Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 341 ページ（カラー画像）

0341	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

discussion. There is no need here to review this nor to examine certain points which in the account
of the route beyond Baktra, as excerpted by Ptolemy, still remain obscure and may remain so
for ever, owing, perhaps, to the loss of the original record, whether of Maës or Marinus. We are
spared this obligation, since the certain identification of the ' mountain country of the Kōmēdoi ',
which the essential passage of Ptolemy mentions on the line of the route, makes it quite certain that
the route led through Kara-tegīn. I have already had occasion to show ' how Sir Henry Yule, by
a chain of sound critical reasoning, had been led to Kara-tegīn, as the probable position of the
Kōmēdoi '. This location is confirmed on the one hand by finding the same ancient name in the
form Chü-mi-t'o applied by Hsüan-tsang to a territory in a position exactly corresponding to
Kara-tegīn, and on the other by the application to the same of the name Kumēdh by early Arab
geographers.⁸

These references to Kara-tegīn and others found in the Chinese historical Annals will be duly
noticed below. Here, however, we must consider two points mentioned in Ptolemy's account of
the route followed by the agents of Maës, which certainly have to be looked for beyond Kara-tegīn.
From Antiochia Margiana, i. e. Merv, he tells us, the route proceeds ' in an eastward direction to
Baktra, whence it turns towards the north in ascending the mountains of the Kōmēdoi, and then
in passing through these mountains it pursues a southern course as far as the ravine that opens
into the plain country. For the northern parts of the mountain region and those farthest to the
west where the ascent begins are placed by him under the parallel of Byzantium, and those in the
south and the east under the parallel of the Hellespont. For this reason he says that this route
makes a detour of equal length in opposite directions, though in advancing to the east it bends towards
the south, and thereafter probably runs up towards the north for 50 schoini till it reaches the
Stone Tower. For to quote his own words, " when the traveller has ascended the ravine he arrives
at the Stone Tower, after which the mountains that trend to the east unite with Imaos, the range
that runs to the north from Palimbothra ''.' ⁹

I cannot attempt definitely to settle the doubts occasioned by the rather involved references
to the changing direction of the route. But it will be useful to point out certain plain topographical
facts which must clearly be kept in view. The easiest and most direct line by which the route
leading up Kara-tegīn to the Alai valley could be gained from Balkh lies, after crossing the Oxus
near Termez, up the wide valley of the Surkhan river past Deh-nau and Rēgar to Kara-tāgh in
the Hissār tract, and then past Faizābād to the Kizil-su (Surkh-āb) below Āb-i-garm.⁹ᵃ This line
leads as far as Kara-tāgh to the NNE. and thence as far as Faizābād south of east ; from there
onwards the route up Kara-tegīn follows a general north-easterly bearing. The slightly southerly
trend of this route from Kara-tāgh to Faizābād over a distance of about 60 miles, when combined
with the rough total of 160 miles to be reckoned over the SSW.–NNE. portion of the route from
Balkh to Kara-tāgh, would certainly not constitute ' a detour of equal length in opposite direc-
tions '. But I know of no route on which a closer approximation between the bearings indicated
and the geographical facts could possibly be made out.

In the ' ravine that opens into the plain country ', I believe we may quite safely recognize
the comparatively narrow main valley of Kara-tegīn which between Kara-muk at the upper end

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