THE DRY RIVER AND THE DRY MOUNTAINS 269
Macartney has gathered the earlier notices of Lulan from Chinese sources. According to the " Tsien Han-shu," or " History of the First Han Dynasty," Lulan came into intercourse with China between B. c. 140 and B. C. 87. When the history was written, at some date between B. c. 100 and A. D. 50, the district had a population of 1570 families, 14,100 people, with 2912 trained troops — fifteen or twenty times as great as the population to-day. The land, according to the history of the Hans, is " sandy and salty, and there are few cultivated fields. The country relies on neighboring kingdoms for cereals and agricultural products. It produces jade, abundance of reeds, the tamarisk, the clococca, and white grass. The people remove their cattle for pasturage wherever they can find sufficiency of water and herbage. They have asses, horses, and camels. They can manufacture weapons like the people of Tso-kiang." This sounds as though there were but little agriculture. There appears to have been some, however. In B. c. 77, the king of Lulan, Hui-Tu-Chi, petitioned the Chinese emperor to establish a military colony in the city of E-tun, where, he said, " the land is productive and rich." The emperor sent forty cavalrymen " to cultivate the fields at E-tun, and soothe the people."
Our next information as to Lulan is derived from certain manuscripts and other articles found by Hedin in the ruins. The written documents date from about 264 A. D. to 270 A. D., and probably indicate approximately the time of the abandonment of at least the particular group of villages in question. Coins found in the ruins belong to two kinds, one struck between B. c. 118 and A. D. 581, and the other between
IIIF Color HighRes
