Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / 707 ページ（カラー画像）

0707	Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.2

0707

Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2

中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.2

Polur people, who previously, when I noticed abandoned
gold-pits in the upper Polur gorge, had stoutly denied all
knowledge of any actual gold-digging in this region. But
it was too late then, especially as Pasa was not particularly
clever at lying, and evidently too hard-up not to be tempted
by the promised rewards. So after much trouble we pre-
vailed upon him to act as guide and to show us a track to
the uppermost Yurung-kash gorge from the north-west.
Discharging most of the Polur men and donkeys, I arranged
to leave behind a depot of all supplies for men and beasts
not immediately needed, as well as the majority of our
hired donkeys. Ibrahim Beg, with the less active of the
transport men, was to move his depot to the Ulugh-köl
lake, one march to the south-west, on the route to Ladak,
where some grazing was to be found, and to await our
return there.

Then on August 18th we set out west with much-
reduced baggage under Pasa's guidance, and after ascending
the wide barren basin to the north-west, and crossing a
relatively easy pass at some 16,200 feet above sea, reached
by the evening of the following day the deep-cut valley
of Zailik (Fig. 325). All knowledge of it had previously
been denied by the secretive hill-men of Polur. There we
found extensive gold-pits dug into the precipitous cliffs of
conglomerate just above the gneiss of the stream-bed and
evidently worked for long ages. Our irruption into this
terribly tortuous and gloomy gorge of Zailik was quite a
romantic event for the four dozen or so of gold-seekers who
try to exploit what is left of auriferous layers. To us, too,
it seemed a wonderful place—this long, rock-bound valley,
where from an elevation of about 14,500 feet downwards
all the steeply cut faces of conglomerate deposits are honey-
combed with galleries and pits often in almost inaccessible
places (Fig. 318).

It was difficult to guess how far back in the ages poor
wretches had toiled here under all the hardships of a semi-
arctic climate and practical slavery. Graves spread over
every little bit of level ground which the gorge affords
in its twelve to thirteen miles' course down to the junction
with the Yurung-kash Valley, and on all sides the roughly

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