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0663	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

passing this somewhat higher ground we came upon a dry deep-cut bed, about 30 yards across,
which seemed to have its head in hills far away to the east. Its direction pointed to a junction lower
down with the trough coming from Chin-êrh-ch'üan.

Beyond this the broken ground became level and then sloped down gently to a wide fan-like
basin of gravel covered with scrub and furrowed by numerous shallow channels. These were all
descending southward from the hills and thus carrying T'ien-shan drainage. Unfortunately
a haze, perhaps brought by the light north-westerly wind, had hid all distant mountains since the
morning. Near the first larger channel the aneroid indicated an elevation of 4,100 feet, only slightly
higher than that of Chin-êrh-ch'üan. The general direction followed by all these drainage beds
was south-westerly, and this makes it quite certain that they, too, join the 'Yen-tun trough', which
the route from Ming-shui to Hāmi crosses near the halting-place of Wu-t'ung-wo-tzŭ (Map No. 37.
c. 4), about twenty miles farther to the south-west.³ It will need further surveys to decide from
which side this big dried-up river system of the 'Yen-tun trough' received its chief tributaries. So
much, however, is certain, that the area once drained by it extends much farther to the east than
is shown by former maps.

We had moved to the north-west for more than twelve miles across the very gently rising
glacis of gravel before we reached the first foot-hills of the T'ien-shan. Passing up a defile about
300 yards wide at its bottom we came, after a vain search for water by our guide in a side valley north-
westwards, upon a group of Toghraks and, close by, a spring amidst reed-beds. Its discovery was
doubly welcome, for all traces of a track had disappeared since we left the gravel Sai. The view
opening here northward across a plateau was wide. But the boldly serrated range that it showed
in the distance raised doubts as to how, in the absence of reliable guidance, we should find a passage
across it practicable for our already hard-tried camels.

On the morning of September 23rd our 'ta-lu-ti' appeared to have recovered from his bewilder-
ment and stoutly declared that he recognized the halting-place of Ta-hsi-k'ou, mentioned in the
itinerary obtained at Mao-mei, in the spring at which we had camped. Stating that he now
remembered his bearings, he led on across the plateau to the north-west. As this direction was
evidently not such as to take us far away from Bai, our goal to the north of the range, I was ready
to follow it. For seven miles we traversed a gently rising plateau, covered for the most part with
detritus, from which there emerged clusters of low rocky ridges and knolls of what looked like
trachyte. Then we struck a narrow Wadi-like nullah, with sandy bottom and abundant scrub
along its banks. The cliffs on either side rose steeply to over a hundred feet and showed a strike
from NW. to SE. with an almost vertical dip. Their faces, like those of the exposed rocks that we
subsequently came upon, were far less decomposed than the hill-sides we had passed in the Pei-shan.
We had advanced another three miles when the bottom of the valley widened, and the sand in what
obviously was the bed of a temporary stream showed signs of moisture. On digging holes here
we came upon deliciously fresh water at a depth of less than one foot. Equally encouraging
was it to find good grazing for the ponies along the banks, and even some bushes of late-flowering
wild roses.

As we ascended the valley farther, these signs of a comparatively moister climate continued,
and when we had passed a reed-sheltered spring and some rough enclosures near it which looked
like herdsmen's shelters, we began to hope that the faint track we were following would prove to

3 Y 2

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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
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