My brother had a constant struggle to induce our grooms to water our horses during our long mid-day halts, old Jafar Bai asserting that they would go lame if allowed to drink. On one occasion when my particular mount took to limping he was very triumphant, and told every one that it was owing to our way of flying in the face of custom with regard to the water question. But his triumph was short-lived, for when the grey’s shoe was removed it was found that the farrier had cut the hoof ruthlessly in order to make it fit the shoe—a common practice. My brother’s plan of picketing our animals with long ropes while grazing also came in for much censure, and was said to be the cause of any malady that the water theory did not cover.
As we had not tasted fresh fish since leaving Europe, we enjoyed a large but somewhat tasteless variety that was caught in the river which meandered through the Tagharma Valley, and thought it would be interesting to do some angling ourselves. We had brought fishing-rods with us, having been told that the rivers simply swarmed with a species of trout, and one afternoon, when the heat of the day was over, we sallied forth attended by a horde of bare-legged Kirghiz who carried our landing-net, and who so scared the few fish we saw that not a single nibble rewarded our efforts. On enquiry I found that the natives, who evidently scorned our orthodox methods, were accustomed to dam up the shallow river in suitable places with clods of earth, making a cul de sac into which they drove the fish, which then fell an easy prey.
It was a proud day for Nadir when we left Tagharma to go to Tashkurghan, his native place. I was sorry to leave the pleasant grassy valley dotted with groups of akhois, from which shaggy dogs in charge of the flocks of sheep and goats rushed out to bark at us. Nearer and nearer we approached the mountains, until we reached a gorge through which ran the Sarikol River. This defile led us into the wide Sarikol Valley, where we were met by a big group of its inhabitants headed by the Aksakal, or British Agent, a native of Lahore. They had as usual erected a tent, and pressed pillaus, tea, sweetmeats, and little squares of tough native bread upon us. Nadir, who was a kind of understudy to the Aksakal, with the title of Watchman, proudly brought his little son to show me. He had been met by three generations of strikingly handsome relatives, and all round us were Persian-speaking Aryans with no resemblance whatever to the surrounding Kirghiz tribes. They were handsome, well-built men and youths, with aquiline noses, clear-cut features, fine dark eyes and thick black beards and moustaches; and one and all looked intelligent and alert.
As we rode past the cemetery on our way to camp, I noticed that the tombs were more ornate than those of the Kirghiz, and was struck by curious clay erections at one end of them which reminded me of rabbits sitting up. These, I was told, were intended to hold lights, a custom which had nothing to do with Mohamedan practice, but probably was borrowed from Buddhism.
Our akhois were pitched on a stretch of grazing near a branch of the river which cuts up the valley with its numerous tributaries and is so deep, and runs so swiftly in summer, that every year without fail it takes a toll of human and animal life. High above us towered the long ridge on which Tashkurghan is built. As the town is printed in large type on all the maps I was surprised to find it but a small collection of dilapidated mud houses, many of which were in ruins. It is, however, the spot alluded to by the Chinese traveller Hiuen-Tsiang, who visited it in the seventh century. On the highest point stood a large castellated Chinese fort, and not far off, in an equally dominating position, was the small Russian fort, where an officer, his wife, and a troop of Cossacks were quartered. The young captain called upon us, saying that his wife had not seen a European woman for two years, and asked us to dine with them that evening, while in our turn we entertained them in camp. They must have led a very dreary life as they were cut off almost completely from the outer world, and there are but few resources in the Sarikol Valley, especially during the long winter. The Russian lady was delighted to meet me, though, as she could speak no language save her own, conversation was very difficult. She took me into her tiny garden, a walled-in plot which the Cossacks had cleared of boulders and in which a few poplar saplings and some minute cabbages and lettuces were struggling to gain a livelihood from the barren ground. It almost brought the tears to my eyes when she pointed out with intense pride a solitary bloom of mignonette, the only flower in this mockery of a garden, though it was mid-July. To amuse me she told the Cossacks to release a couple of wolf-cubs kept in a den in the courtyard, and when the poor little beasts made a dash for liberty I secretly hoped that they would escape, in spite of the Persian proverb which says, “To be kind to the wolf is to be cruel to the lamb.”
Though the Chinese Governor met my brother when he entered Tashkurghan, providing tea for him on the road and calling upon him, he was evidently unwilling to admit Europeans into the fort, and gave what I imagine must be the stock excuse, that he had not the wherewithal to entertain an English guest. When I read Sir Thomas Gordon’s account of his visit to Sarikol in The Roof of the World, I was struck by the fact that the Chinese Governor of that day—it was 1874—put off Sir Thomas and his party with the same excuse when they wished to return his call.
The Sarikolis are Mohamedans of the Ismaili sect, and acknowledge the Agha Khan as their spiritual head. They talk Persian with a somewhat uncouth accent, and the very warm welcome they gave my brother was partly due to their delight at hearing him speak the Persian of Persia.
One day we crossed the many branches of the river and clambered up a steep neck in the hills in order to have a view of the long valley leading up to the stony Taghdumbash Pamir. At our feet small hamlets were dotted about, surrounded by badly-grown crops of wheat, barley, peas, lucerne and mustard. The plant last mentioned is grown for its oil, which is used in the little native lamps, and I was told that the Sarikolis show traces of their fire-worshipping ancestry by never blowing out a flame, thus copying the practice of the Zoroastrians. I was much interested to find in this backwater of the world a close connection with the bygone legends of Persia, Nadir informing us that Mount Afrasiab was the name of the hill behind us, and pointing out a hill of remarkable shape just opposite across the valley, saying that it was Besitun, the scene of Ferhad’s almost impossible engineering feat. Let me tell this famous legend of old Persia as far as possible in his own words:
Now King Afrasiab[2] greatly loved the fair Shirin his wife and cared for no other woman, and his wrath was kindled when he perceived that her beauty had cast a spell over Ferhad the architect, who became as a man distraught. Near the palace of the monarch lay Mount Besitun and behind it was a stream that ran down from the hills above and gave the mighty king an idea by which to cure the vain passion of his servant. Therefore he summoned Ferhad to his presence and swore to him that if he could bore a tunnel in the mountain through which the stream could run he should have the lovely Queen as his reward.
Afrasiab knew that the task was not in the power of man to perform, but love increased the strength of Ferhad an hundredfold, and at the end of a year the tunnel was nigh completion and the king was greatly alarmed. At last he thought of a plan by which he hoped to keep his beloved wife and yet not break his royal oath. Therefore, one day when Ferhad was in a perilous position on the face of the rock, a royal servant suddenly announced to him that beautiful Shirin was dead; and her lover, losing his foothold from the shock, fell headlong from the mountain and was killed on the spot.