by Joyce Morgan
“I have never believed”: Bodleian, Stein MS 297, Stein to Macartney, February 6, 1906.
“Grünwedel is ill”: Bodleian, Stein MS 296, Macartney to Stein, December 29, 1905.
“My own plan now”: Bodleian, Stein MS 3, Stein to Allen, January 20, 1906.
“The true race”: ibid., January 6, 1906.
“the most timid, unenterprising girl”: Lady (Catherine) Macartney, An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan, p 2.
“living newspaper”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 1, p 122.
“Wolves, leopards, and foxes”: Catherine Macartney, An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan, p 40.
“Baby had three falls”: Bodleian, Stein MS 96, Macartney to Stein, May 7, 1904.
“They tell me”: Catherine Macartney, An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan, p 38.
“I sometimes suspected”: ibid., p 131.
“easy-going slackness”: Bodleian, Stein MS 3, Stein to Allen, June 25, 1906.
“It cost great efforts”: ibid.
Bactrian camels are so critically endangered today that fewer than a thousand remain in the wild. See iucnredlist.org and edgeofexistence.org.
“inordinate addiction to opium”: Aurel Stein, Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan, p 116.
“captivating Khotan damsel”: ibid., p 466.
“shrivelled up with the cold”: Bodleian, Stein MS 3, Stein to Allen, June 2, 1906.
“a hardy plant”: Bodleian, Stein MS 37, Stein to Andrews, January 31, 1907.
“lively ways”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 1, p 116.
“They may turn up”: Bodleian, Stein MS 3, Stein to Allen, June 19, 1906.
“The rush past”: ibid.
“a cave by the seashore”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 1, p 124.
CHAPTER 4: THE MOON AND THE MAIL
“One may invade the house”: Aurel Stein, Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan, p 184.
“He has told me many little secrets”: Bodleian, Stein MS 4, Stein to Allen, March 5, 1907.
“I never could look”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 1, p 143.
“It was a piece of real good fortune”: ibid., p 117.
“To peep into every house”: Bodleian, Stein MS 261, part 1 of 2. Undated extract of personal narrative.
“She looked as if rising from the sea”: Aurel Stein, Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan, p 221.
Indian surveyors disguised: Peter Hopkirk, Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The race for Lhasa, pp 20–36.
“After an event like that”: Bodleian, Stein MS 40, Lionel Dunsterville to Stein, August 28, 1912.
“My care in burying these”: Aurel Stein, Serindia, vol 1, pp 127–28.
“There is thus every reason”: Bodleian, Stein MS 3, Stein to Allen, September 20, 1906.
“All Charklik is being ransacked”: Bodleian, Stein MS 3, Stein to Allen, December 3, 1906.
“I shall make a depot”: ibid.
“Had he not always tried”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 1, p 373.
“a handful when things are easy”: Bodleian, Stein MS 261, part 1 of 2. Undated extract of personal narrative.
“I felt the instinctive assurance”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 1, p 358.
“One longs for helpers”: Bodleian, Stein MS 3, Stein to Allen, December 14, 1906.
“The odours were still pungent”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 1, pp 393–94.
“The ink is beginning to freeze”: Bodleian, Stein MS 3, Stein to Allen, December 27, 1906.
CHAPTER 5: THE ANGELS’ SANCTUARY
“How sorry I am”: Bodleian, Stein MS 4, Stein to Allen, January 7, 1907.
“sweepings from the hearth”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 1, p 439.
“I sometimes wondered”: ibid., p 517.
“the slightest capacity”: ibid., p 446.
“What had these graceful heads”: ibid., p 457.
“In one chapel”: Bodleian, Stein MS 4, Stein to Helen Allen, February 2, 1907.
“I had longed for finds”: ibid., Stein to Allen, February 17, 1907.
“For my eyes”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 1, p 484.
“Truly this part of the country”: Bodleian, Stein MS 4, Stein to Helen Allen, February 2, 1907.
“This sounds hopeful”: ibid., Stein to Allen, February 17, 1907.
“a drearier sight”: ibid., March 5, 1907.
“My unmusical ear”: ibid.
“When travellers are on the move”: Marco Polo, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol 1, p 197.
“have to make the best of his solitude”: Bodleian, Stein MS 4, Stein to Allen, March 5, 1907.
“It amused me”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 13.
