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0367 The Pulse of Asia : vol.1
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 / Page 367 (Color Image)

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

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"I never heard of it," was the answer; "but I know that
one summer a half-witted man of our village [Abdal] tried
to go across the gravel to Tung Hwang, and died of thirst.
A Chinese amban and his servant, with a camel, came the
same way from Tung Hwang one fall. The amban reached
Charklik, but the servant died of thirst on reaching the
salt spring at Dunglik. The Chinese know all old things.
Perhaps the amban had read of this road. And I remember
that my grandfather used to say that when he was a boy,
a man named Osman Bai and his servants tried the same
way across the gravel in summer, but got lost. The party
scattered everywhere in search of water. One reached
Lachin, and another Kurgan Sai, but Osman Bai and two
or three others died."

Apparently, the present route has been in use only one
or two hundred years. Previously, the lake was so high that
the salt plain which the road now traverses was muddy,
or perhaps under water. Every one was obliged to follow
the circuitous dry route along the twelve-foot strand. Still
earlier, this too was impracticable, seemingly because the
water actually reached the strand, and little inlets cut across
the course of the later road. Travelers necessarily used the
still longer and harder route over the gravel and sand above
the bluffs. Unfortunately, we have no means of dating the
road, but probably it was used in mediƦval times after the
abandonment of the Lulan route.

The inferred history of Lop-Nor during the last two thou-
sand years may now be summed up. We have first a com-
paratively large lake. It is said to have had a length of
seventy-five miles each way, and this was in spite of the