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0422 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / Page 422 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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CHAPTER XV

EXPLORATIONS IN THE NAN-SHAN RANGES

By the time my work about the Tun-huang oasis was com-
pleted the summer of 1907 had set in. So I was eager to
exchange archaeological work in the torrid desert plains
for geographical exploration in the western and central
Nan-shan, the great 'Southern Mountains' of the Chinese.
Before, however, I could seek their alpine coolness I had to
visit An-hsi, three marches to the east of Tun-huang, where
the great road coming from Kansu and the interior of China
turns off towards Chinese Turkistan. Ever since the times
of the Later Han, this route leading across the desert hills
and plateaux of the Pei-shan had become the main line of
communication to Central Asia. An-hsi has always been a
position of importance on it; but there was nothing to be
found there to reflect this importance, either in the desolate
circumvallation of the place with its single straggling street
or within the wind-eroded walls of a ruined town site
outside it.
But I succeeded in tracing on the waste ground to the
south remains of the ancient border wall through which
Hsüan-tsang must have passed when, defying official pro-
hibition, he made his clandestine start on the adventurous
journey that was to take him to the Western Regions. I have
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