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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

xlv   INTRODUCTION

Publication of Personal Narrative.

Help of Mr. F. H. ANDREWS.

Assistants
at British
Museum.

in order to enable me to work on these tasks within easy reach of my collection. The kind personal interest taken in my efforts by the late Lord MINTo, then Viceroy, helped much to secure for this arrangement the approval of H.M. Secretary of State. With so much detailed research to be started on new materials likely to need scholarly application for years, it was from the first one of my chief cares to secure the help of expert collaborators.

But equally important it seemed that I should work out my own observations and conclusions in broad outlines, making them available to fellow-scholars as well as to a wider public interested

in geographical work. With the kind permission of the India Office authorities I was able to achieve this object at the close of 191 I by the publication of the Personal Narrative of my journey

as contained in Ruins of Desert Cathay. Its two volumes, amply illustrated, may well be considered to have served their purpose as a prelude, and in some respects a necessary complement, to my present Report, besides reducing any inconvenience that may have been caused by delay in its publication.

I could not have attempted within the allotted time of my deputation' in England to undertake all the manifold labours which the arrangement and description of a collection so varied

demanded, and for which my personal direction was needed, had I not enjoyed once again the great

boon of the experienced and devoted assistance of my artist friend, Mr. Fred H. ANDREWS, late Principal of the School of Art, Lahore, and now Director of the Technical Institute of Kashmir.

I have had repeated occasion before 12 to record the invaluable services which his exceptional know-

ledge of Eastern arts and crafts in general, his prolonged study of Central-Asian antiquities, and his own artistic gifts have enabled him to render to our common tasks ever since the commencement of

my Central-Asian explorations. My gratitude for the untiring efforts which Mr. Andrews bestowed upon tasks connected with my collection and the preparation of the present Report must be all the deeper because during those years, and down to 1913, they implied the sacrifice of what hard-earned leisure he could spare from exacting educational duties in London.

The most important and urgent of those tasks was the preparation of full Descriptive Lists of all classes of antiquities in the collection, arranged according to sites. It would have been impossible to assure this within any reasonable limits of time had not liberal provision made by the India Office authorities allowed advantage to be taken of the trained help and scholarly zeal of several young classical archaeologists, Mr. J. P. DROOP, Miss F. M. G LORIMER, Mr. C. L. WOOLLEY,and, for an

initial period, also Mr. H. G. EVELYN-WIiITE, who conjointly or successively have filled the posts of assistants at my collection for over two years. My grateful acknowledgements are due to them all,

but in particular to A'Iiss Lorimer and Mr. Woolley. The latter brought his ample experience gained in the course of archaeological field-work in Egypt and elsewhere to bear upon a systematic revision of all Descriptive Lists of miscellaneous antiques, as far as they had been prepared by the end of 1911, when I returned to duty in India.

Miss LORIMER continued her zealous and painstaking work as assistant also subsequently and rendered very valuable help with regard to the temporary exhibition which, arranged in 1914. in the newly opened north galleries of the British Museum, made characteristic portions of the whole collection accessible to the public for some months.t3 To Miss Lorimer I am specially indebted also for most of the detailed descriptions of the pictorial remains from the ` Thousand Buddhas ',14 while a correspondingly large share of the detailed accounts of textile remains from the same hoard is due to Mr. Andrews' expert eye and hand.

'= Cf. Ancient Kho/an, i. pp. xi sq. ; Sand-buried ruins of Kholan, pp. xxiii sq. ; Desert Cathay, i. p. xix.

"3 See Guide to an Exhibition of paintings, manuscripts, and other archaeological objects collected by Sir Aurel Stein, in

Chinese Turkestan (Printed by order of the Trustees of the British Museum, 1914).

" See below, p. 835, and List of paintings, wood-culs, etc., recovered from Chien—/—o—lung, pp. 937—Io88.