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0351 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / Page 351 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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CH. XIII SATISFACTION OF WANG TAO-SHIH 209

polite convention called them, had already been safely transferred to my improvised store-room.

Fortunately the Tao-shih, on his visit to the oasis, gathered full assurance that our friendly relations had aroused no resentment among his local patrons and that his spiritual reputation had not suffered. On his return he was almost ready to recognize that it was a pious act on my part to rescue for Western scholarship all those relics of ancient Buddhist literature and art which were otherwise bound to get lost sooner or later through local indifference. So negotiations could proceed about the compensation to be offered to the Tao-shih in the form of a liberal present to the cave temple which by his restoration he could claim to have made his own with all its contents known or unknown.

In the end he received a weighty proof of our fair dealing in the form of such a number of silver ingots or `horse-shoes' as fully satisfied his honest conscience and the interests of his cherished shrine. I received gratifying proof of the peaceful state of his mind when, on my return four months later to the neighbourhood of Tun-huang, he allowed Chiang Ssû-yeh on my behalf to acquire a considerable share also of the Chinese and Tibetan manuscript packets for a certain seat of learning in the distant West. But my time for true relief came when some sixteen months later all the twenty-four cases, heavy with manuscripts, and five more filled with carefully packed paintings, embroideries and similar art relics, had safely been deposited at the British Museum in London.

I need allude only briefly to the fate of what I had been obliged to leave behind of that great trouvaille in the good

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