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| 0393 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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visible, and I could recognise the valley at the entrance of which
the Surghak gold mines lie. The march was over a stony steppe
and almost too short, only about eleven miles. But our 'Darogha'
thought, probably rightly, that the camels could not cover the whole
distance to Niya in one day, and as there is neither water nor shelter
to be found on the remaining twenty-four miles, I had to acquiesce.
Ovraz Langar consists of a solitary mud-house, tenanted by a
'Langarchi.' Supplies and ice had been sent on from Ui-toghrak,
so we were fairly comfortable. The room I occupied was low, and
the fireplace smoked badly; but even thus it was preferable to a tent
in the sharp wind that blew from the east.
The start for Niya next morning was made cheerful by the
arrival of Niaz Akhun, who, with the ponies and my mail from
Khotan, overtook me before I had left Ovraz Langar. He brought
me letters from home which had travelled by the Farghana route to
Kashgar and thence by Chinese post. The latest of them had left
my brother's hand on the 7th of December, and seemed quite recent,
considering that the mail from Europe that reached me via Gilgit
bore dates in the second week of October. It was impossible to
ignore the postal advantages which the Trans-Caspian railway has
secured for the European in Central Asia, though for safety I
preferred to rely on the Indian post-office and its Dak via Hunza.
The whole of the twenty-four miles' march from Ovraz Langar
lay over a pebble-strewn 'Sai,' the detritus washed down from the
great southern range. Here and there sand-dunes advancing from
the desert stretched their last offshoots across the hard 'Sai.'
There was no trace of vegetation until we got within about six miles
of the Niya oasis, when tamarisks and some hardy brushwood
appeared in small patches. The oasis of Niya is formed by a series
of hamlets and villages extending along the river that leaves the
mountains near Surghak. In its upper course it is known as the
'Darya' of the Ulugh-Sai Valley. After 3 p.m. I had reached
the western edge of the cultivated area at the hamlet of Kang-
sarigh, and a further two miles brought me into the central village
containing the Bazar of Niya. I was received in due form by the
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