The Jhelam Valley,
would form at the present day, too, the most direct and practicable line
of invasion."
In a paper on Marco Polo's Account of a Mongol inroad into Kashmir
(Geog. Jour., August, 1919), Sir Aurel Stein reverts again to the same
subject. "These [Mongol] inroads appear to have commenced from about 1260
A.D., and to have continued right through the reign of Ghiasuddin, Sultan
of Delhi (1266-1286), whose identity with Marco's Asedin Soldan is
certain. It appears very probable that Marco's story of Nogodar, the
nephew of Chaghatai, relates to one of the earliest of these incursions
which was recent history when the Poli passed through Persia about 1272-73
A.D."
Stein thinks, with Marsden and Yule, that Dilivar (pp. 99, 105) is
really a misunderstanding of "Citta di Livar" for Lahawar or Lahore.
Dir has been dealt with by Yule and Pauthier, and we know that it is
"the mountain tract at the head of the western branch of the Panjkora
River, through which leads the most frequented route from Peshawar and the
lower Swat valley to Chitral" (Stein, l.c.). Now with regard to the
situation of Pashai (p. 104):
"It is clear that a safe identification of the territory intended cannot
be based upon such characteristics of its people as Marco Polo's account
here notes obviously from hearsay, but must reckon in the first place with
the plainly stated bearing and distance. And Sir Henry Yule's difficulty
arose just from the fact that what the information accessible to him
seemed to show about the location of the name Pashai could not be
satisfactorily reconciled with those plain topographical data. Marco's
great commentator, thoroughly familiar as he was with whatever was known
in his time about the geography of the western Hindukush and the regions
between Oxus and Indus, could not fail to recognize the obvious connection
between our Pashai and the tribal name Pashai borne by Muhammanized
Kafirs who are repeatedly mentioned in mediaeval and modern accounts of
Kabul territory. But all these accounts seemed to place the Pashais in the
vicinity of the great Panjshir valley, north-east of Kabul, through which
passes one of the best-known routes from the Afghan capital to the
Hindukush watershed and thence to the Middle Oxus. Panjshir, like Kabul
itself, lies to the south-west of Badakshan, and it is just this
discrepancy of bearing together with one in the distance reckoned to
Kashmir which caused Sir Henry Yule to give expression to doubts when
summing up his views about Nogodar's route."
From Sir George Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India we learn that to
the south of the range of the Hindukush "the languages spoken from Kashmir
in the east to Kafiristan in the west are neither of Indian nor of Iranian
origin, but form a third branch of the Aryan stock of the great
Indo-European language family. Among the languages of this branch, now
rightly designated as 'Dardic,' the Kafir group holds a very prominent
place. In the Kafir group again we find the Pashai language spoken over a
very considerable area. The map accompanying Sir George Grierson's
monograph on 'The Pisaca Languages of North-Western India' [Asiatic Society
Monographs, VIII., 1906], shows Pashai as the language spoken along the
right bank of the Kunar river as far as the Asmar tract as well as in the
side valleys which from the north descend towards it and the Kabul river
further west. This important fact makes it certain that the tribal
designation of Pashai, to which this Kafir language owes its name, has to
this day an application extending much further east than was indicated by
the references which travellers, mediaeval and modern, along the Panjshir
route have made to the Pashais and from which alone this ethnic name was
previously known."
Stein comes to the conclusion that "the Mongols' route led across the
Mandal Pass into the great Kafir valley of Bashgol and thus down to
Arnawai on the Kunar. Thence Dir could be gained directly across the
Zakhanna Pass, a single day's march. There were alternative routes, too,
available to the same destination either by ascending the Kunar to Ashreth
and taking the present 'Chitral Road' across the Lowarai, or descending
the river to Asmar and crossing the Binshi Pass."
From Dir towards Kashmir for a large body of horsemen "the easiest and in
matter of time nearest route must have led them as now down the Panjkora
Valley and beyond through the open tracts of Lower Swat and Buner to the
Indus about Amb. From there it was easy through the open northern part of
the present Hazara District (the ancient Urasa) to gain the valley of the
Jhelam River at its sharp bend near Muzzaffarabad."
The name of Agror (the direct phonetic derivative of the Sanskrit
Atyugrapura) = Ariora; it is the name of the hill-tract on the Hazara
border which faces Buner on the east from across the left bank of the
Indus.
XVIII., p. 101.
Line 17, Note 4. Korano of the Indo-Scythic Coins is to be read
Kosano. (PELLIOT.)
XVIII., p. 102.
On the Mongols of Afghanistan, see RAMSTEDT, Mogholica, in Journ. de la
Soc. Finno-Ougrienne, XXIII., 1905. (PELLIOT.)
XIX., p. 107. "The King is called RUOMEDAN AHOMET."
About 1060, Mohammed I. Dirhem Kub, from Yemen, became master of Hormuz,
but his successors remained in the dependency of the sovereigns of Kerman
until 1249, when Rokn ed-Din Mahmud III. Kalhaty (1242-1277) became
independent. His successors in Polo's time were Seif ed-Din Nusrat
(1277-1290), Mas'ud (1290-1293), Beha ed-Din Ayaz Seyfin (1293-1311).
XIX., p. 115.
HORMOS.
The Travels of Pedro Teixeira, a Portuguese traveller, probably of Jewish
origin, certainly not a Jesuit, have been published by the Hakluyt
Society:
