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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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| 0151 |
Innermost Asia : vol.1 |
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OCR Text
Marāl-bāshi. From the limits of the cultivated zone of Ak-su as far as Chilan (a small roadside
hamlet receiving its scanty water from the debouchure of the Kelpin streams) the high road keeps
close to the foot of the gravel glacis below the outermost T'ien-shan hill range and along a line that
runs practically straight in the direction of Marāl-bāshi. But beyond Chilan it turns off to the
south. The reason for this, considering the total absence of any cultivated area until the vicinity
of Tumshuk is reached, can be no other than the necessity of finding halting-places with water
and grazing. The successive stages of Yaide, Yaka-kuduk and Chādir-köl are points where water
is obtainable either from wells fed by underground drainage from the dying Kāshgar river or else
from terminal beds periodically filled by its summer floods.¹⁵
During the time of these floods traffic is liable to be much impeded by inundations on the line
followed by the present road through the riverine jungle-belt between Yaka-kuduk and Ak-tam.
This trouble, as well as a great detour, would be completely avoided were it now possible to take
the straight line from Chilan through the desert to the sites of Chong-tim and Lāl-tāgh. It is solely
the absence of water along this line that prevents it from being used as a caravan route at the
present day, and that this obstacle did not exist down to T'ang times is conclusively proved by the
remains of ancient occupation at those sites. To this may be added the evidence of the high
ruined tower of Soksuk-shahri sighted by me in 1908 to the SW. from the outlet of the Kelpin
river ; and also the reliable information then received from my 'treasure-seeking' guides as to
the survival of ancient mounds at two points between Chong-tim and Soksuk-shahri.¹⁶ I need
scarcely point out that the low dunes of drift-sand which now cover much of the clay steppe on
either side of Chong-tim can only have overrun this ground since it ceased to be cultivated by
means of the canals whose lines may still be traced.¹⁷ The abundance of living tamarisk-cones
and scrub between these dunes proves that subsoil water must find its way there even now, though
perhaps at a considerable depth.
Whatever the immediate cause of abandonment may have been in the case of the area formerly
occupied about Chong-tim and Lāl-tāgh, it is certain that the volume of water available nowadays
in the terminal course of the Kāshgar-daryā beyond Marāl-bāshi would not permit of irrigation
being carried so far as the first of these sites. We have here clear proof of 'desiccation' during
the last thousand years or so, as far as that river is concerned, and whatever its character or explana-
tion may be,¹⁷ᵃ we are fully justified in taking the fact into account when we consider the remaining
portion of the Ak-su–Marāl-bāshi road, that which lies to the west of the old sites just mentioned.
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