“The Chinese Toba Dynasty History mentions, in company with Samarcand, K’a-shī-mih (Cashmeer), and Kapisa, a State called Pan-shê, as sending tribute to North China along with the Persian group of States. This name Pan-shê 半社 does not, to the best of my belief, occur a second time in any Chinese record.” (Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, p. 135.)
XXX., p. 164. “Now let us proceed and speak of another country which is seven day’s journey from this one [Pashai] towards the south-east, and the name of which is Keshimur.”
This short estimate has perplexed Sir Henry Yule, l.c., p. 166. Sir Aurel Stein remarks in a note, Serindia, I., p. 12: “The route above indicated [Nigudar’s route] permits an explanation. Starting from some point like Arnawal on the Kūnār River which certainly would be well within ‘Pashai,’ lightly equipped horsemen could by that route easily reach the border of Agrōr on the Indus within seven days. Speaking from personal knowledge of almost the whole of the ground I should be prepared to do the ride myself by the following stages: Dīr, Warai, Sado, Chakdara, Kin kargalai, Bājkatta, Kai or Darband on the Indus. It must be borne in mind that, as Yule rightly recognized, Marco Polo is merely reproducing information derived from a Mongol source and based on Nigudar’s raid; and further that Hazāra and the valley of the Jhelam were probably then still dependent on the Kashmīr kingdom, as they were certainly in Kalhana’s time, only a century earlier. As to the rate at which Mongols were accustomed to travel on ‘Dak,’ cf. Yule, Marco Polo, I., pp. 434 seq.”
XXXII., pp. 170, 171. “The people [of Badashan] are Mahommetans, and valiant in war.... They [the people of Vokhan] are gallant soldiers.”
In Afghan Wakhan, Sir Aurel Stein writes:
“On we cantered at the head of quite a respectable cavalcade to where, on the sandy plain opposite to the main hamlet of Sarhad, two companies of foot with a squad of cavalry, close on two hundred men in all, were drawn up as a guard of honour. Hardy and well set up most of them looked, giving the impression of thoroughly serviceable human material, in spite of a manifestly defective drill and the motley appearance of dress and equipment. They belonged, so the Colonel explained to me afterwards, to a sort of militia drafted from the local population of the Badakhshan valleys and Wakhan into the regiments permanently echeloned as frontier guards along the Russian border on the Oxus. Apart from the officers, the proportion of true Pathans among them was slight. Yet I could well believe from all I saw and heard, that, properly led and provided for, these sturdy Iranian hillmen might give a good account of themselves. Did not Marco Polo speak of the people of ‘Badashan’ as ‘valiant in war’ and of the men of ‘Vokhan’ as gallant soldiers?” (Ruins of Desert Cathay, I., p. 66.)
XXXII., pp. 170 seq.
In Chap. III., pp. 64–66, of his Serindia, Sir Aurel Stein has the following on Marco Polo’s account of Wakhan:—
“After Wu-k’ung’s narrative of his journey the Chinese sources of information about the Pāmīrs and the adjoining regions run dry for nearly a thousand years. But that the routes leading across them from Wakhān retained their importance also in Muhammedan times is attested by the greatest of mediæval travellers, Marco Polo. I have already, in Ancient Khotan [pp. 41 seq.], discussed the portion of his itinerary which deals with the journey across the Pāmīrs to ‘the kingdom of Cascar’ or Kāshgar, and it only remains here to note briefly what he tells us of the route by which he approached them from Badakhshan: ‘In leaving Badashan you ride twelve days between east and north-east, ascending a river that runs through land belonging to a brother of the Prince of Badashan, and containing a good many towns and villages and scattered habitations. The people are Mahommetans, and valiant in war. At the end of those twelve days you come to a province of no great size, extending indeed no more than three days’ journey in any direction, and this is called Vokhan. The people worship Mahommet, and they have a peculiar language. They are gallant soldiers, and they have a chief whom they call None, which is as much as to say Count, and they are liegemen to the Prince of Badashan.’ [Polo, I., pp. 170–171.]
“Sir Henry Yule was certainly right in assuming that ‘the river along which Marco travels from Badakhshan is no doubt the upper stream of the Oxus, locally known as the Panja.... It is true that the river is reached from Badakhshan Proper by ascending another river (the Vardoj) and crossing the Pass of Ishkáshm, but in the brief style of our narrative we must expect such condensation.’ [Polo, I., pp. 172–3.] Marco’s great commentator was guided by equally true judgment when he recognized in the indications of this passage the same system of government that prevailed in the Oxus valleys until modern times. Under it the most of the hill tracts dependent from Badakhshan, including Ishkāshim and Wakhān, were ruled not direct by the Mir, but by relations of his or hereditary chiefs who held their districts on a feudal tenure. The twelve days’ journey which Marco records between Badashan and ‘Vokhan’ are, I think, easily accounted for if it is assumed that the distance from capital to capital is meant; for twelve marches are still allowed for as the distance from Bahārak, the old Badakhshan capital on the Vardoj, to Kila Panja.