Turkestan Sentence Examples

This ocean, already diminished in area, retreated after Oligocene times from the Iranian plateau, Turkestan, Asia Minor and the region of the north-west Alps.

In 1867 he became governor of Turkestan, and held the post until his death, making himself a name in the expansion of the empire in central Asia.

This Committee consists of 75 members, sending representatives to Moscow to the meetings of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Federation of Soviet Republics, but the Turkestan Republic showed itself very little inclined to accept the control which the Central Committee at Moscow endeavoured to maintain.

The Turkestan Committee elects a small council, forming a kind of cabinet and having control of the different branches of the administration.

The Russians in Turkestan form only about 5% of the total pop., and since most of the rural Mussulman pop. take no part in the voting, the country is governed to all intents and purposes by men elected by the very small proportion of Russians of the lower classes living in the towns.

Turkestan is a good wheat-producing country, cereals were actually imported from Russia and Siberia and cotton exported in exchange.

Large quantities of fruits - apples, pears, quinces, peaches, nectarines, apricots, grapes and melons - were exported by special trains to central Europe, where the Turkestan crop was received a short time before the south European supplies ripened.

Minerals remained for the most part unworked, though the profitable coal fields and oil wells in Ferghana were used when disturbances in Trans-Caspia cut Turkestan off from the Baku oil, on which it relies entirely for its industrial life.

There are practically no branch roads in Turkestan, and the only means of transport in bulk is either by wagon on the few main roads, or by railway.

The Kabul (ancient Kophes), which is the most important (although not the largest) river in Afghanistan, rises at the foot of the Unai pass leading over the Sanglakh range, an offshoot of the Hindu Kush towards Bamian and Afghan Turkestan.

Born on the 14th of February 1483, he was a descendant of Timur, and his father, Omar Sheik, was king of Ferghana, a district of what is now Russian Turkestan.

The average number of women to every 100 men in the Russian governments proper was 102.9; in Poland, 98.6; in Finland, 102.2; in Caucasia, 88.9; in Siberia, 93'7; and in Turkestan and Transcaspia, 83 o.

One section of them crossed the Urals and occupied the steppes between the Urals and the Volga; the remainder belong to Turkestan and Siberia.

Its eastern part is nearly conterminous with south Mongolia, its western forms Chinese or eastern Turkestan.

The portion of Asia which lies between the Arctic Ocean and the mountainous belt bounding Manchuria, Mongolia and Turkestan Siberia.

Following Prjevalsky the Russian explorers, Pevtsov and Roborovski, in 1889-1890 (and again in 1894), added greatly to our knowledge of the topography of western Chinese Turkestan and the northern borders of Tibet; all these Russian expeditions being conducted on scientific principles and yielding results of the highest value.

Shaw subsequently accompanied Forsyth's mission in 1870, when Henry Trotter made the first maps of Chinese Turkestan.

Rawling, who have increased our knowledge of ancient fields of industry and commerce in Turkestan and Tibet.

The great highland plateau which tion stretches from the Himalaya northwards to Chinese Turkestan, and from the frontier of Kashmir eastwards to China, has now been defined with comparative geographical exactness.

On the north the Chinese Turkestan explorations are now brought into survey connexion with Kashmir and India.

No longer do we regard the Kuen-lun mountains, which extend from the frontiers of Kashmir, north of Leh, almost due east to the Chinese province of Kansu, as the southern limit of the Gobi or Turkestan depression.

He reported the gradual formation of an anticlinal or ridge extending longitudinally through the great Balkh plain of Afghan Turkestan, which effectually shuts off the northern affluents of that basin from actual junction with the river.

Between the Russian Pamirs and Chinese Turkestan the rugged line of the Sarikol range intervenes, the actual dividing line being still indefinite.

Coincident with the demarcation of Russian boundaries in Turkestan was that of northern Afghanistan.

The area between the southern border of Siberia and the margin of the temperate alpine zone of the Himalaya and north China, comprising what are commonly called central Asia, Turkestan, Mongolia and western Manchuria, is an almost rainless region, having winters of extreme severity and summers of intense heat.

He now prepared to march to the conquest of Turkestan, the original seat of his ancestors.

Some cotton is produced in European Russia in the southern Caucasus, but Turkestan in central Asia is by far the 1 Cotton Production 1906, U.S.A. Bureau of the Census, Bulletin No.

The Tarbagatai Mountains, on the borders of Siberia, as well as several chains in Turkestan, are instances.

The Russians, issuing from the middle Urals, have travelled as a broad stream through south Siberia, sending branches to the Altai, to the Ili river in Turkestan and to Minusinsk, as well as down the chief rivers which flow to the Arctic Ocean, the banks of which are studded with villages 15 to 20 m.

From Tyumen the road proceeds to Omsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk, sending off from Kolyvan a branch south to Barnaul in the Altai and to Turkestan.

In the beginning of the 16th century Tatar fugitives from Turkestan subdued the loosely associated tribes inhabiting the lowlands to the east of the Urals.

