| | | | | 1140 THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER OF KAN-SU {Chap. XXVII with the two previously noticed towers ß and y (see Map No. 83. A. 3), could be safely recognized as marking the position of a Limes tower. The layers of stamped clay were still distinguishable. The adjoining ground, being bare clay and eroded into small Yârdangs 3-4 feet high, showed no trace of the wall. But moving towards the tower ß, now in sight, I picked up, after less than a mile, the line of the agger represented by a perfectly straight mound that rises about 2-3 feet above the bare gravel-covered soil. Its appearance was just the same as along the Limes stretch discovered to the south-west of An-hsi. For over a mile the line could be followed with short breaks at intervals to the tower ß. This proved to be built of layers of stamped clay and to rise still to 13 feet or so in height. It measured about t 2 feet in diameter, having lost its original square shape through erosion. Around it a low circular mound, about 28 yards in diameter, marked an enclosure such as I had found, e.g., at T. ix. a on the Limes west of Tun-huang.11 Fragments of grey mat-marked pottery of Han type could be picked up near the tower: Beyond it the mound, which marks the line of the wall, could be sighted running straight towards the tower y, less than two miles away to the south-west. The preservation of these clear traces of the Limes wall was manifestly due to the ground here being a hard gravel ` Sai ', neither bare loess or clay liable to wind-erosion nor soil reached by moisture and affected by vegetation. Further on the ground merged into the low-lying scrubby plain stretching around An-hsi, where the wall was bound to decay completely. But a fourth mound continuing the line could still be sighted in the distance. 11 See above, p. 662. |
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