x INTRODUCTION
and expense is a fact which from a practical and quasi-administrative point of view I feel proud to record. How much anxious
thought, calculation and effort its attainment cost me, need scarcely be detailed here. Considering the nature and extent of the ground covered by my travels, and the difficulties of work in the desert, the relatively low expenditure involved in my explorations has since been noted with surprise by brother archæologists and others.
Long experience of marching and camping gained on Indian ground certainly helped in restricting the cost. But even thus the expenses of my expedition would certainly have been higher, had not the Survey of India Department liberally offered its assistance. Previous antiquarian tours in Kashmir, the Punjab, and on the Afghan Frontier had taught me the importance of exact topographical observation as an adjunct of my researches. The necessity of fixing accurately the position of ancient sites and generally elucidating the historical geography of the country was bound to bring surveying operations in Chinese Turkestan into the closest connection with my immediate task. But in addition I was anxious from the first to utilise whatever opportunities the journey might offer for geographical work of a more general character in regions which had hitherto remained without a proper survey or altogether unexplored.
Colonel St. George Gore, R.E., c.s.r., Surveyor-General of India, proved most willing to further this object. He kindly agreed to depute with me one of the native Sub-Surveyors of his Department, and to provide the necessary equipment of surveying instruments, together with a special grant of Rs. 2,000 (f 133), in order to cover the additional expenses. Of the excellent services rendered by Babu Ram Singh, the Sub-Surveyor selected, my narrative gives ample evidence. With his help a continuous system of surveys, by plane-table, astronomical observations and triangulation, was carried on during the whole of my travels in Chinese Turkestan. The results of these surveys, which in the mountains I was able to supplement by photogrammetric survey work of my own, and the
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