Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 / Page 597 (Color Image)

0597	Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1

CHAPTER XXXIII

SURVEY OF THE ANCIENT STATION

ON December i gth, in the bitter cold of the early morning,.

work was started with the clearing of a fairly well preserved

ruin some sixty yards to the south-west of what we called

the ` Ya-mên.' Neither the dimensions of the dozen

rooms still traceable nor the size of the timber pieces

were large here. But drift sand had accumulated within

the broken walls to a height of three or four feet, and this,

together with the familiar look of the ground plan and the

wattle and timber construction, exactly as at the Niya

site, raised hopes. They were not disappointed. It is

true the first room, evidently intended with its thick walls

of stamped clay, big fireplace, and broad sitting-platforms

for use as a warm corner in the winter, yielded only small

pieces of a carpet of well-woven ingrain material, and

showing a delicate floral pattern in colours still vivid.

But in a passage dividing this from a larger room

westwards we carne upon three large rectangular tablets

complete with their wooden covers and seal-sockets, and

still retaining most of their Kharoshthi writing in excellent

preservation. Two of them lay wrapped up in a piece of

well-woven brown fabric, with about three feet of sand

below them, having manifestly fallen into this position

from some receptacle higher up on the wall. Except for

the wood, which was of Toghrak instead of the cultivated

poplar, these documents conformed in all details of

arrangement, script, etc., to the features made so familiar

by my Niya finds. As official records these rectangular

tablets were sure to show a date in their opening portion,

and as I looked for this eagerly I soon convinced myself

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