Serindia : vol.3 / 193 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0193	Serindia : vol.3
セリンディア : vol.3

of it. Here, as in the case of the ancient oases south of the Taklamakān, the question of 'desiccation' is bound to force itself upon the attention of the antiquarian student.

On January 25 I left Kuchā town, and on the following day reached Shahyār, the furthest settlement to the south and now the head-quarters of a separate district. A day's halt had to suffice for the last preparations, which included the raising of a month and a half's supplies for my relatively large party, and after moving south across the frozen Tārim we left the last shepherds' huts behind on January 30. The trying and, as experience showed, distinctly hazardous journey across high dunes for a marching distance of close on 180 miles has been fully described in my Personal Narrative.² The detailed account given there of the physical features of the true 'Sea of Sand' we traversed renders it unnecessary to record here the manifold observations of geographical interest which this desert crossing enabled me to make, and which the Maps Nos. 30, 35, 36 will help to illustrate in their topographical aspects. It must suffice here to indicate those few points which have a bearing, direct or indirect, on the question whether this vast dune-covered area has been visited by man during historical or prehistorical times.³

From the Achchik-daryā (Map No. 35. B. 2), where we crossed the last traceable dry bed occasionally receiving water from the Tārim, to our Camp 317 (Map No. 35. B. 4), a direct distance of about 28 miles, the east-west bearing of the high sand ridges, or 'Dawāns', crossed in succession, lay approximately parallel to the Tārim. This furnished a clear indication that the system of drift-sand formations on this ground was mainly influenced by the great riverine belt that it borders. The patches of bare clay crossed here in places, however, did not yield any stone-age or other relics such as would mark ground occupied by small temporary settlements of hunters or herdsmen in prehistoric times.

From Camp 317 to the south, a distinct change made itself noticeable in the configuration of the high ridges of sand as distinguished from individual dunes. The 'Dawāns', too distant from our track for any safe estimate of height, but certainly rising in places up to 150 feet or more and continuous for miles, now invariably bore from north-north-east to south-south-west. This is, as the general map will show at a glance, exactly the general bearing of the course of the lower Keriya River, which itself is determined by the configuration of the slope contours in this part of the great desert basin. This direction of the Dawāns is an unmistakable sign that the Keriya River once reached so far; for it is a constant observation made everywhere, both in the Taklamakān and in the Lop region, that the drift-sand near river-beds, whether dead or still carrying water, is heaped up in 'Dawāns' parallel to the latter.⁴

A striking confirmation is supplied by the fact that in the groups of living Toghraks which were met with at short intervals for a direct distance of over 13 miles south of Camp 317, as seen in Map No. 35. B. 4, the trees were found everywhere growing in lines roughly directed from north-east to south-west or north to south. The tendency of wild poplars and other trees in the riverine jungle belts of the Tārim Basin to range themselves close to the river banks or parallel to them is a well-established fact.⁵ I may add that the identical bearing was observed also in the rows of Toghraks, living or more frequently dead, that were met with at rare intervals on the three marches south of Camp 318. Water, which up to this halting-place was obtained from shallow wells dug in

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