Innermost Asia : vol.1 / 48 ページ（カラー画像）

0048	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

I believe that I have conclusively proved in *Ancient Khotan* that it designates Chitrāl, being
probably intended to reproduce *Kāshkār*, the old alternative name of that territory.⁶

Menace to
' Gilgit
Road '
from
Chilās.

In the same work I emphasized the obvious geographical fact that Chilās was the point at
which alone the line of communication from Kashmīr to Gilgit and Yāsīn was liable to serious
interference from the west, i. e. the Chitrāl side.⁷ A glance at the map will explain this, and what
we know of the modern history of these mountain tracts points to the same conclusion ; for it
supplies abundant evidence of the danger to which the ' Gilgit Road ' of the Sikhs and Dōgrās
was exposed, right up to the middle of the last century, from predatory raids of the Chilās people.⁸
These raids ceased only after Mahārāja Gulāb Singh's troops in 1851, operating in part by the
Barai pass, had succeeded in invading Chilās and temporarily reducing its chief stronghold. But
the Chilāsīs soon regained independence, and their turbulent disposition, with the support they
drew from the other Dard republics farther down the Indus, remained a source of danger to the
' Gilgit Road '. This menace was finally removed only in 1893, when after some serious fighting
the territory was occupied and a garrison of Imperial Service troops permanently established
in Chilās Fort.

Supplies
from
Kashmīr
through
Chilās.

These considerations had already led me to locate in Chilās the danger point referred to
by the Chinese record of A. D. 749. The observations I was able to make during my visit to Chilās
have fully confirmed me in this view, with a modification as regards the actual geographical
position of the route in question. It appears to me now very probable that the route or routes
by which those indispensable supplies from Kashmīr reached the Chinese Imperial garrisons
in Gilgit and Yāsīn did not lie, as assumed in *Ancient Khotan*, along the present ' Gilgit Road '
across Gurēz, the Burzil pass and Astōr, but led direct through Chilās. My reasons are the
following. A reference to any map of the territories between Kashmīr and the Hindukush will
show that the line followed by the present ' Gilgit Road ' from Kashmīr to the Indus at Būnji
is far longer than the line across the Barai pass to Chilās.⁹ Whereas the distance as reckoned in
official route records between Bandipur on the Volur lake and Būnji is 158 miles, the same from
Bandipur to Chilās, as tested on the route I followed, is only about 116 miles. It would be still
less if instead of proceeding across the Fasat pass to Chilās Fort the traveller were to follow the
stream draining the Barai pass on the north straight down to the Indus at Būnar.

Advantages
of Chilās
route.

It deserves to be noted also that, even before the improvements referred to below, the whole
of the route across the Barai Pass, though difficult in places, was passable for laden animals, and
that ample grazing is found along its whole length. It was the absence of grazing almost throughout
Astōr that had made the use of the Bandipur–Burzil–Būnji route for laden transport practically
impossible until the ' Gilgit Road ', a feat of modern engineering, was constructed and elaborate
commissariat arrangements made under British control.¹⁰ Though some 700 feet higher, the
Barai pass is not closed by snow appreciably longer than the Burzil, and the pass above Matsil
which has previously to be crossed on the watershed between Kashmīr proper and the Kishangangā
valley is certainly easier and less exposed to danger from avalanches and snowdrifts than the
Trāgbal pass which corresponds to it on the ' Gilgit Road '.

国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

引用情報

OCR読み取り結果

国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト 『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

引用情報

OCR読み取り結果

国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