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0357 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / Page 357 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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CHAPTER LXXI

AT AN-HSI, THE 'WEST-PROTECTING'

An-hsi, the headquarters of the 'Independent Department'
to which Tun-huang belonged, had seemed a convenient
place for a depot and new base; for it lies at the point
where the great road coming from Su-chou and China
'within the Wall' turns off towards Hami and Eastern
Turkestan. Whatever shape my plans for the next winter's
work in the Tarim Basin might take, I should have to pass
through An-hsi, and there was the immediate advantage
of my being able to strike due south to the snowy range
of the westernmost Nan-shan by a route which promised
to be of varied interest. Three hot and fairly long marches
along the barren foot of a completely denuded outer hill
range brought us by June 16th to the humble road-side
station of Kua-chou-kou, which derives its designation
from the ancient name of the whole oasis. Next day a
fifteen miles' ride across the wide scrub-covered plain took
me to the town of An-hsi. All the way strips of poor
fields alternated with extensive waste lands, and the ruins
of walled villages and towns, most of them said to have
been destroyed during the great Tungan rebellion, were
far more conspicuous than the scattered homesteads of
present occupation.

So I was not altogether surprised by the air of neglect
and stagnation which everything about An-hsi bore. The
town boasted of the name, 'the West-protecting [garrison],'
which once in the great times of the T'ang had been borne
by the seat of the Chinese Governor-General controlling
the whole of Turkestan. But it was now scarcely more
than a straggling street within a big, desolate-looking

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