Innermost Asia : vol.1 / 452 ページ（カラー画像）

0452	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

picked up on my renewed visit to the ruins along the portion of the Limes previously explored
will be found recorded in the Descriptive List below.

Work at
watch-
towers S.
of Khara-
nōr.

I may accordingly turn at once to the ground where I knew that there were remains of the Limes
still waiting to be cleared. I refer to the series of ruined watch-stations to the south of Lake Khara-
nōr, of some of which I had been able in May, 1907, to obtain a distant view, but which practical
considerations had obliged me reluctantly to leave for future exploration.³ But now again the task
immediately before me was beset with difficulties of a similar kind ; for the supplies both for men and
beasts brought from Mīrān were running short, labour for excavation was limited to my own few
men, and the need to husband time for the spring's work elsewhere was pressing. So on March
19th I sent off ahead to Tun-huang all heavy baggage together with those men who could not be
used for digging, thereby saving their rations for the rest. We were preparing to fix our camp at
the mouth of a marshy depression near the watch-tower T. xxii. d, sighted in 1907 but not then
visited (Map No. 38. A. 4), when a very fortunate chance made us fall in with a small party of
Lopliks who had helped in our digging at Mīrān and were now taking their drove of donkeys back
from a trade venture to Tun-huang. What with the few men they could spare and a couple of
Chinese obtained from a party who were grazing their camels near the same springs, which are
known as Ta-ch'uan, a set of diggers for the next few days' work was readily improvised.

Methods of
exploration
adopted.

In order to carry out the exploration of the line of the Limes eastwards expeditiously and yet
thoroughly, I found it necessary once again, as in 1907, to push reconnaissances for its survey
ahead in person. My capable 'handy man' Naik Shamsuddin was to follow behind with the
improvised gang of diggers and to clear any remains I had traced. The preliminary search for
the ruined watch-stations and the line of wall which might have connected them was attended with
interesting experiences, and in places to which the spring inundation from the Su-lo-ho extended
was not free from difficulty. But for the reasons already explained in Serindia,⁴ it will be best to
follow the topographical order in recording my observations on the physical features of the ground
and on the results yielded by the survey and clearing of the ruins.

'Wet
border'
provided
by Khara-
nōr.

The series of watch-stations starting from T. xxii. d and stretching along the southern shore
of the Khara-nōr forms the eastward continuation of what I have described in Serindia as the
'lake section' of the Limes.⁵ I have already explained there that where this section faced either
the Khara-nōr or the wide lacustrine marsh-bed farther to the west, lake and marsh bed had been
utilized as a sort of 'wet border' line to replace the wall of the Limes.⁶ This explains why no

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