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On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 |
Citation Information
OCR Text
associations. Political conditions seemed for a long time to
bar all access to them for British travellers, and in par-
ticular for anyone serving like myself under the Indian
Government. But the conclusion of the Anglo-Russian agree-
ment reconciling the Asiatic interests of both Empires
seemed to encourage some hope that the bar might at least
partially be lifted for the sake of my scholarly aims. I ac-
cordingly had in the autumn of 1913 addressed a request
to the Foreign Department of the Government of India that
with the approval of the Foreign Office in London the
Russian Government might be approached for permis-
sion enabling me to visit the Alai portion of the Pamirs and
the mountain tracts westwards through which the route of
the ancient silk trade from China to Bactria must have
passed.
Previous experience had induced me to provide an ade-
quate allowance of time for needful diplomatic procedure
and slow postal communications in Chinese Turkistan. All
the same it was a great relief when a mail bag received at
Kucha in April 1915 brought cheering demi-official in-
formation from Simla that the desired permission had been
accorded by the Russian Foreign Ministry. I felt duly grate-
ful for the alliance between Russia and the British Empire,
cemented by the War, which was likely to have helped
towards securing this concession.
But my hope for the prompt realization of my programme,
which in the end was to take me through Russian Turkistan
to south-eastern Persia for the following winter's work, was
much damped on my arrival at Kashgar. The Russian
diplomatic representative, Consul General Prince Mest-
chersky, cultivated very friendly relations with his British
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561
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571
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578
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