The mountains of this country also supply Saker falcons of excellent
flight, and plenty of Lanners likewise. Beasts and birds for the chase
there are in great abundance. Good wheat is grown, and also barley without
husk. They have no olive oil, but make oil from sesame, and also from
walnuts.[NOTE 5]
[In the mountains there are vast numbers of sheep - 400, 500, or 600 in a
single flock, and all of them wild; and though many of them are taken,
they never seem to get aught the scarcer.[NOTE 6]
Those mountains are so lofty that 'tis a hard day's work, from morning
till evening, to get to the top of them. On getting up, you find an
extensive plain, with great abundance of grass and trees, and copious
springs of pure water running down through rocks and ravines. In those
brooks are found trout and many other fish of dainty kinds; and the air in
those regions is so pure, and residence there so healthful, that when the
men who dwell below in the towns, and in the valleys and plains, find
themselves attacked by any kind of fever or other ailment that may hap,
they lose no time in going to the hills; and after abiding there two or
three days, they quite recover their health through the excellence of that
air. And Messer Marco said he had proved this by experience: for when in
those parts he had been ill for about a year, but as soon as he was
advised to visit that mountain, he did so and got well at once.[NOTE 7]]
[Illustration: Ancient Silver Patera of debased Greek art, formerly in the
possession of the Princes of Badakhshan, now in the India Museum.
(Four-ninths of the diameter of the Original.)]
In this kingdom there are many strait and perilous passes, so difficult to
force that the people have no fear of invasion. Their towns and villages
also are on lofty hills, and in very strong positions.[NOTE 8] They are
excellent archers, and much given to the chase; indeed, most of them are
dependent for clothing on the skins of beasts, for stuffs are very dear
among them. The great ladies, however, are arrayed in stuffs, and I will
tell you the style of their dress! They all wear drawers made of cotton
cloth, and into the making of these some will put 60, 80, or even 100 ells
of stuff. This they do to make themselves look large in the hips, for the
men of those parts think that to be a great beauty in a woman.[NOTE 9]
NOTE 1. - "The population of Badakhshan Proper is composed of Tajiks,
Turks, and Arabs, who are all Sunnis, following the orthodox doctrines of
the Mahomedan law, and speak Persian and Turki, whilst the people of the
more mountainous tracts are Tajiks of the Shia creed, having separate
provincial dialects or languages of their own, the inhabitants of the
principal places combining therewith a knowledge of Persian. Thus, the
Shighnani [sometimes called Shighni] is spoken in Shignan and Roshan,
the Ishkashami in Ishkasham, the Wakhi in Wakhan, the Sanglichi in
Sanglich and Zebak, and the Minjani in Minjan. All these dialects
materially differ from each other." (Pand. Manphul.) It may be
considered almost certain that Badakhshan Proper also had a peculiar
dialect in Polo's time. Mr. Shaw speaks of the strong resemblance to
Kashmiris of the Badakhshan people whom he had seen.
The Legend of the Alexandrian pedigree of the Kings of Badakhshan is
spoken of by Baber, and by earlier Eastern authors. This pedigree is, or
was, claimed also by the chiefs of Karategin, Darwaz, Roshan, Shighnan,
Wakhan, Chitral, Gilgit, Swat, and Khapolor in Balti. Some samples of
those genealogies may be seen in that strange document called "Gardiner's
Travels."
In Badakhshan Proper the story seems now to have died out. Indeed, though
Wood mentions one of the modern family of Mirs as vaunting this descent,
these are in fact Sahibzadahs of Samarkand, who were invited to the
country about the middle of the 17th century, and were in no way connected
with the old kings.
The traditional claims to Alexandrian descent were probably due to a
genuine memory of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom, and might have had an
origin analogous to the Sultan's claim to be "Caesar of Rome"; for the
real ancestry of the oldest dynasties on the Oxus was to be sought rather
among the Tochari and Ephthalites than among the Greeks whom they
superseded.
The cut on p. 159 presents an interesting memorial of the real relation of
Bactria to Greece, as well as of the pretence of the Badakhshan princes to
Grecian descent. This silver patera was sold by the family of the Mirs,
when captives, to the Minister of the Uzbek chief of Kunduz, and by him to
Dr. Percival Lord in 1838. It is now in the India Museum. On the bottom is
punched a word or two in Pehlvi, and there is also a word incised in
Syriac or Uighur. It is curious that a pair of paterae were acquired by
Dr. Lord under the circumstances stated. The other, similar in material
and form, but apparently somewhat larger, is distinctly Sassanian,
representing a king spearing a lion.
Zu-'lkarnain, "the Two-Horned," is an Arabic epithet of Alexander, with
which legends have been connected, but which probably arose from the
horned portraits on his coins. [Capus, l.c. p. 121, says, "Iskandr
Zoulcarnein or Alexander le Cornu, horns being the emblem of strength."
- H. C.] The term appears in Chaucer (Troil. and Cress. III. 931) in the
sense of non plus: -
"I am, till God me better minde send,
At dulcarnon, right at my wittes end."
And it is said to have still colloquial existence in that sense in some
corners of England.
