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| 0133 |
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 |
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we passed a narrow sheet of water nearly a mile long which
now receives this drainage of Nan-hu, wasting itself in the
desert. But we soon found that canals within living
memory must have carried water much farther to the north.
The first dwellings of another abandoned small settlement
were met with at seven miles from Shui-i. Our guide
called it Kuan-tsou, and stated that it had been abandoned
some sixty years ago. I was able to test here the accuracy
of local tradition. Around the first farm I visited there
were a few patches of ground not covered by sand, and
among the small débris scattered over them my men soon
picked up modern-looking potsherds and porcelain frag-
ments, also some coins belonging to the regnal epoch of
Ch'ien-lung (1736-96 A.D.). The isolated farm-houses were
filled with drift sand to a height of six or eight feet, and
owing to the greater distance from Nan-hu still retained
most of their timber.
The trees once growing along the canals and irrigation
cuts had all been cut down since cultivation was abandoned.
But the trunks still emerging in a double row along what
must have been the main channel, showed that its water
was brought from the south-east, i.e. the now dry river bed
I had traced east of the Tati forming part of the old Nan-hu
oasis. Amidst the low dunes which had overrun what were
once the fields of this hamlet, tamarisk cones had formed
here and there up to a height of twelve feet. Everything
showed that a typical 'site' was here in preparation to
illustrate to posterity the conditions of Tun-huang village
life early in the nineteenth century. The dwelling where
I halted to take a photograph (Fig. 166) was more solidly
built than the rest, and thus likely to attract the attention
of some future archaeologist, say of 4000 A.D. So I could
not forgo the temptation of depositing in a well-sheltered
corner a dated 'Khat,' in the shape of a newspaper, for
his eventual guidance and edification.
For over two miles farther north ruins of detached
holdings were met with at intervals, all belonging to the
same period, as frequent coin-finds proved. The last was a
substantial homestead, with a thick refuse layer covering
the courtyard (Fig. 168). A big dune, fully twenty feet
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