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0343 The Pulse of Asia : vol.1
アジアの鼓動 : vol.1
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 / 343 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000233
引用形式選択: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

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so high a degree of civilization, if they lived as the present
inhabitants do, with practically no agriculture. On the one
hand, we have the unequivocal statement that "there are
few cultivated fields. The country relies on neighboring
kingdoms for cereal and agricultural products. It produces
jade, . . . and the people manufacture weapons." This
may mean little or much. One might say with perfect truth,
"England has but little cultivated land. It relies on America
and Australia for grain. It produces coal, and the people
manufacture iron and steel." This would not mean that
there was no agriculture in England. On the other hand, we
have the mention of people sent "to cultivate rich and pro-
ductive land." Again, "seed-corn" and "many farmsteads"
are mentioned. Neither Hedin nor I found any trace of
canals or of ancient fields, which indeed would hardly be
expected. He, however, found some wheat straw, suggest-
ing that agriculture had been carried on; and I found some
eleagnus trees, and a considerable number of large trunks
of the white or cultivated poplar, lying with part of their
roots where they had fallen. The timber of the larger houses
is white poplar, so the tree must have been common. It
never grows wild in the Lop basin, and is sensitive to salt.
Its presence is unequivocal evidence that irrigation, and
hence agriculture, was carried on continuously in one place
for periods at least long enough to allow of the growth of
trees two feet in diameter. On the whole, it seems safe to
say that, although the river was probably so saline as to
make agriculture difficult, conditions were distinctly more
favorable than at present. In a case such as this, there is
danger that an author's prepossessions may determine his