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0041 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
中央アジア踏査記 : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / 41 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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extensive, can offer but little variety of scenery. Neverthe-
less, there are broad geographical features which divide this
ground into several well-marked zones, and our rapid survey
must take these in succession.
We may start from the mountain barrier in the west, not
merely because it was from that side that the earliest in-
fluence of the classical world, of India and of Persia passed
into innermost Asia and thence into China, but also because
the mountain barrier to be crossed there has attracted more
interest than the rest of the encircling ranges. I mean the
great meridional range which from the high open valleys
adjoining it westwards may conveniently be referred to as
that of the Pamirs. It joins the T'ien-shan on the north
to the ice-clad Hindukush on the south, and was known
already to the ancients by the name of Imaos. Ptolemy in his
'Geography' quite correctly describes it as the range dividing
the two Scythias, intra and extra Imaon. These terms closely
correspond to the Inner and Outer Tartary of our grand-
fathers' geography and find their equivalents in the Russian
Turkistan and Chinese Turkistan of our own. On this
range lies the watershed between the drainage areas of the
Oxus and the Tarim rivers. But it is of interest to observe
that the line of greatest elevations, culminating in peaks
rising to over 25,000 feet, stretches to the east of the water-
shed (Fig. 1).
To the high plateau-like valleys of the Pamirs which
extend to the west of this line and for the most part are
drained by the headwaters of the Oxus and its main tribu-
taries, it is unnecessary to make more than passing reference.
We shall visit them in later chapters and then have occasion
to mention the routes which have served since ancient times