Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / 522 ページ（カラー画像）

0522	Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.2

0522

Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2

中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.2

tracks practicable on the east and west of it, had formed
an important line of communication to the oases on both
sides of the T'ien-shan and to the Tarim Basin. In fact,
since the more direct route from Tun-huang to the region
north of Lop-nor had to be abandoned after the fourth
century A.D., this Northern road became practically the
main channel for trade and military operations alike.

So as we passed from one wretched little road-side
station to the other, with its mud-built hovels, scanty
well, tiny post of soldiers, and occasional road-side temple
(Fig. 257), it was of interest to observe conditions of traffic
which could have changed but little since old times. The
difficulties of getting a sufficiency of reed straw, and in
places even of water, for a large number of animals must
always have hampered military movements along this line.
I could therefore appreciate the efforts it must have cost
the Chinese, after the crushing of the last great Tungan
rebellion, to assemble at Hami the large force which
overawed and quickly extinguished Yakub Beg's rebel
dominion in Turkestan. Without the retention of Hami
as a point d'appui the task might have proved impossible
even for such an organizer as Tso Tsung-t'ang. At the
same time my journey through a desert which still pos-
sessed occasional wells and some scattered grazing allowed
me to realize better how in ancient days parties of raiding
Huns could push their way south for attacks on the
Tun-huang Limes before the desert of the western Pei-shan
became wholly impassable through desiccation.

To Chiang-ssŭ-yeh this weary desert journey recalled
associations of a more personal nature. At the wretched
station, appropriately named 'K'u-shui' after its more than
usually brackish water, he related quite humorously how
he had been returning to his native Hu-nan some nineteen
years before, and how his travelling companion had here
fallen ill and died. He packed up the corpse in what felts
he could raise at these hovels and took it along in his cart
to An-hsi. He had previously performed the funeral rites
and taken the precaution to burn a well-penned prayer to
the dead man's spirit, asking him to preserve the corpse in
fair condition for a week and to prevent a breakdown of

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国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト 『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

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国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