Mussulmans. The other representatives of Aryan race in Turkestan are a few (8000) Persians, mostly liberated slaves; Indians (300), who carry on trade and usury in the cities; a few Gipsies (800), and the Russians. Among these last two distinct elements must be noticed the Cossacks, who are settled on the borders of the Kirghiz steppe and have assumed many Kirghiz habits, and the peasant-settlers, who are beginning to colonize the valley of the Ili and to spread farther south. Inclusive of the military, the Russians number about 100,000. The total population numbers approximately 9,000,000.
Notwithstanding immigration, the Russians still constitute a very small proportion of the population, except in the province of Semiryechensk, where the Cossacks, the peasants, and the artisans in towns number 130,000, and, with the Russian troops, constitute 14% of the aggregate population. The only other province containing any considerable number of Russians is Syr-darya, where there are about 10,000 settlers (less than 1% of the population). About 12,000 Russians are settled in Bokhara and about 4000 in Khiva. The total estimated population of Russian Turkestan in 1906 was 5,746,600.
There are several populous cities in Russian Turkestan. Its capital, Tashkent, in the Syr-darya province, had 156,414 inhabitants in 1897, and other cities of importance are Samarkand (58,194), Marghilan (42,855 in Old Marghilan, and 8977 in New Marghilan) in Ferghana, Khojent (31,881) in Syr-darya, Khokand (86,704), Namangan (61,388) and Andijan (49,682) in Ferghana.
Education.—In the way of education nearly everything has still to be done; but a technical school and an experimental agricultural station with a school have been opened at Tashkent.
Railways.—Turkestan possesses only two railway systems; the Transcaspian line and the Orenburg-Tashkent line. The former, built in 1880-1888, starts at Krasnovodsk on the Caspian and runs east-south-east between the Kara-kum desert and the Kopet-dagh Mountains until it reaches the oasis of Tejen. Then it turns north-east via Merv to Bokhara and Samarkand, the total distance being 940 m. From Samarkand it is continued east-north-east via Khojent to Andijan (330 m.), sending off on the way a branch to Tashkent (94 m.). This last city was in 1905 connected by rail via Perovsk, Kazalinsk, and Irgiz with Orenburg (1149 m.).
General Condition.—Populous cities adorned with fine monuments of Arabian architecture, numerous ruins of cities decayed, grand irrigation canals now lying dry, and written monuments of Arabian literature testify to a time when civilization in Turkestan stood at a much higher level than at present. This period was during the first centuries after its conversion to Islam. Now all is in decay. The beautiful mosques and madrasas (theological colleges) are dilapidated; no astronomers study the sky from the tops of their minarets; and the scholars of the madrasas waste their time on the most deplorably puerile scholasticism. The inspiration of early belief has disappeared; the ruling motive of the mollahs (priests) is the thirst for personal enrichment, and the people no longer follow the khojas or theologians. The agricultural labourer has preserved the uprightness, diligence and sobriety which characterize the Turkish peasant; but the richer inhabitants of the cities are grossly sensual.
It remains, however, an open question whether the Russians will be able to bring new vigour to the country and awaken intellectual life. The followers of Islam, whose common law and religion know only of a temporary possession of the land, which belongs wholly to the Prophet, cannot accept the principles of unlimited property in land which European civilization has borrowed from Roman law; to do so would put an end to all public irrigation works and to the system by which water is used according to each family's needs, and so would be fatal to agriculture. The Russians have abolished slavery; and their rule has put an end to the interminable intestine struggles which had weakened and desolated the whole region. The barbarous tortures and executions which rendered Khiva notorious in the East are no longer heard of; and the continual appeals of the khojas for “holy” war against their rivals find no response. But the Russian rule has imposed many new taxes, in return for which Turkestan only gets troops of Russian merchants and officials, who too often accept the worst features of the depraved Mussulman civilization of the higher classes of the country. Schools are being diligently built; but the wants of the natives are subordinated to the supposed necessities of Russification. A consulting hospital for Mahommedan women has been opened by women graduates in medicine at Tashkent.
