THE SAND-BURIED RUINS OF CHIRA 171
not be true for Dandan-Uilik and Rawak, of which he was the discoverer; they must have received water from the Keriya River, which now flows twenty-six miles east of the ruins, but in ancient times, so he supposes, was diverted to the west. I hoped to be able to find conclusive evidence as to the truth of one or the other of these two conclusions. Also, if Stein proved right, as there was reason to expect would be the case, I hoped to determine whether the manifest drying up of the streams or canals which supplied the ruins was due to human causes, such as war or the decay of irrigation works, or to physical causes, such as a change of climate. My investigations confirmed Stein's conclusion, and showed that the water supply throughout the whole region was formerly more abundant than now, and hence that in ancient times the climate must have been different. An account of my journey into the desert will show the reasons for this conclusion, and later I shall discuss the matter more fully.
At Chira, when I inquired for a guide, every one said, " Oh, Ibrahim Beg, the Master of Canals, is the man you want. He went with the other Sahib [Stein], and he knows all the ruins everywhere." So I sent for Ibrahim Beg, a conceited little man, with the face of a humorous Irishman. He came in his official uniform, and professed to know far more than I could possibly want. We tried in vain to hire camels at Chira, and so went eastward a few miles to Dumuka, a neighboring village, to try again. There, as at Chira, the camel owners said that all the animals were up among the mountains in the summer pastures. No one hesitated to promise to send for camels to be brought down at once, but it was clear that no one meant to do so, for fear
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