"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, Trespa.s.sers on the Roof of the World: The race for Lhasa, pp 2036.

"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 12728.

"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 a.s.surance": 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 39394.

"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 w.a.n.g Ta-lao-ye and Stein's pa.s.sport: w.a.n.g 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 a.s.surance": 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 1156.

"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, Stein 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 ill.u.s.tration: 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 Ma.n.u.scripts 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 169170.

"fragrant," and "believing heart": Lionel Giles, Descriptive Catalogue of the Chinese Ma.n.u.scripts from Tunhuang in the British Museum, pp 3233.

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.