From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People

by Sven Anders Hedin

The great market-place of Samarcand is one of the finest squares I have seen in Asia. There carts and caravans swarm, there fruit sellers and pitcher-makers take their stand, there dancing dervishes beg for alms. On all four sides stand stately buildings erected by Timur and his successors. Their façades, cupolas and minarets are covered with blue faïence, burned and glazed tiles in varied patterns and texts from the holy book of Islam, the Koran. It is worth while to ascend one of the lofty minarets to take a look over Samarcand. Hence we see innumerable gray mud houses with courts in the centre, pools, canals and gardens, and in the maze of streets, squares and lanes moves a stream of people of Turkish and Persian race. The dark-blue cupolas stand out against the light-blue sky, and are surrounded by luxuriant dark-green vegetation. In autumn the gardens assume a bright yellow tint. In winter the whole country is often buried in snow, and only the bright blue cupolas rise above the whiteness. Samarcand is the "blue" town, just as Jaipur in India is the "pink" town.

The Pamir

To the south-east of Samarcand stand the huge highlands of the Pamir, called by its inhabitants the "Roof of the World," for it seems to them to rise like a roof above all the rest of the earth. From this great centre run the lofty mountain ranges of the earth, the Himalayas, the Trans-himalaya, Karakorum, Kuen-lun, and the Tien-shan on the east, the Hindu-Kush on the west. If you examine the map you will see that most of the ranges of Asia and Europe, and the most important, are connected with it. The Tibetan ranges extend far into China and beyond the Indian peninsula. The Tien-shan is only the first link in a series of mountains which stretch north-eastwards throughout Asia. The continuation of the Hindu-Kush is found in the mountains of northern Persia, in the Caucasus and the chains of Asia Minor, the Balkan Peninsula, the Alps and Pyrenees. The Pamir is like the body of a cuttlefish, which throws out arms in all directions. The Pamir and all the huge mountain ranges which have their roots in this ganglion are the skeleton of Asia, the framework round which the lowlands cling like masses of muscle. Rivers, streams, brooks, and rivulets, are the arteries and capillaries of the Asiatic body. The deserts of the interior are the sickly consumptive parts of the body where vitality is low, while the peninsulas are the limbs which facilitate communication between different peoples across the intervening seas.

In the month of February, 1894, I was at Margelan, which is the capital of Ferghana, the granary of Central Asia, a rich and fruitful valley begirt on all sides by mountains. I had got together a small reliable caravan of eleven horses and three men, one of them being Islam Bay, who was afterwards to serve me faithfully for many years. We did not need to take tents with us, for the Governor gave orders to the Kirghizes, to set up two of their black felt tents wherever I wished to pass the night. We had a good supply of provisions in our boxes, straw and barley in sacks, and steel spades, axes, and alpenstocks, for we had to travel through deep snow, and over smooth, slippery ice. We forgot to procure a dog, but one came to us on the way, begging to be allowed to follow us.

We march southwards up on to the Pamir, following a narrow valley where a foaming stream tumbles over ice-draped boulders. We cross it by narrow, shaking bridges of timber which look like matches when we gaze down on them in the valley bottom from the slopes above. It thaws in the sun, but freezes at night, and our path is like a channel of ice running along the edge of a vertical precipice. We have several Kirghizes with us to give assistance. One of them leads the first horse, which carries two large sacks of straw with my tent bed between them. The horse is shod and can keep his feet on ice, but at one place the path slopes to the edge. The horse stumbles, tries in vain to recover his foothold, rolls over the edge, falls into the chasm, and breaks his back on the bank of the river. The straw is scattered among the stones, my bed dances along the stream, and all the men rush down to save what they can.

Now steps are cut in the ice and the path is strewn with sand. The higher we go the worse the travelling. A Kirghiz leads each horse by the bridle, while another holds on to his tail to help him if he stumbles. To ride is impossible; we crawl along on hands and feet. Darkness follows twilight; the rushing water of the stream gives forth a sound of metallic clearness. We have been travelling more than twelve hours when at last the valley opens, and we see blazing camp fires in front of Kirghiz tents.

We mount higher day after day. We cross a pass, and at this giddy height I experience the unpleasant feelings of mountain sickness—splitting headache, nausea, and singing in the ears. On the further side one of the affluents of the Amu-darya flows westwards. This valley, the Alai, is broad and open, but full of snow in winter. We make our entry into the Alai valley in a howling snowstorm and wade and plunge through drifts. Two Kirghizes go in front with sticks to mark out the way, in order that the horses may not sink in the snow. Our little caravan moves slowly and painfully. One day the snow is so deep that we have to hire four camels, which are led in front of the caravan to tramp out a narrow path for the horses. Everything is white, sky and earth run into one another, and there is nothing black to be seen but the men, camels, and horses.

At every camp we find excellent felt tents set up in readiness for us. Once we had only a short distance to go before reaching camp when we were stopped by a trench filled with snow ten feet deep. The first horse disappeared in a moment as though he had fallen through a trap-door. His load was taken off, and he was pulled up with ropes. Then the Kirghizes thought of a grand way of getting over the treacherous snow. They took the felt covers of the tent and spread them over the snow and led the horses one by one over this yielding bridge.

All this journey we waded and plunged through snowdrifts. One day I sent a horseman on in front to examine the road, and only the horse's head and the rider could be seen above the snow. Another time there was no Kirghiz tent as usual, and we bivouacked round a fire behind a wall of snow in a temperature of 29° below freezing-point. The Kirghizes who should have furnished us with a tent had been delayed on a pass by an avalanche of snow which overwhelmed forty sheep. Six men had struggled on to meet us, but two had stuck fast and were abandoned in the snow. Of the four who arrived in a sorry condition, one had his foot frozen and another had become snow-blind. The Kirghizes usually protect their eyes by a long lock of horse-hair hanging down over the forehead from beneath the cap, or blacken the eye cavities and nose with charcoal.

Wolves swarm in these mountains, and we often saw the spoor of these blood-thirsty robbers. Hunger makes them very daring, and they do great damage to the flocks of the Kirghizes, as they will kill even when they do not wish to eat. A single wolf had recently worried 180 sheep belonging to a Kirghiz. A travelling Kirghiz was attacked in this neighbourhood by a pack of wolves, and when the body was found a couple of days later only the skull and skeleton were left. Another Kirghiz, who was mounted, was attacked and killed, horse and all. Two of my guides had fallen in with twelve wolves the winter before, but fortunately they were armed and killed two of them, which were at once devoured by their comrades.