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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
i66
MARCO POLO Boom I.
But even by extending its limits to Attok, we shall not get within seven marches of Káshmir. It is 234 miles by road from Attok to Srinagar ; more than twice seven marches. And, according to Polo's usual system, the marches should be counted from Chitrál, or some point thereabouts.
Sir II. Rawlinson, in his Monograph on the Oxus, has indicated the probability that the name Pashai may have been originally connected with Aprasin or Paresín, the Zendavestian name for the Indian Caucasus, and which occurs in the Babylonian version of the Behistun Inscription as the equivalent of Gaddra in the Persian, i.e. Gandhára, there applied to the whole country between Bactria and the Indus. (See J. R. G. S. XLII. 502.) Some such traditional application of the term Pashai might have survived.
CHAPTER XXXI.
OF THE PROVINCE OF KESHIRIUR.
KESHIMUR also is a Province inhabited by a people who
are Idolaters and have a language of their own.1 They
have an astonishing acquaintance with the devilries of
enchantment ; insomuch that they make their idols to
speak. They can also by their sorceries bring on changes
of weather and produce darkness, and do a number of
things so extraordinary that no one without seeing them
would believe them.2 Indeed, this country is the very
original source from which Idolatry has spread abroad.'
In this direction you can proceed further till you come
to the Sea of India.
The men are brown and lean, but the women, taking
them as brunettes, are very beautiful. The food of the
people is flesh, and milk, and rice. The clime is finely
tempered, being neither very hot nor very cold. There
are numbers of towns and villages in the country, but also
forests and desert tracts, and strong passes, so that the
people have no fear of anybody, and keep their inde-
pendence, with a king of their own to rule and do justice.
4
There are in this country Eremites (after the fashion
of those parts), who dwell in seclusion and practise great
abstinence in eating and drinking. They observe strict
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