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| 0084 |
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 |
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BY THE ANCIENT WALL NORTH OF TUN-HUANG
From the height of the town wall a watch-tower had been
sighted to the north-north-east, and for that we set out on
the morning of March 25th, with an icy wind sweeping
down from the east. At first our progress was greatly
impeded by the swampy condition of the ground, which
was being purposely flooded for sowing. Large patches
of the scrub-covered waste, once no doubt fields, had been
cleared by burning, and water was now being brought to
them in a rather erratic fashion by damming up channels
which originally might in parts at least have been cut for
irrigation. The camels and the men, now on foot, were
forced to great détours and remained far behind.
But with a few of my people on horseback I struggled
across to the 'Pao-t'ai,' which proved to be about four
miles off. It was, as I had surmised from the first, a
watch-tower of ancient construction. The material here
consisted of hard lumps of salt-impregnated clay quarried
from the low ridge on which the tower was raised; but
any doubt as to its age was removed by observing in this
strange masonry the same layers of reeds and tamarisk
twigs at regular intervals which were characteristic of
the towers guarding the old wall farther west. The
whole formed a remarkably compact mass about twenty
feet square at its base, and still over eighteen feet high,
the permeating salts acting apparently like a sort of
cement. Its solidity could be gauged from the fact that,
though wind erosion had attacked and worn away the
natural clay beneath the corners, the structure overhung
there without any injury.
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