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0464	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

its well-tilled fields, its rows of stately elms (Fig. 206) and its sleepy villages peacefully ensconced
behind high walls, was as refreshing as on former occasions. Zahid Bēg and some other local
acquaintances had ridden out to welcome me back to my old base of 1907, and the evening saw
my camp established in quiet suburban quarters outside the east gate of Tun-huang town, close
to the large temple where in June, 1907, my helpful Mandarin friends had bidden me their last
farewell.

SECTION II.—TUN-HUANG AND THE 'CAVES OF THE THOUSAND
BUDDHAS' REVISITED

Halt at
Tun-huang
town. The rest which my men and beasts badly needed after the trying months in the desert, and—
even more, perhaps—the manifold preparations which the projected explorations demanded on
my part, made it necessary to halt for eight days at Tun-huang Hsien. My plans were to take
me during the next few months mainly into the desert tracts which fringe on the south and east
the great barren hill region of the Pei-shan ' Gobi '. The distances to be covered were great,
and short was the remaining season during which work on ground which was for the most part
waterless could effectively be carried out before the summer heat set in. I felt therefore doubly
eager to arrange what was needed in the way of additional transport, provision of money, guides,
&c., without loss of time.

Official
changes at
Tun-huang. In spite of the revolution which had since my former visit replaced the Chinese Empire by
a republican régime, nothing appeared to have changed in the ways of quiet somnolent Tun-huang,
that westernmost outpost of true China, such as I have described them in the Personal Narrative
of my second journey.¹ Least of all could a change be expected as regards the vis inertiae pre-
vailing in this scene of my former labours (Figs. 210, 211). So I soon had occasion to feel the
difference resulting from the replacement of my old friend, learned Wang Ta-lao-yeh, full of
scholarly interest in my work and eager to help it as far as local conditions and scanty resources
would permit,² by an indolent opium-smoking representative of ' Young China ', with no interest
in the past of his country, at the Hsien-kuan's familiar Ya-mên. Pretended respect for ' Western
learning ' found expression only in an impossible imitation of European costume. Fortune
favoured me more in the person of the military commandant of Tun-huang. My kind friend of
1907, burly, energetic Lin Ta-jên, was, alas, no longer there to extend to me his ever-willing assist-
ance, having found the promotion he had hoped for—in heaven.³ By a lucky chance his place
had been taken by another amiable old warrior, Shuang Ta-jên, who like a true ' lord of the
Gate ' at Chia-yü kuan had extended to me so friendly a welcome when in 1907 I had made my
first entry ' within the Great Wall '.⁴ With his help I was able in the end to secure the guides and
additional camels needed for the Surveyors' parties that I wished to send out on independent
missions.

Monetary
complica-
tions. Being now on truly Chinese ground, I felt more than ever how little my weakly and listless
literatus, poor Li Ssŭ-yeh, was competent to replace devoted and ever eager Chiang Ssŭ-yeh,
in any but purely clerical work. In business personally to be transacted at the Ya-mêns, no less
than in all practical dealings with traders, labourers, guides et hoc genus omne, I constantly missed
my invaluable Chinese helpmate of the former journey. I had myself to attend to all the petty
monetary complications involved by payments in that strangely archaic ' currency ' of weighed
silver,⁵ and by the arrangements for the melting down into bullion of the badly debased ' Ak-tangas'

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