Indian Antiquary Vol 46

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 244

230
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[OCTOBER, 1917
important branch among the modern representatives of the Eastern Iranian language group. At the pretty little Russian post of Xu, which faces the main settlement of Ishkashmi, I enjoyed the kind hospitality of Captain Tumanovich, its commandant, and benefited much by his local knowledge and help. Then I passed down the Oxus through the very confined portion of the valley known as Garan, which until the recent construction of a bridle-path with Russian help was ground very difficult of access, even on foot, and visited Colonel Yagello's headquarters at Kharuk. It iies at the fertile debouchure of the Shughnan valleys, where the cart road now crossing the Pamirs erds, and proved a very pleasant spot, boasting of fine fruit gardens, and to my surprise, even of electric light.
The relative abundance of fertile arable land, and the facility of communication both with the Pamirs and the rich grazing uplands of Badakhshan, have always given to the valleys of Shughnan a certain historical importance. They figure often in Chinese and early Muhammadan accounts of the Middle Oxus region. So I was glad to visit in succession the two main valleys of Shakh-darra and Ghund. Considering that the Shughni people have always been noted for their fondness for roaming abroad, in the old days as raiders, and are now as pedlars and servants to be found in all towns from Kabul to Farghana, it was interesting to observe how much of old-world inheritance in ethnic type, local customs, domestic architecture, and implements has survived among them.
From Shitam in the Ghund Valley I crossed by a distinctly difficult glacier pass, over 16,000 feet high, into Roshan. From the watershed, overlooking large and badly crevassed glaciers both to north and south, I enjoyed & glorious vista over the rolling uplands of Badakhshan, 8 region towards which my eyes have been turned for many years, and to which access still remains closed. The narrow, deep-cut gorges in which the Roshan River has out its way through towering mountain masses, wildly serrated above and very steep at their foot, proved a line of progress even more toublesome than the glacier across which we had reached them. A two days' climbing and scrambling past precipices by narrow rock ledge and frail galleries (awrinz), as bad as any I ever saw in the Hindukush, was relieved in places by the use of skin-rafts, where the absence of dangerous cataracts allowed their employment. Guided by dexterous swimmers, they made me glide down over the tossing river, forgetful of all fatigue, in scenery of impressive grandeur, amidst rock-walls which ever seemed to close in upon us. But it was a real relief when the last rock gate was passed, and we emerged once znore in the less-confined valley of the Oxus.
Roshan, just as it is the least accessible of all the side valleys of the Oxus, seems also u have preserved the Homo Alpinus type of the Chalchas in its greatest purity. The men, clean of limb and made wiry by constant movement over such impossible tracks, all showed clear-cut features, and often faces of almost classical regularity. The hamlets nestling at the mouth of the ravines were often half hidden amidst splendid orchards. The dwellings invariably showed plans and internal arrangements which were obviously derived from high antiquity, so many of the features being familiar to me from the architecture traced at early siles of Turkestan and the Indian North-West. Alpine seclusion seemed to have preserved here a small corner of the world scarcely touched by the change of ages, and I wondered whether some Bactrian Greek on a visit to Roshan would have seen much that was different from what these simple well-built dwellings show now.
After a busy delightful day's halt at Kala-Wamar, in the garden of the ruined castle of the Shughnan chiefs, I crossed the glacier pass of Adude and made my way into the Yazghulam and Vanj valleys of Darwaz, where the territory of the Amir of Bokhara was entered.