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

38   MARCO POLO.   VOL. I. BK. I.

but in the brief style of our narrative we must expect such

condensation.' [Polo, I., pp. 172-3.] Marco's great commentator

was guided by equally true judgment when he recognized in the

indications of this passage the same system of government that

prevailed in the Oxus valleys until modern times. Under it the

most of the hill tracts dependent from Badakhshan, including

Ishkāshim and Wakhän, were ruled not direct by the Mir, but by

relations of his or hereditary chiefs who held their districts on a

feudal tenure. The twelve days' journey which Marco records

between Badashan and ` Vokhan ' are, I think, easily accounted

for if it is assumed that the distance from capital to capital is

meant ; for twelve marches are still allowed for as the distance

from Bahärak, the old Badakhshan capital on the Vardoj, to

Kila Panja.

" That the latter was in Marco's days, as at present, the chief

place of Wakhän is indicated also by his narrative of the next

stage of his journey. ` And when you leave this little country,

and ride three days north-east, always among mountains, you

get to such a height that 'tis said to be the highest place in the

world ! And when you have got to this height you find [a great

lake between two mountains, and out of it] a fine river running

through a plain. . . . The plain is called PAMIER.' The bearing

and descriptive details here given point clearly to the plain of the

Great Pämir and Victoria Lake, its characteristic feature. About

sixty-two miles are reckoned from Langar-kisht, the last village

on the northern branch of the Ab-i-Pan j a and some six miles

above Kila Panja, to Mazār-tapa where the plain of the Great

Pamir may be said to begin, and this distance agrees remarkably

well with the three marches mentioned by Marco.

His description of Wakhän as ` a province of no great size,

extending indeed no more than three days' journey in any direc-

tion ' suggests that a portion of the valley must then have formed

part of the chiefship of Ishkāshim or Zebak over which we may

suppose ` the brother of the Prince of Badashan ' to have ruled.

Such fluctuations in the extent of Wakhān territory are remembered

also in modern times. Thus Colonel Trotter, who visited Wakhän

with a section of the Yarkand Mission in 1874, distinctly notes

that ` Wakhän formerly contained three " sads " or hundreds, i.e.,

districts, containing too houses each ' (viz. Sad-i-Sar-hadd, Sad

Sipang, Sad Khandūt). To these Sad Ishtragh, the tract

extending from Dīgargand to Ishkäshim, is declared to have

been added in recent times, having formerly been an independent

principality. It only remains to note that Marco was right, too,