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NOVEMBER, 1917)
A THIRD JOURNEY OF EXPLORATION IN CENTRAL ASIA
251
Afrazgul Khan to the Survey Department's service under conditions which open up to this capable young assistant the amply deserved prospects of a good career. When I subsequently paid a brief visit to Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, at Lahore, I had the great satisfaction of learning from this kind old friend that the splendid services which R. B. Lal Singh had rendered to Government for a lifetime were to be recognized by a grant of land on one of the new Punjab canals. It meant the realization of my devoted old travel companion's most cherished hope, and a reward such as I had always wished to secure for him. Finally, after the middle of March I reached Srinagar, in Kashmir, my favourite base, from which my expedition had been begun in July, 1913. It had lasted close on two years and eight months, and the aggregate of the distances covered by my marches amounted to nearly 11,000 miles.
At Srinagar the 182 cases of my collection of antiquities from Turkestan had safely arrived by October, and there the greatest part of the work demanded by its arrangement and detailed examination will have to be done with the expert help of my old friend and collaborator, Mr. F. H. Andrews, now Director of the Technical Institute and Industrial Art School of the Kashmir State.
The elucidation of the antiquities brought to light by the thousand, and in such great variety of place, time, and character, will involve heavy and manifold labours, and for them and the proper decipherment of the abundant manuscript remains, recovered in about & dozen of different scripts and languages, the help of quite a staff of expert scholars will be needed. The Government of India, though intending that the whole of my collection shall ultimately be deposited in the new museum planned at Delhi, fully realized that this exper: help can for the most part be secured only in this country and in France, where after my former expedition, too, I had found the most helpful and important of my collaborators. So I was given permission temporarily to bring here whatever materials stood in need of specialist examination and research, and to come myself to England for a time to make all necessary arrangements in person. But after all the efforts and toils it has cost to recover those relics of past ages from their safe resting-places in the dosert it would have obviously been unwise to expose a great and valuable portion of them to the grave risks to be faced at present on a long sea voyage round the shores of Europe. So I decided to transfer myself only across the seas, and to use a short rest in England for preparing a preliminary record of the results achieved and for organizing well in advanco the work of my future collaborators.
After the greatest struggle which the history of mankind has known had lasted two years, I returned to England fully prepared for considerable changes, and I found such, some sad, some reassuring and hopeful. But no change has affected the kind interest shown in my scientific efforts by old friends within the Royal Geographical Society and outside, and the encouragement derived from this boon I shall ever remeinber with gratitude.
Before the paper the President of the Royal Geographical Society said : Our business this evening is to welcome Sirurel Stein, one of our most distinguished Asiatic travellers, on his return from his third journey to the heart of Asia. He needs no introduction here We have heard him more than once in this hall, and we know how much he has done, not only as a geographer, as a cartographer, as a surveyor, but also as an archæologist. We know that his travels have led him to one of the most interesting regions on the Earth's surface, where from tirhes long before the beginning of our era the trade to and from Europe and the Nearer East crossed the Chinese frontier. Sir Aurel Stein has got so much to tell us that I am sure the best thing I can is to ask him at once to begin his discourse.
