Cat. nos. 271–273, are all copies, possibly writing exercises and all written on the back of Buddhist sutras. This panel, from a badly damaged scroll, contains a report to the court of Khotan from Dunhuang dating from the second half of the tenth century concerning envoys and other kinds of travellers going to China. It describes how the land on the way to Ganzhou was completely destroyed. It was up to the governer of Dunhuang to say whether it was safe to proceed. Another copy of most of this text is preserved in Paris, reinforcing the hypothesis that these reports may have originally been writing exercises.
Ink on paper
The British Library
Or.8212/186