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. The Kizil-Sou, that is to say the Red River, which
is really yellow, as a Chinese river ought to be, clasps it between its
two arms, which are united by two bridges. If you wish to see a few
ruins of some interest, you must go a short distance beyond the town,
where there are the remains of fortifications dating from five hundred
or two thousand years ago, according to the imagination of the
archaeologist.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213