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0521 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / Page 521 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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preparations for our respective journeys. On October 3rd
I was at last able to let Rai Ram Singh start on his return
to India, which he reached safely three months later after
rapid and almost continuous travel *via* Khotan, Sarikol,
and Gilgit. A little earlier Rai Lal Singh had been
sent out to survey the remains of the Wall north of the
Su-lo Ho.

He had scarcely returned when there arrived also
Chiang-ssÅ­-yeh, whom I had despatched on a secret
mission to Wang Tao-shih, bringing with him in the
stealth of night four camels heavily laden with more
manuscripts from the 'treasure cave.' A written proposal
for further 'selections' sent through a trusty messenger
had met with a cautious response ; but in order to avoid
all suspicions I was obliged to remain away from the scene
and to entrust the execution to my ever-zealous secretary.
How he had managed to secure the timorous Taoist monk,
and to induce him for a very reasonable recompense to
hand out at night over two hundred additional bundles of
Chinese texts, was quite a dramatic story. The whole
was managed most discreetly. Ibrahim Beg with Hassan
Akhun and his camels, now refreshed by a long holiday in
the mountains, furnished the transport. They had care-
fully kept clear of the high road on their way to the
rendezvous at the caves, and marching only at night on
their return escaped all inquisitive eyes.

Having secured this addition to my archaeological
impedimenta, I was glad to leave behind me by October 8th
that dreary *carrefour* of Asia, An-hsi, and to be quit for a
time of wearisome report-writing and accounts. Eleven
long marches carried us and our big caravan north-
westwards to Hami through the barren hills of the
Pei-shan. It was a wilderness of gravel and crumbling
rock which we crossed here, a true stony 'Gobi' with a
width of over two hundred miles. With none of the
successive ranges through which the route leads rising
much above 6000 feet, there is little to observe here for
the traveller who is not a geologist. But I knew that,
ever since Chinese power first asserted itself at Hami,
about 60 B.C., this 'Northern road,' with the few alternative