IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
322 FROM ROSHAN TO SAMARKAND
CH. XXI
been described before in publications like Dr. Rickmer's Doab of Turkestan, accessible also to readers not acquainted with Russian. For the same reason my account of this part of my journey may be succinct.
Communication between Roshan and Yazgulam, the valley adjoining on the north, was before practically impossible along the Oxus owing to a succession of formidable
defiles. The recent construction of a Russian bridle-path blasted along the rock-faces had changed this. But I pre-
ferred to follow the old track and accordingly crossed the
range dividing Roshan from Yazgulam over the pass of Adude. The glaciated saddle on the watershed was reached
at a height of about 14,50o feet. The descent thence led by
zigzags across a much-crevassed glacier and then over a succession of old moraines into a narrow valley filled
at its bottom with thickets of birch trees and junipers. Night overtook us here before the village of Matraun was reached.
The Bukhara officials who greeted me there next morning afforded welcome assurance of the help which Colonel
Yagello had provided for me on the Darwaz side. But their
gay flowing silk robes and swarthy faces made me realize also how soon the alpine tracts of the Upper Oxus were to
be left behind. The people of Yazgulam, reckoned at some 190 households, had for a long time enjoyed the advantage of occupying a kind of no-man's-land between the chiefships
of Darwaz and Shughnan-Roshan. They had used it to prey impartially, when occasion offered, upon their neighbours
on both sides. Though their language is closely related to Shughni, yet more frequent intercourse with Darwaz was reflected both by their physical appearance and the fact
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