KARGALIK TO KHOTAN 
739 
with planks and posts ; but the interior was choked with 
dust and sand, from amongst which we unearthed a few 
bleached bones and skulls. The shape of the latter, as 
well as the position of the tombs with respect to Mecca 
(their kebleh), proved them to have belonged to Jagatai 
Turks. Some of the skeletons were wrapped in rags ; 
but they crumbled to pieces the instant they were touched. 
My examination of the site led me to the conclusion, that 
the place had been used as a burial-ground at no very 
distant date, probably not more than two or three hundred 
years back. Judging from the traces of houses and walls 
in the immediate vicinity, I concluded that the former 
inhabitants had been driven by the encroaching sand to 
migrate further to the south. Retreats of this sort, men 
flying before the persistent invasions of the desert sand, 
must have been going on for thousands of years ; and 
there can be little doubt, that there are many strange 
thing’s buried under the sand of the Takla-makan 
Desert. 
That this region was once the seat of a very ancient 
civilization is indicated, amongst other things, by the in- 
numerable quantity of fragments of clay-vessels and burnt 
bricks which lie scattered along both sides of the great 
caravan-route, and which the native inhabitants allege have 
come from an ancient city to which they give the name of 
Nasar. Occasionally too old coins are found, and rings, 
and articles in bronze, and a multitude of fragments of 
glass. Some of these last, of a light blue and green colour, 
I brought away with me. 
The sight of these innumerable shards and fragments of 
glass lying scattered about the surface of the ground pro- 
duced at first a curious effect upon my mind ; for, when we 
dug down underneath them, we found nothing but sand 
and dust. No doubt their presence is to be accounted for 
by the action of the wind, which blows away the sand and 
dust, but leaves these objects behind, partly because of 
their shape, partly because they have a greater specific 
weight. For thousands of years the wind has gone on 
scouring away the superficial layers of the desert, and all 
