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 PAMIRS.
~
359
It is curious that the ranges of the Russian maps, the existence of which was, however, very likely after Pievtsoff's expedition, were not accepted, but were replaced by the word unexplored, whereas this word was missing north of the Tsangpo. Only on a subsequent edition of the map, which was published with HOLDICH'S book, the eloquent word was introduced at its right place.
In this connection we may still remember a few travellers and geographers who, at the same time, or a few years after, had something to say of the Pamirs in their relation to the Kara-korum, and of the Kara-korum System itself. Thus for instance ROBERT MICHELL says of the Pamirs:
This elevated tract, embracing an area of about 37,o00 square miles, links the four mountain systems of the Hindu-Kush, the Himalayas, the Kuen-I,un, and the Thian-shan; and long before the Christian era it was considered by the Chinese, as they consider it still, to be a continuation of the Kuen-Lun (Tsung-Ling or Onion mountains). t
In an article Die Pamni fi'ag e FR. IMMANUEL refers to RICHTHOFEN, FORSYTH and KOSTENKO who all had stated that the Kizil-yart (1. e. Kashgar Range) had a quite different structure than the rest of the Pamirs.2 As a whole the Pamirs belonged to the Tian-shan System consisting of ranges stretching east—west, whereas the Kizil-yart, a meridional system of chains, was to be regarded as a continuation of the N. W. Himalaya, and more particularly the Dapsang Range. Finally, he adds that the Kizil-yart with the Tagharma group was, in 1892, very little known.
CURZON, who travelled in the Pamir in 1894, has the following view regarding the Mus-tagh Range: speaking of the Kilik Pass he says: »This portion of the Hindu Kush, or rather of that section of the main range, which, extending from this point eastwards to the Karakoram, is locally designated the Mustagh range. ...»
To the discussion about the name Bolor, Belur, Balur, etc., known of old and so thoroughly dealt with by Sir HENRY YULE,4 NEY ELIAS, in 1895, contributed some new information. MIRZA HAIDAR says:5
Balur is an infidel country (Kafiristan), and most of its inhabitants are mountaineers .... Baluristan is bounded on the east by the provinces of Kashgar and Yarkand; on the north by Badakhshan ; on the west by Kabul and Lumghan ; and on the south by the dependencies of Kashmir .... Its whole extent consists of mountains, valleys , and defiles, insomuch that one might almost say that in the whole of Baluristan, not one farsakh of level ground is to be met with.
1 Robert Michell: Ancient Imaus, or Bam-i-dunia and the way to Serica. The Scottish Geogr. Magazine. Vol. VIII, 1892, p. 591.
2 Petermanns Mitteilungen. 38. Band, 1892, p. 74.
3 The Pamirs and the Source of the Oxus. (Reprinted from the Geogr. J. for July, August, and September, 1896) London.
4 Journal Roy. Geo. Soc. 1872, p. 473 et seq., and Marco Polo.
5 The Tarikh-i-Rashidi. N. Elias and E. D. Ross. London 1895, p. 385.
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