IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Serindia : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
8o FROM THE OXUS TO KHOTAN [Chap. III
| Hsüantsang's territory of Wu-sha. | In Ancient Kholan I have already fully explained the reasons which convince me that Hsüantsang's territory of Wu-sha, then subject to Sarikol, comprised both Yârkand and Yangi-Hisar, and that the route followed by the pilgrim after his passage of the Chichiklik plateau took him first to Yangi-H Isar and thence on to Chia-sha or Kashgar.20 On the rapid marches which carried me by June 8 to Kâshgar, by way of Ighiz-yâr and Yangi-Hisâr, and which will be found described in Chapter ix of my personal narrative, I may thus assume that throughout I followed my ' Chinese patron-saint's' track, even though this offered no scope for fresh antiquarian observations. |
Arrival at Kashgar.
Chiang Szûyeh, Chinese literates.
SECTION IV.—ABOUT KASHGAR AND YARKAND
My arrival at Kashgar meant a return to ground familiar already from prolonged visits in 1900—I . There my old friend Mr. (now Sir) George Macartney, K.C.I.E., then the political representative of the Indian Government and now His Majesty's Consul-General for Chinese Turkestan, offered me the kindest welcome. But neither this nor the need of some physical rest after six weeks of constant and arduous travel would have been a sufficient inducement for a fortnight's stay had not a host of practical tasks, connected with the organization of my caravan, the purchase of transport animals, etc., as described in Chapter x of my personal narrative, kept me hard at work all that time. Sir G. Macartney's kind offices, supported by his great personal influence and to some extent also by a recollection of my previous archaeological labours about Khotan, were a great help in securing the goodwill of the provincial Chinese government for my fresh explorations.
But it was a service of quite as great importance, and one for which I shall always remain truly grateful, when he recommended to me a qualified Chinese secretary in the person of Mr. Yin Ma Chiang or Chiang Szû-yeh, to give him his familiar title. For the tasks before me the help of a Chinese literatus had appeared from the first indispensable. Having had always to carry on my scholarly labours amidst struggles for leisure, I have never had a chance of extending my philological equipment by a serious study of Chinese, much though I feel its need. A kindly Fate gave me in Chiang Szû-yeh not merely an excellent teacher and secretary but a devoted helpmate ever ready to face hardships for the sake of my scientific interests. Full of the true historical sense innate in every educated Chinese he took to archaeological work with keen zest and intuitive aptitude, and whether the remains to be explored were Chinese or foreign in origin, he watched and recorded everything with the same unfailing care and thoroughness. Apart from the great personal benefits which I derived throughout my explorations from the companionship of this learned Chinese comrade, and to which my personal narrative bears ample testimony, research owes Chiang Szû-yeh direct debts for valuable scholarly labour in connexion with numerous tasks I shall have occasion to mention hereafter.
In Chapter III of my Ancient Khotan I have already given a detailed review of the data which the accessible Chinese records furnish for the history of Kashgar territory during the pre-Muhammadan period.' The additional information which has since become available, mainly through M. Chavannes' labours and in particular by his translation of the account of the ' Western Regions ' in the Annals of the Later Han dyhasty,2 is useful in regard to some details, but its scope is not sufficiently wide to justify fresh treatment of the subject by a non-Sinologist student.
90 Cf. Ancient Khotan, i. p. 3x. The remark there made in note R0 as to the time of the subsequent journey over the Chichiklik requires modification, in view of local observations not previously available and now duly considered in my present explanations.
' See Ancient Kholan, i. pp. 52-72.
2 Cf. Chavannes, Pays d'Occident, pp. 58-61, where historical notices of the years A.D. 73-17o concerning Kashgar are collected (T`oung pao, 1907, pp. 204sgq.); Trois ginéraux, pp. 24 sqq., 18 sqq., 22, 26, 48 (T'oung pao, 2906, pp. 222 sqq., 226 sqq., 230, 234, 252) ; Notes addil., pp. 19, 25, 48, 85.
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