The Traveller Is Annoyed By
Sudden Gusts Of Wind, And The Snow-Drifts Never Cease, Spring Or Summer.
As The Soil Is Almost Constantly Frozen, You See But A Few Miserable
Plants, And No Crops Can Live.
The whole tract is but a dreary waste,
without a trace of human kind.
In the middle of the valley is a great lake
300 li (60 miles) from east to west, and 500 li from north to south.
This stands in the centre of Jambudwipa (the Buddhist [Greek: oikoumenae])
on a plateau of prodigious elevation. An endless variety of creatures
peoples its waters. When you hear the murmur and clash of its waves you
think you are listening to the noisy hum of a great market in which vast
crowds of people are mingling in excitement.... The lake discharges to the
west, and a river runs out of it in that direction and joins the Potsu
(Oxus).... The lake likewise discharges to the east, and a great river
runs out, which flows eastward to the western frontier of Kiesha
(Kashgar), where it joins the River Sita, and runs eastward with it into
the sea." The story of an eastern outflow from the lake is, no doubt,
legend, connected with an ancient Hindu belief (see Cathay, p. 347), but
Burnes in modern times heard much the same story. And the Mirza, in 1868,
took up the same impression regarding the smaller lake called Pamir Kul,
in which the southern branch of the Panja originates.
"After quitting the (frozen) surface of the river," says Wood, "we ...
ascended a low hill, which apparently bounded the valley to the eastward.
On surmounting this, at 3 P.M. of the 19th February, 1838, we stood, to
use a native expression, upon the Bam-i-Duniah, or 'Roof of the World,'
while before us lay stretched a noble but frozen sheet of water, from
whose western end issued the infant river of the Oxus. This fine lake
(Sirikol) lies in the form of a crescent, about 14 miles long from east to
west, by an average breadth of 1 mile. On three sides it is bordered by
swelling hills about 500 feet high, while along its southern bank they
rise into mountains 3500 feet above the lake, or 19,000 feet above the
sea, and covered with perpetual snow, from which never-failing source the
lake is supplied.... Its elevation, measured by the temperature of boiling
water, is 15,600 feet."
The absence of birds on Pamir, reported by Marco, probably shows that he
passed very late or early in the season. Hiuen Tsang, we see, gives a
different account; Wood was there in the winter, but heard that in summer
the lake swarmed with water-fowl. [Cf. Captain Trotter, p. 263, in
Forsyth's Mission.]
The Pamir Steppe was crossed by Benedict Goes late in the autumn of 1603,
and the narrative speaks of the great cold and desolation, and the
difficulty of breathing. We have also an abstract of the journey of Abdul
Mejid, a British Agent, who passed Pamir on his way to Kokan in
1861:
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