Vladimir Nabokov The Gift: "On
occasion we would pass the day in isolated settlements consisting of two or
three homesteads and a ruined temple..."
(p.120)
Grigorii Grum-Grzhimailo (1899),
on the way from Hami to Anxi:
„Kufi is a small oasis, half covered with drift sands that
have come from the northeast; the soil is predominantly salt… The
homesteads, of which there are three, are quite miserable, small and dirty…
In addition to these pitiful buildings,… there is a small picket with a few
soldiers and a ruined
[lamaist]
temple with three giant idols lacking heads and members as
these have been knocked off by the
[Muslim]
insurgents. In Kufi we spent a day to take the bearings of this important
point in the desert”
(p.130)
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