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

from China towards the Su-lo-ho and the Tārīm basin. Information kindly given by Père Verberne,
in charge of the Belgian Mission station at Kao-t'ai, concerning a ruined town known as Lo-t'o-
ch'êng at a day's march distance westwards, induced me to let Lāl Singh proceed for a preliminary
inspection of the site on June 23rd. To save time, I myself set out on the same day for Kan-chou,
where I was to make arrangements for our proposed explorations in the Nan-shan.

Lāl Singh, after having visited Lo-t'o-ch'êng and thence made his way back to Kao-t'ai, Remains of
rejoined me at Kan-chou by the more devious but previously unmapped route along the right Lo-t'o-
bank of the Kan-chou river. The report he was able to furnish of Lo-t'o-ch'êng was brief, but ch'êng.
sufficed to show that its remains were in part comparatively recent and in no case of great archaeo-
logical interest. He had found the ruined town situated on the right bank of the wide deep-cut
bed, then practically dry, in which the waters of the Pei-lang-ho and Hsi-ta-ho streams descend
towards the Kan-chou river, when not absorbed by irrigation higher up (Map No. 43. D. 2). The
sketch-plan prepared by the Surveyor showed a rectangular circumvallation measuring a little
over a mile from east to west and about 1,430 yards from north to south. Its walls were of stamped
clay and 10 feet thick. A cross-wall built at a distance of about 330 yards from the west face and
parallel to it divided the interior into two unequal portions communicating by a gate in the middle.
The outer west wall, built immediately above the steep right bank of the flood-bed, had for the most
part fallen. At the corners and along the northern and southern faces rectangular bastions pro-
jected. Gates protected by small outworks led through the eastern and northern walls.

The interior was completely devoid of structural remains, except in the south-eastern corner, Indications
where walls of less strength partitioned off a small enclosure about 210 yards square. Within this of recent
Lāl Singh found a well 80 feet deep and some half-ruined structures, perhaps intended to shelter date of
wayfarers, who apparently make this a halting-place between the high road leading to Su-chou and ruins.
the string of small oases stretching along the foot of the Nan-shan in the south. It was probably
within or near this small enclosed area that Lāl Singh picked up the fourscore odd fragments of
Chinese coins which he brought me. All of them have proved to be modern, the Nien-haos as
far as legible ranging from A.D. 1644–62 to A.D. 1851–62. The pottery specimens brought back
by Lāl Singh also had a modern appearance.

I regret nevertheless that the accident which I suffered three weeks later in the mountains Alleged
prevented my visiting the site in person on my return journey towards Mao-mei, as I had originally early
intended ; for the local tradition communicated to me at Kao-t'ai ascribed both this site and the occupation.
remains of another walled town called Sou-san-wan, which Lāl Singh sighted among dunes about
four miles off on the opposite side of the river-bed, to a 'Mongol ruler' of T'ang times. Whether
archaeological evidence could be traced on the spot in support of this traditional dating must remain
doubtful. But it would certainly be interesting to investigate how the neighbouring agricultural
settlement, the existence of which Lāl Singh found attested by numerous ruined farms to the
south-west and east of the town, had received its irrigation. Judging from what he saw in June
and again when passing the place on his way down from the village of Nan-ch'üan in August,
the river-bed adjoining the town site would not now carry water sufficient for the maintenance of
regular irrigation on ground far down on the gravel glacis of the hills and fully nine miles from
the limit of present cultivation. The change which must have taken place in the conditions here
prevailing is evidently one suggesting 'desiccation', whatever its physical cause.

The two long marches which brought me on June 23rd and 24th from Kao-t'ai to the city of Journey to
Kan-chou led along the great high road from Su-chou and took me over ground, mostly cultivated, Kan-chou.
which I had already seen in 1907.² The old site of Hei-shui-kuo (Map No. 46. B. 2), which was