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0514 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / Page 514 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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336 FROM KAN-CHOU TO T'IEN-SHAN CH. '_XXX

scope, as all buildings had long ago been destroyed by

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people from the neighbouring oases in search of building materials, while the eroded ground was constantly being searched for small objects. Three small circumvallations of manifestly late date still raised their clay walls to a fair height, evidence that the winds exercised much less erosive force here than in the An-hsi region.

From Sha-ho I let Rai Ram Singh proceed by the route of the southern oases in order to complete the survey along the foot of the Richthofen Range, while I myself followed the main road to Su-chou. I was thus able to keep near the line of the ` Great Wall ' which flanks it, and, by reconnaissances pushed northward to examine in several places the much-decayed clay rampart which marks this portion of the ancient Kan-su Limes. In constructive character it shows closest resemblance to the ` Great Wall ' seen north of Su-chou and Chia-yü-kuan.

After a short excursion to the outlying oasis of Chin-t'a and the desert beyond, I reached Su-chou by September i3th. Another brief but pleasant halt at the ` Spring of Wine ' allowed me to bid farewell to my kind Mandarin friends and to thank them for all the help afforded. It was a little pathetic to meet also Wang Ta-lao-ye, the learned magistrate of Tun-huang, whom administrative weakness—and policy—had sacrificed to popular resentment after the outbreak already related. He had been suspended from office and was now awaiting a formal court of enquiry. I did my best to show at Su-chou what I thought of the attempt to make my old friend and helper the scape-goat for official irresolution. But I learned behind the scenes that the whole trial was merely a sham intended to conciliate popular feeling.

When, subsequently, on our way to Yü-mên-hsien we met the witnesses against Wang who were being brought up under escort, Chiang-ssû-yeh shrewdly guessed that probably none of them would ever be allowed to see their homes in Tun-huang again. Thus the sacrifice of Wang's tenure of office would be appropriately compensated by the non-official punishment of the popular witnesses (recce rioters). In my farewell letter to the Viceroy sent later on