Agriculturists, tanners, merchants and mollahs (priests) were called from Turkestan, and small principalities sprang up on the Irtysh and the Ob.

From Manchuria and China it is separated by the border ridge of the plateau - the Great Khingan, while in the south-west it runs up to the foot of the high northern border ridges of the Tibetan plateau - an artificial frontier separating it from east Turkestan and Dzungaria.

On the west, Badakshan is bounded by a line which crosses the Turkestan plains southwards from the junction of the Kunduz and Oxus rivers till it touches the eastern waterdivide of the Tashkurghan river (here called the Koh-i-Chungar), and then runs south-east, crossing the Sarkhab affluent of the Khanabad (Kunduz), till it strikes the Hindu Kush.

From the Oxus (loon ft.) to Faizabad (4000 ft.) and Zebak (850o ft.) the course of the Kokcha offers a high road across Badakshan;, between Zebak and Ishkashim, at the Oxus bend, there is but an insignificant pass of 9500 ft.; and from Ishkashim by the Panja, through the Pamirs, is the continuation of what must once have been a much-traversed trade route connecting Afghan Turkestan with Kashgar and China.

Those utilized were the Kaoshan (the "Hindu Kush" pass par excellence), 14,340 ft.; the Chahardar (13,900 ft.), which is a link in one of the amir of Afghanistan's high roads to Turkestan; and the Shibar (9800 ft.), which is merely a diversion into the upper Ghorband of that group of passes between Bamian and the Kabul plains which are represented by the Irak, Hajigak, Unai, &c. About this point it is geographically correct to place the southern extremity of the Hindu Kush, for here commences the Koh-i-Baba system into which the Hindu Kush is merged.

There are few passes across the southern section of the Hindu Kush (and this section is, from the politico-geographical point of view, more important to India than the whole Himalayan system) which have not to surmount a succession of crests or ridges as they cross from Afghan Turkestan to Afghanistan.

Shere Ali fled from his capital and, taking refuge in Turkestan, died at Mazar-i-Sharif on the 21st of February 1879.

Khokand is one of the most important centres of trade in Turkestan.

In1758-1759the Chinese conquered Dzungaria and East Turkestan, and the begs or rulers of Ferghana recognized Chinese suzerainty.

The Paropamisus forms the southern face of the Turkestan plateau, which contains the sources of the Murghab river; the northern face of the same plateau is defined by the Band-i-Turkestan.

The intense cold which usually accompanies these sudden northern blizzards of Herat and Turkestan is a further source of danger.

The valley leads to a group of passes across the Paropamisus into Turkestan, of which the Zirmast is perhaps the best known.

Being well received by the Uighurs and other tribes west of the desert, subjects of his family, he gathered an army and commenced a course of conquest which eventually extended over eastern and western Turkestan.

In 1864, having reached the rank of major-general, he made his famous march with 1000 men across the steppes of Turkestan to Chimkent in Khokand, to meet another Russian column from Semipalatinsk, in Siberia, in conjunction with which he successfully stormed Chimkent, and then unsuccessfully attacked Tashkent, 80 miles farther south.

He succeeded Kaufmann (q.v.) as governor of Turkestan in 1882, but his aggressive policy led to his recall two years later, when he was appointed a member of the council of war at St Petersburg.

On the east the Pamir highlands are fenced off from the East Turkestan lowlands by the double border-ridge of Sarik-kol (the Sarik-kol range and the Murtagh or Kashgar range), which has its eastern foot down in the Tarim basin (4000-4500 ft.) and its western up on the Pamirs at 10,500 to 13,000 ft.

From the East Turkestan lowlands on the north the ascent is very steep, and the passes across both sets of ranges lie at great altitudes; for example, the pass of Sanju-davan in the lower range is 16,325 ft.

In the 8th century came the Arab invasion from the west, and we find Kashgar and Turkestan lending assistance to the reigning queen of Bokhara, to enable her to repel the enemy.

But although the Mahommedan religion from the very commencement sustained checks, it nevertheless made its weight felt upon the independent states of Turkestan to the north and east, and thus acquired a steadily growing influence.

The Chinese had thoughts of pushing their conquests towards western Turkestan and Samarkand, the chiefs of which sent to ask assistance of the Afghan king Ahmed Shah.

More recently, owing to the exertions of Russian naturalists, a large number of new species have been discovered in Turkestan, and introduced into Europe.

All over Central Asia, West Turkestan merchants are known generally as Andijani.

The Taranchis from East Turkestan represent about 40 of the population; about 40,000 of them left Kulja when the Russian troops evacuated the territory, and the Chinese government sent some 8000 families from different towns of Kashgaria to take their place.

This peculiar little inhabitant of the steppes and desert regions of Turkestan and Persia, by rubbing the imbricating scales upon each other, produces a shrill cricket-like noise, whilst sitting at night in front of its hole in the ground.

