Serindia : vol.3 / 201 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0201	Serindia : vol.3
セリンディア : vol.3

CHAPTER XXXI

RUINED SITES EAST AND NORTH OF KHOTAN

Section I.—The Site of Farhād-Bēg-Yailaki

A reconnaissance which R. B. Lāl Singh had, during my work at Kara-dong, carried out in Move up
the desert north and north-west revealed no traces of ancient occupation beyond that site. Nor Keriya
was information about old remains further down obtainable from any of the shepherds and hunters River.
of wild camels whom we could find. So leaving Kara-dong on February 22, I moved up the river
in order to meet as early as possible the party of my old 'treasure-seekers', for whose dispatch
from Khotan I had arranged through Sir G. Macartney's kind help before leaving Kuchā. Following
the route familiar since 1901, I was able to ascertain that the river's course above Yoghan-kum
showed but very little change, a fact fully accounted for by the high 'Dawāns' which accompany it
on both sides. On February 25 this concentration across a vast space of desert was successfully
secured when a dozen familiar 'Taklamakānchis' under old Turdi's nephew Rōze joined me at
Kochkar-öghil (Map No. 31. c. 1).

The information they brought enabled me to settle my plans and move straight to the desert Deceptive
belt north of the Domoko oasis. There they had succeeded in tracking, hidden away amidst high ground
ridges of dunes and belts of tamarisk-cones, an extensive but scattered series of ruined dwellings north of
and Buddhist shrines which had escaped us in 1906, while at work at Khādalik, some 10 miles to Domoko.
the south-west. Of the very deceptive nature of the ground surrounding these remains I had
a striking experience when, after moving from the Keriya River, as in 1901, to the terminal marshes
of the Shivul stream ¹ (Map No. 31. B. 4), we made our way westwards across the sandy jungle tract to
where the ruins were declared to be situated near the end of the Domoko-yār. Though the route
rightly taken with the assistance of our previous surveys had brought us at Camp 341 (Map No. 31. A. 4)
to within 2 miles of the principal portion of the site, my experienced guides, not having before
approached it from this side, failed to locate the ruins, scattered as they are in the maze of close-set
tamarisk-cones.² Not having found water we were obliged to move south-west, where the position
was cleared up on reaching the site of 'Old Domoko'.

In Ancient Khotan I have already had occasion to discuss the very instructive archaeological Remains of
evidence which the ruins of this extensive settlement, abandoned about 1840, furnish as to similar 'Old Do-
changes in the more distant past of this tract and about the peculiar hydrographic causes under- moko'.
lying them.³ So there is no need to refer to it again. The photographs, reproduced in Figs. 306,
308, of two of these last-century ruins may help to illustrate the initial stage through which the
homesteads of ancient settlements abandoned to the desert, such as the Niya and Endere Sites,
are bound to have passed in their time. The drift-sand was still very low, and wind-erosion had
nowhere progressed deeper than about 6 to 8 inches. But there was an interesting change since
1901 to note. Within a mile of the southern end of the deserted village area I came upon newly

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