Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 / Page 507 (Color Image)

0507	Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1

CH. XXVII `OLD SEATS OF THE TUKHARA' 313

receive due attention, was a canvas bag holding two narrow

and fiât pieces of wood, about six inches long, showing

along one edge a series of small cup-like holes evidently

blackened by smoke. It was only when these pieces came

to be examined at the British Museum that Mr. H. G.

Evelyn-White, then one of my assistants, recognized them

as regular fire-blocks meant for the production of fire by

the churning of small wooden sticks which fitted the holes.

Even then I might have doubted the survival of this primitive method as late as the third century A.D., had

not the subsequent discovery of an exactly corresponding

block at the ancient site north of Lop-nor, which dates from

about the same period, furnished confirmatory evidence.

The search for other old remains in the vicinity of the

T'ang fort was continued with care on November 9th ;

but only in one of the several badly eroded dwellings

which I managed to trace, did we come upon datable

relics in the shape of two fragmentary Kharoshthi tablets.

The ruins of a small Stupa and of a square tower, still

rising about eighteen feet high, both built with sun-dried

bricks of large size (Fig. 105), were the only surviving

remains of more substantial structures near the fort which

could be connected with the earlier settlement. The

havoc wrought by far - advanced wind erosion was, no

doubt, mainly responsible for this scarcity of older

structural remains ; for pottery débris of very ancient

look appeared plentifully on all patches of bare soil for

nearly one mile south of the fort, and whatever copper

coins were picked up about the latter belonged to the

Chinese currency of the Han dynasty.

The most striking evidence, however, of the often-

proved accuracy of my Chinese guide and patron saint

came to light, when a chance find led me to discover that

the clay rampart of the fort, built within a generation or

two of his passage, was in one place actually raised over

a bank of consolidated refuse which belonged to the first

centuries of our era. At a point about a hundred feet

to the west of the fort's single gate, wind erosion had

badly breached the circumvallation of stamped clay.

Searching on the surface thus laid bare, one of the men

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