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0161 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / Page 161 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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CA. ux GUARDING AGAINST HUN RAIDS 107

There could be no doubt that the main purpose of this

Limes was to safeguard the territory south of the Su-lo Ho. This was indispensable as a base and passage for the Chinese military forces and political missions sent to extend and consolidate imperial control in the Tarim Basin and beyond. It was equally clear that the enemy, against whose irruptions from the north and north-west this base and line of communication had to be protected, were the Hsiungnu, the ancestors of those Huns who some centuries later watered their horses on the Danube and the Po.

With this fact once established, how the horizon seemed

to widen both in time and space ! The very existence of this Limes brought out the important geographical fact that the desert hill region north of the Su-lo Ho marshes, now quite impracticable owing to the absence of water, must then have been passable for small raiding parties. In historical perspective, too, it was stirring to think that this westernmost end of the ` Great Wall ' had not been built for mere passive defence, a purpose so easily associated with every ` Chinese Wall,' but, like more than one Roman Limes within a century or so later, primarily to keep the route open for a vigorous strategic advance. But of such historical affinities and connections more anon.

Fascinating as it was to let my thoughts wander far

away to Roman borders I had known, it was easier still to forget altogether the lapse of long ages, while the humble accessories of the life once led on this desolate frontier lay before my eyes seemingly untouched by twenty centuries. The men, indeed, had passed away, those who kept guard and those against whose raids the great line had been drawn right through the desert. Yet nature had changed scarcely at all, and on this ground its forces had failed to efface the work of man.

Never did I realize more deeply how little two thousand years mean where human activity is suspended, and even that of nature benumbed, than when on my long reconnoitring rides the evenings found me alone amidst the débris of some commanding watch-station. Struck by the rays of the setting sun tower after tower far away, up to ten miles' distance and more, could be seen glittering in a