his successors; and all proposals for the amelioration of the people were shelved for a more opportune occasion. But so many thousand _jigits_ must be in the ranks; so many fresh guns and cartridges must be placed in the arsenals; and so many adventurers must be induced by good pay to take service in the army as non-commissioned officers, in order that the rank and file should be well drilled. The very necessities of his position compelled Yakoob Beg to make all these military preparations; but the cost was great, and the sacrifices thus imposed on ruler and on people were a terrible strain. Recent events make us inclined to believe that a less active military and foreign policy, and a more peaceable and domestic one, would have tended to have added more strength to the Athalik Ghazi's rule than the somewhat ostentatious military parade to which he had recourse. Be that as it may, Yakoob Beg instituted in 1867 two taxes, which may be supposed to represent the two chief classes of receipts during his tenure of authority. The first of these was a tithe on all the cereal produce of the country; this tax was called the _Ushr_. The second, called the _Zakat_, was a customs due levied on all merchandise entering Kashgar. The _Ushr_ was payable on all land except that occupied by the Church, or by those who owed military service to the crown instead of other payment; and even those who rented land from the noble classes were obliged to surrender a tithe to the ruler. It would appear, therefore, from this that it was not so much the land as its legal possessor who was exempt from liability to the usual obligations of citizenship. The danger contained in the acquisition of all the crown lands by Andijani merchants, and the gradual displacement of his more immediate followers through the energy of these people, was not imperceptible to Yakoob Beg, and he accordingly adopted measures for preventing his nobles selling their land without his sanction. The receipts from this _Ushr_ were very considerable, and it was the main source of his revenue for years. We have some idea of the approximate value of land in Kashgar. The method of measuring land for sale, and consequently also for taxation, is peculiar. It is not by any given size that it is computed, or, indeed, strictly speaking by the amount of crop it produces; but at a rate in accordance with the amount of wheat with which it had been planted. The average rate was about a pound for as much land as was sown with 20 lb. of wheat. The tenant, as has been said, paid the government dues and handed over three-fourths of the net produce to the landlord as rent, receiving for his portion only the one-fourth remaining. Under this system it was only in very prosperous years that any but very large tenants made sufficient to earn a competent livelihood. In bad years it is possible that the landlord had to satisfy himself with a smaller share, if he was not induced to