When, however, we turn to the numerous fragments of authentic Manichaean liturgies and hymns lately discovered in Turfan in East Turkestan, Mani's direct indebtedness to the cycle of Magian legends rather than to Chaldaic sources (as Kessler argued) is clearly exhibited.

The Manichaeans of Chinese Turkestan also used a version of the Shepherd of Hermas.

But in Turkestan, and as far as the Chinese frontier, there existed numerous Manichaean communities and even whole tribes that had adopted the name of Mani.

Proceeding from the deserts of Turkestan, the Seljuks reached the Hellespont; but this barrier was crossed and a European power founded by the Ottomans (Osmanli).

Alp Arslan afterwards undertook an expedition against Turkestan, and met with his death at the hands of a captured chief, Barzami Yussuf (Yussuf Kothnal), whom he had intended to shoot with his own hand.

Other expeditions were undertaken by him against Khwarizm and Turkestan; the government of the former had been given by Barkiyaroq to Mahommed b.

The Turkestan Platycercomys (or Pygeretmus) has a lancet-shaped tail and no premolars; while Cardiocranus of the Nan-shan district of Central Asia has a similar type of tail, but short ears and a peculiarly triangular skull.

Wind is a prevailing feature throughout Tibet at certain seasons of the year, as it is in the Pamirs, in Turkestan, in western Afghanistan and in Persia.

On the north bordering on Turkestan the dialect of the nomadic Hor-pa tribes is much mixed with Turkic ingredients.

Yet Tsaidam is geographically but a northern extension of the great Tibetan plateau, and in most of its essential physical features it is more closely allied to the Chang-t'ang of the south than to the great sandy depressions of Chinese Turkestan or Mongolia on the north.

They are obtained from the young of the numerous herds of wild horses that roam over the plains of Turkestan.

Tigers are found throughout India, Turkestan, China, Mongolia and the East Indies.

There are no manufactures or industries of any importance peculiar to Kandahar, but the long lines of bazaars display goods from England, Russia, Hindustan, Persia and Turkestan, embracing a trade area as large probably as that of any city in Asia.

The imports consist chiefly of English goods, indigo, cloth, boots, leather, sugar, salt, iron and copper, from Hindustan, and of shawls, carpets, "Barak" (native woollen cloth), postins (coats made of skins), shoes, silks, opium and carpets from Meshed, Herat and Turkestan.

Mushketov, Turkestan (St Petersburg, 1886), with bibliographical references; Ivashintsev, Hydrographic Exploration of the Caspian Sea (in Russian), with atlas (2 vols., 1866); Philippov, Marine Geography of the Caspian Basin (in Russian, 1877); Memoirs of the Aral-Caspian Expedition of 1876-1877 (2 vols., in Russian), edited by the St Petersburg Society of Naturalists; Andrusov, "A Sketch of the Development of the Caspian Sea and its Inhabitants," in Zapiski of Russ.

After graduating as a staff officer at St Petersburg he was sent to Turkestan in 1868 and, with the exception of an interval of two years, during which he was on the staff of the grand duke Michael in the Caucasus, remained in Central Asia until 1877.

He returned to Turkestan after the war, and in 1880 and 1881 further distinguished himself in retrieving the disasters inflicted by the Tekke Turkomans, captured Geok-Tepe, and, after much slaughter, reduced the Akhal-Teke country to submission.

The fishing is very productive, the fish being exported to Turkestan, Mer y and Russia.

The Sunnites, who accept the orthodox tradition (Sunna) as well as the Koran as a source of theologico-juristic doctrines, predominate in Arabia, the Turkish Empire, the north of Africa, Turkestan, Afghanistan and the Mahommedan parts of India and the east of Asia; the Shi`ites have their main seat in Persia, where their confession is the state religion, but are also scattered over the whole sphere of Islam, especially in India and the regions bordering on Persia, except among the nomad Tatars, who are all nominally Sunnite.

On the coins struck in India, the well-known Indian alphabet (called Brahmi by the Indians, the older form of the Devanagari) is used; on the coins struck in Afghanistan and in the Punjab the Kharoshthi alphabet, which is derived directly from the Aramaic and was in common use in the western parts of India, as is shown by one of the inscriptions of Asoka and by the recent discovery of many fragments of Indian manuscripts, written in Kharoshthi, in eastern Turkestan (formerly this alphabet has been called Arianic or Bactrian Pali; the true name is derived from Indian sources).

Russian explorers and natives of India trained for geographical reconnaissance, and employed in connexion with the great trigonometrical survey of India, had done so much towards clearing away the mists which enveloped the actual course of the river, that all the primary affluents were known, although their relative value was misunderstood, but the nature of the districts which bordered the river in Afghan Turkestan was so imperfectly mapped as to give rise to considerable political complication in framing the boundary agreement between Great Britain and Russia.

From Lake Victoria (Sor-Kul) in the Pamirs, which was originally reckoned as the true source of the river, to Khamiab, on the edge of the Andkhui district of Afghan Turkestan, for a distance of about 680 m., the Oxus forms the boundary between Afghanistan and Russia.

