766 EXPLORATION IN CHINESE TURKESTAN. 



discussion of the archfeolog^ical evidence as to the causes which led to 

 the abandonment of this advanced settlement. There is every reason 

 to believe that this abandonment was a gradual one, and in no way con- 

 connected with any sudden physical catastrophe. The Sodom and 

 Gomorrha legends heard all over Turkestan about "old towns" sud- 

 denly submerged under the sand dunes are more ancient than the ruins 

 of Dandan-Uilik themselves and interesting as folklore. But where we 

 have plain historical and antiquarian evidence to the contrary, scien- 

 tific inquiry can have no concern with them. 



On January 6 I dismissed my Tawakkel laborers who had worked 

 so valiantly, and after a three-days' march over truly forbidding 

 ground, struck the Keriya Darya. The successive ridges of sand, 

 rising to heights of about 200 feet, were the most formidable I ever 

 crossed. A four-days' march along the hard-frozen river brought us 

 to the oasis and town of Keriya, where Khon-Daloi, the amban, 

 accorded me the heartiest welcome. There I first heard of the exist- 

 ence of "an old town" — kone shahr, as all ruins are popularly called 

 in Turkestan — in the desert north of the well-known pilgrimage place 

 of Imam-Jafar-Sadik. The information was very scanty, and the dis- 

 tance great. But certain indications pointed to a site of special inter- 

 est; so I decided to set out for it after a few days' halt needed to rest 

 my followers. 



At Niya, which is the easternmost permanently inhabited place of 

 the district, just as in the days of Hiuen Tsiang, who notices it under 

 the name of Ni-jang, I received most encouraging proof that 1 was on 

 the wa}' to a site far older and hence more important than any 1 had 

 examined so far. Owing to its great distance, the Khotan " treasure 

 seekers" knew, luckily, nothing of it. An adventurous young vil- 

 lager from Niya was the only man who in recent years had visited the 

 ruins. From one of the ruined houses he had picked up two small 

 wooden tablets. When they were brought to me 1 noticed at once 

 that the wa-iting they contained was in the ancient Indian script known 

 as Kharoshthi, and of a tj^pe that chronologically belongs to the first 

 and second centuries of our era. I hid my delight as well as 1 could, 

 and pushed on still more rapidly, after securing a suflicient number of 

 laborers and the needful supplies for prolonged excavations. After a 

 three days' march through the belt of thick jungle which lines the 

 winding course of the Niya River through the desert, the curious 

 shrine of Imam Jafar Sadik was reached. There the river finally 

 loses itself in the sands, and as water can not be obtained by dig- 

 ging, we had to depend for our further progress on what could be 

 carried along from that locality. Fortunately the intense cold still 

 prevailing througlithis and the following month (on January 20 I reg- 

 istered a mininuun of 12- F. below zero) permitted its convenient and 

 regular transport in the form of ice. 



