IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
CH. LIX "TRACKING WALL ALIGNMENT 103
materials, always layers of gravel. and fascines, had secured
greater consistency, or the direction, coinciding with the
prevailing winds, and a sheltered position on lower ground
had reduced the force of erosion. Elsewhere, for some
reason or other, the lapse of two thousand years and the
violence of the winds, which rarely cease sweeping along
this great desert valley, had wrought far greater havoc,
and it needed a careful scanning of the ground to discover
the low continuous swelling along the line which the wall
had followed. But even where the eye scarcely caught
the alignment, the ends of the neatly laid reed bundles
cropping out from below the gravel would supply a decisive
indication ; and a single stroke with the Ketman would
suffice to unearth the regular ` masonry.' Tila Bai was
usually my only companion on these reconnoitring rides,
it and grateful I felt for his keen eyes and power of intelligent
observation which often enabled him to locate these faint
traces of the wall from a distance.
to Once we had hit the line on a particular plateau section,
it it was easy to follow it right through ; for straight it ran
in the direction of the nearest watch-station eastwards.
Nor was it difficult to locate these towers, since their
;1.. position had invariably been chosen with a sharp eye
for the advantages of ground commanding the nearest
depressions. What had lightened the task of the soldiers
who once kept watch and guard here, now proved equally
helpful to guide us to their ruined quarters. However
st much decayed some of the towers were, and however broad
fl the marshy depressions which broke the continuity of the
wall and separated us from our next goal, the mass of
a~ broken masonry almost always sufficed for a guiding land-
mark ; so well raised above the general level of the
plateaus was the ground which it occupied.
Where the extent of wall line to be watched was great
0 and the elevation afforded by natural features of the ground
inadequate for the purpose, the towers had been built very
la massively to heights originally of twenty-five feet or more.
Here the carefully set masonry or the hard clay stamped
in regular layers was generally solid enough to hold out
against all vicissitudes of the ages. The original coating of
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