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

guests at discretion, and the shoes placed outside the door is the sign for the husband that he
must not enter.

The Dolán are said to be of Kalmák origin. I saw several of them at Yarkand. They
are physically a very inferior race and their mental capacity of the meanest. They are short
in stature and small in limb, with retreating forehead and repulsive features of dark com-
plexion, and Tartar cast of countenance. In general appearance they resemble the Bot of Tibet,
though, as Musalmáns, they shave the head. They talk a dialect of Turki, but amongst them-
selves use a language nobody understands. They are said to be a very timid and simple people,
and generally shun society. This last trait may be attributed to the treatment they receive
from society, for the name of Dolán is sufficient to condemn the owner to every kind of
drudgery much on a par with the ass he owns, and which too he perpetually rides.

Sirikol of the maps and Sárigh Kúl or Sirikul of native writers is a small highland division
on the south-west frontier of Káshghar. Its name signifies "Yellow Glen," and the hills are
described as of a light coloured rock similar to those about Shahídulla Khoja on the south fron-
tier of Yarkand, which are of micaceous schist, friable trap, and granite. It is separated on the
west from the Wakhán District of Badakshan by the Shindu range, which is crossed by a pass
or kotal of the same name down to Aktash="White Rock" at its western base. This is the
limit of Sárigh Kúl or Sirikul territory in this direction and the commencement of Wakhán;
and it marks the boundary between the possessions of Amír Sher Ali Khan Afghan of Kabul
and Amir Muhammad Yakúb Khan Uzbak of Káshghar.

Sárigh Kúl or Sirikul is an entirely mountainous district wedged in at the point of junction
of the Bolortagh range with that of the Hindú Kush, where it joins the great Himalaya chain.
To the northward and westward it is separated from the Pamir by the Tagharma mountain and
its emanations, and to the southward and eastward from the independent little States of Yasín
and Kunjud by the Múztágh or "Glacier Mountain" and its lofty western peaks called
Taghning Bash or Taghdumbash or "Mountain Head," where meet, as in the point of sec-
tion of a cross, the four great mountain systems of the Central Asian Continent, viz., the
Himalaya and Hindu Kush separating Tartary from India, and the Suleman and Bolor ranges
dividing those two great countries into their respective distinct geographical regions; the table-
lands of Khurasan and the plains of India on the one hand, and the valley of the Oxus and the
basin of the Tárim on the other.

In its central part Sárigh Kúl forms an open valley of some twenty miles by five into which
the glens around conduct their drainage. The several streams coalesce at different points to
form the Sárigh Kúl river, which winds eastward and joins that of Yarkand in the vicinity of
Kosharab on the hill skirt. In this plain is settled the bulk of the population in a number of
villages dotted along its mountain borders and on the course of its river. The capital amongst
these is Tashkorghan or "Stone Fort" described as a small square structure defended
by a turret bastion at each angle, and supported by an adjacent village of some
200 houses. It stands on the river bank and its name is sometimes used to designate the
whole district.

"The population of Sárigh Kúl is entirely different from that of the rest of the country,
and is purely Aryan. It is reckoned at 2,500 houses, or at seven per house 17,500 souls. Their
principal villages in the Tashkorghan valley are Shindí, Taghnam, Barangsál, Kesarov, Baldír,
Armalagh, Máryang, Wácha, Kichik Túng, Túng, Chushmán, and Tiznif, and others in the
glens around. At the foot of Taghárma mountain, about two tash north-west of Tashkorghan,
in a small glen, are the hot springs called Sim Kang. Though there is a great glacier—here
called Pir-yakh—on the top of this mountain, fed annually by four months' constant snow from
December to March, these springs are boiling hot and emit clouds of steam as they issue from
the rock; they have been conducted into covered tanks a short distance off, and are used by the
people as medicinal baths for the cure of rheumatism and allied diseases; anybody can use
them, and the custom is for the bathers to strip and lie in the water for two or three hours
daily during several days."

The climate of this division is very salubrious, though the winter is a long and rigorous
season during which much snow falls. Spring, summer, and autumn are one season here and