In 1948, some twenty thousand Kazak families, with their herds of camels, sheep and
horses and all their possessions, set but from Sinkiang Province on a tragic but
unwavering exodus from their communist-dominated country.
In addition to continual attack and pursuit by communist troops, the nomads suffered
intense and dreadful hardships on a journey which took them across waterless deserts
where their animals died of thirst, into the icebound Tibetan uplands without food or
shelter, over mountain passes eighteen thousand feet above sea level and across vast
stretches of trackless, hostile land.
Two years later, less than a quarter of their original number finally straggled,
exhausted but undaunted, into East Kashmir. Here they found shelter, but it was only
a temporary respite and more of these gallant people were to die before the rest found
sanctuary and the chance to build a new life in Turkey.
The author tells, for the first time, the story of this mass migration which has its only
parallel in the Exodus of the Israelites. He describes in full the events which led up to
it, and the people who took part in it. The book closes with a picture of the Kazaks
beginning to rebuild their shattered way of life after one of the most harrowing, yet
inspiring, experiences ever recorded.