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

To the north of this, low mounds of brick debris and clay indicated the former position of some
quarters. A gate about 18 feet wide led into this inner enclosure from the south at a place which
corresponds to the middle of the whole southern face. This suggests that the gate was originally
placed there to give access to the whole circumvallation, including the outer enclosure. The
inference that the latter was the older is supported by the more decayed condition of the outer north
and west walls, in spite of their similar construction. In the north-eastern corner a large refuse
heap rose to the present height of the outer wall, here about 4 feet, and on clearing this we recovered,
besides pieces of fabrics, four fragmentary Chinese documents, among them two of large size.
The writing and paper appeared to me to be of T'ang times ; but only competent Sinologue
examination, the result of which is not yet available, could throw light on their date. The character
and position of the ruin point to its having served as a protected halting-place corresponding to the
present Chöl-ābād.

Ruined Returning to the road, I examined by its side another ruin, K. VII (see plan, Pl. 39), about two
post, K. VII. and a half miles distant from the last one. This consists of a small enclosure measuring 22 feet
square inside, and raised on a base or platform of stamped clay 16 feet high. The walls were 4 feet
thick and built of bricks 18″×8″×3″, a size somewhat in excess of that in the previously described
ruins along this road. The south face has completely fallen, but elsewhere the walls still stand
to a height of about 10 feet. From traces of a fire-place in the middle of the northern wall it is safe
to conclude that the little enclosure was roofed and meant for quarters. Evidently at a time when
the south wall had already fallen a cross-wall had been erected of rough lumps of clay to provide
shelter within the portion of the structure that remained standing. There was no definite indication
of date here, but the ruin was certainly not of recent origin.

Ruined About 800 yards to the west of K. VII and just north of the road rises another and larger walled
enclosure of enclosure, K. VIII, known as Tüge-tam. This was certainly meant for a defensible roadside Saraï,
Tüge-tam. as seen from the sketch-plan Pl. 39. Its walls, built of rough blocks of pisé, are 5 feet thick and
enclose an area 94 feet square ; near the north-western and south-eastern corners they still stood
to a height of about 13 feet. At the south-eastern and south-western corners small bastions, 12-
square, project. Here bricks, 12″×6″×3″ in size, had been built into the stamped clay, evidently
in order to strengthen its cohesion. The gate led through the southern face and was protected by
an outer wall of the same construction as the rest, but badly decayed. The plan and rough execu-
tion of the little fort pointed to non-Chinese origin. No well or water channel is now to be found
near these two ruined posts. But they may well have once received water from the rivulet which
some eight miles to the north irrigates the fields of the small village of Ishtala (Map No. 17. c. 1)
and thence descends for some distance in the valley that debouches above Tüge-tam. Beyond this
point the road leads up a low and bare gravel plateau, and from there, as dusk fell, I sighted once
again the green fields of Yaka-arik, the easternmost village tract of the great Kuchā oasis.

Arrival at My night's halt there was much cheered by the receipt of a mail thoughtfully sent ahead by
Yaka-arik. Sāhib ʻAlī Khān, the Ak-sakāl of the small Indian colony at Kuchā and an old friend made in
1907. It brought the eagerly awaited news from Sir George Macartney that my convoy of antiques
had reached Kāshgar in safety and the equally welcome information from the Foreign Department
of the Indian Government that the permission applied for on my behalf to travel across the Russian
Pāmīrs to Samarkand and Bukhāra, and thus towards north-eastern Persia, had been duly granted
at Petrograd.

Welcome at On April 14th an easy march of seventeen miles brought me to the town of Kuchā. Most of
Kuchā. the road lay along the line where the bare gravel Sai forming the upper portion of the alluvial
fan of the Kuchā river touches the detached northern ends of a succession of cultivated belts. The