VII. Kiria (See Note 1 To Last Chapter) To CHACHAN And LOB
(From Native Information)."
This first revealed to me the continued existence of Marco's Charchan; for
it was impossible to doubt that in the CHACHAN and LOB of this Itinerary
we had his Charchan and Lop; and his route to the verge of the Great
Desert was thus made clear.
Mr. Johnson's information made the journey from Kiria to Charchan to be 9
marches, estimated by him to amount to 154 miles, and adding 69 miles from
Ilchi to Kiria (which he actually traversed) we have 13 marches or 223
miles for the distance from Ilchi to Charchan. Mr. Shaw has since obtained
a route between Ilchi and Lob on very good authority. This makes the
distance to Charchan, or Charchand, as it is called, 22 marches, which
Mr. Shaw estimates at 293 miles. Both give 6 marches from Charchand to
Lob, which is in fair accordance with Polo's 5, and Shaw estimates the
whole distance from Ilchi to Lob at 373, or by another calculation at 384
miles, say roundly 380 miles. This higher estimate is to be preferred to
Mr. Johnson's for a reason which will appear under next chapter.
Mr. Shaw's informant, Rozi of Khotan, who had lived twelve years at
Charchand, described the latter as a small town with a district extending
on both sides of a stream which flows to Lob, and which affords Jade.
The people are Musulmans. They grow wheat, Indian corn, pears, and apples,
etc., but no cotton or rice. It stands in a great plain, but the mountains
are not far off. The nature of the products leads Mr. Shaw to think it
must stand a good deal higher than Ilchi (4000), perhaps at about 6000
feet. I may observe that the Chinese hydrography of the Kashgar Basin,
translated by Julien in the N. An. des Voyages for 1846 (vol. iii.),
seems to imply that mountains from the south approach within some 20 miles
of the Tarim River, between the longitude of Shayar and Lake Lop. The
people of Lob are Musulman also, but very uncivilised. The Lake is salt.
The hydrography calls it about 200 li (say 66 miles) from E. to W. and
half that from N. to S., and expresses the old belief that it forms the
subterranean source of the Hwang-Ho. Shaw's Itinerary shows "salt pools"
at six of the stations between Kiria and Charchand, so Marco's memory in
this also was exact.
Nia, a town two marches from Kiria according to Johnson, or four
according to Shaw, is probably the ancient city of Ni-jang of the ancient
Chinese Itineraries, which lay 30 or 40 miles on the China side of Pima,
in the middle of a great marsh, and formed the eastern frontier of Khotan
bordering on the Desert. (J. R. G. S. XXXVII. pp. 13 and 44; also Sir H.
Rawlinson in XLII. p. 503: Erskine's Baber and Humayun, I. 42; Proc.
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