Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 408 ページ（カラー画像）

0408	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

Shughnān and the approximate distance between the chief places of the two territories. The
estimate of this distance is easily accounted for if we take into consideration that the smaller valleys
of Khingāb and Wanj may well have been ruled at the time from Kara-tegīn, just as in the reverse
way the latter had become subject to the chiefs of Darwāz during the early part of the last century.¹⁰
Wu-k'ung's It only remains to mention that Wu-k'ung towards 786 A. D. coming from Tokhāristān passed
passage. through Chü-mi-chih 拘密支, i. e. Kara-tegīn, before proceeding to Ch'ih-ni or Shughnān.
The territory of Ni-sê-chih 慈瑟矩 named between the two cannot be definitely located.¹¹
Journey Starting on October 14th from Āb-i-garm I left behind the last of the valleys which descend
beyond from the Pāmīr region, and also the westernmost portion of that ground within the drainage area
Kara-tegīn. of the Oxus with which I could hope to gain some closer acquaintance on this journey. Regard
for the time needed to reach my next goal in distant Sīstān and for the work planned there before
my return to India obliged me to seek the Trans-Caspian railway at Samarkand by the nearest
route and as quickly as possible. The nine rapid marches, covering some 270 miles, which brought
me there across comparatively well-known parts of the Bokhāra hills offered little chance for close
observation. My account of them must therefore be of the briefest and cannot extend to an examina-
tion of questions of historical topography connected with the important tracts of ancient Sogdiana
that I was obliged to traverse so hurriedly.
Grazing My route for the first four marches led through the open valley plains of the once independent
grounds chiefship of Hissār which are drained by the Surkhān and Kāfirnīhān tributaries of the Oxus.
towards This fertile region must have always offered special attractions to originally nomadic invaders of
Faizābād. Sogdiana. These advantages were fully brought home to me by what I saw of the splendid grazing
grounds passed on the way across the watershed between Āb-i-garm and the Faizābād valley.
These and the others to be found at the heads of the valleys which trend south from the Hissār range
are all held by the Özbeg landowners of Hissār, who move up there for the summer with their
flocks of sheep and large herds of cattle and horses. Taken together with the favourable climatic
conditions which provide adequate rain and snow-fall for cultivation lower down in the valleys,
these facilities for comfortable semi-nomadic existence must have all through the ages made Hissār
a valued prize for conquerors from inner Asia, such as the Yüeh-chih and all their successors of
Turkish race. Here, too, as in Kara-tegīn, there was evidence of the slow but steady reconquest
of the soil through the spread of Tājik cultivation. On the gentle slopes near the watershed the
inroad of these industrious Iranian settlers was confined to small patches of newly tilled fields
scattered among rich pastures ; lower down in the valley, as at the prosperous-looking market
village of Faizābād (Fig. 438), a considerable portion of the land had passed long before into their
hands, whether as tenants or owners.
Semi- In the wide fertile stretches of plain, mostly loess, which we skirted for three days along its
nomadic northern edge past Dōshambe, Kara-tāgh, and Rēgar, the most productive lands, capable of
Özbegs. irrigation, are still held by Özbegs ; but the labour is largely furnished by Tājiks. The conserva-
tive fashion in which the conquering race still clings to semi-nomadic customs was well illustrated
by the ' Kapas ' or portable felt-covered reed-huts found pitched in the courtyards of many
Özbeg village homesteads. They had been brought back after use at the summer grazing grounds ;
but the owners evidently still continued to make them their quarters in preference to the frail mud
huts built around them. The contrast in this aspect with the Tājik portion of the same villages was
striking, and so also with the agricultural settlements of the Tārīm basin, which so much else in
the physical setting and in the Turkī local names here recalled.

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