Magistrate Wang Ta-lao-ye and Stein’s passport: Wang Jiqing, “Stein and Chinese Officials at Dunhuang,” International Dunhuang Project (IDP) newsletter, No. 30, Spring 2007.
“I instinctively felt”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 14.
CHAPTER 7: TRICKS AND TRUST
“It gave me the first assurance”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 22.
“‘The Caves of the Thousand Buddhas’”: ibid., p 23.
“I had told my devoted secretary”: ibid., p 28.
“I always like to be liberal”: ibid., p 30.
“The gleam of satisfaction”: ibid., p 31.
“the craziest crew”: ibid., p 41.
“Across an extensive desert area”: ibid., p 64.
“I would rather be a dog’s or a pig’s wife”: Susan Whitfield and Ursula Sims-Williams, The Silk Road: Travel, trade, war and faith, p 185.
“I feel at times as I ride along”: Bodleian, Stein MS 4, Stein to Allen, April 26, 1907.
“He had spent many a hot day”: ibid.
“If they are people”: ibid., May 18, 1907.
“mental distemper”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 71.
“So I have learned at last”: Bodleian, Stein MS 4, Stein to Allen, May 18, 1907.
“The trees bent”: Catherine Macartney, An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan, pp 115–6.
“Overtaken by violent sand storm”: Bodleian, Stein MS 204, Stein diary, April 11, 1907.
“with the strength of a hidden magnet”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 164.
“The skill of man”: Mildred Cable and Francesca French, The Gobi Desert, p 63.
“There could be no more appropriate place of rest”: Bodleian, Stein MS 4, Stein to Allen, May 18, 1907.
“sound like that of distant carts”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 161.
“divine sweeping”: ibid., p 162.
“My brave [Chiang]”: Bodleian, Stein MS 4, Stein to Allen, May 18, 1907.
“He looked a very queer person”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 165.
“To rely on the temptation of money alone”: ibid., p 167.
“[But] this was not the time”: ibid., p 167.
“There rose on a horseshoe-shaped dais”: ibid., p 168.
“I could not help feeling”: ibid., p 168.
“saintly Munchausen”: ibid., p 170.
“Would the pious guardian”: ibid., p 170.
“There was nothing for me”: ibid., p 171.
CHAPTER 8: KEY TO THE CAVE
“The sight of the small room”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 172.
“There can be little doubt”: ibid., p 187.
“Such insignificant relics”: ibid., p 188.
“No place could have been better adapted”: Aurel Stein, Serindia, vol 2, p 811.
“It would have required a whole staff”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 175.
“temple of learning in Ta-Ying-kuo”: ibid., p 191.
“Should we have time”: ibid., p 174.
“embarras des richesses”: ibid., p 195.
“Independence”: Bodleian, Stein MS 4, S
tein to Allen, June 9, 1907.
“Very tired with low fever”: Bodleian, Stein MS 204, Stein diary, June 10, 1907.
“gloomy prison of centuries”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 193.
“He had already been gradually led”: ibid., p 190.
“I secured as much as he possibly dared to give”: Bodleian, Stein MS 37, Stein to Andrews, June 15, 1907.
“We parted in fullest amity”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 194.
CHAPTER 9: THE HIDDEN GEM
“Thus shall you think”: A.F. Price (translator), The Diamond Sutra.
On the earliest known woodcut illustration: Clarissa von Spee, The Printed Image in China from the 8th to the 21st Centuries, p 15.
“this ox may personally receive”: Lionel Giles, Descriptive Catalogue of the Chinese Manuscripts from Tunhuang in the British Museum, p 32.
On an official and a homesick woman who copied the Diamond Sutra: ibid., p 26.
On the woman pierced with knives: John Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture, pp 169–170.
“fragrant,” and “believing heart”: Lionel Giles, Descriptive Catalogue of the Chinese Manuscripts from Tunhuang in the British Museum, pp 32–33.
On the elderly man who mixed blood and ink: Stephen F. Teiser, The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism, p 126.
On the monk who drew blood to copy scrolls: ibid., p 127. For more on blood writing, see John Kieschnick’s article “Blood writing in Chinese Buddhism.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, (2000) 23.2, pp 171–194.
On the grumpy scribe: John Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture, p 184.
CHAPTER 10: THE THIEVES' ROAD
“trotted up gaily”: Bodleian, Stein MS 205, Stein diary, October 5, 1907.
