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CHAPTER XXXIII.
OF THE KINGDOM OF CASCAR.
Illustration: Head of a Native of Kashgar
Cascar is a region lying between north-east and east, and constituted a
kingdom in former days, but now it is subject to the Great Kaan. The
people worship Mahommet. There are a good number of towns and villages,
but the greatest and finest is Cascar itself. The inhabitants live by
trade and handicrafts; they have beautiful gardens and vineyards, and fine
estates, and grow a great deal of cotton. From this country many merchants
go forth about the world on trading journeys. The natives are a wretched,
niggardly set of people; they eat and drink in miserable fashion. There
are in the country many Nestorian Christians, who have churches of their
own. The people of the country have a peculiar language, and the territory
extends for five days' journey.NOTE 1
Illustration: View of Kashgar (From Shaw's "Tartary")
NOTE 1.--There is no longer any difficulty in understanding how the
travellers, after crossing Pamir, should have arrived at Kashgar if they
followed the route from Táshkurgán through the Gez Defile.
The Itinerary of the Mirza from Badakhshan (Fáizabad) is the following:
Zebak, Ishkashm, on the Panja, which may be considered the beginning of
the Wakhán Valley, Panja Fort, in Wakhán, Raz Khan, Patur, near Lunghar
(commencement of Pamir Steppe), Pamir Kul, or Barkút Yassin, 13,300 feet,
Aktash, Sirikul Táshkurgán, Shukrab, Chichik Dawan, Akul, Kotul, Chahul
Station (road to Yarkand) Kila Karawal, Aghiz Gah, Yangi-Hissar, Opechan,
Yanga Shahr, Kashgar, where he arrived on the 3rd February, 1869. (Cf.
Report of "The Mirza's" Exploration from Caubul to Kashgar. By Major T.
-
Montgomerie, R.E.... (Jour. R. Geog. Soc. XLI. 1871, pp. 132-192.)
Major Montgomerie (l.c. p. 144) says: "The alterations in the positions of
Kashgar and Yarkund in a great measure explains why Marco Polo, in
crossing from Badakhshan to Eastern Turkestan, went first to Kashgar and
then to Yarkund. With the old positions of Yarkund and Kashgar it appeared
that the natural route from Badakhshan would have led first to Yarkund;
with the new positions, and guided by the light of the Mirza's route, from
which it is seen that the direct route to Yarkund is not a good one, it is
easy to understand how a traveller might prefer going to Kashgar first,
and then to Yarkund. It is satisfactory to have elicited this further
proof of the general accuracy of the great traveller's account of his
journey through Central Asia."
The Itinerary of Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon (Sirikol, the Pámírs and
Wakhán, ch. vi. of Forsyth's Mission to Yarkund in 1873) runs thus:
"Left Káshgar (21st March), Yangi-Hissar, Kaskasú Pass, descent to Chihil
Gumbaz (forty Domes), where the road branches off to Yárkand (110 miles),
Torut Pass, Tangi-Tár (defile), 'to the foot of a great elevated slope
leading to the Chichiklik Pass, plain, and lake (14,700 feet), below the
Yámbulák and Kok-Moinok Passes, which are used later in the season on the
road between Yangi-Hissár and Sirikol, to avoid the Tangi-Tár and Shindi
defiles. As the season advances, these passes become free from snow, while
the defiles are rendered dangerous and difficult by the rush of the
melting snow torrents. From the Chichiklik plain we proceeded down the
Shindi ravine, over an extremely bad stony road, to the Sirikol River, up
the banks of which we travelled to Táshkurgán, reaching it on the tenth
day from Yangi-Hissar. The total distance is 125 miles.' Then Táshkurgán
(ancient name Várshídi): 'the open part of the Sirikol Valley
extends
from about 8 miles below Táshkurgán to apparently a very considerable
distance towards the Kunjút mountain range;' left Táshkurgán for
Wákhan
(2nd April, 1873); leave Sirikol Valley, enter the Shindán defile, reach
the Áktásh Valley, follow the Áktásh stream (called
Áksú by the Kirghiz)
through the Little Pamir to the Gházkul (Little Pamir) Lake or Barkat
Yássín, from which it takes its rise, four days from
Táshkurgán. Little
Pamir 'is bounded on the south by the continuation of the Neza Tásh range,
which separates it from the Tághdúngbásh Pámir,' west of the
lake, Langar,
Sarhadd, 30 miles from Langar, and seven days from Sirikol, and Kila Panj,
twelve days from Sirikól."--H. C.
I cannot admit with Professor Paquier (l.c. pp. 127-128) that Marco Polo
did not visit Kashgar.--Grenard (II. p. 17) makes the remark that it took
Marco Polo seventy days from Badakhshan to Kashgar, a distance that, in
the Plain of Turkestan, he shall cross in sixteen days.--The Chinese
traveller, translated by M. Gueluy (Desc. de la Chine occidentale, p.
-
, says that the name Kashgar is made of Kash, fine colour, and gar,
brick house.--H. C.
Kashgar was the capital, from 1865 to 1877, of Ya'kúb Kúshbegi, a soldier
of fortune, by descent it is said a Tajik of Shighnan, who, when the
Chinese yoke was thrown off, made a throne for himself in Eastern
Turkestan, and subjected the whole basin to his authority, taking the
title of Atalik Gházi.
It is not easy to see how Kashgar should have been subject to the Great
Kaan, except in the sense in which all territories under Mongol rule owed
him homage. Yarkand, Polo acknowledges to have belonged to Kaidu, and the
boundary between Kaidu's territory and the Kaan's lay between Karashahr
and Komul Bk. I. ch. xli., much further east.
Bretschneider, Med. Res. (II. p. 47), says: "Marco Polo states with
respect to the kingdom of Cascar (I. 189) that it was subject to the
Great Khan, and says the same regarding Cotan (I. 196), whilst
Yarcan
-
195), according to Marco Polo, belonged to Kaidu. This does not agree
with Rashid's statements about the boundary between Kaidu's territory and
the Khan's."--H. C.
Kashgar was at this time a Metropolitan See of the Nestorian Church.
(Cathay, etc. 275, ccxlv.)
Many strange sayings have been unduly ascribed to our traveller, but I
remember none stranger than this by Colonel Tod: "Marco Polo calls
Cashgar, where he was in the 6th century, the birthplace of the Swedes"!
(Rajasthan, I. 60.) Pétis de la Croix and Tod between them are
answerable for this nonsense. (See The Hist. of Genghizcan the Great, p.
116.)
On cotton, see ch. xxxvi.--On Nestorians, see Kanchau.
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