Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 363 ページ（カラー画像）

0363	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

the British Boundary Commission party essayed to discover this or some other pass over the
mountain watershed south of Lake Victoria ', but had failed and expressed their opinion that no
such pass exists.

It was accordingly a pleasant surprise when careful inquiries from two much-travelled Kirghiz Pass above
in our party resulted in definite and independent evidence of an old track, still regularly used by Shōr-jilga.
Wakhī herdsmen of villages on the Āb-i-Panja, which leads from the Wakhān side across the
watershed range to the glacier-filled head of the Shōr-jilga valley, clearly visible from Lake Victoria.
Descending this valley, which is shown in the Survey of India map without a name next to the east
of the Bēsh-kunak-jilga, one either gains the open valley of the Pāmīr river, or else, over gentle
peneplains, the south-western shores of the lake. The ascent to the pass from the Great Pāmīr side
lies up the south-western branch of the Shōr-jilga, which the panoramic view (Fig. 360), taken
from the mouth of the Bāsh-gumbaz valley, shows at the point marked with an arrow. On the
northern side of the pass glacier ice has to be crossed. After passing the watershed the track drops
down to the Kōk-moinak spur, where it bifurcates. One route descends into the southern Shōr-
jilga, marked in the Survey of India map by the entry 'Shaor',¹⁷ᵃ and thence leads up the Āb-i-Panja
to Langar. The other was said to cross in succession the heads of the grazing valleys of Boz-dektir
and Tokuz-bāsh over easy slopes and thus to reach Sarhad. The description of the latter portion
of the route agreed with what I had seen in 1906 from the Kansir spur of the range rising above
Sarhad.¹⁸ The information received was calculated to vindicate once again reliance on the topo-
graphical details preserved by the record in the Chinese Annals of Kao Hsien-chih's great alpine
feat. My only regret was that regard for time and the Afghān border would not allow me to test
them on the spot, as I had done in the case of the Darkōt and the battle ground south of Sarhad.¹⁹

On the morning of August 28th I left Lake Victoria for the journey down the Pāmīr river to Start down
Langar-kisht, where it joins the main branch of the Āb-i-Panja. The three marches in which we Pāmīr river.
covered the distance of about 78 miles correspond to Marco Polo's three days' ride from 'Vokhan'
to the great lake. The valley of the Pāmīr river has since Captain Wood's time been often described,
and only few of my observations call for brief record here. In the upper Pāmīr-like portion of the
valley one passes, about 4 miles below the outflow of the Bāsh-gumbaz stream, a natural hillock
shaped like a cone and about 80 feet high. It is known as Mazār-dōbe and worshipped by the
Kirghiz as the burial-place of holy warriors. Its curiously regular shape must in Buddhist times
have made it appear as a 'Svayaṃbhū' Stūpa to pious eyes, and continuity of local worship
probably accounts for its sanctity at the present day.²⁰

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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

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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
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