Inhabitants
Beyond an occasional visit from a band of nomad Mongols, this region of the Pe-shan swelling is entirely uninhabited. And yet it was from this region, according to G.Grumm-Grzhimaylo (1889-1890 explorer), that the Yue-chi (Yuezhi), a nomadic people akin to the Tibetans, proceeded when, towards the middle of the 2nd century BCE, they moved westwards and settled near Lake Issyk-kul; and from here proceeded also the Shanshani, or people who some two thousand years ago founded the state of Shanshan or Lofi-lan. The ruins of this town were discovered by Sven Hedin in the desert of Lop in 1901. Here, says the Russian explorer, the Huns gathered strength, as also did the Turks (Ch. Tukiu) in the 6th century, and the Uighur tribes and the rulers of the Tangut kingdom. But after Genghis Khan, in the 12th century, drew away the peoples of this region, and no others came to take their place, the country went out of cultivation and eventually became the barren desert it is now. During the Hun time, and probably into the Middle Age, the present desert was a lush steppe grassland able to support sustainable seasonal nomadic horse husbandry on a large scale.
Read more about this topic: Hami Desert
Famous quotes containing the word inhabitants:
“The inhabitants of St. John’s and vicinity are described by an English traveler as “singularly unprepossessing,” and before completing his period he adds, “besides, they are generally very much disaffected to the British crown.” I suspect that that “besides” should have been a “because.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“While the very inhabitants of New England were thus fabling about the country a hundred miles inland, which was a terra incognita to them,... Champlain, the first Governor of Canada,... had already gone to war against the Iroquois in their forest forts, and penetrated to the Great Lakes and wintered there, before a Pilgrim had heard of New England.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Who the first inhabitants of Britain were, whether natives or immigrants, remains obscure; one must remember we are dealing with barbarians.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–120)