Serindia : vol.3 / 271 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0271	Serindia : vol.3
セリンディア : vol.3

head, and of the old villagers I examined, there had been no change in the water-supply in their
time, nor was any remembered by tradition. So it was clear in this case that any *yangi-yer*, or new
land, that has been opened since Yāqūb Bēg's times—and its extent as ascertained by me in the
course of my survey is considerable—was the result solely of increased pressure of population and
not of a change in climatic conditions.

The evidence thus furnished by Kelpin has its obvious importance in dealing with questions No change
concerning 'desiccation' or climatic oscillations in the Tārim Basin and with the arguments for the in Kelpin
latter which may be derived from archaeological observations at abandoned sites, etc. It irrigation
demonstrates once again the need of caution in accepting the fact of extended cultivation in the resources.
past as a definite proof for more abundant water, i.e. a moister climate. This evidence deserves
all the more attention because the question as to the conditions affecting Kelpin irrigation is
singularly free from such complications as we have noted in the case of the oases of the Domoko
tract,⁷ or as must necessarily arise at oases dependent for their water-supply upon rivers the beds
of which are liable to silt up and shift. The whole of the Kelpin water is furnished by springs
which rise in a deep-cut gorge at a point known as Su-bāshi and about 10 miles from the centre of
the oasis. This gorge resembles in character that of Körum-boguz, and debouches into the valley
plain from the north-west through the narrow defile of Chong-karaul.⁸ It was interesting to note
that in spite of this limitation of the water-supply and the steady rise of the population, which the
irrigable land could no longer suffice to maintain, permanent emigration was unknown. Even
Ak-su and Korla, with their abundance of water and arable land, could not tempt the men of Kelpin
to extend the seasonal visits which many of them were accustomed to pay as labourers to these and
other northern oases.

In view of what has just been explained about the source of Kelpin irrigation it did not Ruined sites
surprise me to find the reported ruins in the immediate vicinity of, or rather within, the present adjoining
cultivation limits. *Sayāt-shahri* proved to be a small oblong circumvallation situated to the west oasis.
of a deep-cut flood-bed known as Kuchak-yāri and surrounded on the other sides by new fields
irrigated in rotation. The poorly built clay walls of the enclosure form a rectangle of about 166 yards
by 90 and rise in places from 6 to 10 feet. Their thickness appears to have been about 6 feet;
a weak parapet, about 1½ feet thick, crowned them at a height of *circ.* 6 feet above the present
ground-level. No structural remains could be traced within apart from a completely decayed low
earth mound; outside the south-west corner were seen the low clay walls of two adjoining enclosures
measuring about 50 yards by 25, but they furnished no indication of their original character. No
finds of any sort were reported at this small site, and, as occasional flooding from canals prevents
wind-erosion, not even pottery débris could be traced on the surface. Hence the date of this small
fortification remained quite uncertain. The same was the case also at the site of Munjakehe,
a small débris area only about a mile to the south of the little Bāzār of Kelpin, most of which had
been recently laid out into fields. I noticed here only scanty potsherds and a shapeless clay mound
about 15 feet high, partly dug into for manuring earth. Years before small stone ornaments were
said to have been picked up near by.

These remains at Kelpin itself having proved of no archaeological profit, I was all the more
pleased with the lucky chance which caused my visit to coincide with the return of a party of

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