Serindia : vol.3 / 76 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0076	Serindia : vol.3
セリンディア : vol.3

via Hāmi must have become practically what it is still now, the main channel for trade and military
movements alike between China and Central Asia.

Scarcity of
fodder, fuel,
and water. Whether on the main road from An-hsi to Hāmi or on any of the previously mentioned tracks
leading more or less parallel to it and over ground closely corresponding in character,² the movements
of troops and of convoys for them must at all times have been seriously hampered by the diffi-
culties about securing a sufficiency of reed straw, and in places even of water, for a large number of
animals. To these must be added the equally great dearth of fuel, a trouble which the bitterly cold
winter climate of the Pei-shan plateaus and the prevalence of icy north-east winds in the spring must
always make particularly felt. It was thus easy for me, from what I observed on this journey and
from the accounts of living witnesses, to appreciate the efforts which it had cost the Chinese, operating
from the Kan-su marches recovered after the great Tungan rebellion, to assemble at Hāmi the
relatively large force which overawed and quickly extinguished the Muhammadan dominion set up
by Yāqūb Beg in Chinese Turkestān.

Operations
through
Pei-shan
difficult. The difficulties which had to be overcome in the course of similar operations during Han and
T'ang times are bound to have been equally serious. Even if we assume that desiccation may to
some extent have affected the supply of water, grazing, and fuel available in this central portion of
the Pei-shan since those times, there is plenty to show that it was then too a 'Gobi', not without
reason dreaded by the Chinese. It must also be remembered that the enemies against whom the
Chinese had to contend, when opening up and securing this vital line of communication on
those early conquests, were far more formidable, not merely in military strength but also by the
fact of their being nomads. Accustomed by their wanderings to cross barren tracts and with mounts
trained to face privations and big distances, Huns, Turks, or Mongols could not have experienced
anything like the same difficulties as the Chinese in operating across a desert which even now
possesses occasional wells and springs and scattered patches of grazing. The experience gained
on this journey and the still more instructive experience furnished in 1914 by the exploration
of hitherto unsurveyed routes from the Su-chou River to the north-east of Hāmi have enabled me to
realize better how in ancient times parties of raiding Huns could push south from the T'ien-shan for
attacks on the Tun-huang Limes, before the desert of the western Pei-shan became wholly impass-
able through desiccation. With men and animals hardened by nomadic existence and with local
knowledge secured long beforehand, large bands of raiders from the north might even at the present
day be able to penetrate rapidly through the great natural barrier interposed by the central
and eastern Pei-shan.

Hsüan-
tsang's
desert
journey
to Hāmi. To the Chinese, with their strongly fixed notions of civilized existence, this desert crossing must
have at all times presented a distinctly deterrent aspect, whether they had to face it as soldiers,
traders, or casual travellers. This fact is brought home to us in a very striking fashion by the
interesting account which the Life of Hsüan-tsang has preserved of the great pilgrim's adventurous
journey through the desert from Kua-chou to I-wu, or Hāmi. The questions concerning its starting-
point and the position which the Yü-mên kuan station occupied at the time have already been fully
discussed above.⁴ I have shown there, I believe, that Hsüan-tsang set out for his desert crossing ⁴ᵃ

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