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| 0308 |
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 |
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ceptive depressions northward for that fleet and artful
enemy, the Huns!
The arrow-heads of bronze which we picked up in num-
bers near the wall and towers, as well as references occur-
ring in the records found which Chiang Ssŭ-yeh would read
out and interpret, were proof that attacks and alarms were
familiar incidents on this border. Unconsciously my eye
sought the scrubby ground flanking the salt-marshes where
Hun raiders might collect before making their rush in the
dusk. Once across the chain of posts, the road lay open for
them to any part of the Tun-huang oasis or the Chinese
settlements farther east. Not only the notion of time but also
the sense of distance seemed in danger of being effaced when
I thought how these same Huns were destined some cen-
turies later to shake the empires both of Rome and Con-
stantinople.
But the slanting rays of the setting sun would reveal also
things of the past far more real. The line of the wall then
showed up quite distinctly for miles and miles even where
it was decayed to little more than a low straight mound. It
was then that the eye most readily caught a curiously
straight furrow-like line running parallel to the wall and at
a distance of about ten yards from it. Close examination
showed that it was a narrow but well-defined track worn
into the coarse gravel soil by the patrols who had tramped
along it for centuries. Again and again the men recognized
as clearly as I did this strange, uncanny track reappearing
along wall sections miles away from the caravan route, wher-
ever the remains of the wall were high enough to offer
protection against wind-driven sand and pebbles.
On my first reconnaissances I had already made another
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