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. General Cunningham judiciously suggests (Ladak, 34) that this form is merely a vocal corruption of the initial S before a consonant, a combination which always troubles the Musulman in India, and converts every Mr. Smith or Mr. Sparks into Ismit or Ispak Sahib.

[There does not seem to me any difficulty about this note: "Shibarkhan (Afghan Turkistan), Balkh, Kunduz, Khanabad, Talikan, Kishm, Badakhshan." I am tempted to look for Dogana at Khanabad. - H. C.]

NOTE 5. - The belief that the porcupine projected its quills at its assailants was an ancient and persistent one - "cum intendit cutem missiles," says Pliny (VIII. 35, and see also Aelian. de Nat. An. I. 31), and is held by the Chinese as it was held by the ancients, but is universally rejected by modern zoologists. The huddling and coiling appears to be a true characteristic, for the porcupine always tries to shield its head.

NOTE 6. - The description of Kishm as a "very great" province is an example of a bad habit of Marco's, which recurs in the next chapter. What he says of the cave-dwellings may be illustrated by Burnes's account of the excavations at Bamian, in a neighbouring district. These "still form the residence of the greater part of the population.... The hills at Bamian are formed of indurated clay and pebbles, which renders this excavation a matter of little difficulty." Similar occupied excavations are noticed by Moorcroft at Heibak and other places towards Khulm.

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