e Lob-nor,
there are twelve days of desert, sandy only during the first two days,
stony afterwards. Occasionally a little grass is to be found for the
camels; water is to be found everywhere. M. Bonin went from Shachau to the
north-west towards the Kara-nor, then to the west, but lack of water
compelled him to go back to Shachau. Along this road, every five _lis_,
are to be found towers built with clay, and about 30 feet high, abandoned
by the Chinese, who do not seem to have kept a remembrance of them in the
country; this route seems to be a continuation of the Kan Suh Imperial
highway. A wall now destroyed connected these towers together. "There is
no doubt," writes M. Bonin, "that all these remains are those of the great
route, vainly sought after till now, which, under the Han Dynasty, ran to
China through Bactria. Pamir, Eastern Turkestan, the Desert of Gobi, and
Kan Suh: it is in part the route followed by Marco Polo, when he went from
Charchan to Shachau, by the city of Lob." The route of the Han has been
also looked for, more to the south, and it was believed that it was the
same as that of the Astyn Tagh, followed by Mr. Littledale in 1893, who
travelled one month from Abdal (Lob-nor) to Shachau; M. Bonin, who
explored also this route, and was twenty-three days from Shachau to
Lob-nor, says it could not be a commercial road. Dr. Sven Hedin saw four or
five towers eastward of the junction of the Tarim and the Koncheh-daria; it
may possibly have been another part of the road seen by M. Bonin. (See _La
Geographie_, 15th March, 1901, p. 173.)--H. C.]

CHAPTER XL.

CONCERNING THE GREAT PROVINCE OF TANGUT.

After you have travelled thirty days through the Desert, as I have
described, you come to a city called SACHIU, lying between north-east and
east; it belongs to the Great Kaan, and is in a province called
TANGUT.[NOTE 1] The people are for the most part Idolaters, but there are
also some Nestorian Christians and some Saracens. The Idolaters have a
peculiar language, and are no traders, but live by their agriculture.[NOTE
2] They have a great many abbeys and minsters full of idols of sundry
fashions, to which they pay great honour and reverence, worshipping them
and sacrificing to them with much ado. For example, such as have children
will feed up a sheep in honour of the idol, and at the New Year, or on the
day of the Idol's Feast, they will take their children and the sheep along
with them into the pres