CHAPTER LXl. 
BORASAN AND ITS ARCH^IOLOGICAL REMAINS 
O N January 9th, 1896, I made an excursion ^to the 
village of Borasan, about three miles west of Khotan, 
one of the most important sites in Central Asia for the 
discovery of remarkable antiquities. The surface of the 
earth consists there of yellow loess-clay, as geologists call 
the loose soil which the wind has drifted up, in layers 
twenty-five feet thick, on the top of the hard stony con- 
glomerate strata which form its basis. Through this soft 
upper material a stream, partly fed by springs, has cut its 
way down to the underlying conglomerate, having carved 
out a deep trench or canon, with vertical, broken walls. 
In spring and summer, when the snows melt on the 
northern versant of the Kwen-lun Mountains, the stream 
swells to the dimensions of a river, and undermining the 
loess terraces, washes them away. In the autumn, after 
the summer floods are over, numerous relics of ancient 
industry, witnessing to a high degree of artistic skill, are 
found in those places where the torrent has swept away 
the crumbling loess. Small articles in terra-cotta, bronze 
images of Buddha, engraved gems, coins, and so forth— 
these are the objects which come to light. To the inhabi- 
tants of Khotan these things, unless they are made of gold 
or silver, are valueless, and they give them to their children 
to play with. But to the archseologist they possess an 
extraordinarily high value ; for they exhibit proofs that the 
ancient arts of India, as refined by the influence of Greece, 
penetrated even to the very heart of Asia. 
As I have just said, it was in the beginning of January 
when I visited Borasan. The stream was at that time 
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