IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Southern Tibet : vol.7 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
•
BENEDICT GOES.
42
Sacrithma has been a puzzle to all geographers. Yule applies this name to the range »which separates the Sirikul from the headwaters of the Varkand River.»' Probably it would be more correct to say that it belongs to the range west of the Taghdumbash - daria, the one called Sarikol Range by BURRARD. But it is more likely that only a high and difficult part of a mountain is meant and not a range, as Goës' sense for orographical features was probably not more developed than that of other early travellers. Orography was not a science in his time. At any rate, the name Sacrithma has no doubt a sound of genuine eastern Turkish. Goës sometimes seems to write 1/i instead of k, or c. This is certainly the case with Ciecialith which ought to be Ciecialic. Sacrithma would therefore be Sacricma. Names ending with ma are to be found in Eastern Pamir, e. g-. Tagharma, Köturma. Sacric has a certain resemblance with Sarik, yellow; as for instance, Sarik-kol, the broad yellow valley, but it still more resembles sekerik, as in Teke-sekerik, »The wild goat made a spring», which is the name of a place I passed on July Ist, 1894, near Pas -rabat in Eastern Pamir. In spite of all these resemblances, it is hard to get out any reasonable meaning of the word.
As to Sarcil, there is no doubt whatever that it must be Sarikol. The remaining names, Ciecialith, Tanghetàr, Iakonich and Hiarchan are as clear as anything.
I have travelled this road, or at least the most important part of it, viz., from Sarcil across Ciecialith and through Tanghetàr in 1894, and I have given a short description of it in my personal narrative.2 There I say (p. 264): »Beyond that point (Yambulak) the glen was called Tenghi-tar, a very suitable name, although a pleonasm; for tar means narrow and tenghi narrow glen path .... Finally the glen contracted to a wedge-shaped trough, carved, as it were, out of the mountain-side. The path grew more and more difficult. We wound a hundred, a thousand times in and out around the fallen boulders; and every now and then crossed the stream, its water once more clear and limpid .... Above the hot springs the glen contracted still more, and at length became a veritable ravine, only a few yards wide, the air cold and clammy as in a cellar, the rocky sides perpendicular, the stream filling up nearly its entire width, dashing itself against the boulders, flashing up above them in spray, plunging down small waterfalls. One spot in particular I recollect quite well. It was a very ugly place. A number of big round stones, with brightly
polished slippery surfaces, formed a kind of sill stretching obliquely across the bed
of the torrent. A couple of men climbed up each on to a large boulder, and seizing hold of the packing-cases, and hauling away at them, helped the horses to clamber over.»3
11
41
I Cathay, Vol. IV, p. 216, note.
2 Through Asia, Vol. I, London 1898, p. 258, Chap. XXII, »Through the Gorge of Tenghi-tar».
3 A more detailed description of this road is to be read in Vol. VIII.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.