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| 0101 |
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 |
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OCR Text
it was midnight before the first point on the Chinese side
was reached, where fuel and a dry spot made it possible to
lie down and rest.
Here, at the head of the Taghdum-bash Pamir, I found
myself once more at the point where in 1900 I had first set
foot on Chinese soil. Down this high valley where, accord-
ing to the saying of the Sarikolis who occupy its lower end,
winter lasts ten months and summer two, Hsüan-tsang, the
great Chinese pilgrim, had travelled when about A.D. 642
he returned from his many years' travels in India. I had
traced his footprints before to many sacred Buddhist sites,
and was now setting out to follow them so much farther to
the east.
So I felt particularly gratified when I was able on my
way down definitely to locate the ruined rock fastness where
a curious ancient legend related by the pilgrims supposed
an imperial princess, on her way from China to Persia, to
have been once placed for safety. The fortifications which
I traced on the top of an almost completely isolated rock
spur rising above a gloomy defile of the Taghdum-bash
river and known as Kiz-kurghan, 'the Princess's Tower'
(Fig. 18), must have been long in ruins already in Hsüan-
tsang's time. But owing to the dryness of the climate the
walls defending this ancient place of refuge were still clearly
traceable. Yet their material was mere sun-dried bricks with
regular layers of juniper twigs embedded between them.
Far away to the east we shall meet with the same ancient
Chinese method of construction in the border wall of the
Han Limes built in the second century B.C.
At Tash-kurghan, the headquarters of Sarikol, I re-visited
the site of the old capital of the territory. It is marked by
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561
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571
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578
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