Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 281 ページ（カラー画像）

0281	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

it empties itself some fifteen miles below the town, and which I had passed in January, 1908, on
my first visit to Bugur from the side of the Inchike river.

The information I was able to collect during a day's halt at Bugur usefully supplemented District of
the indications furnished by our survey with regard to the extent and importance of the oasis. The Bugur.
district or hsien, of which the head-quarters are placed at Bugur-bāzār, and which the Chinese
administration knows by the ancient name of Lun-t'ai 輪臺, was stated to include altogether
about four thousand households. The district comprises all the settlements on the main road
from Charchi to Bugur, Chuk-tam beyond Laisu (Map No. 17. D. 1) marking the boundary towards
Kuchā. As the small oases to the east already described do not contain much more than a thousand
families altogether and no cultivation is carried on elsewhere, it is clear that Bugur itself holds
probably well over two-thirds of the whole population. This agrees both with the proportionate
extent of the area shown by our survey as under cultivation and with the information I had
previously received at the smaller oases. But while reclamation of new land seemed to have
made considerable progress in recent years in those smaller oases, Bugur itself appeared to be
nearing the limits set by the available irrigation resources. In fact, to the south our routes at
several points touched ground where cultivation had been abandoned in recent times owing to
the salinity produced by inadequate drainage. The absolute flatness of the land there, as it presented
itself to the eye, sufficiently accounted for the latter fact.

The only two ancient sites of which I heard at Bugur still capable of being reached by 'Kōne-
water from the Kizil-daryā both lie in this direction. An examination of them showed that neither shahr' of
contained remains of pre-Muhammadan times. The 'kōne-shahr' of Lapār, which I myself Lapār.
visited, was found to lie nearly four miles beyond the southern edge of the present cultivated area,
which here extends to almost three miles from Bugur-bāzār. On the perfectly level ground covered
with thin scrub it was easy to recognize abandoned fields ; small tamarisk bushes were growing
on them, but had not yet had time to form the usual cones. Farther on the soil along the dry canal
that we followed was increasingly covered with shôr. The 'old town' here consisted of a circum-
vallation, roughly 300 yards square, with earth ramparts irregularly aligned and for the most part
so much decayed that a height of only 10 to 12 feet remained. On the western face, which had
suffered least and where the top still rose to about 18 feet, it was possible to make out that rough
lumps of clay had been used in constructing the rampart, with thin layers of brushwood at intervals
of about 3 feet. On the top, 22 feet wide here, there were remains of a parapet built in the same
rough fashion and about 3 feet thick. The irregularity of the plan and the careless construction
suggested that the circumvallation dated from Muhammadan times. No structural remains were
traceable within, only refuse heaps of considerable extent pointing to prolonged occupation ; but
so far as I could get them searched they were found to contain only much-decayed stable refuse,
animal bones and the like. That this 'kōne-shahr' could not be of altogether late date was
suggested by the many places where 'treasure-seekers' had burrowed indiscriminately into
ramparts and rubbish-heaps.

Afrāz-gul, whom I sent from Bugur to proceed to Kuchā by a desert track leading past a dry Cultivation
branch of the Inchike-daryā, found a ruined circumvallation of exactly the same type at a distance south of
of about 11 miles from Bugur-bāzār (Map No. 21. A. 1). It is known as Koyuk-shahr, and its Bugur.
ramparts, also much decayed, measure approximately 260 by 240 yards outside. On a natural
terrace within he found an abundance of human bones, suggesting a Muhammadan burial-place.
About three miles farther south he noticed abandoned cultivation at a place known as Kara-kachin
and not far from a channel carrying water from springs below Bugur. That this channel is not
likely to have been made very long ago may safely be inferred from the fact that Afrāz-gul found

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