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| 0315 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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this supposed catastrophe. But a few hours' careful examination
of the excavated banks sufficed to dispel such a notion once for all.
Nowhere did I find the slightest trace of that stratification in the
soil which such a flood or series of floods would necessarily have
left behind. At every point the earth immediately above the
" culture-strata " proved exactly the same in substance and colour
as that which is to-day turned up by the plough of the Yotkan
cultivator.
What, then, is the explanation of this deep cover under which
the remains of this old town have rested ? I think it is not far to
seek. Cultivation in Khotan, as everywhere else in Turkestan,
demands constant and ample irrigation ; and as the river from
which the water for the Yotkan fields is drawn in the spring and
summer carries down enormous quantities of disintegrated soil from
the mountains, the accumulation of silt over the fields on which the
earth thus suspended is ultimately deposited, must be comparatively
rapid. Thus the level of the cultivated portions of the oasis is
bound to rise steadily ; and considering how near these lands are
to the region where the river collects most of this silt on its
passage through the outer ranges, the thickness of the deposit
left during a thousand years can by no means surprise us.
Observations I had occasion to make again and again after my
first visit to Yotkan fully supported this explanation. Everywhere
in the oasis I noticed that the main roads were sunk considerably
below the surrounding level where they pass through cultivated
land, while elsewhere, on waste or within the village areas, they
kept flush with the adjoining ground. This low position of the
roads is so uniformly observable and so marked that it is impossible
not to seek for a natural cause. And none I could think of seemed
more probable than that the level of the fields is constantly rising
by irrigation, while that of the roads cannot undergo any marked
variation. This observation led me to notice an equally characteristic
fact—the low position of all the old cemeteries that are surrounded
by fields. Cemeteries of any age are easily distinguished by their
extending around some Mazar or shrine, and in their case I
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