All this part of the Oxus, until the river once again emerges from the Bokhara hills into the open plains bordering Badakshan on the north, falls within the area of Russian surveys, with which a junction from India has been effected both on the Pamirs and in Turkestan.

Between Kolab and Pata Kesar, immediately north of the Turkestan capital of Mazar-i-Sharif, there are at least three wellknown "guzars" or fords, and there are probably more.

Throughout the plains of Afghan Turkestan the drainage from the southern hills is arrested and lost in the desert sands.

A wide belt of blown sand (or Chul), sprinkled with sa.aul jungle, separates the swamps on the south side of the river from the cultivated plains of Afghan Turkestan; but in places, notably for Cultiva= about 12 Tn.

The commencement of the 16th century was marked by the rise of the Uzbeg rule in Turkestan.

The Uzbeg rule in Turkestan has during the last fifty years been rapidly dwindling before the growth of Russian power.

In 1863 Russia invaded the Khokand territory, taking in rapid succession the cities of Turkestan, Chimkent and Tashkend.

In 1866 Khojend was taken, the power of Khokand was completely crushed, a portion was incorporated in the new Russian province of Turkestan, while the remainder was left to be administered by a native chief almost as a Russian feudatory; the same year the Bokharians were defeated at Irdjar.

It is admirably situated as a trade centre and serves as a depot for the silk from Chehkiang and Szech`uen, the tea from Hu-peh and Ho-nan, and the sugar from Szech`uen destined for the markets of Kan-suh, Turkestan, Kulja and Russia.

Its remains lie in a valley of the Hazara country, on the chief road from Kabul towards Turkestan, and immediately at the northern foot of that prolongation of the Indian Caucasus now called Koh-i-Baba.

At Haibak there is a very perfect excavation called the Takht-iRustam (a general name for all incomprehensible constructions amongst the modern inhabitants of Afghan Turkestan), which consists of an annular ditch enclosing a platform, with a small house about 21 ft.

The Herat province is largely Persian, while Afghan Turkestan is chiefly Usbeg; and in neither is the sentiment of loyalty to the central government very strong.

The Kabul river drains Northern Afghanistan, the Hari Rud the province of Herat, and the Oxus that of Afghan Turkestan.

Thus the main routes from Kabul to Afghan Turkestan must cross either one or other of these ranges, and must traverse one or other of the terrific defiles which have been carved out of them by the upper tributaries of the rivers running northwards towards the Oxus.

After the Hindu Kush and the Turkestan mountains, that range which divides Ningrahar (or the valley of Jalalabad) from Kurram and the Afridi Tirah, and is called Safed Koh (also the name of the range south of the Hari Rud), is the most important, as it is the most impressive, in Afghanistan.

The highlands which shut off the Turkestan provinces from Southern Afghanistan have afforded the best opportunities for geological investigation, and as might be expected from their geographical position, the general result of the examination of exposed sections leads to the identification of geological affinity with Himalayan, Indian and Persian regions.

The general configuration of the Turkestan highlands has been already indicated.

Beneath this Chul formation the older beds of the outer and Turkestan ranges dip and pass to an irregular outcrop near the banks of the Oxus.

There are no glaciers now to be found in Afghan Turkestan; but evidences of their recent existence are abundant.

The Jurassic beds are followed, generally with perfect conformity, by the Cretaceous, which covers a large part of Afghan Turkestan and probably forms the greater part of the ranges which run south and south-west from the principal watershed.

The entire system may be represented in the west, but in the Herat province and in Afghan Turkestan the middle Cretaceous seems to be absent, and it is probable that, as in other regions, the upper Cretaceous covers a much wider area than the lower beds.

The lower part of the Miocene is marine in Herat and Afghan Turkestan; but the upper Miocene is usually of freshwater or estuarine origin.

Kabul is linked with Afghan Turkestan and Badakshan by three main lines of communication across the Koh-i-Baba and the Hindu Kush.

Turki is spoken in Afghan Turkestan.

There are five chief political divisions in the country - namely, Kabul, Turkestan, Herat, Kandahar and Badakshan, titu- ' 'flon Cons and each of which is ruled by a " naib " or governor, who is directly responsible to the amir.

The latter fort took twelve years to build, and commands all the roads leading from the Oxus into Afghan Turkestan.

The tiger exists in Afghan Turkestan.

Having long suffered from a terrible disease, he died in 1773, bequeathing to his son Timur a dominion which embraced not only Afghanistan to its utmost limits, but the Punjab, Kashmir and Turkestan to the Oxus, with Sind, Baluchistan and Khorasan as tributary governments.

The last Afghan hold of the Punjab had been lost long before - Kashmir in 181 9; Sind had cast off all allegiance since 1808; the Turkestan provinces had been practically independent since the death of Timur Shah.

Some local revolts among the tribes were rigorously suppressed; and two attempts to upset his rulership - the first by Ayub Khan, who entered Afghanistan from Persia, the second and more dangerous one by Ishak Khan, the amir's cousin, who rebelled against him in Afghan Turkestan - were defeated.