“The single ancient Sanskrit MS”: Bodleian, Stein MS 4, Stein to Allen, October 14, 1907.
“Ram Singh’s rheumatism has disappeared”: ibid., Stein to Allen, July 28, 1907.
“asking him to keep his own body”: Bodleian, Stein MS 205, Stein diary, October 14, 1907.
“like excavating in one’s own garden”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 360.
“Robbers’ Den”: Albert von Le Coq, Buried Treasures of Chinese Turkestan, p 91.
“Somewhat in despair”: ibid., p 106.
“How much greater would be the chance”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 361.
“How often I have thanked you”: Bodleian, Stein MS 5, Stein to Allen, January 11, 1908.
“robbers and others”: Aurel Stein, Serindia, vol 3, p 1,241.
“I must confess”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 376.
“precious but embarrassing impedimenta”: ibid., p 376.
“He gave it with more ceremony”: ibid., p 383.
“Nowhere in the course of my desert travels”: Aurel Stein, “Dr Stein’s Expedition in Central Asia,” The Geographical Journal, vol 32, no 4 (October 1908), p 350.
“My secret apprehension”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 392.
“How the camels held out so far”: Bodleian, Stein MS 205, Stein diary, February 10, 1908.
CHAPTER 11: AFFLICTION IN THE ORCHARD
“I could not help smiling”: Bodleian, Stein MS 37, Stein to Andrews, March 6, 1908.
“On one occasion”: Bodleian, Stein MS 5, Stein to Allen, June 10, 1908.
“I shall be more than ever bound to the collection”: ibid.
“It is sad to think that I shall have to leave Dash”: ibid., January 26, 1908.
“Disgust at having to employ such a scoundrel”: Bodleian, Stein MS 205, Stein diary, July 17, 1908.
“You can imagine the trouble”: Bodleian, Stein MS 5, Stein to Allen, June 23, 1908.
“He suffered awful pains”: ibid., July 27, 1908.
“Marmite turned to use at last”: Bodleian, Stein MS 205, Stein diary, July 23, 1908.
“You can imagine my feelings”: Bodleian, Stein MS 5, Stein to Allen, June 23, 1908.
“You have nothing to reproach yourself with”: Bodleian, Stein MS 205, Stein diary, July 6, 1908.
“Presented by Dr M.A. Stein to Chiang-ssu-yeh”: Bodleian, Stein MS 37, Stein to Andrews, May 17, 1907.
“Often as I look back”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 1, p 117.
“Then, as I rode on”: ibid., vol 2, p 439.
CHAPTER 12: FROZEN
“He recognized me when I stroked him”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 467.
“What he succumbed to”: Bodleian, Stein MS 5, Stein to Allen, October 16, 1908.
“The world appeared to shrink”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 480.
“The aid of an experienced surgeon”: ibid., p 483.
“so gorged they could hardly move”: David Fraser, The Marches of Hindustan: The record of a journey in Thibet, Trans-Himalayan India, Chinese Turkestan, Russian Turkestan and Persia, p 264.
“Here fell Andrew Dalgleish”: Charles Murray, Earl of Dunmore, “Journeyings in the Pamirs and Central Asia,” The Geographical Journal, vol 2, no 5 (November 1893), p 386.
On the disputed territory of the Siachen Glacier: Tim McGirk and Aravind Adiga, “War at the Top of the World,” Time Asia, May 4, 2005.
“Dr [Schmitt] assures me”: Bodleian, Stein MS 5, Stein to Allen, October 16, 1908.
“I never thought of such a communication”: ibid., November 16, 1908.
“If you have a chance”: ibid., October 26, 1908.
“Things might have fared a great deal worse”: Bodleian, Stein MS 37, Stein to Andrews, November 14, 1908.
On Stein’s health in India: Annabel Walker, Aurel Stein: Pioneer of the Silk Road, p 187.
“May kindly divinities protect them”: Bodleian, Stein MS 5, Stein to Allen, December 17, 1908.
CHAPTER 13: YESTERDAY, HAVING DRUNK TOO MUCH Drunk . . .
“the value of a domestic slave”: Lionel Giles, Six Centuries at Tunhuang, p 36.
“Chief of the hundred plants”: ibid., p 28.
“Yesterday, having drunk too much”: ibid., pp 33–34.
“Yesterday, Sir, while in your cups”: ibid., p 34.
