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0277	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

straight line towards the large oasis of Bugur, thus avoiding the considerable detour made by the
present road. This detour is necessitated by the difficulty in obtaining water. This is nowadays
to be found only at the little oases of Charchi, Eshme, Chādir, all nestling close to where small
streams, fed by springs among the foot-hills or on the lower edge of the Sai, can be used for irriga-
tion before they lose themselves in the scrubby desert. The probability that in ancient times these
streams may have carried water to ground much farther south, now reached only on the occasion
of rare rain floods, and have made its permanent occupation possible, is suggested by two observa-
tions. One is that in 1908, on my quest for the imaginary ' kōne-shahr ' of Kōk-darwāza along the
Charchak-daryā,²ᵃ my self-styled 'guides' informed me that the bare clay steppe northward towards
Charchi had at times been searched by ' treasure-seekers ' for small objects of value laid bare by
wind-erosion, just as on the ' Tatis ' of Khotan. It was impossible to spare time now for testing the
truth of this statement from Charchi, where no local information on the subject was obtainable.
The other reason in favour of the hypothesis mentioned above is that due south of Chādir, at a
distance of about fourteen miles, lies the old site of Aghrak (Map No. 21. B. 1), on a continuation
of the line of patches of old cultivation to which the stream of Yangi-hissār formerly extended.
The site falls on the straight line connecting Korla with Bugur, and its examination showed that
it had been occupied down to Muhammadan times.³

On the way to Charchi the route leading along the foot of the glacis was fringed on the south Cultivation
by a continuous belt of sandy ground with scrub and tamarisk-cones and farther on also with at Charchi.
Toghraks. None of the beds descending from the range above contained water, but at the point
where one of these debouched we found the well of Yantak-kuduk-langar holding water at a depth
of 15 feet. Charchi itself is watered by a small brook rising from springs at a Mazār, some six
miles higher up, and carrying about two cubic feet of water per second. This suffices for the cultiva-
tion carried on at the tiny oasis by sixteen resident families. Of traces of old cultivation farther
south my informants knew nothing.⁴

The region traversed on April 8th on the way to the small oasis of Eshme was of a very Oasis of
similar character, the route leading, for most of the way, close to the foot of the Sai along the Eshme.
northern edge of scrub and Toghrak jungle. At the abandoned roadside station of Kuruk-eshme-
langar the road strikes the eastern edge of a wide alluvial fan formed by drainage beds descending
towards Eshme. A canal from the bed which now carries water to Eshme was said to have once
reached this point, permitting of some cultivation, but to have been destroyed by a big flood.
The configuration of the ground makes this likely enough, and a well about 8 feet deep shows that
subsoil water still finds its way here across the fan. Eshme itself had not yet received its spring
water from the ' Eshme-akin ', which takes off some five miles higher up from a broad flood-bed

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