On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / Page 353 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

0353	On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1

CH. XIII

FATE OF REMAINING CACHE 211

carts were still waiting at the Tun-huang Ya-mên; for whole

bundles of fine Buddhist rolls of Tang times were in 1914

brought to me there for sale. Similar opportunities for

rescuing relics from the great cache offered also at different

places on my way to Kan-chou as well as in Chinese

Turkistan. So one may well wonder how much of the

materials thus carted away actually reached Peking in

the end.

On that second visit of mine in 1914 Wang Tao-shih duly

produced his public accounts, and these showed all sums

he had received from me duly entered for the benefit of the

shrine. Proudly he pointed to the pile of new chapels and

pilgrims' quarters which those silver `horse-shoes' had since

helped him to erect in front of his cave temple. In view of

the official treatment his cherished store of Chinese rolls had

suffered, he expressed bitter regret at not having previously

had the courage and wisdom to accept the big offer I had

made through Chiang Ssû-yeh for the whole collection en

bloc.

But when faced with this official spoliation, he had been

shrewd enough to put away in a safe place a nest-egg, as it

were, of such Chinese manuscripts as he conceived to be of

special value. It must have been fairly large in extent, for

there remained enough to allow me to carry away, as a fruit

of my renewed pilgrimage to the site, five more cases filled

with some six hundred Buddhist manuscript rolls—of course,

against an adequately increased donation.

Thus has ended on my part the 'Prieste's Tale' from the

Caves of the Thousand Buddhas. But some account seems

due of the results which the study of the abundant and im-

portant materials safely brought away thence has yielded.

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