Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Hami

HAMI, the Chinese name of a town in Central Asia, otherwise called Kamil, Komul, or Kamul, situated on the southern slopes of the Tian-Shan mountains, and on the northern verge of the Great Gobi desert, in 42° 48′ lat. and 93° 28′ E. long., at a height above sea-level of 3150 feet. The town is first mentioned in Chinese history in the 1st century, under the name I-wu-lu, and said to be situated 1000 lis north of the fortress Yü-men-kuan, and to be the key to the western countries. This evidently referred to its advantageous position, lying as it did in a fertile tract, at the point of convergence of two main routes running north and south of the Tian-Shan and connecting China with the west. It was taken by the Chinese in 73 a.d. from the Hiungnu (the ancient inhabitants of Mongolia), and made a military station. It next fell into the hands of the Uigurs or Eastern Turks, who made it one of their chief towns and held it for several centuries, and whose descendants are said to live there now. From the 7th to the 11th century I-wu-lu is said to have borne the name of Igu or I-chu, under the former of which names it is spoken of by the Chinese pilgrim Hwen-Thsang, who passed through it in the 7th century. The name Hami is first met in the Chinese Yüan-shi or “History of the Mongol Dynasty,” but the name more generally used there is Homi-li or Komi-li. Marco Polo, describing it apparently from hearsay, calls it Camul, and speaks of it as a fruitful place inhabited by a Buddhist people of idolatrous and wanton habits. It was visited in 1341 by John de Marignolli, who baptized a number of both sexes there, and by the envoys of Shah Rukh (1420), who found a magnificent mosque and a convent of dervishes, in juxtaposition with a fine Buddhist temple. Hadji Mahomet (Ramusio’s friend) speaks of Kamul as being in his time (circa 1550) the first Mahometan city met with in travelling from China. When Benedict Goes travelled through the country at the beginning of the 17th century, the power of the king Mahomet Khan of Kashgar extended over nearly the whole country at the base of the Tian-Shan to the Chinese frontier, including Kamil. It fell under the sway of the Chinese in 1720, was lost to them in 1865 during the great Mahometan rebellion, and the trade route through it was consequently closed, but was regained in 1873. Owing to its commanding position on the principal route to the west, and its exceptional fertility, it has very frequently changed hands in the wars between China and her western neighbours. As regards the latter quality, it is even now said to yield rice, melons, oranges, and grapes of notable excellence, while, with respect to the former, Baron F. Von Richthofen (probably the highest authority) states that the route from Hsi-ngan-fu past Hami to Kuldja, is by far the best and indeed the only natural line for a railway from China to Europe. The Russian officer Sosnofski, our latest authority respecting Hami, entered it in the autumn of 1875 after eight days’ journey across the Gobi steppe lying to the south. He speaks of it as an important mart, whither wool from Turfan and Turkistan goods are brought to be exchanged for the products of Central China. The Mahometan population consists of immigrants from Jitishahr (or Kashgaria), Bokhara, and Samarcand, and of descendants of the Uigurs.