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0525 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 / Page 525 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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CH. XXVIII

AN ICY CROSSING   327

öghil, where Ismail proposed to find a ford, the ice-crust

lying over the extensive mud banks proved too thin to

carry men. But they were safely crossed all the same by

Ismail and the Charchan man whom I had taken along to

push my cyclometer for road measurement. Then the

two men waded pluckily through the two channels of swift-

running water, each approximately fifty yards broad and

nearly four feet deep in the middle. To look at their

shivering bare legs, cut by the ice cakes in more than one

place, as they tried to warm themselves by a fire after

returning from their reconnaissance, made me think of the

French pioneers who, working to their waist in the ice-

filled Berezina, built the bridges that were to save the

fleeing remnants of the Grande Armée. Ismail, in spite

of his trying experience, volunteered to carry me across,

and, feeling much in doubt as to whether my feet were

equal to such a passage, I gladly accepted his offer. The

crossing on my hardy mount was effected in safety though

not without trouble ; for when Ismail came to climb the

steeply cut bank towards the shallow which divided the

two channels, he failed to secure a foothold on the slippery

ice and came down on his face and hands, giving me a fair

ducking. So I, too, had something to dry by the roaring

fire which the men kindled amidst the thick reeds of the

opposite bank.

The ` Tim,' found quite close to where we had crossed

and only some hundred yards off the river-bank, proved to

be the ruin of a small square structure in solid masonry

which in all probability had served as a Stupa base. The

extant portion was only eleven feet long, standing at a

height of about seven feet above the present ground level.

The great size of the bricks and their careful setting

attested the antiquity of the structure. Its interest lies in

the fact that it proves the existence of a Pre-Muhammadan

settlement in the immediate vicinity of the present river

course, and thus supports the presumption that the latter

has changed less in its main direction than the many dry

branches and lagoons met with on either side might other-

wise lead one to suppose.

The route, where we regained it after this excursion,