Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 / Page 156 (Color Image)

0156	Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1

7o IN AFGHAN WAKHAN CH. VII

Colonel agreed to let me examine in the morning of May

2 I st the ruined fortifications reported on the steep spur

overlooking the debouchure of the Baroghil route on the

west, while he himself would look after the starting of

baggage and escort.

So with Naik Ram Singh and a few Wakhis, including

the Karaul Beg and Talmish, a versatile follower of his

who quickly attached himself to me as a sort of local

factotum (Fig. 30), I rode off to the south for three miles

across the level plain of sand and marsh over which the

Baroghil stream spreads out towards the Oxus. Just

where the mouth of the valley narrows to a width of about

half a mile at the bottom, it is flanked by precipitous

rocky ridges, the last offshoots of spurs which descend

from the main Hindukush watershed. Protected by these

natural defences the position seemed to correspond

accurately to that which the Chinese Annals describe as having been occupied in 747 A.D. by the Tibetans when

they endeavoured to bar Kao Hsien - chih's advance

to the Baroghil and Darkot. Posted at a distance of

fifteen Li, or about three miles from the river, to the

number of eight or nine thousand, they are said " to

have taken advantage of the mountainous ground to

erect palisades." This time-honoured Tibetan scheme of

defence, to await attack behind a wall erected across the

open ground of the valley, had the same results then as

when repeated in 1904 against the British Mission force at

Guru and on the Karo-la. For the Chinese general having

gained the heights, i.e. turned the fortified line, engaged

the defenders in a fight which ended in their complete

defeat with heavy loss.

Of the palisades I could not well expect to find visible

traces after the lapse of centuries. But how Kao Hsien-

chih had turned the Tibetan position I could see quite

clearly when, starting a short distance south of absolutely

impracticable rock faces, I climbed up to the top of the

western spur after an hour's hard scramble over steep

slopes of rock and shingle. There, beyond a stretch of

easily sloping ground, rose the old fort of Kansir my

Wakhi informants had spoken of, at the extreme north

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