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| 0149 |
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 |
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company of 'Yü-mên.' So at last I had found the name
of that famous 'Jade Gate' which I had thought from the
first was to be located somewhere along this westernmost
part of the *Limes*. Again and again in the course of
subsequent excavations I felt grateful for the *amor
scribendi* which seems to have prompted these ancient
'military Babus'—like those whom one now meets in
queer corners of the fortified posts scattered along the
Indian North-West Frontier—to beguile their *ennui* and
demonstrate their own importance by a constant flow of
'memos,' reports, store statements, and other documents
so familiar to soldiering men in most regions.
But here, as at other watch-stations, records with a
pleasant touch of actuality and personal interest were not
wanting. How strange it seemed to hear my secretary
explain the record left on the four sides of a roughly
carved wooden stick, telling of a visit which three persons
named had intended to pay to their friend stationed here,
perhaps the petty officer in charge of the post. Finding
him 'out' they had left their 'card,' scribbling down their
regret at a missed chat on the best substitute for orthodox
'note wood' they could pick up from the fuel store. No
doubt, they left it in the hands of the men on guard;
hence they did not think of putting down the date for our
benefit.
While Chiang delighted in scrutinizing the hand-
writings, finding elegant penmanship here or execrably
cursive 'grass script' there, I was gratified by a palæo-
graphic discovery of my own of considerable interest.
Among the peculiarities of the wooden stationery used for
the Kharoshthi documents which I had the good fortune
first to unearth at the Niya site, the cleverly fastened
oblong envelopes (Fig. 94) had always seemed to me a
specially ingenious device. Without definite evidence,
but guided by a number of general considerations, I had
in *Ancient Khotan* ventured to advance the opinion that
this device, with other equally clever arrangements in the
form and fastening of those Kharoshthi letters, might
have been originally derived from Chinese models.
The discovery of a perfectly preserved wooden
VOL. II H
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382
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553
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567
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581
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594
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605
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617
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629
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642
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657
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670
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683
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696
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709
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723
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736
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749
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760
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771
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783
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793
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803
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813
814
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