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0282 The Pulse of Asia : vol.1
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 / Page 282 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000233
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

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After the fall of Tuholo, the population along the Endereh
River probably was reduced to the little hamlets of which
I discovered the ruins at Korgach and Serteck. Later, there
was a slight revival, as appears from the ruins of Bilel Kon-
ghan, a walled village of about a hundred and fifty houses
which I discovered west of the river. The village contains a
mosque, which proves that it belongs to the Mohammedan
period. The natives have no tradition as to its origin or the
reason for its abandonment.
Sometimes they jokingly call it "Nummret Sher," "Poor
Man's City," because the main gate on the south side has
wooden hinges.
"The Beg of this place was so poor," they say, "that he
could not even afford iron for hinges."
The chief importance of Bilel Konghan lies in the fact
that it forms a mediƦval link in the chain of successively
smaller and more decadent settlements which have grown
up one after the other on the Endereh River. At the begin-
ning of the Christian era, Tuholo was a large and prosper-
ous town, comparable in size to the modern Chira, but more
advanced in the arts, apparently. The houses were well-
built structures of sun-dried brick, supported by fine timbers
of white poplar, and were admirably adapted to withstand
the cold of winter and the heat of summer. Agriculture
flourished, and orchards and fields probably surrounded
every house. The people were adepts in the art of pottery-
making, and their artistic sense, though crude, was so far
developed that they ornamented their utensils with designs
like those on page 205. Other decorative arts, such as paint-
ing, wood-carving, and the moulding of clay and plaster,