This
district is extraordinarily densely inhabited and well cultivated.' But
then all this magnificence comes to an end, and of the last day's journey
between Kademgah and Meshed I write:
'The country rose and we entered a
maze of low intricate hillocks.... The country was exceedingly dreary and
bare. Some flocks of sheep were seen, however, but what the fat and sleek
sheep lived on was a puzzle to me.... This dismal landscape was more and
more enlivened by travellers.... To the east stretched an undulating steppe
up to the frontier of Afghanistan.'
"The road between Sebsevar and Meshed is, in short, of such a character
that it can hardly fit in with Marco Polo's enthusiastic description of
the six days. And as these came just before Sapurgan, one cannot either
identify the desert regions named with the deserts about the middle course
of the Murgab which extend between Meshed and Shibirkhan. He must have
crossed desert first, and it may be identified with the nemek-sar or salt
desert east of Tun and Kain. The six days must have been passed in the
ranges Paropamisus, Firuz-kuh, and Bend-i-Turkestan. Marco Polo is not
usually wont to scare his readers by descriptions of mountainous regions,
but at this place he speaks of mountains and valleys and rich pastures. As
it was, of course, his intention to travel on into the heart of Asia, to
make a detour through Sebsevar was unnecessary and out of his way. If he
had travelled to Sebsevar, Nishapur, and Meshed, he would scarcely call
the province of Tun-o-Kain the extremity of Persia towards the north, even
as the political boundaries were then situated.
"From Balkh his wonderful journey proceeded further eastwards, and
therefore we take leave of him. Precisely in Eastern Persia his
descriptions are so brief that they leave free room for all kinds of
speculations. In the foregoing pages it has been simply my desire to
present a few new points of view. The great value of Marco Polo's
description of the Persian desert consists in confirming and proving its
physical invariableness during more than six hundred years. It had as
great a scarcity of oases then as now, and the water in the wells was not
less salt than in our own days." (Overland to India, II., pp. 75-77.)
XXVII., p. 152 n.
DOGANA.
"The country of Dogana is quite certain to be the Chinese T'u-ho-lo or
Tokhara; for the position suits, and, moreover, nearly all the other
places named by Marco Polo along with Dogana occur in Chinese History
along with Tokhara many centuries before Polo's arrival. Tokhara being the
most important, it is inconceivable that Marco Polo would omit it. Thus,
Poh-lo (Balkh), capital of the Eptals; Ta-la-kien (Talecan), mentioned by
Hiuan Tsang; Ho-sim or Ho-ts'z-mi (Casem), mentioned in the T'ang
History; Shik-nih or Shi-k'i-ni (Syghinan) of the T'ang History;
Woh-k'an (Vochan), of the same work; several forms of Bolor, etc.
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