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
THE PASSAGE OF TENGHI-TAR.
i
43
A traveller who has made this road, and every moment expected to get a bath, will at once recognize the following words in the short narrative of Goes' journey: »Here Isaac the Armenian fell off the bank of a great river into the water, and lay as it were dead for some eight hours till Benedict's exertions at last brought him to.» Still he travelled through the Tenghi-tar in October, for he says he reached Yarkand in November, 1603 and had some 2 0 days to Yarkand from the difficult passage. I rode up the gorge on July 3rd, 1894, at a season when there was much water in the river. Finally I crossed the two passes, Kichik-kok-moynak and Katta-kok-moynak, being 4,593 and 4,738 m. high resp. »Between the two a small fanshaped valley gathered up a number of mountain-rills, and out of them formed an affluent to the Chichekli-su .... The name Chichekli is likewise given to the low saddle which serves as the watershed between the glen of Tar-bashi and the glen of Chichekli.» I Chichekli-kul is at a height of 4,458, and the passage of Chichekli-su at 4,42o m.2
September 28th, 1895, I rode through the extensive village of Yaka-arik which gets its irrigation water from a considerable canal, the Yaka-arik, »The isolated or outermost canal» , which gives its name to the village. 3 As Yaka-arik is situated only 19 km. S. W. of Yarkand, it is surprising that Goes should need five days between the two places. Here the ground is perfectly even and the road excellent. Either he has stayed four days in Yaka-arik and travelled one, or it is simply a slip of his memory. Fifteen days from Tenghitar to Yaka-arik is also an exaggeration, but may be readily explained by slow and short marches on account of the partly very bad road.
Chicheklik, usually pronounced Chichekli by the Kirgiz, is a name alluding to the presence of a certain plant called chichek. Yaka-arik is, as a rule, pronounced Yakkarik, which comes somewhat nearer to Goes' Iakonich or Yakkonik. The two words of the name are contracted to one. The same may be the case with Sacrithma or Sakrikma.4
Benedict Goes' route from Chicheklik-davan to Yaka-arik no doubt followed a road which was well known and used by caravans in his days and centuries before
I Through Asia, I, p. 2 74.
2 Scientific Results, Vol. V, Part I, a. p. 8.
3 In Through Asia, Vol. II, p. 718 it is called Yar-arik, which is a missprint. I have mentioned the place and especially the canal of » Jakka-arik» in »Die Geographisch-wissenschaftlichen Ergebnisse meiner Reisen in Zentralasien 1894-1897 o. Pet. Mit. Erg. Bd. XXVIII, Gotha 190o, p. 4, 261, 262. In the Report of the Forsyth Mission Yakka Arik is said to be on »the limit of cultivation» which amounts to the same as my »Outermost canal».
4 As the valley of Tenghitar is so well known, it is hard to see why, in the edition of Cathay, 1916, it should be placed at Yangi-hisar, on the map. If this were correct Goës should not have needed to lose six horses on the way to Yaka-arik. — In Ruins of Desert Cathay, Vol. I, p. 98 et seq. STEIN has also described this road across the Kashgar Range.
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