National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

over approximately 500 miles of route, and for the last 130 miles or so, no intersections
could be obtained on it owing to the absence of all landmarks. It was hence very reassuring
to find that the difference between our positions as shown by the plane-tables at the point of
junction amounted only to about half a mile in longitude and less than a mile in latitude.

After completing my successful excavations at and near the Dandân-oilik site I pro-
ceeded with the surveyor to Keriya and thence reached Niya, the last
small oasis eastwards within the territory of old Khotan, by January
21, 1901. Valuable antiquarian information obtained here led me
northward for five marches through the jungle belt along the bed of the dying Niya river.
Beyond it in the area of bare dunes I discovered the widely scattered ruins of an ancient
settlement abandoned to the desert sands since the third century A. D. ²⁸ During the very
fruitful explorations which kept us busy here for over a fortnight Râm Singh was fully
employed on a detailed survey of the extensive site and on reconnaissances into the neighbour-
ing desert. ²⁹ From the termination of the Niya river we then traversed the wholly
unsurveyed desert eastwards for a marching distance of over a hundred miles to the site of
reported ruins not far from where the Endere river is lost in the sands. ³⁰

Here the easternmost limit of my first expedition was attained, and after exploring with
interesting results the ruins of an ancient fort and other remains, we
commenced our return journey by February 26. It led us first back to
Keriya along the desert track which since early times has served for
caravan traffic along the southern edge of the Taklamakân from Khotan to the Lop-nôr
region and to westernmost China beyond. Favourable weather conditions allowed the great
rampart of the snow-covered K'un-lun range far away to the south to be sighted and in parts
to be sketched on the plane-table.

A rapid expedition down the Keriya river for seven long marches from Keriya brought
us to a point known as Kara-dong, where, near the head of the desert
delta of the dying river, the remains of an ancient fort required explo-
ration. ³¹ Then from a point higher up the river we struck across to
the west and surveyed the deceptive desert to the north of the oases of Domoko, Gulakhma
and Chira. The ample evidence this ground retains of a much greater extent of the once
cultivated areas and of their shifts in position during historical times gives it a special geo-
graphical interest. ³²

The marches thence to Khotan offered opportunities for surveying similar areas of
early occupation now abandoned to the desert north of the Hanguya canton. Two weeks
later excavations carried on at the important ruins of Rawak and surveys of other ancient
sites in the desert to the north of the Yurung-kâsh tract were successfully completed just
before the increasing heat and sand-storms closed the season for sustained work on such
trying ground.

Our rapid return journey to Kâshgar along the great caravan route via Yârkand
afforded no opportunity for fresh surveys, except from Kizil to Kâshgar.
There I parted from Râm Singh who on the whole of this journey
had rendered very efficient and willing services and who now returned
to India. I myself gained the railway in Russian Turkistân across the Alai and T'ien-shan
and thence proceeded with my archæological collections to London.

The topographical results of this journey found their first cartographic record in the
'Map of portions of Chinese Turkistân, surveyed under the direction,
and with the assistance of, M. A. Stein, Ph.D., by Sub-Surveyor S.—R.,
1900-01. Two sheets, scale 1 inch to 12 miles', prepared at the
Trigonometrical Branch Office of the Survey of India and published in May 1903 under the
orders of Colonel St. George C. Gore, C.S.I., R.E., Surveyor General of India. Owing