ABSTRACT
When Macartney looked down on the plain of the Tarim Basin from the heights of the Pamirs and surveyed the world where he was to spend the rest of his career he saw what appeared to be an endless desert stretching away to the east, one of the driest regions in the whole of Asia. On the north, west and south the desert was enclosed by lofty mountain ranges; the Tien Shan or Celestial Mountains to the north, the Pamirs to the west, and the Kunlun–Karakoram complex forming the border with India to the south. From this last range ran the Yarkand river which under the name of Tarim flowed eastwards when it reached the plain until it lost itself in the swamps and sands of the Lop Nor district south of Kucha. Smaller glacier-fed streams also flowed into the plain and, where they broke through the skirts of the mountains, patches of oasis like jewels strung on a necklace circled the desert. The old silk route on which Marco Polo had travelled to China linked Kashgar, the most westerly oasis, with the southern towns of Yarkand, Karghalik, Khotan, Keriya and Charchan, and then ran east by Lop Nor into the heart of China. A similar historic road ran north along the foot of the Tien Shan linking Kashgar with Aksu, Kucha, Turfan, Hami and Urumchi, the capital of Sinkiang.
