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0526 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1
中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.1
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 / 526 ページ(白黒高解像度画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
引用形式選択: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

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328 ALONG THE CHARCHAN RIVER CH. XXVIII

led no longer along the river but past the southern edge of a series of extensive marshes which run parallel to the

general direction of the river and probably mark lagoons

once formed by flood-water. Dense beds of reeds covered these depressions and allowed but rarely a glimpse of clear

water. Toghrak groves were met with at intervals, generally on small tongues of sandy ground projecting into these ` Köls.' The rest of the ground through which the route led for fully two marches, some forty-three miles, was mainly salt-impregnated steppe with a scanty growth of reeds or tamarisk. Had it not been for the delightfully clear sky which the increasing cold had brought us—on November 26th I registered a minimum of 34 degrees Fahrenheit below freezing-point—and visions of the distant snowy range south, the landscape would have been more depressing to my sense than the region of absolutely sterile dunes northward. For there the graceful wave-lines of the dunes and the great ridges of sand which rise between them, create an ever-changing horizon and keep the eye occupied.

I had an opportunity of gaining a good idea of the nature of these marshes and of the tangled jungle which extends between them and the river, when on the morning of our fourth march I proceeded to visit under Ismail's guidance some ruins I had heard of while at Charchan. From camp on the bank of the Chong-köl or ` Big Lake,' we struck north-eastward to where Ismail knew a safe crossing through the marsh belt. The water being fed by springs had :not yet frozen, and without our guide's amazingly sure local sense we might have long searched in vain for a track across the treacherous marsh bed. Where we eventually crossed, it narrowed to a channel only four or five hundred yards broad. But even here the ground was too soft to carry laden animals. The reeds grew to ten feet or more, and to break through their thickets was no pleasant experience even in the wake of Ismail and his pony.

The latter was a small wiry thing which I never ceased to admire on these marches. Besides its tall rider it had to carry his food supplies and its own fodder for some ten