Innermost Asia : vol.1 / 139 ページ（カラー画像）

0139	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

efflorescence, we crossed the river again and also a dry bed beyond it and reached a small patch
of recently opened cultivation known as Bāchang-aghzi. It receives irrigation from a small
stream, which flows out of an absolutely barren hill chain about a mile farther north. The extreme
end of the steep conglomerate spur that flanks its outlet on the west, carries remains which un-
doubtedly go back to Buddhist times. The site is known as Duldul-ökür.⁸ᵃ On the narrow crest
of a small precipitous ridge, rising to a height of about a hundred feet immediately above the mouth
of the defile, there survives the base of a ruined Stūpa, measuring about fourteen feet square and
standing to a height of over seven feet. It is built of sun-dried bricks, measuring 15 × 12 × 3 inches.
Owing to the extreme steepness of the cliffs on all sides, access to the top of the ridge is very difficult,
and debris from whatever structure may have occupied it has long since been washed down. But
fragments of hard coloured stucco could be picked up immediately below the western face of the
Stūpa base, and an interesting relic was recovered among the rubble at the foot of a small gully
adjoining this ridge on the north. It is the fragment, about eight inches high, of a wooden vesica
and halo finely carved in relievo, which undoubtedly once served as the backing of a Buddhist
image.⁹ The workmanship seems to point to T'ang times.
Climbing up this steep gully, I noticed thin layers of ancient refuse similar to those found on Remains of
the slopes below the fort of Mazār-tāgh,¹⁰ and at an elevation of about fifty feet above the bottom of former
the gorge I came upon the remains of a massive wall about four feet thick and built of sun-dried occupation.
bricks. It was traceable on either side of the gorge and evidently intended to close access to it.
The top of a narrow ridge, which I reached with difficulty, retained indications of ancient occupa-
tion in the shape of a plentiful deposit of refuse. Neither time nor labour was available for systematic
clearing, and superficial scraping revealed only reed straw, remnants of fuel, portions of corded
hemp shoes, &c. A low mound on a small northern projection of the ridge may perhaps mark
the base of a completely ruined Stūpa, judging from the fragment of a wooden beam with mouldings
found embedded in the brick debris. I need only mention further a curious semicircular brick wall
decayed almost to the ground, which encloses a space about 36 feet long from north to south and
26 feet across, immediately below an almost vertical cliff on the west side of the outlet. Its purpose
remains obscure; but it may well account by its shape for the local designation Duldul-ökür,
derived from Persian Duldul-ākhur, 'the manger of Duldul', this being the name of Rustam's
horse famous in popular legend.¹¹ However this may be, there can be little doubt that these scanty
ruins mark the position of a small Buddhist sanctuary established at a su-bāshi. The defile from
which the stream descends was said to be occasionally followed as a branch of the route which
connects Kāshgar with Uch-Turfān, and is known as Mutul-aghzi.
Skirting the foot of the hills eastwards for about four and a half miles farther, over bare gravel Site of
and salt-encrusted alluvium, we reached the second site known as Kalmak-shahri. It is marked Kalmak-
by the remains of a large circumvallation in stamped clay, originally quadrangular in shape but shahri.
with dimensions no longer determinable; for only badly eroded portions of the west and north
faces could be traced, the rest having apparently been washed away by floods from the Mutul-
aghzi defile. Small as the stream of the latter is now, rain in the mountains occasionally causes

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