The Pievtsov Expedition "Visited The Lob-Nor (2650 Feet) And The Tarim,
Whose Proper Name Is Yarkend-Daria (Tarim Means 'a Tilled Field' In
Kashgarian).
The lake is rapidly drying up, and a very old man, 110 years
old, whom Pievtsov spoke to (his son, 52 years old, was the only one who
could understand the old man), said that he would not have recognized the
land if he had been absent all this time.
Ninety years ago there was only
a narrow strip of rushes in the south-west part of the lake, and the
Yarkend-daria entered it 2-1/2 miles to the west of its present mouth,
where now stands the village of Abdal. The lake was then much deeper, and
several villages, now abandoned, stood on its shores. There was also much
more fish, and otters, which used to live there, but have long since
disappeared. As to the Yarkend-daria, tradition says that two hundred
years ago it used to enter another smaller lake, Uchukul, which was
connected by a channel with the Lob-nor. This old bed, named
Shirga-chapkan, can still be traced by the trees which grew along it. The
greater previous extension of the Lob-nor is also confirmed by the
freshwater molluscs (Limnaea uricularia, var. ventricosa, L. stagnalis,
L. peregra, and Planorbis sibiricus), which are found at a distance from
its present banks. Another lake, 400 miles in circumference, Kara-boyoen
(black isthmus), lies, as is known, 27 miles to the south-west of Lob-
nor. To the east of the lake, a salt desert stretches for a seven days'
march, and further on begin the Kum-tagh sands, where wild camels live."
(Geog. Jour. IX. 1897, p. 552.)
Grenard (III. pp. 194-195) discusses the Lob-nor question and the
formation of four new lakes by the Koncheh-daria called by the natives
beginning at the north; Kara Kul, Tayek Kul, Sugut Kul, Tokum Kul. He does
not accept Baron v. Richthofen's theory, and believes that the old Lob is
the lake seen by Prjevalsky.
He says (p. 149): "Lop must be looked for on the actual road from Charchan
to Charkalyk. Ouash Shahri, five days from Charchan, and where small ruins
are to be found, corresponds well to the position of Lop according to
Marco Polo, a few degrees of the compass near. But the stream which passes
at this spot could never be important enough for the wants of a
considerable centre of habitation and the ruins of Ouash Shahri are more
of a hamlet than of a town. Moreover, Lop was certainly the meeting point
of the roads of Kashgar, Urumtsi, Shachau, L'Hasa, and Khotan, and it is
to this fact that this town, situated in a very poor country, owed its
relative importance. Now, it is impossible that these roads crossed at
Ouash Shahri. I believe that Lop was built on the site of Charkalyk
itself. The Venetian traveller gives five days' journey between Charchan
and Lop, whilst Charkalyk is really seven days from Charchan; but the
objection does not appear sufficient to me: Marco Polo may well have made
a mistake of two days." (III. pp. 149-150.)
The Chinese Governor of Urumtsi found some years ago to the north-west of
the Lob-nor, on the banks of the Tarim, and within five days of Charkalyk,
a town bearing the same name, though not on the same site as the Lop of
Marco Polo. - H. C.]
NOTE 2. - "The waste and desert places of the Earth are, so to speak, the
characters which sin has visibly impressed on the outward creation; its
signs and symbols there.... Out of a true feeling of this, men have ever
conceived of the Wilderness as the haunt of evil spirits. In the old
Persian religion Ahriman and his evil Spirits inhabit the steppes and
wastes of Turan, to the north of the happy Iran, which stands under the
dominion of Ormuzd; exactly as with the Egyptians, the evil Typhon is the
Lord of the Libyan sand-wastes, and Osiris of the fertile Egypt."
(Archbp. Trench, Studies in the Gospels, p. 7.) Terror, and the seeming
absence of a beneficent Providence, are suggestions of the Desert which
must have led men to associate it with evil spirits, rather than the
figure with which this passage begins; no spontaneous conception surely,
however appropriate as a moral image.
"According to the belief of the nations of Central Asia," says I. J.
Schmidt, "the earth and its interior, as well as the encompassing
atmosphere, are filled with Spiritual Beings, which exercise an influence,
partly beneficent, partly malignant, on the whole of organic and inorganic
nature.... Especially are Deserts and other wild or uninhabited tracts, or
regions in which the influences of nature are displayed on a gigantic and
terrible scale, regarded as the chief abode or rendezvous of evil
Spirits.... And hence the steppes of Turan, and in particular the great
sandy Desert of Gobi have been looked on as the dwelling-place of
malignant beings, from days of hoar antiquity."
The Chinese historian Ma Twan-lin informs us that there were two roads
from China into the Uighur country (towards Karashahr). The longest but
easiest road was by Kamul. The other was much shorter, and apparently
corresponded, as far as Lop, to that described in this chapter. "By this
you have to cross a plain of sand, extending for more than 100 leagues.
You see nothing in any direction but the sky and the sands, without the
slightest trace of a road; and travellers find nothing to guide them but
the bones of men and beasts and the droppings of camels. During the
passage of this wilderness you hear sounds, sometimes of singing,
sometimes of wailing; and it has often happened that travellers going
aside to see what those sounds might be have strayed from their course and
been entirely lost; for they were voices of spirits and goblins.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 203 of 335
Words from 205987 to 206986
of 342071