Afghanistan, Nepal, Eastern Turkestan, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, China, Japan, the Eastern Archipelago, Siam, Burma, Ceylon and India at one time marked the magnificent circumference of its conquests.

Shere Ali fled to Afghan Turkestan, and there died.

Its extension to new and hitherto unknown languages was in 1910 in process of being rapidly demonstrated by English and German expeditions in Chinese Turkestan.

But it is obvious that there are other general causes at work, which are of a much more important character - causes of which the larger phenomena of the general desiccation of Eastern and Western Turkestan are contemporaneous manifestations.

The Christian army consisted of the feudatories of the kingdom of Jerusalem, numerous small contingents of European crusaders and the military orders, and contingents from Egypt, Turkestan, Syria and Mesopotamia fought under Saladin.

Ancient Khulm is now only a mass of ruins; but Tashkurghan, lying two or three miles to the south of it, has become the great trade-mart of Afghan Turkestan and second only in importance to Mazar-i-Sharif, the military centre of the province; while it is much larger and more prosperous than the latter place.

It is probable that it still lingers in the wastes of Kirwan in eastern Persia, whence examples may occasionally stray northward to those of Turkestan, 2 even near the Lower Oxus; but the assertion, often repeated, as to its former occurrence in Baluchistan or Sind seems to rest on testimony too slender for acceptance.

In the meantime (999) the Samanids fell before the Ilek-Khans of Turkestan, to the great advantage of the Ghaznevid princes.

This is one of the three strong places in Chinese Turkestan.

The Salmonidae are entirely absent from the waters of the Himalaya proper, of Tibet and of Turkestan east of the Terektag.

Although Turkestan and Central Asia were formerly known as Independent Tartary, it is not now usual to call the Sarts, Kirghiz and other inhabitants of those countries Tatars, nor is the name usually given to the Yakuts of Eastern Siberia.

The district of Chitral is called Kashgar (or Kashkar) by the people of the country; and as it was under Chinese domination in the middle of the 18th century, and was regarded as a Buddhist centre of some importance by the Chinese pilgrims in the early centuries of our era, it is possible that it then existed as an outlying district of the Kashgar province of Chinese Turkestan, where Buddhism once flourished in cities that have been long since buried beneath the sand-waves of the Takla Makan.

This chain divides off the high-level sources of the Oxus on the west from the streams which sweep downwards into the Turkestan depression of Kashgar on the east.

Rang Kul Lake occupies a central basin or depression; but the Kara Kul drains away north-eastwards through the Sarikol (as the latter, bending westwards, merges into the Trans-Alai) to Kashgar and the Turkestan plains.

Christian symbols have been discovered in the southern towns of Chinese Turkestan by Sven Hedin.

The great pilgrim route of Buddhist days was that which connects the ancient Buddhist cities of the Takla Makan in Chinese Turkestan with Chitral (Kashkar), by the Baroghil Pass across the Hindu Kush.

The hangul (C. cashmirianus) of Kashmir is a distinct dark-coloured species, in which the antlers tend to turn in at the summit; while C. yarcandensis, of the Tarim Valley, Turkestan, is a redder animal, with a wholly rufous tail, and antlers usually terminating in a simple fork placed in a transverse plane.

But the merchants of West Turkestan are called all over central Asia Andijanis, from the town of Andijan in Ferghana.

The town is garrisoned by a few hundred kasidars, the regular troops of Afghan Turkestan being cantoned at Takhtapul, near Mazari-Sharif.

On his second journey in 1877, while endeavouring to reach Lhasa through east Turkestan, he re-discovered the great lake Lop-nor, which had not been visited by any European since Marco Polo.

Ethnically and historically Afghan Turkestan is more connected with Bokhara than with Kabul, of which government it has been a dependency only since the time of Dost Mahommed.

There is an active trade in these goods and in wool with India, West Turkestan and China.

In the 8th century it was conquered, after a struggle of 25 years, by the Arab chieftain Kotaiba ibn Moslim, from West Turkestan, who imposed Islam upon the people.

Kabul is now connected by well-planned and metalled roads with Afghan Turkestan on the west, with the Oxus and Bokhara on the north, and with India on the east.

Still further light is to be expected when the vast collections of the German expedition to Turfan (Turkestan) have been sifted.

Haibak derives its importance from its position on the main line of communication between Kabul and Afghan Turkestan.

How far this name was appropriate in the past need not be considered here; at present the regions called Turkestan not only contain races which do not belong to the Turk family, but it excludes races which do, e.g.

Nevertheless the term, in its dual application of West Turkestan and East or Chinese Turkestan, has long been established, and in default of any better designations cannot very well be dispensed with.

Like the highlands of Siberia, those of Turkestan are fringed by a girdle of plains, having an altitude of 1000 to 1500 ft., and these again are skirted by an immense lowland area reaching only 400, 300 and 150 ft.

