A Chinese Geographical Text of the Ninth Century.

Extract

The Stein Collection of MSS. from Tun–huang at the British Museum, so rich in other respects, includes very few documents of a purely topographical nature. The two most interesting texts belonging to this class are the Tun huang lu (S. 5448), which was published with translation and notes in the JRAS. for July, 1914, and the present roll (S. 367), which is unfortunately imperfect at the beginning and lacks a title. The Tun huang lu deals with the district immediately surrounding Tun-huang itself, but the other treatise goes farther afield, and follows the “ southern route ” as far as Charchan, after which it doubles back to the oasis of Hāmi and the neighbouring territory. If Sha Chou was the starting-point, it is not likely that much has been lost at the beginning, since the first paragraphs are concerned with the Nan-hu oasis, which is only some 30 miles distant from that centre.