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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

could really be held to apply to exploratory work such as ours. The intercession of H.B.M.'s
Minister at Peking had immediately been invoked from Kāshgar by my ever-watchful friend
in a telegram sent over the Russian system via Irkeshtam. But it would be months before help
from the distant capital could make itself felt. In the meantime I was faced by the prospect of
having to contend, if not with an attempt at forcible interference, at any rate with Chinese passive
obstruction easy enough to apply in my circumstances. I realized clearly how dangerous such
obstruction would certainly be to my plans, particularly in view of the very limited period during
which the cold of the winter renders work in the waterless desert possible.

Disquieting
news from
Kara-kum
Ya-mên. A copy of the edict arrived shortly after via Charkhlik from the Tungan Amban of Kara-kum.
I had previously requested this official to furnish me with a Mongol interpreter in view of the
explorations in the Etsin-gol region which I contemplated for the ensuing spring. Needless to
say that an excuse for declining my request was conveniently provided by the enclosure. I could
gauge the import of the edict and the vigour of its expression when I saw the sallow face of Li
Ssŭ-yeh, my shrivelled Chinese Secretary—a poor substitute, alas! for ever zealous and plucky
Chiang Ssŭ-yeh—turning a livid grey as he read through the document and explained it. Fortu-
nately, ever taciturn and morose as he was, he could be trusted anyhow to keep the depressing
information to himself.

Apprehen-
sion of local
passive
resistance. Evening after evening as I came back from the day's work at the site I looked anxiously among
the indolent Lopliks at the hamlet for the first signs of the passive resistance to my plans which
their natural lethargic temperament would have made it so easy to practise. Yet the expected
prohibition from Charkhlik never came. That I owed this lucky escape to the opportune 'revolu-
tionary' outbreak became clear to me only later. It had disposed of the original district magistrate
whose report on Lāl Singh's surveys as 'secret operations' had first supplied head-quarters with
a pretext for their obstructive step, removing him before he could take any action. His bandit
successor, who had found the orders when he installed himself at the Ya-mên and who, given time,
might well have tried to curry favour at provincial head-quarters by showing zeal for their execution,
had more urgent and profitable business to attend to before he was himself killed. Subsequently
the military commandants, in strict compliance with Chinese official convention, had carefully
abstained from looking into civil affairs and kept all official papers sealed up at the Ya-mên, until
the new Amban should arrive from Urumchi. He did actually reach Charkhlik while I was still
at Mīrān, but could not get access to the Ya-mên papers until he had formally taken charge of the
seal of office. This the chief of the small force, a genial old warrior, whom I had met on his passage
through Charkhlik, had for safety's sake taken along with him when, after attending to the execution
of the last captured rebels, he had rapidly moved on towards Charchan ; and thither, accordingly,
the new hsien-kuan had himself been obliged to proceed.

Shēr 'Alī
Khān's
help with
transport. These latter circumstances, but imperfectly known to me at the time, had averted the direct
obstruction I had such good reason to fear. But they also explain why the repeated and urgent
appeals I addressed to Charkhlik for the indispensable camels remained utterly without effect.
By great good fortune, help came at this juncture from a quarter whence I had the least reason
to hope for it. The very day when Sir George Macartney's alarming message reached Mīrān,
there arrived by the desert track from Tun-huang Shēr 'Alī Khān, the enterprising trader from
Bajaor on the Indian North-west Frontier, whom I had met in 1907 at Tun-huang and whose
readiness to convey to Kāshgar a mail for Europe had then been a welcome help to me.²⁵ Once
again this hardy and intelligent Pathān (Fig. 111) was on one of his biennial journeys from distant
Ssŭ-ch'ŭan to Yārkand with a caravan of over forty camels carrying chiefly tea. My relief at