286 EXCAVATION OF BUDDHIST SHRINES [CHAP. XVIII.
the colours of the robes and halos varying. But amidst these conventional designs there was found a picture which, though much effaced, at once attracted my interest as representing some sacred legend, perhaps of a local character. It shows rows of youths riding on horses or camels each holding a cup in his outstretched right hind, while above one of the riders a bird, perhaps meant for a falcon, is swooping down on this offering. The popularity of the subject was subsequently attested by my discovery • of a well,-preserved painted tablet in another temple ruin on which a similar scene is figured.
Frescoes of Buddhist saints over-lifesize, similar to those found in the cella, once adorned the inside of the walls enclosing the passage. Below them there ran a decorative frieze in which lotuses floating in the water 'and small human figures, perhaps meant for Nagas or deities. of springs, supporting the feet of the sacred personages above, could still be made out. From the .south wall of the passage I succeeded in removing the piece of painted plaster which is seen opposite, and which is now safely deposited in the British Museum. It shows the figure of a seated Buddha or Bodhisattva, occupying the triangular space left between the lower portions of two larger frescoes. The inscription painted beneath in black colour is in a cursive variety of the Brahmi script ; its language, however, like that of some other short inscriptions found on the frescoed walls of the Dandan-Uiliq ruins, is not Indian, but probably the same as appears in the Non-Sanskritic Brahmi documents I discovered at this site.
The excavations, when extended on the 21st of December to the remains immediately adjoining the west wall of the shrine just described, brought to light another Buddhist temple cella which, notwithstanding its smaller dimensions, proved particularly rich in interesting art relics. This little chapel, as it might be called, measured only 12 ft. 8 in. from north to south with a width of 8 ft. 8 in., and had no enclosing square passage. Its walls, built of the usual wooden framework and plaster, were .only 4 inches in thickness and had in consequence crumbled away to within a foot or two from
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