and deputed consuls, or aksakals, for the purpose of collecting the duties. These aksakals naturally became the centre of all the intrigue and disaffection prevailing in the State against the Celestials, and they counted it as much their duty to provoke political discontent as to supervise the customs placed under their charge. Before the aksakals appeared the Chinese ruled a peaceful territory, but on the advent of those foreign officials symptoms of trouble soon revealed themselves.

Nor did the Khokandian ruler want a pretext for undertaking hostile action against his neighbours. He had long been the supporter of the Khoja family, which, expelled from its native kingdom by the generals of Keen Lung, lived, in the person of Sarimsak, on the bounty of Khokand; and when he wished to proceed to extremities he had only to proclaim his intention to restore the rightful ruler to his possessions in Altyshahr. Sarimsak had escaped the pursuit of Fouta when a mere child, and he grew up to manhood and passed into old age without having the inclination, or finding the opportunity, of asserting his pretensions. He left to his sons the duty and the privilege of expelling the Chinese, and of giving the people of Kashgaria a native rule. Those sons were named in the order of their age, Yusuf, Barhanuddin, and Jehangir; and each of them at different times proved a source of serious trouble to the Chinese.

Of these princelets Jehangir was the most active, as for a time he seemed destined to be the most fortunate. It was he who struck the first blow in the cause of liberty, or, it would be more correct to say, of tyranny. As early as the year 1822 he had quitted his retreat in Khokand, and, while his elder brothers remained in security at the capital of that State, he resolved to make an attempt to regain what his grandfather had lost sixty years before. The nomad Kirghiz of the Kizil Yart, who refused obedience to the authority of any of their settled neighbours, and who only needed the incentive of plunder to attach themselves for the nonce to any cause that offered, supplied him with the followers necessary for the adventure. With a band of these, rendered more formidable than they would otherwise have been by the

presence of their chief, Suranchi Beg, Jehangir advanced on Kashgar. The distance was short, and his advance rapid; but the Chinese garrison proved to be on its guard, and his motley gathering was repulsed with some loss. Such was the ignominious ending of the first expedition to disturb the Chinese in Kashgaria, and to restore the Khojas to their throne.

Jehangir, although beaten, did not lose heart. The Khan of Khokand, seeing that he had failed, repudiated all responsibility for his action, and, instead of returning to his former refuge, Jehangir fled to the region south of Lake Issik Kul, where the Syr Darya or Jaxartes takes its rise, and is long known by the name of Narym. Neither his pretensions nor his personal necessities allowed him to remain inactive, and it suited both his own purpose and the ideas of his Kirghiz hosts for him to lead forays across the Tian Shan into Chinese territory. The Chinese, mindful of their own dignity, and not regardless of their subjects' welfare, resolved to punish the robber, even at the risk of pursuing him to his hiding-place. An expedition was fitted out, and advanced through the Kirghiz camping-places to as far as Fort Kurtka. The objects of the force were ostensibly obtained, and the Chinese were retiring in good order, and with every right to feel satisfied, when their active adversary fell upon them in a difficult defile, and almost annihilated them. This disaster, the first which had befallen the conquering race, was magnified by rumour, and Jehangir at a bound became a formidable opponent and a dangerous competitor for ruling honours.

The fortitude of Jehangir had confirmed the attachment of his friends, and the Chinese reverse rallied many supporters to his side. The Khokandian ruler again threw aside the mask, and lent his troops and a general-instructed, no doubt, to advance his master's interests as much as the cause of the Pretender. Encouraged by the sight of so many fresh followers, Jehangir left his mountain fastness in the year 1826, and marched for a second time on Kashgar. The Chinese garrison quitted the citadel and attacked the invading force. The combat was fiercely contested; but, although the details have not been remembered, the result was the

overthrow of the Chinese. This further defeat was the signal to the people of Kashgaria for a general rising, and the discomfiture of the Chinese was made complete by an insurrection throughout the country. Their garrisons were, after more or less resistance, overwhelmed, and those Chinese who had the misfortune to become captive experienced the cruelty of a vindictive and fanatical adversary.

