National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 |
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CH. XXVIII
AN ICY CROSSING 327
öghil, where Ismail proposed to find a ford, the ice-crust
lying over the extensive mud banks proved too thin to
carry men. But they were safely crossed all the same by
Ismail and the Charchan man whom I had taken along to
push my cyclometer for road measurement. Then the
two men waded pluckily through the two channels of swift-
running water, each approximately fifty yards broad and
nearly four feet deep in the middle. To look at their
shivering bare legs, cut by the ice cakes in more than one
place, as they tried to warm themselves by a fire after
returning from their reconnaissance, made me think of the
French pioneers who, working to their waist in the ice-
filled Berezina, built the bridges that were to save the
fleeing remnants of the Grande Armée. Ismail, in spite
of his trying experience, volunteered to carry me across,
and, feeling much in doubt as to whether my feet were
equal to such a passage, I gladly accepted his offer. The
crossing on my hardy mount was effected in safety though
not without trouble ; for when Ismail came to climb the
steeply cut bank towards the shallow which divided the
two channels, he failed to secure a foothold on the slippery
ice and came down on his face and hands, giving me a fair
ducking. So I, too, had something to dry by the roaring
fire which the men kindled amidst the thick reeds of the
opposite bank.
The ` Tim,' found quite close to where we had crossed
and only some hundred yards off the river-bank, proved to
be the ruin of a small square structure in solid masonry
which in all probability had served as a Stupa base. The
extant portion was only eleven feet long, standing at a
height of about seven feet above the present ground level.
The great size of the bricks and their careful setting
attested the antiquity of the structure. Its interest lies in
the fact that it proves the existence of a Pre-Muhammadan
settlement in the immediate vicinity of the present river
course, and thus supports the presumption that the latter
has changed less in its main direction than the many dry
branches and lagoons met with on either side might other-
wise lead one to suppose.
The route, where we regained it after this excursion,
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