Innermost Asia : vol.1 / Page 373 (Color Image)

0373	Innermost Asia : vol.1

An area extending about 250 miles from east to west and over 120 miles across was ground Abdur-
in some ways as familiar to Abdurrahīm in its utter barrenness and uniform desolation, as an rahīm first
isolated alpine valley might be to a chamois hunter of the old days. Wherever his statements learns of
could be tested on the spot by Lāl Singh or myself, they proved invariably true and accurate. Loulan
And this fact provides a special reason for recording here information, supplied by him on that ruins.
first day, which has a quasi-historical interest in connexion with the remains of ancient Lou-lan.
He had never before visited the portion of the Lop desert where these stand, except in March, 1900,
when he had guided Dr. Hedin to Āltmish-bulak and had thence accompanied him to a point near
the ruined dwellings marked by me L.B. iv, where the distinguished explorer had first come
(on March 28, 1900) upon remains proving ancient occupation.⁹ From there he had returned, and
had thus remained without knowledge of the ruins which Dr. Hedin subsequently explored in 1901.
But he had heard in his youth stories of a kôtek-shahri or ' old town ', situated in the desert south
of the Kuruk-daryā, from Rustam, an aged Loplik hunter on the Tārīm. These he had com-
municated to Dr. Hedin when he accompanied him on his first journey to the Kuruk-daryā and
Āltmish-bulak.

Abdurrahīm's statement was of some interest to me. It showed that the first discovery of the Story of
Lou-lan site was not due altogether to mere chance. It also confirmed the information I had ancient
previously received quite independently from Tokhta Ākhūn on our march from Chainut-köl route to
to the ruined fort L.K. Tokhta Ākhūn, as straightforward and reliable as Abdurrahīm, but Tun-huang.
being a Loplik less ready to talk, told me on that occasion that in his young days he had heard
from Egir-ajan, an old Abdal hunter, that a road once led from the Tārīm to Tun-huang along
the southern foot of the ' Kumbal-tāgh ', or more correctly Kumul-tāgh, i. e. the Kuruk-tāgh.
This ' road ' was supposed to have lain north of the desert with which the hunters of Abdal were
to some extent familiar. But Tokhta Ākhūn could not tell how Egir-ajan had come to know about
it. He, however, thought it likely that the old man had visited Tikenlīk, whence local hunters
were accustomed to go to the Kuruk-tāgh after wild camels. Egir-ajan had died about 1895,
having been killed by fugitive Tungans after the rebellion around Hsi-ning.

The close agreement between the wholly independent accounts of Abdurrahīm and Tokhta Hunters'
Ākhūn leaves no doubt in my mind that some vague tale about the existence of ruins in the region tales of
of ancient Lou-lan was current among hunters visiting the springs along the foot of the Kuruk- 'old town'.
tāgh to look for wild camels, before Dr. Hedin's discovery. It seems to me more difficult to deter-
mine whether the story that an ancient road once led that way from the Tārīm to Tun-huang can
be accepted as indicating the survival of some genuine old tradition about the ancient ' route of
the centre ', or whether it was merely an inference drawn from, or an attempt to account for, the
alleged existence of an ' old town ' in the desert south of the foot of the Kuruk-tāgh. That the
main ruins of the Lou-lan site had been visited at one time or another by adventurous hunters in
search of treasure appears to me highly probable. The Stūpas of the L.A. station show clear
evidence of treasure-seekers' operations,¹⁰ and if on the one hand it is impossible to say how soon
or how long after the abandonment of the station these took place, it must be remembered on the
other that traditional knowledge about ' old towns ' in the desert dies hard among the people of
the Tārīm basin, who have ever since ancient times taken a keen interest in buried treasure.¹¹

On the morning of February 19th I let Abdurrahīm, with all the camels and baggage, proceed
east-by-north with orders to pitch our camp at the point where the route previously followed by him
with Lāl Singh crossed the mouth of an open Nullah descending from the foot-hills of the Kuruk-

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Citation Information

OCR Text

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books