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0238	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

the irrigation of their fields could most appropriately and conveniently proceed to pray for an
adequate supply of water to fill their canals ; for the point where the Shindī river actually debouches
from the foot-hills to make its way down to the Ying-p'an site across the thirsty gravel glacis is,
as shown by Dr. Hedin's map, fully ten miles away, a distance too great both for cultivators and
priests to attend upon shrines.⁶

From the top of the little plateau the remains of two more Stūpas were visible to the north-east.
Proceeding there along the main flood-bed of the river, I found that about three-quarters of a mile
above the ruins of Ying. 1 it divided into two shallow channels containing scrub and tamarisks.
Between them ran a narrow tongue of raised ground, and on this we soon came upon distinct
traces of an old canal. Its banks, worn down by the winds, were built of gravel and clay, just as
Abdulmalik said he had seen them higher up near Bējān-tura where the river-bed debouches
from the hills. Its bottom still showed up clearly as a band of hard clay, 4 to 5 feet wide, with
boulders placed along it here and there to strengthen the canal banks. The direction of the canal
was traceable also by the stumps of tamarisks which had once grown up along its sides. We
followed it without difficulty for over half a mile and then crossed the eastern channel to its left bank.

Of the two small Stūpas which we reached at this point, the more southerly had decayed into
a mere mound of brickwork, about 17 feet across at its debris-covered foot and about 13 feet high.
But from about 3 feet upwards the circular shape of the superstructure could still be made out.
The second Stūpa, standing about 400 yards farther north, was somewhat better preserved. It
had a base 15 feet square and close on 7 feet in height, surmounted by a dome rising 8½ feet more
to its broken top. The masonry in both Stūpas consisted of sun-dried bricks, very hard and
containing but little straw, measuring about 15″ × 12″ × 3″. In the northern one the lowest portion
of the base showed two layers of stamped clay, about 6 inches thick, separated by a single brick
course, just as in the base of the Stūpa Ying. 1. The north-eastern foot of the base showed some
undercutting by wind-erosion ; but the general level of the gravel-covered surface had not been
lowered since the construction of these Stūpas, though exposed to the full force of the winds sweeping
across the bare Sai. There was nothing now to suggest the particular reason why the Stūpas
had been erected just at this spot. On ground so remarkably uniform as the Sai of this alluvial
fan, the position of canal heads would necessarily be shifted with the lapse of centuries, and the
abandoned canal we had previously traced on the opposite side of the flood channel did not appear
to me of great antiquity.

That the site of Ying-p'an, in fact, had been reoccupied at a more recent period was a con-
clusion that had been already suggested by Dr. Hedin's notice of a Muhammadan burial-place to
the north-east of the circumvallation to be described farther on. So I was not surprised when on
our return towards the ruined shrine Ying. 1 we came, at a point about three-quarters of a mile
above it, upon a number of graves, manifestly Muhammadan, occupying a small clay terrace below
the edge of the Sai and on the right bank of the united flood-bed. There were about thirty-three
of them, all marked by small oblong mounds of kisek or brick-like lumps of hard clay and orientated
from north to south in orthodox Muslim fashion. Where some recent flood had cut into the edge
of the small terrace two or three lay half open. In one the head of the body was seen clearly turned
to the west, towards Mecca, and in none was the coarse cotton of the shrouds decayed, notwith-

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