Yet In The Passage Immediately Following, The Venetian Tells
Us How 'when An Army Passes Through The Land, The People
Escape with their
wives, children, and cattle a distance of two or three days' journey into
the sandy waste; and,
Knowing the spots where water is to be had, they are
able to live there, and to keep their cattle alive, while it is impossible
to discover them.' It seems to me clear that Marco Polo alludes here to
the several river courses which, after flowing north of the Niya-Charchan
route, lose themselves in the desert. The jungle belt of their terminal
areas, no doubt, offered then, as it would offer now, safe places of
refuge to any small settlements established along the route southwards."
XXXIX., P. 197.
OF THE CITY OF LOP.
Stein remarks, Ruins of Desert Cathay, I., p. 343: "Broad
geographical facts left no doubt for any one acquainted with local
conditions that Marco Polo's Lop, 'a large town at the edge of the Desert'
where 'travellers repose before entering on the Desert' en route
for Sha chou and China proper, must have occupied the position of the
present Charklik. Nor could I see any reason for placing elsewhere the
capital of that 'ancient kingdom of Na-fo-po, the same as the territory of
Lou-lan,' which Hiuan Tsang reached after ten marches to the north-east of
Chue-mo or Charchan, and which was the pilgrim's last stage before his
return to Chinese soil."
In his third journey (1913-1916), Stein left Charchan on New Year's Eve,
1914, and arrived at Charkhlik on January 8, saying:
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