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0218 The Pulse of Asia : vol.1
アジアの鼓動 : vol.1
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 / 218 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000233
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the stone troughs of which pieces have been found. To-day,
the brook is too small to supply so large a town. The water
supply cannot have come from the Karatash River. To
bring it to the ruins, two hundred and fifty feet above the
stream, would require a winding aqueduct ten miles long,
cut much of the way in the face of almost perpendicular
cliffs of red sandstone or of gravel, and carried across the
mouth of at least one large tributary gorge. Such a piece
of work would be out of all proportion to the size of the
town, and would be an engineering feat utterly beyond any-
thing, old or new, known to exist in Central Asia. Moreover,
if such an aqueduct had ever existed, some traces of it would
surely remain, and would be known to the natives. To
bring water from the Choka brook, on the other hand, would
be an easy matter. The bed of the brook rises rapidly up
the valley; the cliffs soon die out; and within three miles of
the ruins, water could be led out of the brook and brought
to the ruins by means of a simple ditch. The difficulty is
that at present the Choka brook suffices for only twelve fam-
ilies of peasants. A little water runs to waste in summer
when the snow is melting on the Tikelik plateau, but in
spring every drop is needed; and in winter the brook is said
to dry up completely except for a few small springs.
Since the water supply of ancient Choka cannot have
come from the Karatash River, only two alternatives remain:
either the Choka brook was once larger than it now is; or
by careful management a little stream, which to-day sup-
ports a dozen families of peasants, was made to support
fifty times as many families of townspeople, who, of course,
would require much less water per individual. The second