Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 174 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0174	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

fully rounded and polished grains, such as only long-continued subaerial attrition can produce,
clearly distinguishes the substance of the dunes around Khotan (and I may at once add, at
all the ancient sites examined by me elsewhere) from the true drifting sand of other Central-
Asian deserts¹⁵.

Natural
fertility of
drift-sand. Whether the material constituting these dunes has always been gathered and shifted by
the winds directly from the alluvium of the river-beds, or whether a considerable portion of it
may have to be traced back to beds of alluvial loess eroded by the action of the desert winds,
is a question which, however interesting from a geological point of view, we need not consider
at present¹⁶. It is only important to note here that the danger which these dunes represent
for cultivation on the outskirts of the Khotan oasis does not arise from any sterility in the
'sand' itself, but from the obstacles which its appearance in great masses necessarily offers to
continued irrigation.

Zone of
desert
jungle. The desert of drift-sand which so abruptly skirts the northern edge of the oasis is for
a considerable distance not altogether devoid of vegetation. As the subsoil water, especially
during the time of the summer floods and the periods immediately following, is relatively
near the surface, tamarisks and some scrub manage to grow between the dunes. Where
occasional inundations from the rivers or the canals penetrate into this zone their beds remain
clothed with the hardy Kumush grass for years. The wild poplar (Toghrak), too, would no
doubt manage to grow plentifully in this adjacent belt of desert did not the constant demand
lead to the speedy cutting of any young trees that can serve for fuel or timber. Thus it is
only several marches below the northern edge of the oasis that we meet, on the banks of the
united Khotan river, with that luxuriant belt of jungle which flanks the river bed down to its
junction with the Târim. It is probable that the same causes had already in ancient times
made the desert in the vicinity of the great oasis look even more bare and desolate than it
would be by nature.

Mountain
region S. of
Khotan. Turning now to the south, we find the oasis bordered by a mountain region which in
some respects is more barren and forbidding than the true desert itself. The account contained
in my Personal Narrative of the expedition I made towards the headwaters of the Yurung-
kâsh¹⁷ renders unnecessary any detailed description of the inhospitable ranges which succeed
each other from the gravel-covered slopes of the outer hills to the glacier-crowned watershed
towards the Ak-sai-Chîn and the high plateaus of the Upper Kara-kâsh. Nor do the views of
scenery which are included among the illustrations of the present work stand in need of much
explanation. That they are truly typical of this sombre mountain world, which looks as if

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