BUKHARIA, also called Little Bukharia, also Eastern Turkestan, bounded on the north by Mongolia, on the east by the Shami or Kobi desert, on the west by Kokhand and Badakhshan, and on the south by the Wing Lung or Kora koram range of hills, which separates Little Bukharia from Little Tibet. The inhabitants of Little Bukharia speak Turki, and profess the Mahomedan religion. The Uigour Hoei-hou, called simply Hoei-hoei, under the Mongol dynasty of Yuan, were Mahomedans, and this name is applied by the Chinese to all those of the same religion. The inhabitants of the towns of Little Bukharia'are in part descendants of the ancient Uigour or Hoei-hou, and consequently Turk ; in part Sarti or Bukharians, who are scattered as merchants all over Central Asia, and who are Iranians. There are many of them at Pekin, Hang - chu- fu, Canton, and other commercial cities of China, Their mother tongue is Persian ; but they also speak the oriental Turki, which is the general language of Turkestan. and the most
diffused in Little Bukharia. The Uigour writing character was the original source of those still used by the Mongol and Manchu, and was itself almost certainly derived from the old Syriac cha racter through the Nestorians. The modern Tartar characters are written (and, it is presumed, read) in vertical lines from top to bottom of the page, the lines succeeding each other from left to right. What Uigour meant with Mongol authors is doubt ful, but the people and language so called by the western Asiatics were Turk. Captain Valikbanoff speaks of the language now in use at Kastiger as being Uigour, but it is not clear whether he means that this term is known to the natives.— Russians in Central Asia, p. G7 ; Yule, Cathay, i. p. 206 ; Timkowski's Journey to Pekin, i. pp. 6,37i3-79.