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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JULY, 1917
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Kun-lun range from near Kapa by the middle of October. The work carried on at great elevations and on ground devoid of all resources implied very considerable hardships. But my indefatigable old travel companion faced them with his often proved zoal and succeeded in extending his system of triangles, based on Ram Singh's work of 1906, eastward for over five degrees of longitude before excessive cold and heavy snowfall obliged him to stop it in the mountains. Thus a net with numerous carefully fixed stations and exactly observed angles: to many high peaks had been carried well beyond the actual Lop-nor marshes and linked up at the other end with the Indian Trigonometrical Survey. Not satisfied with this achievement, Lal Singh had then continued survey work with the plane-table towards Tun-huang, taking special care to obtain many height observations by merourial barometer, eto., along his route through those inhospitable snow-covered mountains. After reaching Nan-hu he had struck through the desert north and returned by the track leading along the southern shore of the ancient dried-up salt sea of Lop. The difficulties of this track, the only one through the Lop desert, which now, as in Marco Polo's time, is practicable for caravans, were illustrated by the fact that Lal Singh's party found no ice yet formed at the most brackish of the springs along it, and consequently suffered much from the want of drinkable water.
By 15 January 1914 I left Charkhlik for Miran, two marches off to the east, where in 1907 I had made important discoveries among ruins which mark the site of the earliest capital of the Kingdom of Shan-shan or Loulan," corresponding to the present Lop region. Apart from abundant records found in a fort of the libetan period I had brought to light in two ruined Buddhist shrines of far earlier date wall paintings of great artistio interest, strikingly reflecting the influence of the Græco-Buddhist art of Gandharva and some almost Hellenistic in character. Owing to the shortness of the time then available for a task presenting exceptional technical difficulties, we had in 1907 been able to remove the frescoes from only one of these temples, that remarkable series forming the "angel" dado which was exhibited in 1914 in the new galleries of the British Museum together with other selections from my former collections. Of the paintings adorning the walls of the other shrine only specimens could then be safely taken away, and the subsequent attempt made to save the rest was frustrated by tho tragic fate which struck my old assistant Naik Ram Singh with blindness at this very place.
1 had special reason to regret this when on my renewed visit I found that a portion of the fresco frieze, representing an interesting Buddhist legend, had been broken out by a later visitor in a clumsy fashion which must have spelt serious injury if not loss. But the very interesting frescoed dado with its cycle of youthful figures, representing the varied joys of life, set between graceful garland-carrying putti, had fortunately escaped under the cover of sand with which the interior had been filled in as a precautionary measure, and this we now were able to remove intact with all needful care. It proved a delicate task, which greatly taxed the trained skill of Naik Shams Din, my “handy man," and under the icy blasts to which we were almost continually exposed the work was. particularly trying. I used the fortnight's stay necessitated by these labours also for a careful search of the adjoining desert belt north, where hidden away amidst tamarisk-covered sand cones we discovered shattered ruins of two more Buddhist temples of somewhat later date, and secured from them stucco sculptures and other relics of interest.
(To be continued.)
