THE RUINED HOUSES OF LÔU-LAN. • 635
mensions, arranged four-square, while two others form a cross in the interior and divide the house into four small rooms. The sides measure 1o.3 m. and 9 m. respectively. The neighbourhood to the west and south-west of this part of the village possesses a great abundance of toghraks, some of them still standing upright. The village occupied unquestionably a magnificent situation, with the reed-grown lake to the south and the forest to the west. It is from both these sources and from the ground itself that the building materials have been derived; the builders did not need to fetch their materials from any very great distance.
The house K exhibits a peculiar shape: on the whole it forms a rectangular structure, its sides measuring 14.35 m. and 15.80 m. respectively; but in the middle it would appear to have been divided by a passage-way, so that possibly there may have been two separate houses. The passage-way is closed at its western end by a fence of vertical poles. Three of the walls in the south-eastern half are built of the same materials, while the fourth, next the passage-way, consists of two horizontal beams with a doorway between them. The north-west half of the house consists of two rooms; in the middle of each of these stands an upright post. On the northwest side there appear to have been two square projections or verandahs; their foundation beams survive uninjured.
A detached platform to the west of K is crowned with the ruins of the house L, consisting of big beams lying in utter confusion. Here it was very easy to see how the timber protects against wind-erosion the ground upon which it lies, for the shape of the platform follows exactly the situation of the beams.
To the S. 20° W. lies at a distance of 25 in. the house M, a rectangular building with sides measuring 18.7 m. by 12.6 m., and extending from N. 35° W. to S. 35° E. It is divided into six rooms of different sizes and shapes. The walls consist partly of vertical posts, partly of horizontal kamisch sheaves, and partly of tamarisk faggots standing on end between the posts and supported by them, as may be distinctly seen in Pl. 72. The two side-posts and the lintel of three of the doorways are still standing, and in one of them the door itself still hangs. It is made of vertical planks and stands wide-open, though half embedded in the sand, a small quantity of which has collected in the interior of the house. From the southwestern wall projects at right angles a wall made of horizontal kamisch sheaves. Possibly this may have had some sort of connection with the three confused heaps of beams N, which lie to the north-west of it. From the southern corner of the house M it is 45 m. in a direction S. 35° E. to the end of a wall, 8 m. long, which consists of horizontal bundles of kamisch, and which in its turn runs from the house O. This house is I o.:5 m. long, and is divided into two rooms, while its walls consist for the most part of vertical posts. North-east of this again stand two small rectangular houses, with walls 5.5 m. long, constructed of vertical posts. The complex Q, to the south-east of it, consists of five very small houses, huts, or booths. But beyond them to the south we failed to discover any further traces of houses; whence we may infer that the complex Q stood immediately on the shore of the lake.
This, then, is the way in which the ruins of Lôu-lan lie with respect to one another. The ground-plan of the village is peculiar, in that there is no main street flanked by rows of houses such . as we should expect on the great caravan-road
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