740 
THROUGH ASIA 
the time these fragments of glass and earthenware have no 
doubt kept gradually sinking lower and lower, until finally 
they have come down to their present level. Unresting, 
slowly but ever surely, the implacable wind excavates and 
levels up the dreary expanses. The aboriginal inhabitants 
themselves have observed, that the erosive action of the 
wind is incomparably greater than that of water. 
The different varieties of shards or crocks pointed to the 
following types of vessel — spherical bowls with two handles, 
some placed horizontally, some vertically ; round pitchers 
with a somewhat enlarged neck ; egg-shaped jars with a 
long, narrow neck ; thick cups of blue burnt clay, as hard 
as a stone. Some of the fragments of bricks were 
enamelled in light green. The pieces of glass appeared 
to have belonged to small bottles and dishes, and to lotus 
leaves used for decorative purposes. 
On 1st January 1896 we rode as far as Sang-uya, a little 
village of 1 50 houses. Steppe and desert alternated all the 
way, and the villages were in reality so many oases. In 
some places the road ran so close to the desert that it was 
easy to make out the sand-dunes. The mighty mountain 
masses of the Kwen-lun on the south could only be seen 
when the atmosphere was clear. At Muji, where they 
were known as the Dua-tagh, we were able to distinguish 
them, looming up in the far, far distance like a faint blue 
wall ; but at Sang-uya we were unable to perceive them at 
all. During the hot season, when the burans rage, and the 
atmosphere is thickly impregnated with dust, the traveller 
may journey from one end of the road to the other, without 
the least inkling that one of the greatest mountain ranges 
on the face of the earth rears itself up immediately to the 
south of him. That Marco Polo never mentions a syllable 
about the range need therefore occasion no surprise. 
The oasis of Sang-uya is very fertile, and produces wheat, 
maize, barley, melons and water-melons, grapes, apricots, 
peaches, apples, mulberries, cotton, onions, and other veget- 
ables. The yield is amply sufficient for the needs of the 
place ; indeed there is not seldom a surplus for export to 
the other villages in the neighbourhood. 
