Innermost Asia : vol.1 / 372 ページ（カラー画像）

0372	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

crossed what was undoubtedly an ancient river-bed, about ninety yards broad and twenty to
twenty-five feet deep, with many dead Toghrakhs on its banks. It appeared, from its direction,
to have been connected with the winding bed I had noted near L.C. and some distance beyond.⁶

Effects of
wind-
erosion.

From where the pottery debris ceased the ground became easier, being less furrowed by
Yārdangs, and open depressions with comparatively flat ground facilitated progress for the camels.
Here and there patches of dead reed-beds, laid quite flat, were found in these depressions. After
having covered about seven and a half miles of march we crossed another winding river-bed, coming
from the west and apparently divided into two or three branches. It made a short sharp bend
just where we passed the main branch, and here its western bank, lying against the direction
of the prevailing winds, was being breached by them in exactly the same way as the walls of
the ruined towns near An-hsī and Ch'iao-tzŭ.⁷ It occurred to me that the open depressions
previously referred to might mark the beds of lagoons once formed by those branches of the dying
Kuruk-daryā. Owing to their bottom lying twenty to twenty-five feet lower than the adjoining
ground they were less exposed to the direct force of wind-erosion. Snail shells were scattered about
them in abundance, and at one point near such a depression I found a couple of tamarisk-cones
still showing some live branches on their tops.

March
across
difficult
Yārdangs.

The crossing of the difficult belt of Yārdangs running at right angles to the direction
of our march had much retarded the camels. We were therefore obliged to pitch camp at dusk
near a narrow winding river-bed with plentiful dead Toghrakhs on its banks. About two miles
before reaching it we had sighted far away to the west a small hillock which might mark the ruin
of a Stūpa or tower, with a low bank to its right which might be taken for the remains of a wall.
But the evening light on such ground is apt to be deceptive, and the search made by us in 1906
from L.B. had shown nothing to suggest the existence of such a ruin in that quarter. A diversion
in that direction would have cost us a day, and this I could not now spare. Nevertheless the
observation may be recorded for the notice of any future investigator of this dead land. All day
the low barren range of the southernmost Kuruk-tāgh had been visible in the distance, and the
landmark which a low reddish ridge afforded to Abdurrahīm's keen eyes had allowed us to steer
straight for the point where we should find Lāl Singh's fourth cemetery.

Abdur-
rahīm's
experience
of Kuruk-
tāgh.

I had taken the opportunity of this first march in the company of Abdurrahīm for a long talk
about his observations and experiences on the many hunting expeditions which, since early youth,
he had made into the Kuruk-tāgh. I found him as intelligent and communicative as he proved
thereafter obliging and helpful. Brought up in the isolation of Singer, where his father, a hunter
from Deghar in the Turfān basin, had first established a tiny colony, he seemed to combine the
intelligence and good-natured politeness of the Turfān people with the brave self-reliant spirit of
the lonely desert hunter. Lāl Singh had frequent occasion to benefit, at a later stage of our travels,
by Abdurrahīm's keen topographical sense and lifelong experience of the stone and gravel wastes
of the central and western Kuruk-tāgh. The detailed information he was able to communicate
to me about a vast stretch of ground, all waterless desert but for a few springs, mostly salt, helped
me greatly in planning the expeditions which Lāl Singh carried out in the winter and spring of
1914–15. In the course of these he explored extensive portions of the Kuruk-tāgh which had
never before been surveyed or even visited, and carried his triangulation from the Lop desert to
Korla.⁸

国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

引用情報

OCR読み取り結果

国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト 『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

引用情報

OCR読み取り結果

国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