These Routes Would Unite In The Valley Of
Tashkurgan, And His Road Thence To Kashgar Was, I Apprehend, Nearly The
Same As The Mirza's In 1868-1869, By The Lofty Chichiklik Pass And Kin
Valley.
But I cannot account for the forty days of wilderness.
The Mirza
was but thirty-four days from Faizabad to Kashgar, and Faiz Bakhsh only
twenty-five.
[Severtsof (Bul. Soc. Geog. XI. 1890, p. 587), who accepts Trotter's
route, by the Pamir Khurd (Little Pamir), says there are three routes from
Wakhan to Little Pamir, going up the Sarhadd: one during the winter, by
the frozen river; the two others available during the spring and the
summer, up and down the snowy chain along the right bank of the Sarhadd,
until the valley widens out into a plain, where a swelling is hardly to be
seen, so flat is it; this chain is the dividing ridge between the Sarhadd
and the Aksu. From the summit, the traveller, looking towards the west,
sees at his feet the mountains he has crossed; to the east, the Pamir
Kul and the Aksu, the river flowing from it. The pasture grounds around
the Pamir Kul and the sources of the Sarhadd are magnificent; but lower
down, the Aksu valley is arid, dotted only with pasture grounds of
little extent, and few and far between. It is to this part of Pamir that
Marco Polo's description applies; more than any other part of this
ensemble of high valleys, this line of water parting, of the Sarhadd and
the Aksu, has the aspect of a Roof of the World (Bam-i-dunya, Persian
name of Pamir). - H. C.].
[We can trace Marco Polo's route from Wakhan, on comparing it with Captain
Younghusband's Itinerary from Kashgar, which he left on the 22nd July,
1891, for Little Pamir: Little Pamir at Bozai-Gumbaz, joins with the
Pamir-i-Wakhan at the Wakhijrui Pass, first explored by Colonel Lockhart's
mission. Hence the route lies by the old fort of Kurgan-i-Ujadbai at the
junction of the two branches of the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir (Supreme Head of
the Mountains), the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir, Tash Kurgan, Bulun Kul, the Gez
Defile and Kashgar. (Proc. R. G. S. XIV. 1892, pp. 205-234.) - H. C.]
We may observe that Severtsof asserts Pamir to be a generic term,
applied to all high plateaux in the Thian Shan.[3]
["The Pamir plateau may be described as a great, broad, rounded ridge,
extending north and south, and crossed by thick mountain chains, between
which lie elevated valleys, open and gently sloping towards the east, but
narrow and confined, with a rapid fall towards the west. The waters which
run in all, with the exception of the eastern flow from the Taghdungbash,
collect in the Oxus; the Aksu from the Little Pamir lake receiving the
eastern drainage, which finds an outlet in the Aktash Valley, and joining
the Murghab, which obtains that from the Alichor and Siriz Pamirs. As the
eastern Taghdungbash stream finds its way into the Yarkand river, the
watershed must be held as extending from that Pamir, down the range
dividing it from the Little Pamir, and along the Neza Tash mountains to
the Kizil Art Pass, leading to the Alai." (Colonel Gordon, Forsyth's
Mission, p. 231.)
Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon (Forsyth's Mission, p. 231) says also:
"Regarding the name 'Pamir,' the meaning appears to be wilderness - a place
depopulated, abandoned, waste, yet capable of habitation. I obtained this
information on the Great Pamir from one of our intelligent guides, who
said in explanation - 'In former days, when this part was inhabited by
Kirghiz, as is shown by the ruins of their villages and burial-grounds,
the valley was not all called Pamir, as it is now. It was known by its
village names, as is the country beyond Sirikol, which being now occupied
by Kirghiz is not known by one name, but partly as Charling, Bas Robat,
etc. If deserted it would be Pamir." In a note Sir T. D. Forsyth adds that
the same explanation of the word was given to him at Yangi-Hissar, and
that it is in fact a Khokandi-Turki word. - H. C.]
It would seem, from such notices as have been received, that there is not,
strictly speaking, one steppe called Pamir, but a variety of Pamirs,
which are lofty valleys between ranges of hills, presenting luxuriant
summer pasture, and with floors more or less flat, but nowhere more than 5
or 6 miles in width and often much less.
[This is quite exact; Mr. E. Delmar Morgan writes in the Scottish Geog.
Mag. January, 1892, p. 17: "Following the terminology of Yule adopted by
geographers, and now well established, we have (1) Pamir Alichur; (2)
Pamir Khurd (or "Little"); (3) Pamir Kalan (or "Great"); (4) Pamir
Khargosi ("of the hare"); (5) Pamir Sares; (6) Pamir Rang-kul." - H. C.]
[Illustration: Horns of Ovis Poli.]
Wood speaks of the numerous wolves in this region. And the great sheep is
that to which Blyth, in honour of our traveller, has given the name of
Ovis Poli.[4] A pair of horns, sent by Wood to the Royal Asiatic
Society, and of which a representation is given above, affords the
following dimensions: - Length of one horn on the curve, 4 feet 8 inches;
round the base 14-1/4 inches; distance of tips apart 3 feet 9 inches. This
sheep appears to be the same as the Rass, of which Burnes heard that the
horns were so big that a man could not lift a pair, and that foxes bred in
them; also that the carcass formed a load for two horses. Wood says that
these horns supply shoes for the Kirghiz horses, and also a good
substitute for stirrup-irons. "We saw numbers of horns strewed about in
every direction, the spoils of the Kirghiz hunter. Some of these were of
an astonishingly large size, and belonged to an animal of a species
between a goat and a sheep, inhabiting the steppes of Pamir.
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