National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

the great Murghāb branch of the Oxus or Bartang used to pour its waters before the great earth-
quake barred its way. But for the Tanimaz the bed in the deep gorge now turning to the north-
west would have been practically empty. Finally a climb over steep rocky ledges brought us to
the picturesque rock-bound plateau which bears the village and fields of Saunāb, known as Tāsh-
kurghān to the Kirghiz (Fig. 384), at an elevation of about 9,000 feet.
Information sent ahead by Kōkan Bēg had assured the necessary help from the assembled
headmen of Saunāb and the nearest Rōshān villages for the difficult marches before us. Hence
a day's halt sufficed for the transport arrangements, which had to include an adequate number
of load-carrying hillmen. But for the distance to be traversed and the necessity of completing
the alpine portion of the route before the advance of autumn, I should have gladly extended that
halt, so varied were the interests presented by this first Iranian-speaking settlement of any size
that I had reached in the region of the Oxus. Its alpine isolation at the head of the difficult Rōshān
valley seemed to have preserved, in these fine-looking hill Tājiks (Fig. 366), the racial type of
Homo Alpinus in its purity, besides much of interest in their old-world customs and domestic
architecture. As it was, I had to rest content with securing anthropometrical data and with visiting
the small fort crowded with roughly built dwellings (Fig. 387). Until the advent of Russian rule
it had sheltered all the families who now live safely outside near their fields. In the arrangement
of the dark, smoke-begrimed 'Aiwāns', as well as in the rough decorative wood-carving found
here and there, I noticed unmistakable affinity to what I had observed in dwellings of Mastūj and
Yāsīn. In material civilization, as in racial type, the Hindukush evidently did not interpose an
insurmountable barrier. Recollections of Afghān oppression were still fresh, and some very old
men whom I measured remembered the terror of Kirghiz raids as well as visits of Chinese officials.
On August 14th we left picturesque Saunāb and, after crossing the rocky spur which confines
its verdant plateau on the west, dropped down to the river gorge opposite the hamlet of Nusur, some
400 feet below (Fig. 370). The passage of the river, here some 150 yards wide, was effected on rafts
of goatskins, guided by three men swimming behind (Fig. 389). From Nusur we moved over
rocky foot-spurs and small plateaus high above the river to the hamlet of Barchidīw, now the last
place of cultivation in the Bartang valley. Resuming our march next morning, we were able to
follow the old track for about four miles, as it wound along terraces above what had been the bed
of the Bartang, now reduced to a mere streamlet of beautifully limpid water. Farther up huge
landslides attending the earthquake had in many places completely choked up the river passage
and destroyed what tracks there ever existed along or above it. The big river, once rivalling
in volume the Āb-i-Panja and claimed as the main feeder of the Oxus, had completely ceased
to flow. The mouth of a small side valley to the north known as Raut was pointed out as a spot
among several where homesteads of Rōshān graziers had been overwhelmed by masses of rock
debris. Our progress was along vast debris shoots, varied with difficult climbs up and down
precipitous spurs. Again and again the lightly laden hill ponies, all hardy and nimble climbers,
had to be relieved of their loads and our modest baggage carried by the men. Strings of deep
alpine tarns, with colours of exquisite beauty (Fig. 371), had here and there replaced the river and
contributed to our difficulties. In places the drainage from the newly formed great lake was seen
to come to light in large springs, soon smothered again by detritus. In others detritus was moving
on the slopes like mud and offered no foothold. At one point what according to our Saunāb guides
had been a high spur on the north side had been torn away by the earthquake and thrown in con-
fused masses of rock and loose debris against the southern side of the valley. A trying climb over
these to a height of about 10,600 feet brought us at last to a small scrub-covered terrace on the
original hill-side where it was found possible to camp.