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0304 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / Page 304 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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plentiful specimens picked up all along the *Limes*. But of
special interest was a perfectly preserved wooden cover, pro-
vided with the seal socket and string grooves so familiar
to me from the oblong wooden envelopes of the Niya site.
As a small rim sunk on the under-surface of the cover proved,
it had served as a lid to a small box which the Chinese
inscription in fine big characters declared to have been "the
medicine case belonging to the Hsien-ming company". I
was glad to let this proof of early medical care figure at
the exhibition arranged in 1912 at the Wellcome Medical
Museum in London.

From the small lake where our first camp by the border
wall had stood there extends a well-defined and very
interesting portion of the Han *Limes* as far as the Khara-nor
lake. The defensive line has here been carried across a
succession of marshes and small lakes filling the depressions
which descend from the gravel glacis in the south towards
the Su-lo-ho. Farther east it stretches along the wide
lagoons and marshes into which the Su-lo-ho expands after
leaving the Khara-nor as well as along this large lake itself.
This alignment had with much care been chosen by the
old Chinese engineers in order to supplement their line by
natural defences, and thus to save labour in construction
as well as effort in its protection. The Imperial edict which
one of the previously mentioned documents from the
sectional headquarters station on the south-western flank
of the *Limes* quotes, had enjoined the governor of Su-chou
"to examine the configuration of the places. Utilizing
natural obstacles, a wall is to be constructed in order to
exercise control at a distance."

Our survey of the *Limes* section extending from that small