THE LOST CITIES OF CENTRAL ASIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13835, 23 February 1907, Page 5

THE LOST CITIES OF CENTRAL ASIA.

News of the discovery of manuscripts in Central Asia, at least one in an unknown tongue, raises some hope of solving tlm great historical riddle of the Tartar Empire. We have reason to suppose that in high antiquity Central Asia wis dominated by a Tartar race of considerable civilisation. Sven Hedin and other travellers have found great cities half-buried in the sands of Turkestan, relics, apparently, of the race that overran Russia and actually conquered China; but so far we are quite without literary docuineuts of these people, being dependent for their history on the testimony of their enemies. We seem to trace influence on the designs on textiles and ceramics in Central and Western Asia'; but such evidence is naturally of a slight and dubious kind. It has been hoped that the Pumpeliy expedition would throw some light on these'matters, but so far preliminary surveys have revealed chiefly the remains of very primitive peoples. If a German scholar is indeed to bring us information on the early history of the Tartars, it will be a sort of compensation for the havoc that German aniline factories are working in the splendid rugs of the Turcoman region.—Nation (Now York).