Like the highlands of eastern Asia, those of Turkestan are mostly built up on Pre-Cambrian gneisses and metamorphic slates, resting upon granites, syenites, old orthoclase porphyries, and the like.

Pumpelly and others, Explorations in Turkestan (Washington, 1905), contains references to the geological literature to the date of publication.

Throughout the Triassic and Jurassic periods nearly all Turkestan remained a continent indented by gulfs and lagoons of the south European Triassic and Jurassic sea.

Representatives of all the Tertiary formations are met with in Turkestan; but while in the highlands the strata are coast-deposits, they assume an open sea character in the lowlands, and their rich fossil fauna furnishes evidence of the gradual shallowing of that sea, until at last, after the Sarmathian period, it became a closed Mediterranean.

It is most probable that, when allowance has been made for the obliteration of glacial markings, and the region has been better explored, it will appear that the glaciation of Turkestan was on a scale at least as vast as that of the Himalayas.

The effects produced by desiccating agencies are beyond all comparison more powerful than those which result from the earthquakes that are so frequent in Turkestan.

The climate of West Turkestan is exceedingly dry and continental.

Mushketov's Turkestan (pp. 35, 681) seems to justify this conclusion.

The fauna of Turkestan belongs to the zoo-geographical domain of northern Asia, and is only differentiated by the presence of species which have disappeared from the peripheral parts of the Old World and now find a refuge in the remotest regions of the uninhabited plateau.

The other mammals of Turkestan are mostly those which are met with elsewhere in north Asia.

As a whole the flora of Turkestan is identical with that of Central Asia, which was formerly continued by geo-botanists as far west as the steppes of Russia, but which must now be considered as a separate region subdivided into two - the Central Asian proper and that of the Gobi.

The invading steppe plants appear everywhere in patches in the Turkestan meadows.

As already stated the climate of Turkestan varies considerably from north to south.

The mineral wealth of Turkestan is considerable.

Turkestan has been the theatre of so many migrations and conquests that its present population could not fail to be very mixed.

The real masters of the steppes and highlands of Turkestan are the Kirghiz, of whom there are two branches - the Kazak (Cossack) Kirghiz, who number about 3,787,000, and the Kara (Black) Kirghiz or Burut, who number nearly 202,000.

The Uzbegs, who played a predominant political part in Turkestan before the Russian conquest, are of Turko-Tatar origin and speak a pure Jagatai (Turkish) dialect; but they are mixed to a great extent with Persians, Kirghiz and Mongols.

They number nearly 20,000, and inhabit the valley of the Ili in Kulja and partly are settled in Russian Turkestan.

The Mongol branch is represented in Turkestan by Kalmucks (191,000) and Torgutes (Torgod) in the north-east and in Kulja, where they are intermingled with Solons, Sibos and Chinese.

The Aryan Tajik, the aborigines of the fertile parts of Turkestan, were subdued by the Turko-Mongol invaders and partly compelled to emigrate to the mountains, where they are now known as Galchas.

The other representatives of Aryan race in Turkestan are a few (8000) Persians, mostly liberated slaves; Indians (300), who carry on trade and usury in the cities; a few Gipsies (Soo), and the Russians.

The total estimated population of Russian Turkestan in 1906 was 5,746,600.

There are several populous cities in Russian Turkestan.

Turkestan possesses only two railway systems; the Transcaspian line and the Orenburg-Tashkent line.

But the Russian rule has imposed many new taxes, in return for which Turkestan only gets troops of Russian merchants and officials, who too often accept the worst features of the depraved Mussulman civilization of the higher classes of the country.

Mushketov's Geological and Orographical Description of Turkestan (in Russian, St Petersburg, 1866) is still a standard authority.

Along with the desert of Gobi East Turkestan occupies the lower terrace of the great central Asian plateau, which projects from the Himalayas north-east towards the Bering Straits.

The mountain ranges which shut off East Turkestan from the rest of the world rank among the loftiest and most difficult in Asia, and indeed in the world.

On the west East Turkestan is generally approached from India by the famous pass of Karakorum (18,300 ft.), from Ferghana and West (Russian) Turkestan by the passes of Kyzyl-art (14,015 ft.) and Terek (12,730 ft.), and 'the mountains on this side attain to altitudes of 25,780 ft.

The Tian-shan Mountains skirt East Turkestan on the north-east, where the Kokshal-tau range rises to 16,000 to 18,000 ft.

The people who inhabit the plains and mountain slopes of East Turkestan consist partly of Aryans and partly of races of Ural-Altaic stock, and are partly of mixed blood.

The trade is mostly in the hands of the Chinese, natives of West Turkestan (known as Andijanis from the town of Andijan) and Hindus.

The prevailing religion all over East Turkestan is Mahommedanism.

East Turkestan contains several minerals, such as gold, mined to a very small extent in the Kuen-lun Mountains; lead found in the country west of Kashgar and once worked in the Kuruk-tagh, and copper and petroleum near Kashgar; coal exists in abundance in the Kulja valley and is found at Ak-su, Korla, Kara-shahr, Turfan and Hami on the northern verge of the deserts.

