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

Bulungir was certainly well placed for watching the several routes through the Pei-shan by which
a nomadic enemy could make his way from Hami to the Su-lo Ho and the Kan-su marches. It
could also conveniently guard the narrow defile through which the river and the high road along it
pass some twelve miles west of Bulungir (Map No. 83. B. 2).

The low but steep and rugged spur of Wan-shan-tzŭ,⁸ a north-eastern continuation of the hill Defile of
range we have passed north of Ch'iao-tzŭ, there juts out towards the 'thalweg' of the river, and Wan-shan-
is closely approached on the opposite side by a small and almost isolated ridge representing a last tzŭ.
offshoot from the southernmost Pei-shan range. The river passes between the two in a winding
defile scarcely half a mile wide at its bottom. As the end of the Wan-shan-tzŭ spur falls off
precipitously to the river, which actually washes·its foot, the road must necessarily ascend the
terminal ridge, leading over it at a height of about 200 feet above the river bed. It is this point,
particularly easy to watch and defend, that the engineers of the ancient Limes, with their unfailing
eye for the military advantages of the ground, had chosen for bringing their border-line from the
right to the left bank. The tower shown in the map as crowning the top of the ridge facing Wan-
shan-tzŭ from the north proved on its examination in 1914 undoubtedly to date from Han times.
The clearing of the débris at its foot then yielded one or two Chinese documents on wood of that
period. The wall itself, here built mainly of rough stones, was clearly traceable along the southern
and south-eastern foot of the same ridge. On the low ground further west, where it must have
run down to the river bank, its traces had, of course, disappeared.

On the southern bank of the river and along the north-west end of the Wan-shan-tzŭ spur I was Towers
unable to discover any clearly recognizable remains of the Limes line. But that end of the spur and shrines
bears two large watch-towers close to the road, and beside the western one remains of four small at Wan-
structures of brick, which appear to have been shrines. I may add that by the left bank of the river, shan-tzŭ.
where it is first approached on the east by the foot of the Wan-shan-tzŭ spur, there are the ruins of
a well-built temple with several Stūpas, all destroyed during the Tungan rebellion and known
as Lao-chün-miao. I have had before occasion to suggest that the defile at the foot of the
Wan-shan-tzŭ spur might well have served for a 'Gate' station of the Han Limes before its line had
been extended to Tun-huang and beyond.⁹ If that had ever been the case, we might, perhaps, in
view of what has been previously explained, recognize in these shrines a lingering trace of the
local worship which appears to cling invariably to such 'Gate' sites.

Of the wall which must have continued the Limes line on the left bank of the river beyond Limes wall
Wan-shan-tzŭ I failed to trace any remains until after passing the village area of Hsiao-wan traced
(Map No. 83. A. 2). The low-lying ground here between the river and the foot of the hill range beyond
south is covered with scrub and jungle, where not actually cultivated, and on ground of this Hsiao-wan.
kind remains of the ancient agger could scarcely be expected to survive. Some five miles below
the main village of Hsiao-wan, where the road emerges from the area of jungle and abandoned
cultivation to more open ground, I came upon the ruins of a walled enclosure, about 208 yards square,
known as P'o-ch'êng-tzŭ, 'the old town'. Its walls still rise to 10–12 feet in height and do not bear
a very ancient look. Crossing beyond it the canal which carries water to the southernmost portion
of Kua-chou cultivation, I was now approaching the stretch of bare ground where on my way
to Ch'iao-tzŭ three months earlier I had sighted two towers of the Limes and the line of wall con-
necting them.¹⁰ About a mile to the west of P'o-ch'êng-tzŭ I found a much-decayed mound of clay
(marked by α on map), about 12 feet high and 10 feet in diameter, which, as it falls exactly into line