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| 0487 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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At the familiar shrine of Burhanuddin I picked up en route the
two guides who, under the Amban's order, had been sent by the Beg
of Gulakhma. They looked unusually reticent and stupid, but
it was too late when we found out that they knew nothing of such
a route as I wished to take. Too timid to aver their ignorance,
they thought it safest to guide us further and further south, where
at least there was no risk from the dreaded Taklamakan. Thus,
after leaving the left river-bank and crossing a belt of high sand
dunes, we found ourselves, on the 23rd of March, in a wide area
of swampy jungle watered from the marshes of Shivul, west of
Keriya. As the local knowledge of the guides quite gave out here,
we had great difficulty in extricating our animals from the boggy
marsh, treacherously covered with light sand, in which the Shivul
stream ends. Though there were everywhere the tracks of flocks
that had grazed here during the winter, we did not succeed in
finding a single shepherd to help in guiding us. Fortunately
we came at last upon firmer ground, where the Shivul Darya flowed
as a limpid stream in a winding but well-defined bed, about fifteen
feet broad. This helped once more to guide our "guides," and
ultimately, after a long and tiring march through the dusk, we
arrived at the solitary little shrine of Arish-Mazar. Though the
rustic Sheikh living near the saint's tomb was at first greatly
alarmed by the arrival of so large a party, fodder was soon
forthcoming for the tired ponies, and big fires were lit to guide
the belated part of the caravan.
After the experience I had gained of the value of our guides
there was no alternative but to resign myself to letting them reach
again familiar ground in the oasis itself before striking off into the
desert. Accordingly we made our way south-westwards, through
the sandy jungle in which the water of another marsh-fed stream,
the Karakir Darya, finally loses itself. The track we followed led
through a maze of tamarisk-covered sand-cones, standing closer
together than I had seen them anywhere on the borders of the true
desert. Unexpectedly we came in their midst upon the unmistak-
able remains of some ancient settlement, which the few shepherds
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