In Buesching, V. 352; Sprenger, P. 50; P. De La Croix, I.
63; Baber, 38, 130; Burnes, III.
8; Wood, 156; Pandit Manphul's
Report.)
The distance of Talikan from Balkh is about 170 miles, which gives very
short marches, if twelve days be the correct reading. Ramusio has two
days, which is certainly wrong. XII. is easily miswritten for VII., which
would be a just number.
NOTE 2. - In our day, as I learn from Pandit Manphul, the mines of rock
salt are at Ak Bulak, near the Lataband Pass, and at Daruna, near the
Kokcha, and these supply the whole of Badakhshan, as well as Kunduz and
Chitral. These sites are due east of Talikan, and are in Badakhshan. But
there is a mine at Chal, S.E. or S.S.E. of Talikan and within the same
province. There are also mines of rock-salt near the famous "stone bridge"
in Kulab, north of the Oxus, and again on the south of the Alai steppe.
(Papers by Manphul and by Faiz Baksh; also Notes by Feachenko.)
Both pistachioes and wild almonds are mentioned by Pandit Manphul; and see
Wood (p. 252) on the beauty and profusion of the latter.
NOTE 3. - Wood thinks that the Tajik inhabitants of Badakhshan and the
adjoining districts are substantially of the same race as the Kafir tribes
of Hindu Kush. At the time of Polo's visit it would seem that their
conversion to Islam was imperfect. They were probably in that transition
state which obtains in our own day for some of the Hill Mahomedans
adjoining the Kafirs on the south side of the mountains the reproachful
title of Nimchah Musulman, or Half-and-halfs. Thus they would seem to
have retained sundry Kafir characteristics; among others that love of wine
which is so strong among the Kafirs. The boiling of the wine is noted by
Baber (a connoisseur) as the custom of Nijrao, adjoining, if not then
included in, Kafir-land; and Elphinstone implies the continuance of the
custom when he speaks of the Kafirs as having wine of the consistence of
jelly, and very strong. The wine of Kapishi, the Greek Kapisa,
immediately south of Hindu Kush, was famous as early as the time of the
Hindu grammarian Panini, say three centuries B.C. The cord twisted round
the head was probably also a relic of Kafir costume: "Few of the Kafirs
cover the head, and when they do, it is with a narrow band or fillet of
goat's hair ... about a yard or a yard and a half in length, wound round
the head." This style of head-dress seems to be very ancient in India, and
in the Sanchi sculptures is that of the supposed Dasyas. Something very
similar, i.e. a scanty turban cloth twisted into a mere cord, and wound
two or three times round the head, is often seen in the Panjab to this
day.
The Postin or sheepskin coat is almost universal on both sides of the
Hindu Kush; and Wood notes: "The shoes in use resemble half-boots, made of
goatskin, and mostly of home manufacture." (Baber, 145; J. A. S. B.
XXVIII. 348, 364; Elphinst. II. 384; Ind. Antiquary, I. 22; Wood,
174, 220; J. R. A. S. XIX. 2.)
NOTE 4. - Marsden was right in identifying Scassem or Casem with the
Kechem of D'Anville's Map, but wrong in confounding the latter with the
Kishmabad of Elphinstone - properly, I believe, Kishnabad - in the
Anderab Valley. Kashm, or Keshm, found its way into maps through Petis de
la Croix, from whom probably D'Anville adopted it; but as it was ignored
by Elphinstone (or by Macartney, who constructed his map), and by Burnes,
it dropped out of our geography. Indeed, Wood does not notice it except as
giving name to a high hill called the Hill of Kishm, and the position even
of that he omits to indicate. The frequent mention of Kishm in the
histories of Timur and Humayun (e.g. P. de la Croix, I. 167; N. et E.
XIV. 223, 491; Erskine's Baber and Humayun, II. 330, 355, etc.) had
enabled me to determine its position within tolerably narrow limits; but
desiring to fix it definitely, application was made through Colonel
Maclagan to Pandit Manphul, C.S.I., a very intelligent Hindu gentleman,
who resided for some time in Badakhshan as agent of the Panjab Government,
and from him arrived a special note and sketch, and afterwards a MS. copy
of a Report,[1] which set the position of Kishm at rest.
KISHM is the Kilissemo, i.e. Karisma or Krishma, of Hinen Tsang; and Sir
H. Rawlinson has identified the Hill of Kishm with the Mount Kharesem of
the Zend-Avesta, on which Jamshid placed the most sacred of all the fires.
It is now a small town or large village on the right bank of the Varsach
river, a tributary of the Kokcha. It was in 1866 the seat of a district
ruler under the Mir of Badakhshan, who was styled the Mir of Kishm, and is
the modern counterpart of Marco's Quens or Count. The modern
caravan-road between Kunduz and Badakhshan does not pass through Kishm,
which is left some five miles to the right, but through the town of
Mashhad, which stands on the same river. Kishm is the warmest district of
Badakhshan. Its fruits are abundant, and ripen a month earlier than those
at Faizabad, the capital of that country. The Varsach or Mashhad river is
Marco's "Flum auques grant." Wood (247) calls it "the largest stream we
had yet forded in Badakhshan."
It is very notable that in Ramusio, in Pipino, and in one passage of the
G. Text, the name is written Scasem, which has led some to suppose the
Ish-Kashm of Wood to be meant. That place is much too far east - in fact,
beyond the city which forms the subject of the next chapter. The apparent
hesitation, however, between the forms Casem and Scasem suggests that
the Kishm of our note may formerly have been termed S'kashm or Ish-Kashm,
a form frequent in the Oxus Valley, e.g. Ish-Kimish, Ish-Kashm, Ishtrakh,
Ishpingao.
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