National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

depressions, could no longer be reached at the next two camps. But some miles before Camp 320,
at a point marked in Map No. 36. B. 2, I noticed the first indication of an ancient river-bed in
a narrow steep-banked depression, running from south to north, half smothered by dunes but
undoubtedly cut by water action.

North end
of dead
Keriya R.
delta. On the evening of the following day, February 6, having shaped our course now to S. 190° W.,
we reached a big 'Dawān', rising to 300 feet or so. Surmounting it we found ourselves suddenly
before a belt of dead forest that unmistakably marked the northern end of an old dried-up delta
of the Keriya River. Here at Camp 321 (Map No. 36. A. 2) a well yielding fresh water could be
dug in a depression eroded ages ago by the dying river. There could be no doubt here that we
had rightly struck, as expected, the ancient termination of the dune-covered delta in which the
Keriya River loses itself. Yet it was also at this point that the most trying portion of our desert
crossing commenced. For the difficulties encountered through want of water and guidance in this
most deceptive dead delta I may refer to my Personal Narrative. It will suffice here to state that
it took us six more marches before we discovered the shallow ice sheet of the dying river (Map
No. 30. D. 2). It had taken a new course, as it proved, some four years earlier, a considerable
distance to the west of the one which Dr. Hedin had followed in 1896 (see Map No. 30. D. 2).

First traces
of earlier
human
visits. It was at Camp 327, some 25 miles in a straight line from our entry into this forbidding dry
delta, that the first sign of human presence at a past epoch was met with in the shape of a small
worked flake of flint,4a similar to those found so plentifully on the way to the Lou-lan Site.4 It was
picked up on bare eroded ground within an ancient river-bed, and was certainly of palaeolithic
origin. Some nine miles further south and by the same ancient bed a piece of charred wood
turned up, also a sign of some human's visit which on such ground might be centuries old. But
it was not until after tramping for another 24 miles or so that we came upon definite proof of
temporary human occupation in times gone by in the shape of the badly decayed remains of
a herdsman's hut (Map No. 30. D. 1). By ascending the actual river-bed for two marches we passed
out of the area of bare dunes and dead jungle into a riverine belt of living vegetation. Finally
we found ourselves, near the grazing-ground of Yoghan-kum (Map No. 30. D. 3), at the point which
I had recognized already in 1901 as the head of the Keriya River delta. On the way we had passed
within less than four miles of the ruined site of Kara-dong (Map No. 30. D. 2) without knowing it.

Possibility
of route
from Keriya
River to
Tārim. It was in connexion with the ruins of a fortified station there explored in 1901 that I had
occasion to discuss before the possibility of a regular route having in ancient times led from the
end of the Keriya River to the Tārim, and thus on to Kuchā.4* The personal experience gained
and the survey effected on the desert crossing just briefly recorded have led me to modify to some
extent the conclusion then arrived at. I still believe that the opening up of a route by maintaining
wells and small posts along a line roughly corresponding to the one we followed, and by marking
the track where the line is particularly liable to be lost, would be practicable. The belief of the
energetic Keriya Amban who actually planned such a route, according to M. Grenard's report in
1893,5 was well founded. But in view of the almost total absence of camel-grazing between the
southernmost dry bed of the Tārim and a march or two below the shepherd station of Tonguz-baste
(Map No. 30. D. 3), and taking into account the great distance intervening, I do not think that such
a route could nowadays ever become a regular trade route.

Conditions may possibly have been somewhat better in Han or even in T'ang times, assuming
that the terminal course of the Keriya River has since then shrunk considerably through desiccation.