国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

miles, we arrived at a point known as *Chuk-tam*, where a small mosque marks the boundary between Remains of
the Bugur and Kuchā districts. Some four hundred yards to the north of it lies a ruined enclosure Chuk-tam.
which seems to represent a watch-post of later times. It is built of rough lumps of clay (*kisek*),
and measures, as seen in Pl. 39, about 102 feet by 84 inside. It appears to have been added to an
older tower on the south, measuring 20 feet square and built more solidly of bricks measuring
15″ × 12″ × 4″. That this post was occupied in late times is shown by a small Muhammadan cemetery,
situated within 200 yards to the west and provided with an arched gateway. It seems that the place
once received water from a small brook which rises at the spring of Pichān-bulak higher up near the
head of the glacis (Map No. 17. D. 1). We crossed the tiny tail end of it about a mile and a half
farther west at a point known as Sūzük.

We halted that night at the small oasis of Yangi-ābād, where some eighteen homesteads find Ruined
support in cultivation carried on with the water received from springs rising some five miles higher tower of
up, in a little hollow of the Saï. Early on April 13th I started for the long march which was to Koyuk-
carry us to the eastern edge of the large oasis of Kuchā. The first ruin reached across a bare steppe tura.
of clay was that of an old watch-tower, K. v, known by the name size of Koyuk-tura (Fig. 344). In
its present condition it measures 32 feet square at the base, and rises to 29 feet in height including
walls, about 4 feet high, which crown the top and enclose a guard's shelter, 13 feet square (see
Pl. 39). It looked as if it had been built of stamped clay ; but closer inspection showed that this
encased an earlier tower solidly built of bricks of the same size as those found at all the ancient
watch-stations from Ying-p'an onwards. The usual reinforcement of heavy posts and beams
could also be traced within this masonry, and on the eastern side of the original structure the
whitewashed plaster facing was soon disclosed by a little clearing. The earlier tower had measured
about 18 feet square, and while it was still intact an outer casing of stamped clay had been added,
probably with a view to providing a guard-room on the top. No water could now be found nearer
than at Chōl-ābād, five miles farther on by the road ; but in ancient times the small valleys
debouching from the hills on the north, about that marked as Gōr-jilga on the map from Lāl Singh's
survey, probably carried surface drainage farther down than they do at present. Chōl-ābād, ' the Cultivation
quarters in the desert ', which now serves as a usual halting-place, is but a small cluster of ' Langars ' at Chōl-
for the accommodation of travellers. Its water-supply, less than one cubic foot per second, is ābād.
received from springs which issue some four miles off at the mouth of a Nullah. But even this
scanty water suffices to create a delightful little patch of green in the surrounding barrenness, with
some orchards to give refreshing shade for travellers and with green fields of lucerne to sustain
their beasts.

When we had proceeded about three miles beyond Chōl-ābād, a ruin, about six furlongs off Ruined
the road to the north-west and not previously visited by me, attracted my attention. It proved circumvalla-
to be that of a walled enclosure, K. VI, situated on the southern edge of an eroded clay terrace tion W. of
about 300 yards wide and extending for over 700 yards from east to west. Its position less than Chōl-ābād.
half a mile from a dry channel descending from the north clearly showed that water had once been
brought here from the same springs which now irrigate Chōl-ābād. I found here an inner rect-
angular enclosure measuring 57 yards by 48, built into the south-eastern portion of an outer one,
as seen in Pl. 39, both correctly orientated. The walls of both enclosures were 4 feet thick and built
of bricks, measuring 15″ × 7½–8″ × 3½–4″, and thus of the same size as we had found in the ruined
watch-towers along the Konche-daryā and as prevails on the Tun-huang Limes. The wall had
in most places decayed to a height of 4 or 5 feet, but still stood to about 10 feet at the south-eastern
corner. There a space about 32 feet square, i, had been walled off. Earth and brick debris filled
its interior, which, as fragments of charred timber showed, had suffered from a conflagration.
5 K 2