APPROACH FROM WEST ADMINISTRATION INHABITANTS CITIES. The traveller who journeys on during twelve days in an easterly direction from Oosh, will reach the Chinese territory at the point where stands the city of Kashgar. The way thither leads him over a mountainous country, where the Kiptchaks are wandering about with their herds. No villages, it is said, ever existed in this district, except in the time of Djenghis Khan, and then only here and there. At the present day it is not possible to trace even their ruins. Places blackened by fire and heaps of stones indicate the spots used by travellers and karavans for their stations. Although the Kiptchaks are wild and warlike, they do not attack solitary travellers. Large karavans coming from China are bound to pay a moderate tribute, in other respects no one is disturbed. At the distance of a single day's journey from Kashgar one arrives at a blockhouse, the first post of the Chinese, occupied by 10 soldiers and an accountant. No one is permitted to proceed unless furnished with a pass drawn up by the Aksakal in Namengan, who acts as a sort of paid agent for the Chinese. After {398} the traveller has exhibited his pass, he is interrogated in detail respecting everything that he has seen and heard in foreign parts. The accountant makes two copies of the report, one is given to the nearest post to be compared with the answer to a similar interrogation there; this document is forwarded to the governor whom it concerns. According to the statements of Hadji Bilal and my other friends, in Chinese Tartary it is most advisable on such occasions to employ the formula 'Belmey-men' (I know not). [Footnote 143] It is not the practice to force a man to reply in detail, and indeed no one has power to compel him to do so, and the accountant himself prefers the shorter answer, which lightens the functions he has to perform. [Footnote 143: The Chinese have besides a proverb quite in accordance with this rule, for they say: 'Bedjidu yikha le Djidu shi kha-le.' 'I know not, is one word; I know, is ten words,' that is to say, 'Saying "I know not," you have said everything; but saying "I know," your interrogator will put more questions, and you will have necessarily more to say.']