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0186 Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 / Page 186 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000234
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wooden stage raised some eight feet above the ground. As
we ascended it we noticed with amusement that the walls
of what may be called a sort of greenroom, bore cleverly
executed drawings in charcoal of Europeans.

The temple itself, approached through a third colonnaded
court, is an imposing hall, lavishly decorated outside with
boards blazing forth auspicious inscriptions in scarlet and
gold. But it is in the inside of the hall that we had occasion
to admire the generosity and good sense of those who raised
this monument. The whole of the side walls, right and left,
are covered with series of large paintings representing in
sequence the victorious career as well as the administrative
activity and private life of Liu-Kin-tang. There are quaint
but graphic pictures of the battles and sieges by which he
reduced the rebellious province. The characteristic features of
the Andijanis who played the leading part in the revolt, and
of the dark-skinned Tartar people of Urumchi and other
centres to the east, are reproduced with striking fidelity. We
see the general sitting in court, punishing malefactors, and in
all the chief functions of a provincial governor. Other pictures
show him returning to his ancestral home, his meeting with
his aged mother, &c. It is a remarkable cycle of illustrations
of a great career, and when properly reproduced, it would be
no mean acquisition for an Ethnographic Museum in Europe.
The richly gilt altar or central fane contains curiously enough
a very Western souvenir of the Chinese general, his portrait
in the form of a photograph enlarged to life size.

I could find no representation of any Chinese deity sharing
the honours of the place with the departed hero. But on the
parts of the main wall not occupied by the altar, two large
representations of mythological animals attracted attention.
To the right is a remarkably spirited picture of a storm-pro-
ducing dragon, drawn with a verve and power of imagination
which betoken no mean artist. As I looked at the wonderful
masses of cloud propelled by the dragon's blast, I thought of