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0407	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

On tracking them with him I found an inscribed *Wu-chu* coin of the large type firmly adhering to
the soil within eight yards of the foot of the hillock. There could be no further doubt now that
our first march east of the dried-up sea-bed had brought us back again to ground once traversed
by the ancient Han route.

Before proceeding to review the early Chinese notices referring to the salt wastes we had Discovery
crossed, I may conveniently dispose here of that incident, the discovery of those footprints which of strange
so suddenly and so strangely seemed to bring us back to the world of the living. They puzzled footprints.
me at first greatly, more even than my companions ; for I knew from our approximate position on
the plane-table that between forty and fifty miles still separated us in a straight line from Achchik-
bulak, the nearest point on the caravan track to Tun-huang (Map No. 32. c. 4), and that a consider-
able portion of this distance necessarily lay across the great eastern bay of the sea-bed which that
track skirts. The presence of this forbidding barrier excluded all thought of travellers after losing
the track having erred away so far northward. It was equally impossible to assume that the foot-
prints went back far in time ; for though effaced in certain places particularly exposed to the wind,
they were in general too sharply marked. The man who had made them, after ascending the hillock
evidently for a look-out, had come down again. Tokhta-Ākhūn tracing his steps with the experi-
enced eye of the hunter, soon discovered that they led back to the track of two more men accom-
panied by a pony and a donkey. The mysterious little party had come from the south and been
apparently steering northward.

It was getting too late for us to follow their track farther before pitching camp on the level Report of
clay plain two miles and a quarter beyond the hillock where we had first discovered the footprints. caravan
But while the men, by the side of the scanty fire which served to melt ice for their tea, were dis- robbed.
cussing the riddle set by the strange presence of men in this lifeless wilderness, a clue to its solution
was found. Maḥmūd, the young camelman, who had accompanied Lāl Singh on his journey in
December to Nan-hu and returned with him by the caravan track leading from the end of the
Tun-huang Limes to Mīrān, remembered having heard from Tungans grazing near our old camp
C. 155 of 1907 that some time before, probably in November, a Chinese trader, after losing *en route*
practically the whole of his transport, hired donkeys from Khotan, had been robbed of three
' horseshoes ' (*yambu*) in silver and a valuable pony by the three Khotanese who had contracted
to take him and his goods to Tun-huang. The rogues were said to have decamped with the pony
and the last surviving donkey. The Chinaman, whom they had abandoned to his fate on the
desert route, managed somehow to make his way to where the Tungans picked him up in a state
approaching collapse. Subsequently, towards the close of December, Lāl Singh had found con-
firmation of the story when he came upon the abandoned loads and fifteen dead donkeys at the
brackish springs of Yulghun-bulak, about seven miles to the east of Achchik-bulak.¹¹

It thus became clear that the footprints we had chanced upon were those of the faithless Attempted
donkeymen. Knowing that their robbery was bound to be discovered by any caravan moving escape of
along the desert route and that their appearance at Charkhlik would likewise be noted and excite rogues.
suspicion, which would lead earlier or later to their being caught by the Chinese authorities, they
had evidently tried to escape with their ill-gotten ' treasure ' northward and thus to reach Turfān.
Even had ice already formed at the time at the brackish springs of Yulghun-bulak—Lāl Singh
had found none yet when passing weeks later—they could only have carried a very limited supply
of that or of water, besides food, fodder and belongings. At the point where we found their foot-
prints their animals must have already for three days gone without water. Even with the guidance

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