And Now I Will Tell You Of A Province Called Lop, In Which There Is
A City, Also Called LOP,
Which you come to at the end of those five days.
It is at the entrance of the great Desert,
And it is here that travellers
repose before entering on the Desert.[NOTE 1]
NOTE 1. - Though the Lake of Lob or Lop appears on all our maps, from
Chinese authority, the latter does not seem to have supplied information
as to a town so called. We have, however, indications of the existence of
such a place, both mediaeval and recent. The History of Mirza Haidar,
called the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, already referred to, in describing the Great
Basin of Eastern Turkestan, says: "Formerly there were several large
cities in this plain; the names of two have survived - Lob and Kank,
but of the rest there is no trace or tradition; all is buried under the
sand." [Forsyth (J. R. G. S. XLVII. 1877, p. 5) says that he thinks that
this Kank is probably the Katak mentioned by Mirza Haidar. - H. C.] In
another place the same history says that a boy heir of the house of
Chaghatai, to save him from a usurper, was sent away to Sarigh Uighur and
Lob-Kank, far in the East. Again, in the short notices of the cities of
Turkestan which Mr. Wathen collected at Bombay from pilgrims of those
regions on their way to Mecca, we find the following: "Lopp. - Lopp is
situated at a great distance from Yarkand.
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