国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

Departure
from
Khotan.

On August 1 I had the satisfaction of seeing my heavy convoy of antiques filling ninety-three cases started on its long journey. Tila Bai, in whose care I could trust, was to take it to Sanju, and thence, when the subsiding of the summer flood would allow of further progress in safety, across the glacier pass to Suget on the upper Kara-kāsh, where I hoped to rejoin it. Two days later I left Khotan myself, and, after crossing by boat the Yurung-kāsh, which now rolled its huge summer flood in numerous beds, proceeded through smiling fertile lands and across canals, overflowing with water like rivers, to Kotāz-langar on the south-eastern edge of the oasis.

There next morning I bid farewell to Chiang Ssŭ-yeh and Badruddīn Khān, who both had helped me so manfully through those long hot weeks of trying labour. The services which Badruddīn Khān's unfailing care had rendered for my work, ever since my first expedition had proved on many occasions very valuable, even when I was hundreds of miles away from his cherished Khotan. So it was with great satisfaction that I learned later of their having helped to secure for him the coveted title of 'Khān Sāhib' awarded by the Indian Government. It was harder still to part with my devoted Chinese Secretary, the most capable and efficient helper for scholarly work in the field Asia had ever given me. But Sir George Macartney's kindness had secured for him the appointment of Chinese Munshī of the British Consulate General at Kāshgar, and I fondly cherished the hope of yet seeing him there again.

Section II.—ACROSS THE K'UN-LUN RANGES

Mazār of
Kāpak-aste.

The two long marches which followed took us across the barren gravel glacis of the massif of the Tikelik-tāgh (18,780 feet triangulated height), overlooking the plains like a huge bastion of the K'un-lun. Above one of the numerous deep ravines, all waterless even at this season, which descend its slopes, I found a strange Mazār known as Kāpak-aste ('where the gourd was dropped;' Map No. 28. c. 2). Below the collection of staffs, here hung with hundreds of broken gourds instead of the usual rags, there lies a large boulder covered on its flat top with twenty-two cup-marks of varying sizes, from 5 inches diameter downwards. Within a few yards are found two smaller flat-topped boulders, also bearing cup-marks. Local legend connects the stones with the 'Four Imāms' whose supposed resting-place is venerated at a much-frequented shrine to the north-west of Polur to be presently mentioned. On their way they are said to have halted here and shaped the stones for their drinking-cups. It is highly probable that these cup-marks are of prehistoric origin, and also that we have here another case of local worship of earlier periods surviving in Muhammadan guise.

'Kōne-
shahr' of
Hāsha.

Cultivation was first met with again in the valley of the Kara-tāsh River, where a string of hamlets, collectively known as Hāsha, stretches down the narrow alluvial belt towards Chīra (Map No. 28. c. 2). About a mile from the point where the route descends steeply from the stony plateau to the river a narrow tongue of table-land between the Gō-jilga ravine and the Kara-tāsh River bears the remains of what is known as the 'Kōne-shahr of Hāsha'. It occupies a naturally strong position, protected on all sides by steeply eroded conglomerate cliffs and curiously resembling that of Yār-khoto, but smaller. At about 620 yards' distance from the point where the plateau tongue ends, falling off towards the river in an unscalable precipice, a massive wall runs across it from ravine to ravine, cutting off access. This wall (Fig. 340) is about 120 yards long and still rises to about 20 feet where best preserved. Though massive, it is roughly built with courses of water-worn stones from the river-bed, set in clay. Two bastions, at a distance of about 30 yards from either ravine, project from the wall to about 30 feet. Between them the ground has been enclosed with a rough outer wall, about 10 feet thick, forming a kind of outwork about 60 yards long and about 25 yards wide. Within it deep pits dug by Hāsha villagers for manuring soil have