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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. XXVIII. TIIE PROVINCE OF CASEM
155
of the Alaï steppe. (Papers by 1llanphul and by Faix Baksh; also Notes by Feachenko. )
Both pistachioes and wild almonds are mentioned by Pandit Manphul ; and see Wood (p. 252) on the beauty and profusion of the latter.
NOTE 3.—Wood thinks that the Tajik inhabitants of Badakhshan and the adjoining districts are substantially of the same race as the Kafir tribes of Hindu Kúsh. At the time of Polo's visit it would seem that their conversion to Islam was imperfect. They were probably in that transition state which obtains in our own day for some of the Hill Mahomedans adjoining the Kafirs on the south side of the mountains the reproachful title of Nínzchah Mum/win, or Half-and-halfs. Thus they would seem to have retained sundry Kafir characteristics ; among others that love of wine which is so strong among the Kafirs. The boiling of the wine is noted by Baber (a connoisseur) as the custom of Nijrao, adjoining, if not then included in, Kafir-land ; and Elphinstone implies the continuance of the custom when he speaks of the Kafirs as having wine of the consistence of jelly, and very strong. The wine of Kdpishí, the Greek Kapisa, immediately south of Hindu Kúsh, was famous as early as the time of the Hindu grammarian Pánini, say three centuries B.C. The cord twisted round the head was probably also a relic of Kafir costume : " Few of the Kafirs cover the head, and when they do, it is with a narrow band or fillet of goat's hair . . . . about a yard or a yard and a half in length, wound round the head." This style of head-dress seems to be very ancient in India, and in the Sanchi sculptures is that of the supposed Dasyas. Something very similar, i.e. a scanty turban cloth twisted into a mere cord, and wound two or three times round the head, is often seen in the Panjab to this day.
The Postín or sheepskin coat is almost universal on both sides of the Hindu Kúsh ; and Wood notes : " The shoes in use resemble half-boots, made of goatskin, and mostly of home manufacture." (Baber, 145 ; J. A. S. B. XXVIII. 348, 364 Elphinst. II. 384 ; Ind. Antiquary, I. 22 ; Wood, 174, 220 ; J. R. A. S. XIX. 2.)
NOTE 4.—Marsden was right in identifying Scassenz or Casein with the Kechem of D'Anville's Map, but wrong in confounding the latter with the Kishnzabad of Elphinstone—properly, I believe, Kishnabad—in the Anderab Valley. Kashm, or Keshm, found its way into maps through Pétis de la Croix, from whom probably D'Anville adopted it ; but as it was ignored by Elphinstone (or by Macartney, who constructed his map), and by Burnes, it dropped out of our geography. Indeed, Wood does not notice it except as giving name to a high hill called the Hill of Kishm, and the position even of that he omits to indicate. The frequent mention of hishm in the histories of Timur and Humayun (e.g. P. de la Croix, I. 167 ; N. et E. XIV. 223, 491 ; Erskine's Baber and Htmayznz, II. 330, 355, etc.) had enabled me to determine its position within tolerably narrow limits ; but desiring to fix it definitely, application was made through Colonel Maclagan to Pandit Manphul, C.S.I., a very intelligent Hindu gentleman, who resided for some time in Badakhshan as agent of the Panjab Government, and from him arrived a special note and sketch, and afterwards a MS. copy of a Report,* which set the position of Kishm at rest.
KISIHM is the Kilissenzo, i.e. Karisma or Krishma, of Hiuen Tsang ; and Sir H. Rawlinson has identified the Hill of .Kishm with the Mount Kharesem of the Zend-Avesta, on which Jamshid placed the most sacred of all the fires. It is now a small town or large village on the right bank of the Varsach river, a tributary of the Kokcha. It was in 1866 the seat of a district ruler under the Mír of Badakhshan, who was
styled the Mír of Kishm, and is the modern counterpart of Marco's Qzzens or Count. î.
The modern caravan-road between Kunduz and Badakhshan does not pass through Kishm, which is left some five miles to the right, but through the town of Mashhad, which stands on the same river. Kishm is the warmest district of Badakhshan. Its
* Since published in/ K. G. S. vol. xlïi.
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