“The sacred sites of Buddhist Khotan which Hiuen Tsang and Fa-hian describe, can be shown to be occupied now, almost without exception, by Mohamedan shrines forming the object of popular pilgrimages.” (M.  A. Stein, Archaeological Work about Khotan, Jour.  R. As.  Soc., April, 1901, p. 296.)

It may be justly said that during the last few years numerous traces of Hindu civilisation have been found in Central Asia, extending from Khotan, through the Takla-Makan, as far as Turfan, and perhaps further up.

Dr. Sven Hedin, in the year 1896, during his second journey through Takla-Makan from Khotan to Shah Yar, visited the ruins between the Khotan Daria and the Kiria Daria, where he found the remains of the city of Takla-Makan now buried in the sands.  He discovered figures of Buddha, a piece of papyrus with unknown characters, vestiges of habitations.  This Asiatic Pompei, says the traveller, at least ten centuries old, is anterior to the Mahomedan invasion led by Kuteibe Ibn-Muslim, which happened at the beginning of the 8th century.  Its inhabitants were Buddhist, and of Aryan race, probably originating from Hindustan.—­Dutreuil de Rhins and Grenard discovered in the Kumari grottoes, in a small hill on the right bank of the Karakash Daria, a manuscript written on birch bark in Kharosh_t_hi characters; these grottoes of Kumari are mentioned in Hiuen Tsang. (II. p. 229.)

Dr. Sven Hedin followed the route Kashgar, Yangi-Hissar, Yarkand to Khotan, in 1895.  He made a stay of nine days at Ilchi, the population of which he estimated at 5500 inhabitants (5000 Musulmans, 500 Chinese).

(See also Sven Hedin, Die Geog. wissenschaft.  Ergebnisse meiner Reisen in Zentralasien, 1894-1897. Petermann’s Mitt., Ergaenz.  XXVIII. (Hft. 131), Gotha, 1900.—­H.  C.]

CHAPTER XXXVII.

OF THE PROVINCE OF PEIN.

Pein is a province five days in length, lying between east and north-east.  The people are worshippers of Mahommet, and subjects of the Great Kaan.  There are a good number of towns and villages, but the most noble is PEIN, the capital of the kingdom.[NOTE 1] There are rivers in this country, in which quantities of Jasper and Chalcedony are found.[NOTE 2] The people have plenty of all products, including cotton.  They live by manufactures and trade.  But they have a custom that I must relate.  If the husband of any woman go away upon a journey and remain away for more than 20 days, as soon as that term is past the woman may marry another man, and the husband also may then marry whom he pleases.[NOTE 3]

I should tell you that all the provinces that I have been speaking of, from Cascar forward, and those I am going to mention [as far as the city of Lop] belong to GREAT TURKEY.