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.
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