Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 223 ページ（カラー画像）

0223	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

ore.¹⁴ These were, apart from the cemeteries, the first relics of former human presence that we had
found since leaving the Yārdang-bulak springs. We then had to make our way again across a maze
of small reticulated Yārdangs before we regained the right bank of the Kuruk-daryā, which was
here fringed by high tamarisk-cones, mostly dead (Fig. 337). Where the bed made a turn to the
north-west we found a row of live Toghraks growing within it. Their presence suggested that
there was drainage near to the surface. So we halted here, after having covered twelve miles of
rather difficult ground. On digging a well in a hollow of the bed water was reached at a depth
of only five feet. It proved undrinkable, but less salt than that of the well dug to the south-east
of L.T.

Patches of wet soil and light shōr were again met with next day, when our march was continued Return to
up the bed of the dead river. Another piece of coarse pottery was picked up on the right bank Yārdang-
near the point where Lāl Singh's plane-table had marked a small 'Tati '.¹⁵ The bed here had an bulak.
average width of about 250 yards and was lined in most places by steep banks 25 to 30 feet in height.
After we had covered some three miles on the left bank the ground previously much furrowed by
Yārdangs turned to a bare plain of clay uniformly eroded. This difference, I thought, might be
accounted for by the area of shōr and scrub found to the north at the mouth of the Yārdang-bulak
valley ; for this would keep off coarse sand and thus deprive the prevailing north winds, at this
point, of much of their corrosive force. After a march of about six miles living tamarisks on small
cones became increasingly frequent, proof that we were nearing the southern edge of the vegetation
belt which marks the terminal basin of the drainage east of the Charchak hills. Three miles farther
we turned off to the north-west, skirted the edge of the gravel Sai descending from the last offshoot
of the Charchak-tāgh, and finally struck the thin line of tamarisk-cones that extends along the
end of the above-mentioned drainage.¹⁶ Here we came upon our old track to the west of Camp ccxlii
and by prolonging our march made our way back the same day to Yārdang-bulak. The more
westerly route that we now followed led up the big Wadi which gathers all the drainage east of the
Charchak-tāgh. Its great width and its steep banks, undercut in places by the current, clearly
marked the great volume which, on occasions of exceptional rainfall, may descend here towards
the Kuruk-daryā. It is this drainage that probably accounts for the subsoil water which we had
struck at points in the bed of the latter.

A few general observations on the physical features of this portion of the Kuruk-daryā, or Ancient
Kum-daryā as it is also known to the Singer hunters, may conveniently be noted here. Our riverine
survey has shown that its course is confined, as far down as Afrāz-gul's Camp ccl. a, to a single belt.
bed. The northern curves of its meanders keep in the main within two miles or so of the foot of the
Mesa-marked 'coast-line' of the glacis. The width of the riverine belt, as marked by dead jungle
and scrub, nowhere exceeds about five miles. It is improbable that any extensive grazing grounds
ever existed here during historical times, still less cultivation on any considerable scale ; for the
difficulty of maintaining canals on this ground, where the fall of level is so very slight and the
area capable of irrigation so confined, must have been quite as great here as it now is along the
lowest portion of the Tārim. The absence of any large agricultural settlements is sufficiently
proved by the fact that notwithstanding the extensive stretches of completely bare ground that

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