National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

> > > >
Color New!IIIF Color HighRes Gray HighRes PDF   Japanese English
0253 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 / Page 253 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

New!Citation Information

doi: 10.20676/00000042
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

 

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.

ccxxxvii

the same traveller had previously tracked from near the Ruby-Mines up to the Sirikul. The former river is conjured by Kiepert from the east to the west of the town of Sayad, and identified by him with the BolorWakhsh River : the latter, under a new name, Duwcin, due to the anonymous German, occupies quite a subordinate position, and is introduced into the Kokcha about half-way between Fyzabad and Kila'h-Chap ; a clandestine union surely ! at a spot within a few miles of which Wood passed twice without being aware of it, and within five and twenty miles of which he lived for several weeks. Veniukhof's treatment of this admirable traveller is equally violent, and we have already seen how he fares at the hands of the Schlagintweits. Surely this is geography run mad.

Perhaps Wood's own map suggests the real point of union, though without recognising its importance. In J. Walker's map of Wood's surveys we find the Wagish River indicated as entering the Oxus some twelve or thirteen miles to the west of Hazrat Imam, at a point of the river's course yet visited by no modern traveller. In my map I have assumed this to be the real Wakhshab, a hypothesis which has at least the advantage of not flying in the face of an honest and able traveller.

Another vexed question embraced in this field is the course of the main feeder of the Yarkand river. According to Moorcroft's information, probably derived from Izzetoollah' (see J.R.G.S., vol. i, p. 245), this rises in the north face of the Karakorum Pass, and flows in a northerly (north-westerly) direction to a point where it receives drainage from the (Eastern) Sarikul, and the Bolor Mountains, and then turns east (north-east) towards Yarkand. But, according to the best interpretation, I can put upon the Chinese Hydrography translated by Julien (N. Ann. des Voyages, 1846, iii, 23, segq.), the river rising in Karakorum, which I take to be that there termed Tingdsapuho, only joins the stream from Karchu and Sarikul below Yarkand. In the map I have hypothetically adopted the latter view, but with no great confidence. I may add that both the authorities just cited illustrate the name given by Goes to the mountain between Sarikul and Yanghi-Hisar (Chechalith, no doubt misread for Chechalich),1 the Chinese terming it Tsitsikling, and Moor-croft Chechuklik or " Place of Flowers".

Before concluding, I venture to contribute two or three remarks in aid of the discussion regarding the anonymous German Traveller.

Abdul Medjid, the British messenger in 1860, made nineteen long marches from Fyzabad to the Karakul. The German is only eleven days, less some days' halt, say only eight days, from Karakul to Badakhshan (Fyzabad).

The German represents the city just named as on the south side of

1 See p. 563, infra.