IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Southern Tibet : vol.7 |
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Citation Information
CHAPTER II.
MIRZA HAIDAR.
We have dealt with MIRZA HAIDAR'S invasion of Tibet in Vol. I, p. 7o et seq. Here we have to return to his description of the mountains between Eastern Turkestan and India. The geography of Mirza Haidar has been thoroughly discussed by
R. B. SHAW', of whose passages NEY ELIAS says:
They contain translated extracts from Mirza Haidar's opinions, which are fully and accurately elucidated by Mr. Shaw , according to modern knowledge of the subject and local information.»2 And again: »When in Yarkand and Kashghar in 1874-75, Mr. Shaw had with him, if I remember rightly, a copy of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, and was thus able to criticise it on the spot with the help of native informants.3
Mirza Haidar gives a quite excellent definition of the mountainous regions
which very nearly correspond to the Chinese signification Ts'ung-ling. For the sake of comparison, I enter here the most important passages of his physical geography
and orography :
Balur is an infidel country (Kåfiristån) , and most of its inhabitants are mountaineers .... Its whole extent consists of mountains, valleys, and defiles, insomuch that one might almost say that in the whole of Baluristån, not one farsdkh of level ground is to be met with.4
In the description of the mountains of Moghulistån and Kåshghar, it was stated that the principal range in Moghulistån, from which all the other hills branch out, passes the north of Kåshghar, runs towards the west, and continues to the south of Kåshghar. It was also mentioned that the province of Farghåna lies to the west of Kåshghar, this range running between. [This part of the range] which lies between Kåshghar and Farghåna, is called Alåi. — Badakhshan is on the west of Yarkand. These countries are also divided by [a part of] this same range, which here takes the name of Påmir. The width of the Påmir, in some places, is eight days' journey. Passing onwards, one comes to some of the Yarkand mountains which adjoin Balur , such as Råskåm and Tågh Dum
I A Prince of Kashgar on the Geography of Eastern Turkestan. Journ. Roy. Geogr. Society. Vol. XLVI. 1876, p. 277, et seq.
2 N. Elias and E. Denison Ross : A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia being the Tarikhi-Rashidi of Mirza Muhammed Haidar, Dughlät. Re-issue. London 1898, p. VIII.
3 Loc. cit., p. 296n.
4 Op. cit., p. 384 and 385.
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