Serindia : vol.3 / 52 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0052	Serindia : vol.3
セリンディア : vol.3

adjoined the latter at right angles, and did that at such a distance from its northern end as to make
a different period of construction, or at least a different purpose, appear likely at the outset.

Entry *intra*
*murum.* This curious observation was an additional inducement for me to spare a day for a survey of
these walls, though the historical notices to be discussed below *a priori* precluded the assumption
that they were of any great age. Before, however, recording the result of my investigation, a brief
description of Chia-yü kuan itself, as it presented itself to me, may conveniently find a place here.
Modern as the existing gate-fortress is—competent local opinion ascribed its construction to the
Emperor Ch'ien-lung (A.D. 1736–96), and there seemed to me much to support this dating—yet in
more than one aspect it was bound to recall to my mind the rôle which the Yü-mên kuan had filled
on the ancient Tun-huang Limes, however different the times and the setting. For the very pleasant
welcome which awaited me on my entry *intra murum*, or '*kuan li-t'ou*', as the Chinese phrase puts

Meaning of
name *Chia-*
*yü kuan.* it, I may refer to my Personal Narrative.⁹ But it did not need the cheerful impression thus created
to convince me that Chia-yü kuan fully merits to bear its name, which means, 'The barrier of the
pleasant valley'.¹⁰ Immediately behind the wall to the south of the little gate-fortress there extends
a delightfully green expanse of tree-bordered meadows. This refreshing verdure is due to a series
of fine springs which issue in a shallow depression at the eastern foot of the gravel ridge previously
mentioned facing Chia-yü kuan and its wall. It is from these plentiful springs that the fields of Ti-
wan, a fertile village area to the north of Chia-yü kuan comprising about two hundred households,
receive their irrigation.

*Castrum-*
*like plan of*
*gate-*
*fortress.* Chia-yü kuan itself, with the battlemented walls and towers of its square circumvallation in fair
repair (Fig. 249), is a typical example of a Chinese *castrum* fortified on mediaeval lines. Three
successive gates leading through massive bastions and inner defences give access on either side to
the single broad street traversing the station from east to west. I found most of the houses within
deserted and in ruins, except for the commandant's Ya-mên and the quarters of the small garrison
that counted some scores of men. But there was enough to show me the importance which official
tradition still attaches to the place. In the Emperor Ch'ien-lung's time evidently an effort had been
made to give a truly imposing appearance to this western gate κατ' ἐξοχήν of the Empire.

Guard-
station for
policing
administra-
tive border. Yet even then Chia-yü-kuan must have lost any military value that the position may have
offered at one time, and remained of importance solely as a guard-station for policing the inner
administrative border of the Empire; for the policy of Central-Asian expansion resumed under the
Emperor K'ang-hsi had already before the close of the seventeenth century carried the command of
the Chinese troops protecting the western frontiers as far west as Kua-chou and Tun-huang.¹¹ The
historical notices to be discussed below will show us how Chia-yü kuan ever since Ming times had
served as the place where all traffic from 'outside the Wall' was subjected to close police control.
The conquest of Chinese Turkestān under Ch'ien-lung must necessarily have affected the purpose
and methods of this control. But its essential features survived here to our own times; for Chiang
Ssü-yeh was still able to show me the little police-post within the inner west gate where travellers
bound for the New Dominions or returning had to produce their papers when he himself had last

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