A very interesting account of events in a little known part of China was on Thursday secured by a representative of the North-China Daily News" from Mr. G. Findlay Andrew of the China Inland Mission. Mr. Andrew is passing through Shanghai on his way Home on furlough, having during the past months travelled across China to reach the coast from the distant province of Kansu. As a province of China Kansu is peculiar on account of the number of Moslems it contains—a. race which in the past has proved a fertile source of trouble in that part of the country, and which may again cause an upheaval. Mr. Andrew has been kind enough to give us some account of them and their trouble with their neighbours, and he has also made mention of a striking figure in that province, a man who claims to be the Christ re-born.
Mostems v. Tiperans.
We left Kansu on October 22, said Mr. Andrew, and arrived at Cientsin on November 22, At the time we left, Kansu was peaceful. The fact to be emphasized is that Kansu is the most thickly populated Mohammedan province in China. Out of a total population of 10,000 006 it is generally conceded that 3,000,000 are Moslems. Then again, these 3,000,000 Moslems derive from three different stocks, Arab-Persian, Porki (from the direction of Samareand) and Ouigur-Mongol. These three classes of people are distinct from the Chinese, so much so that the Ouigur-Mongols speak their own language which is Mongol dialect, and the Turki also speak their own language, which is a form of Turkish and can be understood by a visitor from the Ottoman Empire at the present day.
These have always more or less been a sort of danger element in the province. They are different to the Chinese in feature, besides language and dress, and they are very fond of fighting. The virtual head of the Moslems in Kansu, the man who held the civil power and in certain circles was of worldwide reputation, was Ma An-liang. He had all these different races of Moslems absolutely under his command. But he died last year. Shortly after his death in the ancient province of Amdo, now ceded to the Chinese, the Mohammedans, chiefly under the leadership of Ma Chi, a Moslem holding the Chinese office of Chief Commissioner at Siningfu, believing
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.