As far as the eye can reach are fields under culture, irrigated by numerous canals, also green fields in which are flocks of sheep; a country half Normandy, half Provence, were it not for the mountains of the Pamir on the horizon.

But this portion of Kachgaria was terribly ravaged by war when its people were struggling for independence.

The land flowed with blood, and along by the railway the ground is dotted with tumuli beneath which are buried the victims of their patriotism.

But I did not come to Central Asia to travel as if I were in France! Novelty! Novelty! The unforeseen! The appalling! It was without the shadow of an accident, and after a particularly fine run, that we entered Yarkand station at four o'clock in the afternoon.
If Yarkand is not the administrative capital of eastern Turkestan, it is certainly the most important commercial city of the province.
"Again two towns together," said I to Major Noltitz.

"That I have from Popof." "But this time," said the major, "it was not the Russians who built the new one." "New or old," I added, "I am afraid is like the others we have seen, a wall of earth, a few dozen gateways cut in the wall, no monuments or buildings of note, and the eternal bazaars of the East." I was not mistaken, and it did not take four hours to visit both Yarkands, the newer of which is called Yanji-Shahr.
Fortunately, the Yarkand women are not forbidden to appear in the streets, which are bordered by simple mud huts, as they were at the time of the "dadkwahs," or governors of the province.