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0517 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / Page 517 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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CHAPTER XX

BY THE UPPERMOST OXUS

After all the passes and defiles by which our route had led
since leaving the Alai, the onward journey seemed easy
notwithstanding the height of the ground over which it
passed. On moving up the wide trough of the Alichur Pamir
for two days, it was easy to realize the advantages which its
flat expanse, stretching from east to west for over sixty miles,
offered since early times for direct approach to the moun-
tain territory of Shughnan from the side of the Tarim basin.
We have direct evidence of the use of this route by those
Chinese travellers and troops of whose moves across the
Pamirs towards Shughnan and the middle Oxus definite
historical record has come down to us.
Thus we know that when Kao Hsien-chih, the Chinese
general to whose great exploit in crossing the glacier pass
of the Darkot I have already referred in Chapter iii, made
his famous expedition in A.D. 747 across the Pamirs to oust
the Tibetans from the Oxus, he led first the main column
of his force down this way to Shughnan. It was done obvi-
ously for the sake of the supplies to be secured there from
the side of Badakhshan. Four years later this route had seen
Wu-k'ung, a humble Chinese traveller, proceeding to the
North-West of India. There he lived for some thirty years as
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