But now, as he paced alone in his apartment, now that he was not upon exhibition, now when there was no eye to behold him, and there was no reason to dissimulate or veil a single thought or feeling, his look was anything but open; the last trace of frankness disappeared; the muscles at mouth and eyes shifted; lines and planes intermingled and altered subtly; there was a moment of misty transformation – and the face of another man emerged. It was the face of a man uninstructed in mercy; it was a shrewd and planning face: alert, resourceful, elaborately perceptive, and flawlessly hard.

Local government officials confirmed for the first time this month that an organized uprising against Chinese rule took place as late as the early 1980s. Moslem peasants in Payzawat, 100 kilometres east of Kashgar, raided a military armoury and attacked Han Chinese with the stolen weapons. Units of the People's Liberation Army crushed the rebellion, with many deaths, local people from the Moslem Uighur ethnic group said. Kashgar's vice-mayor Mohamed Emin, a Uighur but a non-Moslem Communist Party member, said a group bent on destroying ethnic unity had been responsible. Payzawat - called Jiashi County by Peking - is closed to foreigners although overseas tour groups now regularly visit Kashgar. Local sources said the rebellion followed riots in Kashgar in 1981 that exploded when a Chinese shopkeeper shot dead a Uighur peasant who had parked a donkey-cart load of manure outside his premises.

But I now leave this great and wonderful call of Moses, to the sacred historian, whose pen is dipped in holy fire, and whose words are the words of God.

I guess it's like race cars - if you get the right line you can come out at top speed.