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0777 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / 777 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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OCR読み取り結果

and much-needed rest. Under its influence and that of the
sea air the last of the wounds on my right foot, which had
still given me trouble at Calcutta, finally healed just before
I set foot for a brief halt in the city of Marco Polo. Thus
by the time I reached London, after the middle of January,
I was able to walk without pain and to feel quite sure of
the day when I might climb again on the mountains. But
it was to me an equally great satisfaction that all my cases
with antiques, close on a hundred in number, had just then
safely arrived there.

The return from a long journey like mine could not, I
well knew, mean rest, but only the prelude to labours in
some respects more important, and to me certainly more
arduous, than the work in the field. The scientific results
achieved by my expedition would for the greatest and
most valuable part have been thrown away if all the exact
observations bearing on the physical conditions, past and
present, of the wide regions traversed; on the ruins un-
earthed and surveyed; on the antiquities and manuscript
remains which had been brought to light by thousands,
were not to be carefully recorded by myself and thus made
available for further researches.

It may give some idea of the tasks awaiting me if I
mention that our topographical surveys, now in course of
detailed publication by the Indian Trigonometrical Survey,
on the scale of four miles to the inch, fill ninety-four map-
sheets of the standard size, every one needing my repeated
careful revision in proof, and that the mere unpacking and
first arrangement of the thousands of archæological objects
in basement rooms of the British Museum, which were
made available for what seemed like a temporary immure-
ment, took close on six months. The decipherment and
publication of the manuscripts and documents, probably
over 14,000 in number and in about a dozen scripts and
languages, are bound for a long number of years to claim
the learned labours of quite a staff of Orientalist savants.
To select them and to organize their efforts, and those of
the many expert collaborators needed in other directions,
was by itself a heavy and responsible task. Nor could
their labours be started in earnest until all facts bearing