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

off to the north-east marked a bight of the coast-line, at a point seventeen miles from camp. This
strange well-trodden track cropped up again towards the end of the march, and beyond it also.
It puzzled us greatly at first until the increasing number of camels' footprints running along it
farther on convinced both Tokhta Ākhūn and myself that it must have been trodden by wild
camels moving along this line for a long time past. It pointed to visits paid by them to the eastern
Kuruk-tāgh from their present haunts along the terminal Su-lo-ho and in the Bēsh-toghrak
valley.

Tokhta Ākhūn however declared that he had never seen such a regular track used by wild Possible
camels except where it leads close to water, and from that we were still far away. I well remember explanation
how the ancient track left in the gravel by the movements of Chinese patrols along the wall of the of track.
Tun-huang Limes has remained traceable to the present day.² I have accordingly wondered at
times whether the wild camels' use of a regular track here, on ground where the nearest open water
is fully sixty miles away, may not have been induced in the first instance by the convenience which
a path made by man afforded, and been subsequently continued through the ages. Such an
explanation must, of course, remain purely conjectural. I may, however, mention that Abdurrahīm,
who had also noticed the old well-marked track where he and Lāl Singh's party reached the northern
edge of the great bay, put upon it the same interpretation quite independently, when I questioned
him on the subject after our reunion at Kum-kuduk.

But a still more curious observation awaited us. I realized, on sighting a promontory far ahead Trace of
to the east, that following the shore of the bight above mentioned would involve a considerable ancient
detour. So I decided to steer straight for a hillock rising within the bight of hard shōr half a mile route
farther on and in the direct line of that promontory. My hope of finding a better surface beyond recognized.
it was disappointed. But when I had ascended with Afrāz-gul and Tokhta Ākhūn the salt-
encrusted hillock, about twenty feet high, my eye was caught at once by a broad and absolutely
straight line running across the hard salt surface from the western end of the bay towards the
previously sighted headland. My companions, too, clearly recognized the line which passed close
to the south of the hillock. It was obviously the line of the ancient Han road cutting off the detour
round the bay, and its trace was as clear as only this peculiar ground could preserve it.

Tokhta Ākhūn was sent back to take the camels round by the shore, and then, having fixed Ancient
our position on the plane-table, I followed the ancient track with ease as the depression of the surface track
marked it clearly. It at once brought back to my mind the appearance of the present caravan followed.
track towards Tun-huang, where it cuts across the big bight on the southern shore of the Lop Sea
beyond Chindailik.³ Together with Afrāz-gul I repeatedly measured the track and found that
it showed a fairly uniform width of twenty or twenty-one feet. Its surface was sunk about a foot
below the average level of the adjoining crumpled-up salt-cakes and offered tolerably good going ;
for within the track the salt-cakes were either much worn down or were covered with a layer of
soft shōr. This smoother state of the surface must have resulted in the main from the grinding
effect of heavy traffic, much of it probably in carts. But comparison with the surface noticed in
shallow drainage channels passing into the shōr from the hill-side at other points of this coast-line
suggested another explanation : an occasional accumulation of flood water in the worn-down
track, rare as it must be, may have contributed to produce its present appearance.

We were able to follow the straight track of the ancient route, thus fortunately traced here, Straightness
without a break for two miles to where it met the clay promontory already referred to, at the eastern of ancient
end of the bay. This headland, on close approach, proved to be broken up into a series of wind- track.
eroded terraces, much after the fashion observed at the end of the Sai tongues projecting into the