192 ON THE ROAD TO KHOTAN [CHAP. XI.
On the 8th of October an easy march of fourteen miles over a gravel-covered Dasht with scanty patches of scrub brought me to Zanguya. The bed of the stream, which is crossed immediately before entering the fields of Zanguya, was entirely dry, the water being at this season used up for irrigation. Zan-guy a is a fairly large oasis, counting over five hundred houses in its several hamlets. I crossed through a long covered Bazar and found beyond it, near the eastern end of the village, a pleasant camping-ground in a field of lucerne. In the evening I visited an old village site, called Kul-Langar, some two miles to the north-west on the edge of the desert. Besides old pottery and the like I here found the remains of two large tanks still clearly traceable.
On the 9th I marched to Pialma, some 19 miles from Zanguya. The first couple of miles of the road lies through irrigated land ; but as the water supply is scant, cultivation shifts every year in turn to one of the four great plots into which the land on this side of the oasis is divided. Were it possible to secure more water by storage or otherwise, no doubt most of the barren Dasht which lies towards Pialma could be brought under cultivation. Light dunes of sand appeared again about the middle of the march, and continued up to the strip of raised ground appropriately known as Bel-kum (" ` the top sand ") . Some miles beyond I sighted the ruined mound of Karakir, which proved to be an ancient Stupa, much decayed but still holding its own among the high dunes of the surrounding drift. The base of the structure when intact must have been about 65 feet square. The size of the bricks agreed closely with that observed in the Stupa of Mauri Tim.
At Pialma, which is quite a small place, counting only about a hundred houses, I reached the last oasis of the Karghalik district eastwards. My camp was pitched in a little fruit garden, the trees of which were still laden with excellent peaches. For my servants the house of the owner
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