Bibliography.—I. V. Mushketov's Geological and Orographical Description of Turkestan (in Russian, St Petersburg, 1866) is still a standard authority. But consult also A. M. B. Meakin, Turkestan (London, 1903); F. von Schwarz, Turkestan (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1900); H. Krafft, À travers le Turkestane russe (Paris, 1902); H. Lansdell, Russian Central Asia (London, 1885); E. Huntingdon, “The Mountains of Turkestan,” in Geog. Journ. (1905); G. F. Wright, Asiatic Russia (New York, 1903); N. A. Syevertsov, “Vertical and Horizontal Distribution of Mammalia in Turkestan,” in Izvestia Lub. Est. of Moscow (1873); L. F. Kostenko, Turkestanskiy Krai (3 vols., 1880); O. Fedchenko, Album of Views of Russian Turkestan (1885); Navilkin's History of the Khanate of Kokand (in Russian, Kazan, 1885); A. Vambéry's Life and Adventures (London, 1883), Travels and Adventures in Central Asia (London, 1864); Sketches of Central Asia (London, 1867); and History of Bokhara (London, 1873); F. H. Skrine and E. D. Ross, The Heart of Asia (London, 1899), relating the history of the region; Heinz von Ficker, “Zur Meteorolpgie von West-Turkestan,” Denksch. a. mathemat.-naturw. Kl. d. kaiserl. Akademie d. Wissenschaft, lxxxi. (Vienna, 1907).
II.—East Turkestan
East or Chinese Turkestan, sometimes called Kashgaria, is a region in the heart of Asia, lying between the Tian-shan ranges on the north and the Kuen-lun ranges on the scuth, and stretching east from the Pamirs to the desert of Gobi and the Chinese province of Kan-su (98° E.). The country belongs to China, and to the Chinese is known as Sin-kiang; but administratively the Chinese province of Sin-kiang crosses over the Tian-shan and includes the valleys of Kulja or Ili and Dzungaria on the north.
Physical Geography..—Along with the desert of Gobi East Turkestan occupies the lower terrace of the great central Asian plateau, which projects from the Himalayas north-east towards the Bering Straits. But though it is in reality an elevated plateau, with a general altitude of 4600 down to 2675 ft., it is nevertheless a depression when compared with the girdle of mountains which surround it on every side except the east, and even on that side it is shut in by the crumbling remains of a once mighty mountain system, the Pe-shan (see Gobi). The region as a whole slopes very gently towards the Lop district, where the lake, or rather marsh, of Kara-koshun, in 39° 51′ N. and 89° 24′ E., lies at an altitude of 2675 ft. This is not, however, the absolutely lowest point in East Turkestan: that is found in the local depression of Turfan-Lukchun, south-east of Urumchi, between the Choltagh and the Bogdo-ola ranges of the Tian-shan. The deepest part of that depression lies 56-426 ft. below the level of the sea; but this remarkable pit in the surface is of very limited area, for within less than 30 m. to the north the level rises up to 250 ft. (at the town of Turfan) and to 3500 ft. in the Chol-tagh only 12 m. to the south, while at Pichang, 60 m. east, it is 3400 ft. above the sea, and immediately behind Turfan the Jargoz Mountains run up to an altitude of 10,000 ft. There are also two other depressions which lie at a lower altitude than the Kara-koshun, but they lie, one (Kulja or Ili) among the Tian-shan ranges and the other (Dzungaria) beyond them. The town of Kulja, which stands about the middle of the Chinese part of the valley of the Ili river, has an altitude of 2165 ft., but the valley of Dzungaria ranges at 900 to 3000 ft., and in the lakes (e.g. Ebi-nor) which dot its surface it descends to 820 ft. The mountain ranges which shut off East Turkestan from the rest of the world rank among the loftiest and most difficult in Asia, and indeed in the world. The Kuen-lun on the south rise steeply from the flat deserts of the Takla-makan and Kum-tagh by successive terraces until they reach
