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0355 The Pulse of Asia : vol.1
アジアの鼓動 : vol.1
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 / 355 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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now disappeared. Both to the north and south of the Lop
basin, regions which once were the home of nomadic shep-
herds are now uninhabited because there is not enough
water and grass.

When we turn to the rivers, it appears that in the seven
hundred miles from Khotan eastward, seventeen are worthy
of notice by reason of their size or because they support
oases. Of the seventeen all but four come to an end in the
zone of vegetation, and hence it is impossible to determine
whether they have diminished in length. The remaining
four all once flowed from eight to twenty-five miles farther
into the sand than they now do, as appears from dead
vegetation. Thirteen of the seventeen rivers have on their
lower courses the ruins of towns dating from the Buddhist
era, a thousand or more years ago. In almost every case, the
ancient towns were larger than their successors, this being
notably true of Niya, Yartungaz, Endereh, Cherchen, Vash
Sheri, and Miran. And finally, with the possible exception of
old Cherchen, Charklik, and Karadong on the Keriya River,
the older ruins are situated so far out in the desert, or upon
rivers so small or so saline, that it would be impossible
again to locate towns of equal size in the same places, unless
a far better system of irrigation were introduced. There is
not the slightest trace of such a system, although if it had
existed, its canals would surely have been more durable
than those built under the present crude system. More-
over, in three places, Vash Sheri, Miran, and Ying-pen,
almost the entire irrigation system of old times is preserved,
including both dams and canals; and it is evident that the
ancient methods of utilizing water were precisely like those