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Innermost Asia : vol.1 |
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district. The packets of Ch'ien-fo-tung rolls that I was subsequently able to rescue by purchase
at Su-chou and Kan-chou clearly showed that such pilfering had continued en route as the care-
lessly guarded convoy slowly made its way to distant Peking. It was easy to form some idea of
the extent of this leakage by the numerous specimens of such rolls which had been carried off into
Hsin-chiang and were subsequently shown to me at different Ya-mêns along the route or were in
some cases to be secured from Chinese petty employees.
Visit to
' Thousand
Buddhas '
invited.
There was accordingly special reason to feel satisfaction when Wang Tao-shih's cordial invita-
tion to the ' Thousand Buddhas ' was, on the occasion of a further visit, supplemented by a discreetly
conveyed hint that his store of old manuscripts was, notwithstanding all that had happened, not
yet altogether exhausted. I could feel sure that he would be there in person to show me what he
had managed to save from well-meant but hopelessly inefficient official interference, and not merely
the big new shrine, hospice, &c., which he proudly claimed to have built with the silver ' horse-
shoes ' received from myself.
Lakelet
and sound-
ing sands of
Yüeh-ya-
ch'uan.
In the midst of the efforts required to secure the timely completion of the preparations for my
further travels, I managed to pay a renewed visit to the far-famed sanctuary of the ' Crescent
Spring ' Yüeh-ya-ch'uan 月 牙 泉.⁸ That fine spring-fed lakelet, strangely hidden away amidst
the high dunes beyond the southern edge of the oasis, is considered a wonder of nature and, together
with the resounding sand-hill above it, forms a sort of ' Svayaṃbhū Tīrtha ', or pilgrimage place
for the people of Tun-huang. The site is duly mentioned by the Chinese envoy to Khotan who
passed through Tun-huang in A.D. 938,⁹ as also by Marco Polo some three hundred and fifty
years later. For other notices, ancient and modern, and for parallels to the natural phenomenon
of the ' sounding sands ' which has made the site renowned among the Chinese, I must be content
to refer to Sir Henry Yule's and Professor Cordier's notes on Marco Polo's chapter dealing with
the ' Province of Tangut '¹⁰ and to a very interesting chapter in Lord Curzon's recent work.¹⁰ᵃ
To the Chinese notices must be added the account of the Tun-huang Lu, a text recovered by me
from the hoard of the ' Thousand Buddhas ' and translated by Dr. L. Giles, dating from the close
of the T'ang period.¹¹
Sand accu-
mulations
on foot-
hills.
I cannot attempt to discuss here in detail the interesting physical features presented by these
huge accumulations of drift-sand which cover the foot-spur of the outermost Nan-shan range
where it projects towards the oasis between the mouths of the Tang-ho and the Ch'ien-fo-tung
valleys. They rise to heights of several hundreds of feet, as seen in the photographs reproduced
in Figs. 207, 208, 209. But I may briefly draw attention to the evident connexion between
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684
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