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0279 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
中央アジア踏査記 : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / 279 ページ(カラー画像)

New!引用情報

doi: 10.20676/00000214
引用形式選択: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR読み取り結果

when a fortunate find on its slopes of Chinese coins and
a collection of metal objects, including a well-preserved
iron dagger and bridle, showed that it had evidently
served as a halting-place on the ancient route. Inspection
of the ground ahead confirmed the suggestion that it had
been used for this purpose, because at its foot was the first
piece of ground, tolerably level and clear of salt, which
travellers would strike after passing the hard, salt-encrusted
sea bottom beyond.

So I at once decided to head straight eastwards for that
bed, and the crossing effected next day proved that I had
been rightly guided. The march across this petrified sea-bed
(Fig. 68), with its hard salt crust crumpled up into big
cakes aslant and with small pressure ridges between them,
was most trying for men and beasts alike. But when this
weary tramp of twenty miles had safely brought us to the
first patch of soft salt in front of the opposite line of salt-
coated terraces, and we could halt for a night's rest, I had
reason to feel glad of my choice and grateful for the finds
which had prompted it. As subsequent surveys showed,
we had crossed the forbidding salt sea-bed at its very
narrowest point, and had thus escaped a night's halt on
ground where neither beast nor man could have found a
spot to rest in comfort.

It was, no doubt, this consideration which had deter-
mined the early Chinese pioneers in the choice of this line
for their route. Archaeological evidence of ancient traffic
on it soon cropped up again in the shape of coins and other
small relics when, through the opposite belt of 'White
Dragon Mounds', we had gained the eastern shores of the
ancient salt-marsh. Three marches along these shores, over
M