It may be justly said that during the last few years numerous traces of
Hindu civilisation have been found in Central Asia, extending from Khotan,
through the Takla-Makan, as far as Turfan, and perhaps further up.
Dr. Sven Hedin, in the year 1896, during his second journey through
Takla-Makan from Khotan to Shah Yar, visited the ruins between the Khotan
Daria and the Kiria Daria, where he found the remains of the city of
Takla-Makan now buried in the sands. He discovered figures of Buddha, a
piece of papyrus with unknown characters, vestiges of habitations. This
Asiatic Pompei, says the traveller, at least ten centuries old, is anterior
to the Mahomedan invasion led by Kuteibe Ibn-Muslim, which happened at the
beginning of the 8th century. Its inhabitants were Buddhist, and of Aryan
race, probably originating from Hindustan. - Dutreuil de Rhins and Grenard
discovered in the Kumari grottoes, in a small hill on the right bank of the
Karakash Daria, a manuscript written on birch bark in Kharoshthi
characters; these grottoes of Kumari are mentioned in Hiuen Tsang. (II. p.
229.)
Dr. Sven Hedin followed the route Kashgar, Yangi-Hissar, Yarkand to
Khotan, in 1895. He made a stay of nine days at Ilchi, the population of
which he estimated at 5500 inhabitants (5000 Musulmans, 500 Chinese).
(See also Sven Hedin, Die Geog. wissenschaft. Ergebnisse meiner Reisen in
Zentralasien, 1894-1897. Petermann's Mitt., Ergaenz. XXVIII. (Hft. 131),
Gotha, 1900. - H. C.]
CHAPTER XXXVII.
OF THE PROVINCE OF PEIN.
Pein is a province five days in length, lying between east and north-east.
The people are worshippers of Mahommet, and subjects of the Great Kaan.
There are a good number of towns and villages, but the most noble is PEIN,
the capital of the kingdom.[NOTE 1] There are rivers in this country, in
which quantities of Jasper and Chalcedony are found.[NOTE 2] The people
have plenty of all products, including cotton. They live by manufactures
and trade. But they have a custom that I must relate. If the husband of
any woman go away upon a journey and remain away for more than 20 days, as
soon as that term is past the woman may marry another man, and the husband
also may then marry whom he pleases.[NOTE 3]
I should tell you that all the provinces that I have been speaking of,
from Cascar forward, and those I am going to mention [as far as the city
of Lop] belong to GREAT TURKEY.
NOTE 1. - "In old times," says the Haft Iklim., "travellers used to go
from Khotan to Cathay in 14 (?) days, and found towns and villages all
along the road [excepting, it may be presumed, on the terrible Gobi], so
that there was no need to travel in caravans. In later days the fear of
the Kalmaks caused this line to be abandoned, and the circuitous one
occupied 100 days." This directer route between Khotan and China must have
been followed by Fa-hian on his way to India; by Hiuen Tsang on his way
back; and by Shah Rukh's ambassadors on their return from China in 1421.
The circuitous route alluded to appears to have gone north from Khotan,
crossed the Tarimgol, and fallen into the road along the base of the Thian
Shan, eventually crossing the Desert southward from Komul.
Former commentators differed very widely as to the position of Pein, and
as to the direction of Polo's route from Khotan. The information acquired
of late years leaves the latter no longer open to doubt. It must have been
nearly coincident with that of Hiuen Tsang.
The perusal of Johnson's Report of his journey to Khotan, and the
Itineraries attached to it, enabled me to feel tolerable certainty as to
the position of Charchan (see next chapter), and as to the fact that Marco
followed a direct route from Khotan to the vicinity of Lake Lop. Pein,
then, was identical with PIMA,[1] which was the first city reached by
Hiuen Tsang on his return to China after quitting Khotan, and which lay
330 li east of the latter city.[2] Other notices of Pima appear in
Remusat's history of Khotan; some of these agree exactly as to the
distance from the capital, adding that it stood on the banks of a river
flowing from the East and entering the sandy Desert; whilst one account
seems to place it at 500 li from Khotan. And in the Turkish map of
Central Asia, printed in the Jahan Numa, as we learn from Sir H.
Rawlinson, the town of Pim is placed a little way north of Khotan.
Johnson found Khotan rife with stories of former cities overwhelmed by the
shifting sands of the Desert, and these sands appear to have been
advancing for ages; for far to the north-east of Pima, even in the 7th
century, were to be found the deserted and ruined cities of the ancient
kingdoms of Tuholo and Shemathona. "Where anciently were the seats of
flourishing cities and prosperous communities," says a Chinese author
speaking of this region, "is nothing now to be seen but a vast desert; all
has been buried in the sands, and the wild camel is hunted on those arid
plains."
Pima cannot have been very far from Kiria, visited by Johnson. This is a
town of 7000 houses, lying east of Ilchi, and about 69 miles distant from
it. The road for the most part lies through a highly cultivated and
irrigated country, flanked by the sandy desert at three or four miles to
the left. After passing eastward by Kiria it is said to make a great
elbow, turning north; and within this elbow lie the sands that have buried
cities and fertile country. Here Mr. Shaw supposes Pima lay (perhaps upon
the river of Kiria). At Pima itself, in A. D. 644, there was a story of
the destruction of a city lying further north, a judgment on the luxury
and impiety of the people and their king, who, shocked at the eccentric
aspect of a holy man, had caused him to be buried in sand up to the mouth.
