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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. XXXII. BOLOR
T79
term Bolor must have been applied somewhat extensively to the high regions adjoining the southern margin of Pamir. And a passage in the Táríkh Rashídí, written at Kashgar in the 16th century by a cousin of the great Baber, affords us a definition of the tract to which, in its larger sense, the name was thus applied : "Malaur (i.e. Balaur or Bolor) . . . is a country with few level spots. It has a circuit of four months' march. The eastern frontier borders on Kashgar and Yarkand ; it has Badakhshan to the north, Kabul to the west, and Kashmir to the south." The writer was thoroughly acquainted with his subject, and the region which he so defines must have embraced Sirikol and all the wild country south of Yarkand, Balti, Gilghit, Yasin, Chitrál, and perhaps Kafiristán. This enables us to understand Polo's use of
the term. '
The name of Bolor in later days has been in a manner a symbol of controversy.
It is prominent in the apocryphal travels of George Ludwig von , preserved in
the Military Archives at St. Petersburg. That work represents a town of Bolor as existing to the north of Badakhshan, with Wakhán still further to the north. This geography we now know to be entirely erroneous, but it is in full accordance with the maps and tables of the Jesuit missionaries and their pupils, who accompanied the Chinese troops to Kashgar in 1758-1759. The paper in the Geographical Society's Journal, which has been referred to, demonstrates how these erroneous data must have originated. It, shows that the Jesuit geography was founded on downright accidental error, and, as a consequence, that the narratives which profess de visu to corroborate that geography must be downright forgeries. When the first edition was printed, I retained the belief in a Bolor where the Jesuits placed it.
[The Chinese traveller, translated by M. Gueluy (Desc. de la Chine occid. p. 53), speaks of Bolor, to the west of Yarkand, inhabited by Mahomedans who live in huts ; the country is sandy and rather poor. Severtsof says, (Bul. Soc. Géog. XI. 1890, p. 591) that he believes that the name of Bolor should be expunged from geographical nomenclature as a source of confusion and error. Humboldt, with his great authority, has too definitely attached this name to an erroneous orographical system. Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon says that he " made repeated enquiries from Kirghiz and Wakhis, and from the Mír [of Wakhán], Fatteh Ali Shah, regarding ` Bólór,' as a name for any mountain, country, or place, but all professed perfect ignorance of it." (Forsyth's Mission.)—H. C.]
The J. A. S. Bengal for 1853 (vol. xxii.) contains extracts from the diary of a Mr. Gardiner in those central regions of Asia. These read more like the memoranda of a dyspeptic dream than anything else, and the only passage I can find illustrative of our traveller is the following ; the region is described as lying twenty days south-west of Kashgar : " The Keiaz tribe live in caves on the highest peaks, subsist by hunting, keep no flocks, said to be anthropophagous, but have handsome women ; eat their flesh raw." (P. 295 ; Pclerins Boud. III. 316, 42r, etc. ; Ladak, 34, 45, 47 ; Mag. Asiatique, I. 92, 96-97 ; Not. et Ext. II. 475, XIV. 492 ; J. A. S. B. XXXI. 279; Mr. R. Shaw in Geog. Proceedings, XVI. 246, 400 Notes regarding Bolo-, etc., J. R.
S. XLII. 473.)
As this sheet goes finally to press we hear of the exploration of Pamir by officers of Mr. Forsyth's Mission. [I have made use of the information collected by them.—
C.]
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