Serindia : vol.3 / 27 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0027	Serindia : vol.3
セリンディア : vol.3

the above-mentioned old bed and the first halting-place, Pei-tan-tzŭ, with its spring, on the present
caravan road.

As to the exact position of the Yü-mên barrier, as established at the time of Hsüan-tsang's
departure, I am unable to state anything definite. Whether traceable remains of such a watch-
station could survive in the immediate vicinity of a river-bed subject to changes is doubtful. At
any rate my Limes explorations have solved the question as to the original position of this famous
frontier station, once far away to the west of Tun-huang, and there is reason to believe that even
in Hsüan-tsang's time its transfer to the north of Kua-chou could not have been of old date.
A passage of the T'ang Annals referring to the dispatch in A.D. 610 of the famous Chinese
commissioner P'ei Chü to Yü-mên kuan distinctly places this frontier station at the town of
Chin-ch'ang 晉昌.¹⁹ Chinese antiquarians seem to agree in considering Chin-ch'ang as a sub-
prefecture dependent on Kua-chou and situated to the east of the present An-hsi.²⁰ But its exact
position still remains to be determined. In any case it is clear that the Yü-mên barrier in A.D. 610
was not where Hsüan-tsang found it twenty years later. In the interval it may have been advanced
to the west, in conformity with the resumption of Chinese political activity in Central Asia, which
commenced soon after the accession of the T'ang dynasty (A.D. 618). How long it remained near
Kua-chou, and when and how the present Yü-mên-hsien, between An-hsi and Su-chou, came by its
name, derived from the ancient frontier station, are questions which must be left for future inquiry.

Section III.—The Ruined Site near Ch'iao-tzŭ

On June 24, 1907, I was able to leave desolate wind-swept An-hsi for the high mountains
south-eastwards. Before beginning there what was to be my geographical work of the summer,
I arranged to visit en route two sites in the outer hills of the Nan-shan which held out promise of
archaeological interest. My immediate goal was a ruined town to the south of the village of
Ch'iao-tzŭ about which a Turkî Muhammadan trader at An-hsi had first given me information,
necessarily of the vaguest character. The position of Ch'iao-tzŭ itself was quite uncertain, that
part of the lower hills within the great bend of the Su-lo Ho not having been visited by any
European traveller. For an account of the long and, owing to fairly heavy rainfall, somewhat
trying march which brought me to Ch'iao-tzŭ, I may refer to my Personal Narrative.¹ This march
took us across the outermost and absolutely barren range of the Nan-shan. It was on approaching
its foot, south of the hamlet of Huang-ch'ü-k'ou, that I first discovered that short but well-defined
stretch of the ancient Limes which assured me of the extension of its wall-line beyond An-hsi, and
to which I have already referred in the preceding section. As I could not examine it closely until
my return journey from Su-chou to An-hsi, I leave its description for the next chapter.²

The village of Ch'iao-tzŭ proved to be the chief place of a small but very fertile oasis situated
within a wide grassy plain which fills here the bottom of the broad valley dividing the two outermost

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