IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
TO CATHAY. 5559
more they reached CALCIA. There is a people here with yellow hair and beard like the people of the Low Countries, who occupy sundry hamlets about the country. After ten days more they came to a certain place called GIALALABATH. Here are brahmans who exact a toll under a grant made to them by the King of Bruarata.l In fifteen days more they came to TALMAN, where they halted for a month, deterred by the civil wars that were going on ; for the roads were said to be unsafe on account of the rebellion of the people of Calcia.2
From this they went on to CHEM.N,3 a place under Abdulahan King of Samarkan, Burgavia, Bacharata,4 and other
Populos. But I cannot well see how his Calcia should be beyond the Oxus, nor find any evidence of Ghalchas south of that river. Gaoloshan in the Chinese tables, which is nearer Calcia than any other name, is placed 1° 36' west of Badakhshan and 0° 26' north of it. This indication also points to the north of the Oxus, about twenty miles due north of Hazrat Imam (see 11leyendor ff, p. 132 ; Russ. in Cent. Asia, p. 65 ; Amyot, Memoires, tom. i, p. 399). If Calcia, however, be Khulum, Jalalabad must then be sought between Khulum and Talikhan, about Kunduz or Aliabad, if not identical with one of these.
1 Bruarata is almost certainly a misreading for Bacharata, the term used further on for Bokhara.
2 Talhan is the first terra firma in the narrative since quitting Parwan. It is doubtless Talikhan, about fifty miles east of Kunduz, and has been spoken of in the Introductory Notice (p. 541). It is mentioned by Marco Polo under the name of Taikan (ii, eh. 22).
8 I cannot say what place this is. Hazrat I'indrn on the Oxus appears too much out of the way. But Wood mentions, at the junction of the Kokcha with the Oxus, due north of Talikhan, a mountain which he calls I-Khanam (Koh-i-Khanam? Hill of Khanam") : " Immediately below I-Khanam, on its east side, the ground is raised into low swelling ridges. Here, we were informed, stood an ancient city called Barbarrah, and there is a considerable extent of mud-walls standing which the Tajiks think are vestiges of the old city, but which are evidently of a comparatively modern era." It is possible that this was Kh anarn, and the Cheman of Goes.
4 Burgavia is probably a misprint for Burgania (as Astley in his version has indeed printed it), and intended for Farghana. The prince is then Abdulla Khan, King of Samarkand, Bokhara and Farghana. The reigning sovereign at this time, according to Deguignes (i, 291-2) was Abdul Mumin of the Uzbek house of Shaibek, which had reigned for a century in Mawaralnahr.
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