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0501 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / Page 501 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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CH. XIX

HELP OF COLONEL YAGELLO   291

It was a strange feeling to find myself after fully two years once more on a properly made cart road duly marked with milestones. We had not met a single human being since leaving a Kirghiz camp above Moji, until descending to the north the little rest-house of Por-döbe was reached the same evening. There I found a kindly Russian Customs officer, by birth an Ossete of the Caucasus, just arrived from Irkesh-tam station on the main Farghana-Kashgar road. From him I learned that Colonel Ivan D. Yagello, holding military and political charge of the Pamir Division, was expected to arrive next day on a rapid passage from his headquarters to Tashkend. A day's halt at Por-döbe secured me a meeting with this distinguished officer, whom a letter sent from Kun-tigmaz by a fast Kirghiz rider had advised of my coming.

Experience soon showed that even on the Indian side of the Hindukush I could not have hoped for arrangements more complete or effective than those which proved to have been made on my behalf by Colonel Yagello both on the Pamirs and in the Upper Oxus territories of Wakhan, Shughnan and Roshan included in his charge. He had filled the chair of Oriental Languages at the Military Staff College of Tashkend, and being greatly interested in the geography and ethnology of the Oxus regions, was anxious to aid whatever investigations could throw light on their past. It was due mainly to Colonel Yagello's willing help and forethought that I succeeded in seeing so much interesting ground, far more than my original programme had included, within the comparatively short time available, and without the loss of a single day.

One of the chief reasons which had made me eager from