The Paper In The Geographical Society's
Journal, Which Has Been Referred To, Demonstrates How These Erroneous
Data Must Have Originated.
It shows that the Jesuit geography was founded
on downright accidental error, and, as a consequence, that the narratives
which profess de visu to corroborate that geography must be downright
forgeries.
When the first edition was printed, I retained the belief in a
Bolor where the Jesuits placed it.
[The Chinese traveller, translated by M. Gueluy (Desc. de la Chine
occid. p. 53), speaks of Bolor, to the west of Yarkand, inhabited by
Mahomedans who live in huts; the country is sandy and rather poor.
Severtsof says, (Bul. Soc. Geog. XI. 1890, p. 591) that he believes that
the name of Bolor should be expunged from geographical nomenclature as a
source of confusion and error. Humboldt, with his great authority, has too
definitely attached this name to an erroneous orographical system.
Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon says that he "made repeated enquiries from
Kirghiz and Wakhis, and from the Mir [of Wakhan], Fatteh Ali Shah,
regarding 'Bolor,' as a name for any mountain, country, or place, but all
professed perfect ignorance of it." (Forsyth's Mission.) - H. C.]
The J. A. S. Bengal for 1853 (vol. xxii.) contains extracts from the
diary of a Mr. Gardiner in those central regions of Asia. These read more
like the memoranda of a dyspeptic dream than anything else, and the only
passage I can find illustrative of our traveller is the following; the
region is described as lying twenty days south-west of Kashgar: "The Keiaz
tribe live in caves on the highest peaks, subsist by hunting, keep no
flocks, said to be anthropophagous, but have handsome women; eat their
flesh raw." (P. 295; Pelerins Boud. III. 316, 421, etc.; Ladak, 34,
45, 47; Mag. Asiatique, I. 92, 96-97; Not. et Ext. II. 475, XIV. 492;
J. A. S. B. XXXI. 279; Mr. R. Shaw in Geog. Proceedings, XVI. 246,
400; Notes regarding Bolor, etc., J. R. G. S. XLII. 473.)
As this sheet goes finally to press we hear of the exploration of Pamir by
officers of Mr. Forsyth's Mission. [I have made use of the information
collected by them. - H. C.]
[1] "Yet this barren and inaccessible upland, with its scanty handful of
wild people, finds a place in Eastern history and geography from an
early period, and has now become the subject of serious correspondence
between two great European Governments, and its name, for a few weeks
at least, a household word in London. Indeed, this is a striking
accident of the course of modern history. We see the Slav and the
Englishman - representatives of two great branches of the Aryan race,
but divided by such vast intervals of space and time from the original
common starting-point of their migration - thus brought back to the lap
of Pamir to which so many quivering lines point as the centre of their
earliest seats, there by common consent to lay down limits to mutual
encroachment." (Quarterly Review, April, 1873, p. 548.)
[2] Ibn Haukal reckons Wakhan as an Indian country.
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