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0031 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / 31 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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we now seemed to approach! There was no trace of
earlier quarters inside, and only scanty refuse from recent
occupation by wayfarers. And yet, when I had climbed to
the top by a rough staircase spared from the massive walls
in a corner, and looked round over all this desolation, I felt
sure that I stood on a structure which had braved man
and nature for many centuries past.

The view enjoyed from the top was wide and impressive.
To the south I could see the scrubby depression merging
in a belt of Toghrak and tamarisk jungle. Beyond there
rose an absolutely bare gravel glacis towards the equally
barren foot-hills of a great range far away. To the north-
east four towers lit up by the sun behind us could be made
out echeloned in the distance, silent guardians of a wall
line which I thought I could still recognize here and there
in faint streaks of brown shown up by my glasses. What
a fine position, I thought, this height of the fort wall must
have been for a commandant to survey his line of watch-
stations, and to look out for the signals they might send
along it! But how long ago was that? Those sombre,
barren hills of the Kuruk-tagh, now standing out clearly
again on the northern horizon, had seen wall and towers
first rise, and would see their ruins finally disappear before
the blasts of the ages. But it would be like asking Death
itself for an answer.

Somewhere between the foot of those hills and the line
of towers the old drainage of the Su-lo Ho was bound to
have cut its bed westwards. But even from that command-
ing position I tried vainly to locate it. And yet, as our
march continued across a sterile gravel plateau till the
evening, I could see that the route was drawing nearer and
nearer to a wide marshy basin, stretching east to west
and manifestly part of the main Su-lo Ho valley.

We had been skirting its steep clay bank for a mile or
so, and were approaching a roughly built tower standing
near it, when I saw in the twilight a huge structure rising
before me from the low ground which fringed the basin.
Hurrying to inspect it before it became quite dark, I
found there three palace-like halls, with a total frontage
of over 440 feet, and walls of great thickness rising to