In truth, Kachgar is no longer the capital of Kachgaria; it is a station on the Grand Transasiatic, the junction between the Russian and Chinese lines, and the strip of iron which stretches for three thousand kilometres from the Caspian to this city runs on for nearly four thousand more to the capital of the Celestial Empire.
I return to the double town.

The new one is Yangi-Chahr: the old one, three and a half miles off, is Kachgar.

I have seen both, and I will tell you what they are like.
In the first place, both the old and the new towns are surrounded with a villainous earthen wall that does not predispose you in their favor.
Secondly, it is in vain that you seek for any monument whatever, for the materials of construction are identical for houses as for palaces.
Nothing but earth, and not even baked earth.

It is not with mud dried in the sun that you can obtain regular lines, clean profiles and finely worked sculptures.

Your architecture must be in stone or marble, and that is precisely what you do not get in Chinese Turkestan.
A small carriage quickly took the major and myself to Kachgar, which is three miles round.