We resume our seats in the train, and the engineer tries to make up for lost time.

Nevertheless, the train does not arrive at Kachgar without a long delay, and it is half-past four in the morning when we enter the capital of Chinese Turkestan.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVI.

Kachgaria is Oriental Turkestan which is gradually being metamorphosed into Russian Turkestan.

The writers in the New Review have said:  “Central Asia will only be a great country when the Muscovite administration have laid hands on Tibet, or when the Russians lord it at Kachgar.”

Well, that is a thing half done!  The piercing of the Pamir has joined the Russian railway with the Chinese line which runs from one frontier of the Celestial Empire to the other.  The capital of Kachgaria is now as much Russian as Chinese.  The Sclav race and the Yellow race have rubbed elbows and live in peace.  How long will it last?  To others leave the future; I am content with the present.

We arrive at half-past four; we leave at eleven.  The Grand Transasiatic shows itself generous.  I shall have time to see Kachgar, on condition of allowing myself an hour less than the time stated.

For what was not done at the frontier has to be done at Kachgar.  Russians and Chinese are one as bad as the other when there are vexing formalities; papers to verify, passports to sign, etc., etc.  It is the same sort of meddling, minute and over-fastidious, and we must put up with it.  We must not forget the terrible threat of the formula the functionary of the Celestial Empire affixes to his acts—­“Tremble and obey!” I am disposed to obey, and I am prepared to appear before the authorities of the frontier.  I remember the fears of Kinko, and it is with regard to him that the trembling is to be done, if the examination of the travelers extends to their packages and luggage.

Before we reached Kachgar, Major Noltitz said to me: 

“Do not imagine that Chinese Turkestan differs very much from Russian Turkestan.  We are not in the land of pagodas, junks, flower boats, yamens, hongs and porcelain towers.  Like Bokhara, Merv and Samarkand, Kachgar is a double town.  It is with the Central Asian cities as it is with certain stars, only they do not revolve round one another.”

The major’s remark was very true.  It was not so long ago since emirs reigned over Kachgaria, since the monarchy of Mohammed Yakoub extended over the whole of Turkestan, since the Chinese who wished to live here had to adjure the religion of Buddha and Confucius and become converts to Mahometanism, that is, if they wished to be respectable.  What would you have?  In these days we are always too late, and those marvels of the Oriental cosmorama, those curious manners, those masterpieces of Asiatic art, are either memories or ruins.  The railways