Innermost Asia : vol.1 / 440 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0440	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

miles. The open view then obtained from a much broken hillock of slate which rose above it to
a relative height of about two hundred feet allowed us to make quite sure that the barrier interposed
by the plateau between the basin on the north and the Su-lo-ho bed on the south was complete.
The course of the latter was, in fact, entirely masked by this barrier. The hillock had evidently
served at one time as a landmark ; for we found it crowned by a cairn, of uncertain date and
origin.¹²

Return to
caravan
track. Having thus cleared up a point of distinct topographical interest, we descended again into the
basin below us in order to reach ground where fuel and some grazing might be available and touch
be resumed with Surveyor Muḥammad Yāqūb and the body of our caravan. Moving to the north-
east amidst Mesas of no great height we came, after about three miles' going, to a small plain with
scrub and tamarisk-covered hillocks and there camped. The caravan track was found to run
about half a mile farther north, through a well-marked depression beyond the area of erosion
terraces. The elevation of this point of the basin is shown by the barometrical readings of Lāl
Singh, who on his way from Tun-huang had also camped here, to be about 90 feet above Bēsh-
toghrak.

Start for
W. end of
Tun-huang
Limes. Next morning we were joined by Muḥammad Yāqūb and the main caravan, who had halted at
the usual camping-place, known as Achchik-kuduk, about two and a half miles nearer to Bēsh-
toghrak.¹³ I was thus able to make doubly sure of the mapping of the Su-lo-ho course right down
to, and inclusive of, its terminal lake-bed by letting the Surveyor set out on this task from the
point where our onward march of that day brought us to the plateau immediately overlooking the
easternmost part of the basin. Having regard to the condition of our animals, all hard tried by
the long series of preceding desert marches, and also to the difficulty of obtaining water, which we
could expect to find only in, or close to, the actual bed of the Su-lo-ho, I felt obliged to march
myself straight by the caravan track to the western end of the ancient Chinese Limes. I was the
more anxious to reach this without delay that it was important to save time for supplementary
explorations along the Limes, before proceeding to Tun-huang for the rest which men and animals
alike were now in urgent need of.

Wadi
leading
down to
lacustrine
basin. Thus what I saw, in the early part of our march on March 16th, of the eastern extremity of
the basin was the same as has already been recorded in the account of my previous passage,¹⁴
and the briefest description will suffice here. A short distance from Camp cxiii all wind-eroded
terraces were left behind, and the ground now assumed the character of a shallow but unmistakable
valley, bordered on north and south by steep cliffs of shale and consolidated gravel. Its width,
as the map shows, steadily narrowed eastwards, while its bottom became like a Sai, covered with
coarse gravel but supporting here and there patches of hardy scrub. The appearance of the valley
was unmistakably that of a Wadi carved out by the intermittent floods of a river, and the upward
slope of its bottom eastwards was perceptible to the eye. The volume of the floods that were once

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