XII. pp. 121-125) remarks
that the Moonshee, sent by Captain Trotter to survey the Oxus between
Ishkashm and Kila Wamar, could not find at the spot marked by Yule on his
map, the mouth of the Shakh-Dara, but northward 7 or 8 miles from the
junction of the Murghab with the Oxus, he saw the opening of an important
water-course, the Suchnan River, formed by the Shakh-Dara and the
Ghund-Dara. Marco arrived at a place between Northern Wakhan and Shihgnan;
from the Central Pamir, Polo would have taken a route identical with that
of the Mirza (1868-1869) by the Chichiklik Pass. Professor Paquier adds: "I
have no hesitation in believing that Marco Polo was in the neighbourhood of
that great commercial road, which by the Vallis Comedarum reached the
foot of the Imaues. He probably did not venture on a journey of fifty
marches in an unknown country. At the top of the Shihgnan Valley, he
doubtless found a road marked out to Little Bukharia. This was the road
followed in ancient times from Bactrian to Serica; and Ptolemy has, so to
speak, given us its landmarks after Marinus of Tyre, by the Vallis
Comedarum (Valley of actual Shihgnan); the Turris Lapidea and the
Statio Mercatorum, neighbourhood of Tash Kurgan, capital of the present
province of Sar-i-kol."
I must say that accepting, as I do, for Polo's Itinerary, the route from
Wakhan to Kashgar by the Taghdum-Bash Pamir, and Tash Kurgan, I do not
agree with Professor Paquier's theory.
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