here, possibly the centre of a large camp or to provide sufficient drinking water for the herds of the Kalmuks. A stream that flows, clear as crystal, close to the embankment should make it possible for the reservoir to be filled again at any time. Close to the S part of the embankment there is a clump of trees and a couple of houses have been put up in their shade. A neat little Mohammedan temple has been built at the foot of the largest tree, using it as a centre. The simple little mud huts look quite pleasant in the spring sunshine, surrounded as they are with rich verdure. Half-way to Kungtaidji kul we crossed a slight ridge in a N—S direction, said to be the continuation of the E point of the ruined wall I investigated yesterday.
We went on southward across the fields and soon reached a place, where the ground undulates slightly. It is 2 or 3 miles NE (22o°) of the village of Kainak. It seems impossible to find any sequence between these small mounds and waves. A couple of depressions cut across them allow the rainwater to run off. In many places the characteristic traces of former habitation that I have seen so often in Chinese Turkestan are visible on the surface — hits of clay vessels, bones etc. Here and there you notice traces of excavations made at a slight depth and always accompanied by exposed tiles of the same thin, flat shape as those I saw yesterday and at Dzin din sy. A. A. Diakoff came upon a corridor of tiles at a depth of about I r /2 metres in one of his excavations, but unfortunately gave up excavating for some unknown reason. The pieces of clay vessels that I saw were rougher than at the ruins S of Kainak. This circumstance and the indistinct traces of dwellings make it seem probable that these remains are of considerably older date than those S of the village. The bones I saw here were in about as bad a condition as the bones and skulls dug up near the village of Turpan. — I was able to buy a clay pot that was discovered by some seeker after hidden treasure.
We struck yesterday's road a little S of the second Sibo summun. The water in the Ili,
IIIF Color HighRes
