National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 |
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176 MY RETURN TO KHOTAN
CH. XIV
seeking ' guide had died some two weeks after being released from his fetters. It was poor consolation to me to know that he had died at his modest home, and that until that fateful desert trip the small post I had secured for him had kept him in peace and in fair comfort.
Young Roze, Turdi's step-son and acolyte, who had been with us to the ruins of Dandan-oilik, had after his master's death settled down as a cultivator in the Yurungkash tract, and confined his ` treasure-seeking ' to occasional visits to the neighbouring débris areas known as ` Tatis.' The antiquarian spoil he could now offer for purchase was slight, consisting only of a miscellaneous collection of
ancient coins, cut stones, and other small objects. But he brought also the fragment of a well-modelled Buddha figure in terra-cotta, which he had found among the remains of a ` But-khana ' or temple recently left bare from the sand in the desert beyond Hanguya. The site had not been known at the time of my former journey, and possibly might prove one of promise. So by a liberal Bakhshish I engaged Roze to revisit it with a view to ascertaining local conditions, and with other old confrères to collect from the desert similar antiquarian indications which might be useful for the start of my autumn campaign.
The great heat during my stay at Khotan clearly
demonstrated the impossibility of work in the desert at this season. So as soon as I had arranged for the
treasure-seekers' ' reconnaissances I felt free to set out
for the mountains. My zealous Chinese secretary could not be of any help in a region where human beings are exceedingly scarce and things Chinese altogether unknown; so I left him to freedom and comfort at Khotan. I also lightened our impedimenta by handing over to Badruddin Khan's care all equipment not immediately needed. In order to maintain the connection with Ram Singh's recent surveys about Pusha it was advisable to start work from the mountains near Nissa ; and to reach this small Alpine settlement the only available route was the one I had followed in November 1900, on my way down to the plains.
On the morning of August II th we started for Langhru,
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