92 E. B. Shaw— Letter from Yarkand. [Mat, 



which you make for procuring antiquarian information. I have heen trying to 

 ohtain some, but the frequent revolutions in this country seem to have de- 

 stroyed most traces of antiquity. I have, however, obtained a good number 

 of MSS., from which I hope to collect materials towards filling up the gap in 

 the history of this country between the times of Mirza Haidar and the pre- 

 sent day. Of pre-Islamitie times there are but few traces left. Khotan 

 probably contains more, witness the coin which you mention. In that 

 centre of early Buddhism with its numerous monasteries, there can scarcely 

 fail to be some relics of antiquity discoverable. 



'I have given notice at all the brass-founders' shops in Yarkand of my 

 wish to purchase any old coins that may be on their way to the melting pot, 

 but have as yet only succeeded in getting comparatively recent ones with 

 the names (almost illegible) of various Khojas. But I have now discovered 

 the man who obtained the coin you mentioned. At least he described it to 

 me as the image of a four-legged animal on one side and unknown writing on 

 the other. He says he sold it for three tangas (ten annas) to the Pandits left 

 behind by Captain Trotter. I have now despatched him to Khotan with 

 sufficient funds and with orders to make vigorous search for a month in all 

 likely places. He says the coin was found by some men digging in the 

 river banks for gold dust, and bought from them by his brother-in-law. The 

 place was not Kiria, but Doshambih Bazar near Khotan. 



' Kiria is not deserted, but is a town of some 4000 houses, and was 

 visited by Mr. Johnson in 1865. It is just on the verge of the desert, 

 which is supposed to be the site of the towns overwhelmed in the sand. 



' I hear that not long ago some images were discovered in the crumbling 

 banks of one of the rivers of Khotan, but that private diggings are not al- 

 lowed. If this is the case, I have no doubt I shall be able to get assistance 

 and information from the Dadkhwah of Yarkand, who is well disposed (as 

 are all the authorities) to help us in all our (to their eyes) curious whims ; 

 and who is moreover a learned man and interested in the past. I had been 

 hoping to take advantage of the good dispositions of the authorities to 

 investigate several old monuments bearing unknown inscriptions (probably 

 in Ui'ghur characters), which I hear of in this country, but our plans are now 

 so unsettled that I fear this must be given up. I am, however, making a 

 plunge into the mysteries of the Sarikol and Wakhan dialects, but their 

 interest is purely philological. Without a literature, no antiquarian results 

 are to be obtained for them, excepting in the possibility of tracing some 

 early extension of that section of the Indo-European race over wider areas, 

 by the light of surviving names of places explicable in this dialect.' 



