国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

named LI. It was sent on to me by the censor as an extremely suspicious document. You will understand that when there is talk of troops moving towards the eastern frontier of Sinkiang, I must be careful. This was why I gave orders that you should be closely examined when you approached Hami. »

Sm read the letter and translated it for me. It contained the following sentence: »I congratulate you on having two hundred soldiers in your caravan! »

— a joke, that was not meant so seriously as it sounded. And as the reader may remember, we had had a military escort only during the first week's march, through a district that was infested with robbers.

Champagne glasses were now filled. YANG stood up and held a speech, that was translated by BuRKHAN. He bade us welcome to Ti-hua, a town whose dirty

streets illustrated the present political conditions in China. »It is a blessing for science, for Sinkiang and for the whole of China that you, gentlemen, have come here. You will wrest natural secrets from our great province, you will find precious metals and coal and teach us in our attempts to increase Sinkiang's prosperity. I count it a privilege to facilitate your endeavours in every way. »

In my reply I thanked Governor YANG for the magnificent hospitality he had already shown us and for his promise to give us his powerful help.

In the freer conversation that followed YANG was surprisingly open about his views concerning the civil war between the different generals. I handed him the

letter, now over a year old, that Marshal CHANG Tso-LIN had written me with his own hand. He read it through with impassive mien, but afterwards indulged some derogatory remarks about the marshal, who in his opinion was fighting only for his own personal advantage.

We knew that YANG was a learned and able man. He had already published his own memoirs in thirty volumes, and was still making daily notes of his life

and the government of the province. He therefore had great respect for all writers of books, and paid me the compliment of expressing his awareness that I had published several works, in particular concerning the geography of Sinkiang.

YANG's DINNER

On the 4th of March we were invited to a big dinner in this same room, on which occasion we were regaled with an endless succession of genuine Chinese dishes, shark's fins, bamboo shoots, marine algae, swallow's nest soup, roast duck and all the other gastronomical items belonging to the better-class Chinese table.

YANG brought up the subject of our plans and desiderata himself, and I took advantage of the opportunity to ask if NORIN might make a geological journey to the Lop Desert, and BiRGMAN and HASLUND an exploring expedition to the same tracts for archaeological purposes. My request was granted at once, and it

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