Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 368 ページ（カラー画像）

0368	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

information and the condition of their interior. In front of the lower caves a walled space had
served as shelter for cattle, and the headman of Warang remembered how in his youth the people of
the village used to place their cattle, as well as their womenfolk, here for the night when raids of
Afghān soldiers or Kirghiz were expected. There was nothing to indicate the age of these humble
cave shelters, nor to justify their being dignified with the name of ' cave fortress '.¹⁰

Captain
Wood's visit
remem-
bered. While proceeding the same day to Yamchin, 6 miles lower down, I had on the way opportunities
for two interesting observations. At the hamlet of Wenukut I was able to pay a visit to Iḥsān
Karīm 'Alī Shāh, the chief ' Pīr ' of the Ismailias of Wakhān, who was staying there to perform
faith-healing on a sick ' Murīd ' or devotee. The old man, worshipped as a great saint, claimed
an age of well over a hundred years, and his bodily state seemed to support this. Yet his mental
faculties were not impaired, and to my surprise he furnished exact data which left no doubt about
his having at his home been the host of Captain Wood, when in the winter of 1838 he was on his
way to the Pāmīrs. He had clear recollections, too, of the tyrannical rule of Sultān Murād of
Kunduz, often named in Wood's classic narrative.

Khandūt,
Hsüan-
tsang's
Hun-t'o-to. On nearing Yamchin a good view was obtained of Khandūt, on the opposite bank of the Āb-i-
Panja, situated on a fertile alluvial fan. With its 50 to 60 houses it is considered the largest village
of Wakhān. In former times it may have been larger still ; for two abandoned canals could be
seen above that now in use, and there is plenty of additional cultivable land commanded by them.
The identity of Khandūt with Hun-t'o-to 睯貊多, which Hsüan-tsang mentions as the capital
of Wakhān, is not subject to any doubt.¹¹ The pilgrim describes a Buddhist convent in the centre
of the town ' built by the first king of the country ', and the miracle observed in the great Vihāra
of this convent about a canopy of gilt copper suspended above a stone statue of Buddha. It was
therefore of special interest to me to learn that Khandūt possesses a famous Ziārat, visited as the
resting-place of a saint, Shaikh Bēg, and marked by an old mosque. The shrine was not visible
from across the river, being hidden in a grove near the western edge of the fan. But the conspicuous
domed tombs close to it suggested a sanctuary of importance, such as tenacity of local worship
might lead us to expect in the place of the Buddhist Vihāra.¹²

Ruins of
Zamr-i-
ātish-parast. A day's stay at the pretty hamlet of Yamchin was devoted to a survey of the large hill strong-
hold known as Zamr-i-ātish-parast near by. It was duly noted by Captain Wood, and a sketchy
account of it is found in Captain Olufsen's book.¹³ Its remains are remarkable enough in extent
and construction to warrant a detailed description. As the sketch-plan in Pl. 47 shows, the fortifica-
tions ascend a height of about 1,000 feet on the extremity of the steep spur which flanks the
debouchure of the Yamchin stream from the north-west. A peculiar bifurcation of the Vichkut
stream, which descends in a gorge farther west, has cut off the lower end of the spur from the rest
and given it the shape of a triangle, the base of which faces SE. The foot of the spur is reached
beyond the scrub-covered mouth of the Yamchin stream at a distance of about a mile from the
hamlet. About 400 feet higher up on the bare rocky slope the outermost line of the defences is

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