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Kuku Khoto

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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KUKU KHOTO (Chinese Kwei-hwa ), a city of the Chinese province of Shan-si, situated to the north of the Great Wall, in 40° 50' N. and III° 45' E., about 160 m. W. of Kalgan. It lies in the valley of a small river which joins the Hwang-ho 50 m. to the south. There are two distinct walled towns in Kuku Khoto, at an interval of a mile and a half; the one is the seat of the civil governor and is surrounded by the trading town, and the other 1 The judgment of the historian William Garrott Brown, himself a Southerner, is worth quoting: "That violence was often used cannot be denied. Negroes were often whipped, and so were carpetbaggers. The incidents related in such stories as Tourgee's A Fool's Errand all have their counterparts in the testimony before congressional committees and courts of law. In some cases, after repeated warnings, men were dragged from their beds and slain by persons in disguise, and the courts were unable to find or to convict the murderers. Survivors of the orders affirm that such work was done in most cases by persons not connected with them or acting under their authority. It is impossible to prove or disprove their statements. When such outrages were committed, not on worthless adventurers, who had no station in the Northern communities from which they came, but on cultivated persons who had gone South from genuinely philanthropic motives - no matter how unwisely or tactlessly they went about their work - the natural effect was to horrify and enrage the North." is the seat of the military governor, and stands in the open country. In the first or old town more especially there are strong traces of western Asiatic influence; the houses are not in the Chinese style, being built all round with brick or stone and having flat roofs, while a large number of the people are still Mahommedans and, there is little doubt, descended from western settlers. The town at the same time is a great seat of Buddhism - the lamaseries containing, it is said, no less than 20,000 persons devoted to a religious life. As the southern terminus of the routes across the desert of Gobi from Ulyasutai and the Tian Shan, Kuku Khoto is a great mart for the exchange of flour, millet and manufactured goods for the raw products of Mongolia. A Catholic and a Protestant mission are maintained in the town. Lieut. Watts-Jones, R.E., was murdered at Kwei-hwa during the Boxer outbreak in 1900.

Early notices of Kuku Khoto will be found in Gerbillon (1688-1698, in Du Halde (vol. ii., Eng. ed.), and in Astley's Collection (vol. iv.)