Innermost Asia : vol.1 / 236 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0236	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

CHAPTER V

ON THE WAY TO LOP-NŌR

Section I.—CHARCHAN AND VĀSH-SHAHRI

March to
Yār-tungaz
river.

My aim, when on the 19th December I left the extremity of the Niya river, was to gain as
quickly as possible the Lop Desert region, my main goal for the winter's operations and still far
away to the north-east. For the first two marches I had to follow my old track of 1901 and 1906
to the Yār-tungaz river ; to my surprise I noticed that where it crossed high ridges formed by
dunes of coarse sand it still showed in places distinct traces of the footprints left behind by my
camels. This observation was subsequently confirmed when I revisited the Limes west of Tun-
huang.

Crossing to
Endere
river.

From our old camp at Helya-bēg (Map No. 19. c. 1) I crossed the Yār-tungaz river, already
hard frozen, and in order to shorten the journey to the Endere river struck eastwards across un-
explored desert ground. The belts of dunes that I met on the first march beyond the Yār-tungaz
river proved unexpectedly low, none rising to more than about 50 feet in height. Yet they, too,
all stretched in the north–south direction of the river, thus conforming to what I had observed
elsewhere in the Taklamakān and Lop deserts, viz. that the big sand ridges or ' Dawāns ' always
have their axis parallel to the main bearing of the nearest river-bed, whether still carrying water
or dry.¹ Here I noticed that the same rule holds good also as regards the thin lines of tamarisk-
cones on our route.

Old branch
from Endere
river.

On the march beyond Camp LXVIII the sandy soil with anty scrub soon gave way to wide
stretches of bare clay covered with a hard salt crust, which forc s to steer a more southerly course
for the sake of the camels' feet. Patches with tamarisk bushes ving on flat ground showed that
the area had been subject at one time to occasional inundation. it this must have come from the
Endere river became clear when towards the end of the secc march we encountered a wide
shōr-covered depression flanked by lines of high tamarisk-cones i ing from SE. to NW. Beyond
it we came upon rows of Toghraks, and there we camped. But sc twelve miles had next morning
still to be covered from Camp LXIX before we reached the Ende. iver ; as we did after striking
the caravan track towards Charchan. The wide divergence o at dry western bed from the
deep-cut Endere river is of interest as illustrating the great lateral flexion to which the drainage
descending over the piedmont gravel glacis of the K'un-lun, here pa ularly broad, may be subject
at one period or another.

Course of
Endere
river.

The observation is of interest as it helps to account for the di ces that separate the main
ruins of the Endere Site and the remains of Bilēl-konghan, explored on first and second journeys,²
from the present course of the Endere river. This, where the carav track crosses it at Endere-
langar, runs in a broad ' Yār ' cut into the loess to a depth of over a h lred feet. Its course here,
still almost clear of ice, had a width of about 30 yards ; and carried a ume of water which could
not be less than 100 cubic feet per second. A still greater abundance o water during the summer

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