Innermost Asia : vol.1 / 45 ページ（カラー画像）

0045	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

CHAPTER I

THROUGH CHILĀS, DARĒL, AND TANGĪR

Section I.—FROM KASHMĪR TO CHILĀS

The plan of my third Central-Asian journey had taken definite shape during my summer Choice of
in Kashmīr in 1912, and I had ever since been eagerly looking out for a new route to follow route across
across the great mountain barriers northward to the border of Chinese Turkestān on the Pāmīrs. mountains.
Geographical and antiquarian interests combined to make me anxious to visit fresh ground in
the Hindukush region within the short time available as I crossed the mountains. It seemed
difficult to find such a route ; for in the initial portions of my previous journeys I had exhausted
the only apparent alternatives offered by the Chitrāl and Hunza valleys leading to practicable
crossings of the main Hindukush range. Nor did the devious route through Ladākh and across
the Kara-koram pass offer any attraction, as I had seen it on my return journey in 1908. But
chance proved favourable at the start, and unexpectedly opened for me the new approach to the
goal that I was seeking.

The exploration of the important valleys of Darēl and Tangīr descending to the Indus from Planned
the north some distance below Chilās had long attracted my attention on archaeological grounds. exploration
In the accounts of our old guides, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, Darēl or Ta-li-lo receives of Darēl.
prominent mention, partly because there passed through it a route which led from the uppermost
Oxus to the Indus and the sacred sites of the Indian North-West, and partly on account of a famous
Buddhist sanctuary it once contained. Though territory under British political control adjoins
these tracts both on the east and north, they had never been visited by any European, and
remained practically terra incognita ; for access to them was effectively closed by the disturbed
political conditions of the local Dard communities, broken up, as throughout the Indus ' Kōhistān ',
into a series of independent small republics ; and also by the fanatical spirit still common among
these comparatively recent converts to Islām.

But during recent years Rāja Pakhtūn Wālī, a scion of the Khushwaqt family and son of Mīr Rise of
Wālī, once ruler of Yāsīn, had after an adventurous career succeeded in making himself master Pakhtūn
of Tangīr, which he had first entered in 1895 as a refugee from Chitrāl. Possessed of a strong Wālī.
character and great power of unscrupulous intrigue, he had by 1909 extended his sway over Darēl
and also over some of the minor ' republics ' south of the Indus. Having thus built up, in true
condottiere fashion, what in the Hindukush region might well count as a new kingdom of his own,
he realized the need of consolidating his rule. This and the desire of securing outside support
for his children's eventual succession induced him gradually to drop the attitude of hostility to
British influence that he had previously affected in his dealings with the fanatical ' Kōhistānī '
tribes, until in the early spring of 1913 he took direct steps to seek friendly relations with the Gilgit
Political Agency.

As soon as I learned of the opportune chance thus offered I decided to avail myself of it in Arrange-
planning the new route to the Pāmīrs that I so eagerly desired. I had previously wished to lay ments with
my itinerary through Chilās and Yāsīn, territories of distinct geographical and historical interest ruler of
Darēl.
B

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