Successful in the field, Jehangir was proclaimed at the capital by the title of the Seyyid Jehangir Sultan, and his authority was soon recognized at Yarkand also. His personal satisfaction certainly was not abated from his being able to check the excessive pretensions and demands of his friend Mahomed Ali; but his gratification at the departure of the Khokandian contingent must have been short-lived when he heard that the Chinese were returning in force. Reinforcements had been sent from Kansuh on the news of Jehangir's rising, and fresh levies had been raised among the Tungan colonies at Hami and Turfan, so that in the course of a few months a large army was collected at Ili for the purpose of reconquering the southern province and driving out the Khoja. A mandarin with a reputation for military capacity was sent from Pekin to take the supreme command, and some nine months after the fall of Kashgar a Chinese army of nearly a hundred thousand men was assembled on the Tian Shan. It was thought for a time that the Emperor would himself take the command; but in the end he deemed it better to leave the supervision of the arrangements to the mandarin Chang, from whose capacity much was expected thirteen years later, on the occasion of the first war with Europeans.

Jehangir was not disposed to surrender all he had won without making a fight for it, and he took up a position near the town of Yangabad, a little distance east of Kashgar. There the Chinese attacked him, and, after a fierce but brief engagement, completely defeated him. He attempted to

* The following incident of this battle claims preservation: "When the armies sighted each other they pitched their camps in preparation for the decisive contest that was at hand. In accordance with immemorial custom each side put forward on the following day its champion.

THE TARANTCHIS.

55 make a second stand at Kashgar, but his troops were too disheartened for further resistance. Nor was he more fortunate when he sought to provide for his personal safety by flight. The passes were snowed up, and the Chinese, closely pursuing, succeeded in capturing him. Jehangir was sent to Pekin to show in person the thoroughness with which Taoukwang's lieutenants had carried out their commission. The Emperor or his advisers did not temper their victory with clemency; for the unfortunate Jehangir, after being subjected to various indignities, was executed and quartered as a traitor.

The defeat of the Khoja pretender was followed by various repressive measures against the peoples of Kashgaria. Not content with punishing all caught in the act of rebellion, the Chinese removed a large number of the Mahomedan population from Kashgar to Ili, on the northern side of the Tian Shan. Twelve thousand families were thus forcibly compelled to emigrate, and in their new home they became known as the Tarantchis or toilers. The energy shown in punishing refractory subjects was for a moment imparted to the policy adopted towards their neighbours, and trade and other intercourse was broken off and forbidden with Khokand. It would have been well for China if this resolve had been rigidly adhered to, for all her later misfortunes were due to the hostile influence of that State and its ruler. But the Khan was resolved not to lose so valuable a perquisite as the custom dues of Kashgar, and he accordingly proceeded to invade that State as soon as he learnt that the greater number of the Chinese troops had been withdrawn. For a second time he put himself forward as the champion of the Khojas, and employed the name and person of Jehangir's eldest brother, Yusuf, to conceal his own designs and ambitious motives. Suffice it to say that his operations

On the part of the Chinese a gigantic Calmuck archer opposed, on the part of Jehangir, an equally formidable Khokandian. The former was armed with his proper weapons, the latter with a gun of some clumsy and ancient design; and while the Khokandian was busily engaged with his intricate apparatus, the Chinese archer shot him dead with an arrow through the breast."

were so far successful that the Chinese agreed to revert to the previous arrangement, and Mahomed Ali, on his part, promised to restrain the Khojas. Of Yusuf and his brothers we hear no more, and fourteen years of peace and prosperity followed for the subject peoples under the auspices of the Chinese Government.

Misfortunes rarely come singly, and while the Mahomedans in Central Asia were causing much trouble, there occurred at the opposite extremity of the Empire another insurrection in the island of Formosa, where the untamed tribes of the interior fell in ferocity and hostility little short of those of Turkestan. It is impossible to say with any confidence what was the origin of the rising that took place in Formosa in the month of October, 1832, and that continued with scarcely abated force until the following summer. In 1833 tranquillity was finally restored, or, as the official edict put it, "all are now again quiet, and the mind of His Majesty is filled with consolation." But before that desirable consummation was attained many Chinese soldiers were killed and the resources of the maritime province of Fuhkien were severely strained in the task of restoring the Imperial authority. The divisions between the insurgent leaders seem to have rendered the task of Taoukwang's officers more easy than at first it appeared that it would be. In this case, however, the end was effected; the result justified the conduct of the Imperial commissioners.

The very same year was marked by another rebellion in the island of Hainan, where the Chinese, surrounded by a region of the most remarkable natural wealth and fertility, have long been content to exercise little more than a nominal authority, and to pursue the unremunerative and restricted career of fishermen. The interior of that island consists of a mountain range, whither the aboriginal inhabitants, the Black Li of an earlier period, had retired before the encroachments of the Chinese settlers. Some time before the year 1830 they broke loose from all control, and, profiting by the weakness or apathy of the Celestials, descended into the plains and committed many depredations. This onslaught by a savage people on the unprepared and peaceful settlers