In a region like East Turkestan, where the settlements are so scattered and the population so thin, the arts and crafts are prosecuted necessarily on only a local scale.

A considerable amount of trade is done in the export of wool, hides, cotton, carpets, silks, felts, cereals (wheat, barley, maize, rice), sheep, fruit and vegetables, and in tea, silver, porcelain and opium imported from China, cloth and groceries from India, and cloth, cottons, silks, sugar, matches and leather from West Turkestan and Russia.

The caravan routes mostly followed between China and the more populous centres (Kashgar and Yarkand) of East Turkestan start from An-si-chow and Sa-chow respectively, converge upon Hami on the north side of the Pe-shan swelling, and continue westward along the south foot of the Tian-shan Mountains through the oases of Turfan, Kara-shahr, Korla, Kucha, Ak-su and Uch-turfan.

From it three routes start for West Turkestan; the one principally used climbs over the Bedel pass (13,000 ft.) in the Kokshal-tau and makes a detour round the east and along the north side of the Issyk-kul, while the others cross over the Muz-art pass (12,000 ft.), on the northeast shoulder of Khan-tengri, and the Terek pass (12,730 ft.) respectively, the latter into Ferghana.

It appears very probable that at the dawn of history East Turkestan was inhabited by an Aryan population, the ancestors of the present Slav and Teutonic races, and that a civilization not inferior to that of Bactria had already developed at that time in the region of the Tarim.'

When the Huns (Hiung-nu) occupied west and east Mongolia in 177-165 B.C., they drove before them the Yue-chi (Yutes, Yetes or Ghetes), who divided into two hordes, one of which invaded the valley of the Indus, while the other met the Sacae in East Turkestan and drove them over the Tian-shan into the valley of the Ili.

In connexion with the objection based upon the sub-boreal character of the regions which were the cradle of the Aryans, as proved by the so-called palaeontology of the Aryan languages, it may be observed that by the end of the Glacial, and during the earlier Lacustrine (Post-Glacial) period, the vegetation of Turkestan and of Central Asia was quite different from what it is now.

Between 120 and for B.C. the Chinese extended their rule westwards over East Turkestan as far as Kashgar.

During the following century the Mahommedans under Kotaiba ibn Moslim, after several excursions into West Turkestan, invaded (712-13) East Turkestan, penetrating as far as Turfan and even China.

In 790 the Tibetans were masters of East Turkestan; but their rule was never strong, and towards the 9th century we find the country under the Hoi-he.

Grigoriev, 2 the Turks who succeeded the Chinese in the western parts of East Turkestan were the Karlyk Turks, who extended farther south-west up to Kashmir, while the north-eastern parts of the Tarim region were subdued by the Uighurs.

Soon Mongol hordes, the Kara-Kitais, entered East Turkestan (11th century), and then penetrated into West Turkestan.

During the following century the Mongol conqueror Jenghiz Khan overran China, and Turkestan and Kashgaria fell under his rule in 1220, though not without strenuous resistance followed by massacres.

His son reigned at Samarkand, but was overthrown by Timur (Tamerlane), the Mongol sovereign of Samarkand, who, to put an end to the attacks of the wild Tianshan tribes, undertook in 1389 his renowned march to Dzungaria, which was devastated, East Turkestan also suffering severely.

Rubruquis, who visited East Turkestan in 1254, Marco Polo between 1271 and 1275, and Hois in 1680, all bore witness to great religious tolerance; but this entirely disappeared with the invasion of the Bokharian mullahs or Mahommedan priests.

They created in East Turkestan the power of the khojas, or "theologians," who afterwards fomented the many intestine wars that were waged between the rival factions of the White and the Black Mountaineers.

The Chinese next re-conquered East Turkestan, marking their progress by massacres and transporting 12,500 partisans of independence to the Ili (Kulja) valley.

Hereupon the dissentient khojas fled to Khokand in West Turkestan, and there gathered armies of malcontents and fanatic followers of Islam.

After the "rebellion of the seven khojas" in 1847 nearly 20,000 families from Kashgar, Yarkand and Ak-su fled to West Turkestan through the Terek-davan pass, many of them perishing on the way.

But five years later he had again to sustain war with China, in which he was defeated, and East Turkestan once more became a Chinese province.

Aurel Stein in the same part of East Turkestan, though at other localities, namely, at Yotkan, the ancient capital of the kingdom of Khotan, and at Dandan-uiliq, Endere, Karadong, Rawak and other places, all lying east and north-east of the town of Khotan.

The other arm of the bifurcation, situated farther south, and beginning at the Terek-tau, is double; it consists of the Alai and Trans-Alai ranges, continued westwards in the Karateghin, Zarafshan, Hissar and Turkestan ranges, though orographically the Trans-Alai ought probably to be described as the border-ridge of the Pamir plateau.