“Even if Heaven and Earth collapse”: Lionel Giles, “Dated Chinese Manuscripts in the Stein Collection,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol 11, no 1 (1943), p 160.
“What had this neat, almost calligraphic manuscript”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 187.
“Jesus the Buddha”: Tsui Chi (translator), “The Lower (Second?) Section of the Manichean Hymns,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol 11, no 1 (1943), pp 174–219.
“Nestorian Christians could safely address their prayers to”: Bodleian, Stein MS 91, Stein to von Le Coq, March 14, 1926.
“Iron snakes belched fire”: Victor H. Mair, Tun-huang Popular Narratives, pp 87–88.
Extensive work on the Dunhuang medical manuscripts has been undertaken by Wang Shumin. See http://idp.bl.uk/4DCGI/education/ medicine_society/abstracts.a4d.
On the importance of almanacs: Susan Whitfield and Ursula Sims-Williams, The Silk Road: Travel, trade, war and faith, p 82. See also: Susan Whitfield, “Under the Censor’s Eye: Printed Almanacs and Censorship in Ninth-Century China,” British Library Journal, vol 24, part 1, 1998, pp 4–22.
On the Dunhuang star chart: Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud, Françoise Praderie and Susan Whitfield, “The Dunhuang Chinese Sky: A Comprehensive Study of the Oldest Known Star Atlas,” Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, vol 12, no 1 (March 2009), pp 39–59.
On the painted silk banner retrieved by Paul Pelliot: Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol 5, part 7, pp 222–23.
On paper flowers: Susan Whitfield and Ursula Sims-Williams, The Silk Road: Travel, trade, war and faith, p 268.
&
nbsp; CHAPTER 14: STORMY DEBUT
“I am afraid you will find”: Jeannette Mirsky, Sir Aurel Stein: Archaeological explorer, p 87.
“In the course of my explorations”: British Museum archives, CE 32/23/23/2, Stein letter, May 20, 1909.
“The cellar has been made”: Bodleian, Stein MS 37, Andrews to Stein, August 11, 1909.
“He has true British terrier blood”: “Dog Explorer: Adventures of a Fox Terrier,” Daily Mail, May 26, 1909.
The story of Stein’s camp chair: George Macartney, “Explorations in Central Asia, 1906–8—Discussion,” The Geographical Journal, vol 34, no 3 (September 1909), p 265.
For more on Florence Lorimer, see Helen Wang’s article “Stein’s Recording Angel—Miss F.M.G. Lorimer,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, series 3, 8, 2 (1998), pp 207–228.
For more on the manuscripts sent to Pelliot in Paris, see Frances Wood’s article “A Tentative Listing of the Stein Manuscripts in Paris 1911–1919.” In Sir Aurel Stein, Colleagues and Collections. British Museum Research Publication Number 184, 2012. www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/12_Wood%20(Tentative%20listiing).pdf.
“extravagant multiplication of limbs”: Festival of Empire, 1911, Guide Book and Catalogue, Bemrose & Sons, London, 1911, p 17.
“epoch-making importance”: “Buddhist Paintings at the Festival of Empire,” The Times, September 7, 1911.
“Greatly delighted was I”: Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, p 189.
Stein captions his photograph: “Roll of block-printed Buddhist text with frontispiece from wood-engraving, dated 864AD.” Elsewhere he refers to the scroll with “a date of production corresponding to 860AD.” See Ruins of Desert Cathay, vol 2, fig 191 and p 189.
“Late last night”: Bodleian, Stein MS 8, Stein to Allen, June 17, 1912.
“Many congratulations”: Bodleian, Stein MS 12, Allen to Stein, June 1912.
“I cannot express on paper”: Bodleian, Stein MS 96, Chiang to Stein, July 30, 1912.
“Mr. Macartney has been kind to me”: ibid.
“Deaf as he is”: Bodleian, Stein MS 96, Macartney to Stein, October 14, 1912.
“Chiang-ssu-yeh can’t quite make up his mind”: Bodleian, Stein MS 41, Macartney to Stein, February 12, 1913.
“Massacres of Chinese officials”: Bodleian, Stein MS 96, Macartney to Stein, May 24, 1912.
“Finally there is the substantial printed roll”: British Library archives, Or 13114, “Correspondence with M. Pelliot regarding Chinese documents,” October 2, 1912. This information courtesy of Dr. Frances Wood.