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| 0092 |
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 |
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On the morning of March 27th I let the camp remain
where it was, and set out with my assistants and half-a-
dozen labourers to the east-south-east. I there hoped
to strike approximately in the middle the line of towers
I had sighted. Three miles across the scrub-covered plain
brought us to another conspicuous clay ridge with a
troglodyte dwelling occupied by a half-crazy wood-cutter.
That he, being an orthodox Chinaman, expressed stereo-
typed ignorance about ruined towers and everything else
was not a matter of consequence. Pushing onwards we
passed through a belt of exceptionally thick scrub and low
tamarisk cones, in which an inundation from the Su-lo
Ho was steadily spreading. Nothing could induce our
civilized slum-dwelling coolies to wade through the narrow
channels. As they had each time to be mounted on
ponies, one by one, progress was far too slow for my
eagerness.
At last we emerged on a bare pebble Sai with much
dead wood on the ground and isolated stunted Toghraks
still living. The whole dreary ground bore the stamp of
desiccation. But this was not the time for such observa-
tions. Right in front of me I saw rising the cone of an
old watch-tower just of the shape and construction I
had first seen in the desert westwards, and towards it I
galloped as quick as 'Badakhshi,' my hardy pony, would
bear me. Before reaching it I noticed a low mound com-
posed of the familiar fascines and clay layers, stretching
away across the bare gravel to the nearest tower on the
east, and continuing also with a divergent angle south-
westwards. There could be no longer any doubt: I was
back again on 'my' wall!
The watch-tower, built entirely of regular courses
of hard clay about four inches thick, with thin layers
of tamarisk branches laid between them, still rose to over
twenty-two feet. In order to give additional cohesion
to the solid base measuring about twenty feet square,
numerous wooden posts had been set in it vertically, and
their ends were sticking out on the top. The wall once
guarded by the tower had passed to the north of it, with
a bastion-like projection at about six yards' distance.
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