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Innermost Asia : vol.2 |
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CHAPTER XX
EXPLORATIONS IN THE KURUK-TĀGH
Section I.—FROM TURFĀN TO SINGER
On February 16th, to my great satisfaction, I was at last free to leave my suburban quarters Departure
in the house of the obliging Russian Ak-sakāl of Turfān in order to cross the Kuruk-tāgh into the from
Lop basin. After my return from Yār-khoto I had been able to settle with the attentive and now Turfān.
almost apologetic district magistrate upon a suitable diplomatic reply to the injunctions received
through him from head-quarters. It was calculated to leave my hands free in the matter of excava-
tions elsewhere and to offer no excuse for interference with the convoy of antiquities now on their
way to Kāshgar. We parted on terms of mutual consideration.
My immediate programme was to move straight to Singer, the only permanently inhabited Plan of
spot in that whole vast desert region of the Kuruk-tāgh, and thence, after picking up a guide in Kuruk-tāgh
the person of Abdurrahīm's youngest brother, to visit two localities, P'o-ch'êng-tzŭ and Shindī, surveys.
where the former had told me that remains of old occupation were to be found. With these visits
I wished to combine a plane-table survey of ground that had remained outside the explorations
carried out by Lāl Singh, both in 1907 and on this expedition. Then a descent past the salt spring
of Yārdang-bulak was to bring me to two cemetery sites near the Kuruk-daryā that Lāl Singh
had noticed on his march a year before from Tikenlik to Lou-lan, and to a portion of the course
of the 'Dry River' that had been left by him unsurveyed on that occasion. Thence the Ying-p'an
site, near the point where the Kuruk-daryā bed branches off from the present course of the Konche-
daryā, could be gained with a view to eventual excavations.
My journey to Singer in the central portion of the western Kuruk-tāgh had to be made along Deepest
the most direct of the three routes that connect it with the Turfān basin. All three had already portion of
been followed by Lāl Singh; therefore I naturally chose the shortest, leading due south from Turfān
Turfān town across the deepest portion of the depression (Map No. 28. c. 3). The first two marches basin.
were short; but as they lay across the lowest belt of Kārēz-irrigated oases and then past the
western extremity of the terminal salt marsh of the basin, they afforded opportunities for interesting
observations on its physical geography. A record of them, however, must be left for the paper
previously referred to.¹ I must confine myself here to recording that the ground on either side of
the several wide ice sheets in which the river of Toksun was then pushing its terminal course towards
the salt marsh known as Aidin-köl, looked, with its bulging cakes of cracked salt crust and patches
of soft shôr, as if marking a stage in the formation of such a bed of hard salt as extends over the now
dried-up area of the ancient Lop Sea. A rapid reconnaissance subsequently made from our camp at
Bējān-tura towards the westernmost portion of the marsh showed ground which closely resembled
the salt bog crossed by us ten months earlier on the way to the line of the Limes north-east of
Tun-huang.² Ice brought from the terminal branches of the Toksun river saved us from having to
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