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

> > > >
Color New!IIIF Color HighRes Gray HighRes PDF   Japanese English
0190 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / Page 190 (Color Image)

New!Citation Information

doi: 10.20676/00000214
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

covered by drift-sand, but emerging again amongst low
dunes and patches of dead forest. Over all this strange
ground desiccation was written most plainly.
Particularly impressive evidence offered of the great
change which had come over this ground when, beyond a
curious deep depression probably wind-eroded and flanked
by high tamarisk-cones and not far from that foot-bridge,
we found the remains of a large and remarkably well-pre-
served orchard (Fig. 49). The carefully arranged rows of
various fruit-trees and the trellis-carried vines, though dead
for more than sixteen centuries, could be examined here in
almost uncanny clearness.
The 400 odd miles of desert through which my marches
took me in November 1906 from the Niya site north-east-
wards past Charchan to Charkhlik, offered opportunities
for interesting observations both geographical and archaeo-
logical at more than one point. Here it must suffice to men-
tion the solution which some fortunate finds at an ancient
site to the east of the Endere river afforded for a problem
of distinct antiquarian interest. Starting from Imam Ja'far
Sadik, we reached this site after a succession of trying
marches across the forbiddingly high ridges of dunes which
separate the dying courses of the Niya and Yartungaz rivers
from the bed of the Endere river before this too loses itself
in the sands of the Taklamakan.
I had first visited that ruined site of Endere in 1901, when
excavations carried out within a small fort protected by a
circular rampart had allowed me to clear a small Buddhist
shrine (Fig. 50) closely corresponding in type to those found
at Dandan-oilik. Among the interesting finds made there
were remains of Tibetan Buddhist manuscripts, the oldest