The Alai Mountains are continued westwards in the radiating ranges of the Karateghin Mountains, Zarafshan Mountains, the Hissar Mountains and the Turkestan range, which reach altitudes of 18,500-22,000 ft., though peak Baba in the Zarafshan range reaches nearly 20,000 ft.

The traditional routes between China on the one side and West Turkestan and Persia on the other have from time immemorial crossed the Tian-shan system at some half a dozen points.

The shortest route, though not the easiest, between Kashgar and East Turkestan in the east and Ferghana and West Turkestan in the west is over the Terek pass or the pass at the head of the Alai valley, a dangerous route in winter by reason of the vast quantity of snow which usually accumulates there.

When troubles broke out in Turkestan and were supported by military force, Kerensky went to the affected districts and published a scathing indictment of the policy of the Government in Central Asia.

No fewer than five species have been discriminated from various parts of Asia, extending to Japan; but only one of them, the P. leucoptera of Turkestan and Tibet, has of late been admitted as valid.

Ellsworth Huntington threw new light on the Tian-shan plateau and the Alai range by his explorations of 1903; and Sven Hedin, between 1899 and 1902, was collecting material in Turkestan and Tibetan fields, and resumed his journeys in 1905-1908, the result being to revolutionize our knowledge of the region north of the upper Tsanpo (see Tibet).

The remarkable phenomenon of the periodic Turkestan shifting of the Lop Nor system has been revealed by the and Oxus researches of Sven Hedin, and the former existence of basin.

Proc. R.G.S., 1886-1887; Arthur Carey, " Explorations in Turkestan," see vol.

To avoid the vengeance of the emperor, she fled with him to the court of the sultan of Damascus; but not deeming themselves safe there, they continued their perilous journey through Persia and Turkestan,round the Caspian Sea and across Mount Caucasus, until at length they settled among the Turks on the borders of Trebizond.

Omar was a poet and patron of learning, but continued to enlarge his kingdom, taking the sacred town of Azret (Turkestan), and to protect Ferghana from the raids of the nomad Kirghiz built fortresses on the Syr-darya, which became a basis for raids of the Khokand people into Kirghiz land.

From the pass it drops over the gradually decreasing grades of a wide sweep of Chol (which here happens to be locally free from the intersecting network of narrow ravines which is generally a distinguishing feature of Turkestan loess formations) for a distance of 35 m.

The main water-divide between Herat and the Turkestan Chol (the loess district) has been called Paropamisus for want of any well-recognized general name.

Khan is still applied to semi-independent rulers, such as the khans of Russian Turkestan, or the khan of Kalat in Baluchistan, and is also used immediately after the name of rulers such as the sultan of Turkey; the meaning of the term has also extended downwards, until in Persia and Afghanistan it has become an affix to the name of any Mahommedan gentleman, like Esquire, and in India it has become a part of many Mahommedan names, especially when Pathan descent is claimed.

The relationship between the Pahlavi and the Aramaic is clearest in the records written in the " Chaldaeo-Pahlavi " characters; the a conclusion which is not invalidated by the fact that some important modifications are found beyond this area, nor by Dr Stein's discovery of a great mass of documents in this alphabet at Khotan in Turkestan, for, according to tradition, the ancient inhabitants of Khotan were emigrants banished in the time of King Agoka from the area to which Buhler assigns this alphabet (see Stein's Preliminary Report, 1901, p. 51).

Marco Polo visited it between 1271 and 1275, and Goes in 1603; but the continuous wars (see Turkestan) prevented Europeans from frequenting it, so that until 1863 the information borrowed from medieval travellers and from Chinese sources, with that supplied by the pundit Mir Isset Ullah in 1812, was all that was known about the Yarkand region.

Shir Khist, a manna known to writers on materia medica in the 16th century, is imported into India from Afghanistan and Turkestan to a limited extent; it is the produce of Cotoneaster nummularia (Rosaceae), and to a less extent of Atraphaxis spinosa (Polygonaceae); it is brought chiefly from Herat.

Thus it includes (1) the governor-generalship of Turkestan, embracing the provinces of Ferghana, Samarkand, Semiryechensk, and Syr-darya; the provinces of Akmolinsk and Semipalatinsk, and sometimes that of Turgai belonging to the governor-generalship of the Steppes; the Transcaspian region; and the semi-independent states of Bokhara and Khiva.

Farther east and north comes the Turkestan pine (Picea Schrenkiana), while at lower levels there grow willows, black and white poplars, tamarisk, Celtis, as well as Elaeagnus (wild olive), Hippophae rhamnoides (sallow thorn), Rubus fructicosus (blackberry), Prunus spinosa (blackthorn) and P. A rmeniaca (apricot).

The arable land, being limited to the irrigated terraces of loess, occupies little more than 2% of the whole area of West Turkestan.

Its general aspect is that of rugged slopes of bare rock, seamed with the beds of dry torrents choked with gravel (see further Turkestan, West).

A native of Turkestan, flowering in June and July.