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

By February 1st I started myself into the desert north-eastward. My party numbered
thirty-five men, having to include an adequate posse of labourers for
Start on Lop desert excavations. What with big loads of ice sufficient to assure minimum
explorations.
allowances of water for at least one month, with food supplies of one
month for all and of an additional month for my own people, and with the indispensable
outfit, the thirty camels I had managed to secure barely sufficed for the transport. After
five marches from the dying Tārim my first goal was reached in a series of small ancient
sites, to the west of the route followed in 1906. They were found to extend along a well-
marked dry river course, clearly proved by our survey to be a southern branch of the
ancient Kuruk-daryā ('the Dry River') which had once carried water to the area of ancient
Lou-lan. 20 Abundant relics recovered at these sites showed that they had been abandoned
about the beginning of the fourth century A. D., and the antiquarian evidence thus obtained
makes it possible to date a variety of physical features which throw fresh light on the hydro-
graphy and occupation of this region during early historical times and those immediately
preceding them. 21

Observations and finds made on our subsequent marches to the Lou-lan site proved to
have a similarly important bearing on the so-called 'Lop-nōr problem',
Ancient delta of the discussion of which has long been carried on among geographers
'Dry River.'
without an adequate basis of surveys. In the wind-eroded clay desert
crossed there we met a succession of ancient river-beds all lined by rows of dead toghrak
(wild poplar) trees such as are invariably found along actual river courses in this region.
These beds were clearly recognizable by their direction as having branched off from the
'Dry River' skirting the foot of the Kuruk-tāgh; and it was easy to trace their connection
with others similarly marked, shown on our plane-table traverses to and from the Lou-lan
site in 1906 further to the east or west.

A careful comparison of all the data thus recorded and of those ascertained a year
later by Afrāz-gul's plucky survey of the western edge of the great salt-encrusted basin has
convinced me that it was a considerable delta, not a large terminal lake, which had existed
here in the area south of the Lou-lan remains during historical times. The extent of this
delta to the south and south-west can plainly be traced from our several surveys as now
shown on the map. 22

After my arrival by February 10th at the ruined site ( L. A.) which marks the
ancient Chinese station of Lou-lan, I sent reconnaissances into the
Reconnaissances in
desert around 'Lou-lan unknown desert of wind-eroded clay and low drift-sand to the east and
site.'
north-east, at the same time keeping my diggers at work on unexplored
remains at the site. These reconnaissances in which Afrāz-gul Khān displayed remarkable
zeal and intelligence, were attended with important results. They revealed a series of ruins to
the north-east stretching along what I conjectured to have been the line of the earliest
Chinese route leading into the Tārim basin from Tun-huang and the extreme west of China
proper, as first opened by the Han Emperor Wu-ti's operations in the last quarter of the
second century B. C. 23 The discoveries made there included a fortified castrum which had
served as a point d'appui for Chinese missions and troops where they first reached Lou-lan
territory after crossing the salt-encrusted bed of the dried-up Lop sea. They furnished me
with a safe starting-point for the difficult task of tracing the line of that famous ancient
route eastwards.