CHAPTER XXXII.

OF THE GREAT RIVER OF BADASHAN.

In leaving Badashan you ride twelve days between east and north-east,

ascending a river that runs through land belonging to a brother of

the Prince of Badashan, and containing a good many towns and villages

and scattered habitations. The people are Mahommetans, and valiant

in war. At the end of those twelve days you come to a province of no

great size, extending indeed no more than three days’ journey in any

direction, and this is called VOKHAN. The people worship Mahommet, and

they have a peculiar language. They are gallant soldiers, and they have

a chief whom they call NONE, which is as much as to say _Count_, and

they are liegemen to the Prince of Badashan.{1}

There are numbers of wild beasts of all sorts in this region. 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 clothed with the finest pasture in the world;

insomuch that a lean beast there will fatten to your heart’s content in

ten days. There are great numbers of all kinds of wild beasts; among

others, wild sheep of great size, whose horns are good six palms in

length. From these horns the shepherds make great bowls to eat from,

and they use the horns also to enclose folds for their cattle at night.

[Messer Marco was told also that the wolves were numerous, and killed

many of those wild sheep. Hence quantities of their horns and bones

were found, and these were made into great heaps by the way-side, in

order to guide travellers when snow was on the ground.]

The plain is called PAMIER, and you ride across it for twelve days

together, finding nothing but a desert without habitations or any green

thing, so that travellers are obliged to carry with them whatever they

have need of. The region is so lofty and cold that you do not even see

any birds flying. And I must notice also that because of this great

cold, fire does not burn so brightly, nor give out so much heat as

usual, nor does it cook food so effectually.{2}

Now, if we go on with our journey towards the east-north-east, we

travel a good forty days, continually passing over mountains and hills,

or through valleys, and crossing many rivers and tracts of wilderness.

And in all this way you find neither habitation of man, nor any green

thing, but must carry with you whatever you require. The country is

called BOLOR. The people dwell high up in the mountains, and are savage

Idolaters, living only by the chase, and clothing themselves in the

skins of beasts. They are in truth an evil race.{3}

NOTE 1.—[“The length of Little Pamir, according to Trotter, is 68

miles.... To find the twelve days’ ride in the plain of Marco Polo,

it must be admitted, says Severtsof (_Bul. Soc. Géog._ XI. 1890,

pp. 588–589), that he went down a considerable distance along the

south-north course of the Aksu, in the Aktash Valley, and did not

turn towards Tásh Kurgán, by the Neza Tash Pass, crossed by Gordon

and Trotter. The descent from this pass to Tásh Kurgán finishes

with a difficult and narrow defile, which may well be overflowed at

the great melting of snow, from the end of May till the middle of

June, even to July.

“Therefore he must have left the Aksu Valley to cross the Pass of

Tagharma, about 50 or 60 kilometres to the north of the Neza Tash

Pass; thence to Kashgar, the distance, in a straight line, is about

200 kilometres, and less than 300 by the shortest route which runs

from the Tagharma Pass to little Kara Kul, and from there down to

Yangi Hissar, along the Ghidjik. And Marco Polo assigns _forty_

days for this route, while he allows but _thirty_ for the journey

of 500 kilometres (at least) from Jerm to the foot of the Tagharma

Pass.”

Professor Paquier (_Bul. Soc. Géog._ 6ᵉ Sér. XII. pp. 121–125)

remarks that the Moonshee, sent by Captain Trotter to survey

the Oxus between Ishkashm and Kila Wamár, could not find at the

spot marked by Yule on his map, the mouth of the Shakh-Dara, but

northward 7 or 8 miles from the junction of the Murghab with the

Oxus, he saw the opening of an important water-course, the Suchnan

River, formed by the Shakh-Dara and the Ghund-Dara. Marco arrived

at a place between Northern Wakhán and Shihgnan; from the Central

Pamir, Polo would have taken a route identical with that of the

Mirza (1868–1869) by the Chichiklik Pass. Professor Paquier adds:

“I have no hesitation in believing that Marco Polo was in the

neighbourhood of that great commercial road, which by the _Vallis

Comedarum_ reached the foot of the Imaüs. He probably did not

venture on a journey of fifty marches in an unknown country. At the

top of the Shihgnan Valley, he doubtless found a road marked out

to Little Bukharia. This was the road followed in ancient times

from Bactrian to Serica; and Ptolemy has, so to speak, given us

its landmarks after Marinus of Tyre, by the _Vallis Comedarum_

(Valley of actual Shihgnan); the _Turris Lapidea_ and the _Statio

Mercatorum_, neighbourhood of Tásh Kurgán, capital of the present

province of Sar-i-kol.”

I must say that accepting, as I do, for Polo’s Itinerary, the route

from Wakhán to Kashgar by the Taghdum-Bash Pamir, and Tásh Kurgán,

I do not agree with Professor Paquier’s theory. But though I prefer

Sir H. Yule’s route from Badakhshan, by the River Vardoj, the Pass

of Ishkashm, the Panja, to Wakhán, I do not accept his views for

the Itinerary from Wakhán to Kashgar; see p. 175.—H. C.]

The river along which Marco travels from Badakhshan is no doubt

the upper stream of the Oxus, known locally as the Panja, along

which Wood also travelled, followed of late by the Mirza and Faiz

Bakhsh. It is true that the river is reached from Badaskhshan

Proper by ascending another river (the Vardoj) and crossing the

Pass of Ishkáshm, but in the brief style of our narrative we must

expect such condensation.

WAKHÁN was restored to geography by Macartney, in the able map

which he compiled for Elphinstone’s _Caubul_, and was made known

more accurately by Wood’s journey through it. [The district of

Wakhán “comprises the valleys containing the two heads of the

Panjah branch of the Oxus, and the valley of the Panjah itself,

from the junction at Zung down to Ishkashím. The northern branch

of the Panjah has its principal source in the Lake Victoria in the

Great Pamir, which as well as the Little Pamir, belongs to Wakhán,

the Aktash River forming the well recognized boundary between

Kashgaria and Wakhán.” (Captain Trotter, _Forsyth’s Mission_, p.

275.) The southern branch is the Sarhadd Valley.—H. C.] The lowest