Identifier: ruinsofdesertcat01stei (find matches)
Title: Ruins of desert Cathay : personal narrative of explorations in Central Asia and westernmost China
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Stein, Aurel, Sir, 1862-1943 Archaeological Survey of India
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Macmillan
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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yors camelssteering towards us. On this great expanse of uniformlyhigh dunes even the figure of a man standing on the crestmakes a landmark. When Ram Singh had joined me Ilearned with some dismay that the guidance of IslamAkhun, the Niya villager who had offered to show ruinsnewly discovered away to the east, had failed completely. He persisted in marching northward in manifest contra-diction to his own previous indications, and when no ruins ofany sort were met with after a long days march, confessedto having lost his bearings. He then on the next dayendeavoured to pick up some guiding points by steeringsouth-eastwards. But his confusion became so manifestin the end that the Surveyor thought it prudent to headagain for my camp before the camels, which showed signsof exhaustion, broke down. Ram Singh on this Odysseyhad reached a point fully thirteen miles farther north thanmy last camp of 1901, and his testimony as to the completeabsence of ancient structural remains in that direction
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^ z > to >^ ^ ^ 5 W I E ! o CH. Kxiii FASCINATION OF DESERT 279 helped greatly to keep me to the ample antiquarian tasksin hand and before me. Curiously enough, though thedunes were steadily rising, the Surveyor had found at hisnorthernmost camp a group of living Toghraks, evidence,perhaps, of the subsoil water from the Niya River comingnearer to the surface there than over the greater partof the ancient site. It seemed highly probable that Islam Akhun, like hisgreat namesake, the Khotan forger of happy memory, hadindulged in romancing. Yet his statement as to ruins tothe east of those previously explored by me could not beleft untested merely because he had chosen a wrongbearing. So next morning Ibrahim, with two enterprisingcompanions and a goat-skin full of water, was sent out toreconnoitre independently eastward. I myself had ad-vanced so far with the clearing of the ruined dwellings inthe north-western group that I could avail myself of thecamels bringing the first fresh co

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