222 Col. Waterhouse— -BiVc^i harJc MS. from KashgaHa. [ISToT, 



the Shaliyar river, and are said to be the remains of Afrasiab's capital. 

 The town must have been of considerable extent, but has been greatly 

 reduced owing to the action of the river. On the cliffs on the left bank^ 

 high up in mid-air, may be seen the remains of houses still hanging, 

 on to the face of the cliffs." 



" One of the houses I entered was shaped as shown below. 



A. B. represents a tunnel, 60 yds. X 4 yds., through a tongue- 

 shaped hill ; C and D are the entrances, the hill being almost perpendi- 

 cular at A and B ; 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. are cells roughly 6 feet x 6 feet. The 

 walls have been plastered, and what appear to be the remains of geo- 

 metrical patterns can be made out," 



" I was told that the remains of other similar towns may be seen in 

 the district. In Taqub Beg's time a lot of gold was dug up." 



" I believe the ruins and MS. to be Buddhist." 



Of the coins two were found in the ruins of Shahr i Bab8.r, one of 

 the ancient towns of Takla Makan, now lying under the sands of the 

 Gobi Desert." 



Babu Sarat Chandra Das said, the MS. was very ancient and of 

 great interest, and kindly promised to try and decipher it. 



[He has since written to say that both Lama Phuntshog and he 

 had failed in their endeavour to decipher this very ancient and rare 

 MS. unearthed by Lieut. Bower in Eastern Tu.rkestan — the country 

 which he had identified with the Liyul of the Tibetan and Ktimsa Besa 

 of the Indians in his contribution on the antiquities of Khoten, {Journal, 

 Part I, 1886). In that paper it was noticed that there existed in 

 Khoten and the countries north of it numerous Buddhist works in a 

 form of Sanskrit. The Chinese traveller Fa Hian also testified to that. 

 He believes that tliis MS. is the only remnant (come to light after 



