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0168 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / Page 168 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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CHAPTER LX

DISCOVERIES BY THE ' JADE GATE'

I SHALL not attempt to describe day by day the labours

which kept me busy for fully a month along this ancient

Limes. Every watch - station we cleared furnished its

quota of antiquarian spoil, often in novel forms. Even

where my task was merely to trace the old wall across

desert and marshes, there was an abundance of interesting

observations to record about the changes, if any, which the

ground had undergone since the line was first planned.

No better gauge could have been designed for showing

to the geographical student what physical conditions

had prevailed here in Han times. With daily growing

experience the reading of these marks of earlier water-

level, of character and extent of vegetation, of wind

direction, etc., soon became for me a fascinating study.

That it claimed the attention of the antiquarian and

geographer alike was the greatest attraction. Vividly do

I remember all the peculiar features which this apparently

dull and uniform desert ground offered along the hundred

miles or so of the border surveyed in the end, and equally

also the many little surprises and incidents to which the

search for the relics of a long-passed age treated us in the

midst of this desolate region. But space does not suffice

to record them all here, and in order to give some

impression of the work effected and the results it has

yielded, I must restrict myself to a brief account of the

most notable finds.

In order to be nearer to the reinforcements of labourers

and fresh supplies I had called up from Tun-huang, I

shifted my camp on April 17th to the vicinity of the

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