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0091 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
中央アジア踏査記 : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / 91 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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centuries before had seen Alexander and his Macedonians
pass by to the conquest of the Indian marches. There were
to be seen, too, ruins of Buddhist shrines attesting an ancient
civilization that had vanished since the last of the rulers
who used to mint coins with Greek legends had ceased to
hold sway in the land and to protect with its prosperity also
its Buddhist sacred sites.
May 3 found us at the foot of the dreaded Lowarai Pass,
over 10,200 feet high (Fig. 13), and our crossing effected
before daybreak through gorges deeply choked with the
snows of avalanches, some quite recent, showed that the
difficulties that had been locally urged against an earlier
passage northward had scarcely been exaggerated. Over
fifty stout tribesmen, starting in several detachments to
lessen risks, were needed for the transport of our belongings.
With this obstacle once safely taken I could rapidly push up
the deep-cut valley of Chitral to Fort Drosh, the northern-
most outpost of British military power in India. Thence a
long double march by the river, with the huge icy mass of
the Tirichmir peak (about 25,000 feet high) in full view,
carried me to the Chitral capital, a charming little oasis in
this maze of steep barren mountains.
A few days of busy halt there enabled me to gather an
ample anthropological harvest. In its autochthonous popu-
lation Chitral holds an important branch of that 'Dard'
race which by its antiquity and ethnic and linguistic affini-
ties may well claim special interest. Already in the days of
the Achaemenaean Empire its seat in these mountains was
known to Ktesias. But the mountain fastnesses of Chitral
have again and again offered shelter also to broken rem-
nants of tribes unable to hold their own elsewhere. Thus I