into relations with usurpers. Numbers of refugees
fled to Russian territory, and were kindly received and
located as colonists; but when the Russian border was
RUINED CHINESE GATEWAY AT SUIDUN.
crossed by marauding Kirghese from the Kuldja
territory, and when, moreover, it looked possible that
Yakub Beg, Governor of Kashgar, fighting successfully
with the Dungans, might proceed also to Kuldja, the
Russians stepped in and seized it first, and promised
the Court of Peking that, so soon as the Chinese
Emperor could restore and maintain order, and pay the
expenses incurred by the Russians, the province should
be given back to the Celestials. The fulfilment of
this promise had been claimed the year before my
visit, so that I found things in a transitional state, and
the strengthening of the wall of Suidun, referred to
above, was in anticipation of the Chinese return to
power in the following year.
We did not stay at Suidun, though it was late in
the evening, but posted on past the ruined Baiandai,
formerly a town of nearly 150,000 inhabitants, and at
midnight arrived at Kuldja. W e had now travelled
from Omsk, a distance of 1,800 miles, in a fortnight,
having our clothes off to sleep only the two nights at
Semipolatinsk. There are no hotels .at Kuldja, and
as it was too late to present letters of introduction, I
was glad enough to throw myself down on the bench
in the dirty post-house, and there to sleep till morning.