he could start on his task of removal. The heroic way in which the brave Sikh stuck to the attempt even after he had gone blind first in one eye and then in the other, is a tragic story, too long and too sad to tell here in detail.
When I myself in January i 914 regained the ruined site, I found to my dismay that the care both myself and later again Naik Ram Singh had taken to have the interior of the shrine safely buried again under sand and debris had not sufficed to protect it. An ill-managed attempt to remove the frescoes was made, some years after my discovery had been reported, by a young Japanese traveller who lacked preparation, technical skill and experience equal to his archaeological zeal. The attempt was thus bound to result in mere destruction, as was proved only too clearly by the shattered fragments of painted hard plaster which I found littering the passage floor below the southern hemicycle. This hapless effort after `archaeological proceeds' had fortunately been abandoned before it extended to the northern hemicycle, and the frescoed dado of this we succeeded in removing without damage after prolonged and exacting labour. But of the greater portion of the paintings I had first brought to light here, my photographs, imperfect as they are, and my notebooks have alone preserved a record.
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