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| 0491 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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who had reproved the wicked inhabitants for certain offences, was
treated by them with contempt. He thereupon cursed the town
and foretold its approaching destruction. While they still mocked
at his prophecy, sand began to rain from the skies and continued
for seven days and nights until the whole of the buildings were
buried. Only seven pious people who had shown respect for the
holy one managed to save their lives, through a curious device
which varies from Hinen-Tsiang's story. The seven wise men are
supposed to have clung to ropes fixed to a high pole after the
fashion of a merry-go-round. Being whirled round and round by
the raging storm they rose steadily higher above the ground while
the sand accumulated, and thus escaped.
Similar stories, no doubt, are current throughout Turkestan of
ruins buried in the Taklamakan; but it was of particular interest
to note how the continuity of local tradition had here transferred
the legend which Hinen-Tsiang heard at Pi-mo of a still earlier
site, to the remains of Pimo itself. For these I could safely recog-
nise in the extensive débris-covered area, a portion of which we
managed to trace in the course of the following day. The previous
evening our luckless guides had dragged us aimlessly far out into
the desert, until at last the weariness of animals and men and the
difficulty of getting the caravan in the darkness over the rising
dunes had forced us to pitch camp. During the night one of the
guides deserted, having probably got bewildered by his own display
of deficient local sense. The other, however, a timid young fellow
whom Turdi, my desert factotum, kept under his eye and
encouraged by advice drawn from his own lifelong "treasure-
seeking" experience, recovered his bearings, and setting out before
daybreak succeeded in finding the ruined area far away to the
south-west.
Uzun-tati—"the distant Tati," as local tradition appropriately
designates this site—proved to consist of several extensive patches
of ground, one nearly half a mile square, thickly covered with pot-
tery fragments and other small débris. Owing to far-advanced
erosion and the destruction dealt by "treasure-seekers," the remains
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