conserving capacity to that of Egypt, yet neither Khotan nor any other territory bordering on that desert could ever compare with the land of the Pharaohs in wealth of antiquarian remains awaiting exploration. " Ancient cities," complete with palaces, streets, markets, etc., such as are pictured by Turkestan folklore, and also by indiscriminating European imagination, as lying submerged under the sand-dunes through a kind of Sodom and Gomorrah catastrophe, are certainly not to be looked for. The sites where settlements abandoned in early times could be located, with ruins still capable of excavation, were few in number, and even those among them which, being further removed from the present inhabited area, had so far escaped the ravages of the " treasure-seekers," could not be expected to remain safe much longer. The time seems still distant when Khotan will see its annual stream of tourists. Yet the extensive industry of forged " old books " which had grown up in Khotan during recent years, and which I was able to trace and expose in detail (see Chapter XXXI.), sufficiently shows how dangerous a factor " collecting " has already become even in Chinese Turkestan.
In the face of such difficulties as work in the Taklamakan presents I could never have made my explorations sufficiently extensive and thorough without the active co-operation of the Chinese administrators of the districts from which I had to draw guides, labour, supplies—in fact, whatever was needed during my winter campaign in the desert. I had the good fortune to find in the Ambans Pan-Darin and Huang-Daloi, then in charge of Khotan and Keriya, reliable friends, thoroughly interested in my work and ever ready to help me with all that was in their power. I look back to the invariable kindness and attention I received from these amiable Mandarins with all the more gratitude as it was shown at a time when, as they well knew, the conflict with the European powers was convulsing their empire. They were fully aware, too, that the services rendered to my scholarly enterprise could earn them neither material advantages nor honours.
The true historical sense innate in educated Chinese and the
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