Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 100

THE INDIAX ANTIQUARY
[ MAY, 19:33
It is more difficult to make sure of the exact route followed by Marco Polo's party from Lake Victoria to the kingdom of Cascar'; for no exact indication is furnished for this part of the journey. From the fact that it took the travellers forty days through a wilderness without habitations it might be conjectured that they kept to the Påmirs north-eastward and then descended through the gorges of the Gez river to the plain south-west of Kashgar.
Leaving aside the Great Påmir and the Alai in the north which, as we shall seo, served the silk trade-route, there are two more valleys which traverse the area of the Pamîrs from east to west draining into the Oxus. But only one of these can ever have been used throughout as a line of communication. It is the route of the Alichur Påmîr leading past the Yeshil-köl lake and beyond its western extremity continued by the valley of the Ghûnd river in Shughnân. Along it leads the modern cart-road which connects the Russian fort of * Pamirski Post' with the headquarters of the Russian Pamir Division' at Khôrok on the Oxus.
That this route has seen traffic olden times is proved by what I have had already occasion to mention about Kao Hsien-chi's memorable expedition of A.D. 747. When he led his main force from the post of the Ts'ung-ling mountains' down to Shughnân he could not well have followed any other route but this. The same applies also to the itineraries, unfortunate. ly very laconie, of two Buddhist pilgrims.20 One of them, Dharmachandra, an Indian monk, wishing to return from China to his home land, travelled A.D. 747 from Kashgar to the kingdom of Shih-ni,' i.e., Shughnán, only to be forced by the disturbed condition of the region to retrace his steps to the Târim basin where he died. The other pilgrim, Wu-k'ung, passed through Shughnan, both on his way to India from Kashgar in A.D. 752 and on his return thence to China about 786. On his way out we are told that he reached the five Shih-ni' across the Ts'ungling or Onion Mountains' and the valley of Po.mi (Pamir), i.e., from the side of Sarikol.
It was by this route along the Alichur Pâmîr that the Khojas of Kashgar, fleeing before the Chinese who had reconquered the Târîm basin, endeavoured to reach Shughnan in 1759. By the eastern end of the Yeshil-köl they were overtaken by the pursuing troops and most of their followers killed in the fight. On my passage here in July, 1915, from the Sârêz Pamir I still saw at Sümetash the large stone pedestal of the inscription which had been set up by the Chinese in commemoration of their victory, the inscription having been removed by the Russians to the Museum at Tashkend. It was close to the same spot that another tragedy took place in June, 1892, when Colonel Yonoff's Cossacks on the way to annex Shughnân wiped out the small Afghân detachment which bravely held out to the last in a post guarding the route.
The valley of the Ak-su or Murghab which lies to the north and contains the Sarêz Pamir could never have served as a line of communication; for from where the valley passes into the mountain territory of Rôshân it turns into a succession of very narrow gorges in which such tracks as exist are extremely difficult even for men on foot and quite impracticable for animals. In ascending in August, 1915, from Saunâb on the Röshån side, I found no water where the bed of the Murghab had lain; for the great earthquake of February, 1911, had completely blocked the valley higher up by enormous masses of rock brought down in a landslide, and had converted a great portion of the former Sarêz Pamir into a big winding lake.
We must now turn back to Sarikol in order to sketch briefly the several routes by which thence the great western oases of the Târîm basin can be gained. The shortest and most natural would lie along the course of the river coming from the Taghdum-bash and draining Sarikol. But this soon after breaking through the meridional range in a sharp bend below
20 For references to these itineraries, cf. Innermost Asia, ii, p. 880.