The Twelve Days' Journey
Which Marco Records Between Badashan And 'Vokhan' Are, I Think, Easily
Accounted For If It Is
Assumed that the distance from capital to capital
is meant; for twelve marches are still allowed for as the distance
From
Baharak, the old Badakhshan capital on the Vardoj, to Kila Panja.
"That the latter was in Marco's days, as at present, the chief place of
Wakhan is indicated also by his narrative of the next stage of his
journey. 'And when you leave this little country, and ride three days
north-east, always among mountains, you get to such a height that 'tis
said to be the highest place in the world! And when you have got to this
height you find [a great lake between two mountains, and out of it] a fine
river running through a plain.... The plain is called PAMIER.' The bearing
and descriptive details here given point clearly to the plain of the Great
Pamir and Victoria Lake, its characteristic feature. About sixty-two miles
are reckoned from Langar-kisht, the last village on the northern branch of
the Ab-i-Panja and some six miles above Kila Panja, to Mazar-tapa where
the plain of the Great Pamir may be said to begin, and this distance
agrees remarkably well with the three marches mentioned by Marco.
"His description of Wakhan as 'a province of no great size, extending
indeed no more than three days' journey in any direction' suggests that a
portion of the valley must then have formed part of the chiefship of
Ishkashim or Zebak over which we may suppose 'the brother of the Prince of
Badashan' to have ruled. Such fluctuations in the extent of Wakhan
territory are remembered also in modern times. Thus Colonel Trotter, who
visited Wakhan with a section of the Yarkand Mission in 1874, distinctly
notes that 'Wakhan formerly contained three "sads" or hundreds, i.e.,
districts, containing 100 houses each' (viz. Sad-i-Sar-hadd, Sad Sipang,
Sad Khandut). To these Sad Ishtragh, the tract extending from Digargand to
Ishkashim, is declared to have been added in recent times, having formerly
been an independent principality. It only remains to note that Marco was
right, too, in his reference to the peculiar language of Wakhan; for
Wakhi - which is spoken not only by the people of Wakhan but also by the
numerous Wakhi colonists spread through Mastuj, Hunza Sarikol, and even
further east in the mountains - is a separate language belonging to the
well-defined group of Galcha tongues which itself forms the chief extant
branch of Eastern Iranian."
XXXII., pp. 171 seq., 175, 182.
THE PLATEAU OF PAMIR.
"On leaving Tash-kurghan (July 10, 1900), my steps, like those of
Hiuan-tsang, were directed towards Kashgar.... In Chapters V.-VII. of my
Personal Narrative I have given a detailed description of this route, which
took me past Muztagh-Ata to Lake Little Kara-kul, and then round the foot
of the great glacier-crowned range northward into the Gez defile, finally
debouching at Tashmalik into the open plain of Kashgari.
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