Beyond the mountains, the uplands of Western Turkestan lie at a higher level than that reached by Ben Nevis, and they embosom a great inland sea—the Issyk-Kul, which lies nearly 5,000 feet up. Wending their way along its southern shore, our travellers ran into a hunting party of the Khân of the Turks. Only half a century had then passed since nomadic Turkish tribes possessed themselves of the “thousand sources” of those two great rivers which lose themselves in the Aral Sea, which are known to modern geographers as Amu Daria and Syr Daria, and which readers of the classics know as Oxus and Jaxartes. The Turks speedily became masters of the fertile plains of Sogdiana and Bactria, subdued the tribes that occupied the region we call Bokhâra, and extended their sway into the very heart of the Hindû Kûsh, reaching as far south as the Kapiśa of the Greeks—that is to say, within a few miles of Kâbul.
We have an interesting account of how the Nomadic Ruler gave the travellers a gracious reception within a great tent, resplendent with cloth of gold. Two long rows of dignitaries, clad in figured silks of many colours, squatted on mats before the Khân; behind him stood the royal guard. He wore a cloak of green satin; his long hair was bound over the forehead by several folds of silk, the ends whereof fell over his back. When on horseback, two hundred captains, gay in brocade and riding horses with plaited tails, and an army with banners, spears and long bows accompanied him. This was not foot soldiery; horses or camels were ridden, and the men were clad in furs and fine wool. One could see no end to the army, it was such a multitude. Our author tells us that the Turk of his day worshipped fire, and sat on mats, since wooden chairs contain the quality of fire. Ten centuries later Sir Thomas Browne, in his “Urn-Burial” refers to the Parsees of India “which expose their bodies unto vultures and endure not so much as feretra or biers of wood, the proper fuel of fire.” A huge arm-chair, made of iron and covered with a mat was brought in for the use of Hiuen-Tsiang. The whole party was invited to sit, Turkish fashion; wine was brought in, cups clinked, and everybody drank, turn and turn about; while music, which to Chinese ears was barbaric yet not unpleasing, came from strange instruments. After the wine, legs and shoulders of boiled mutton and veal were brought in; but the Buddhist was separately served with “pure food”—rice-cake, cream, milk, crystallized sugar, honeycomb and grapes. Of course the divine gadfly which pursued our hero stung him to testify on this occasion, as on all other opportunities, whether in season or out of season. But his personality stood him in good stead; moreover, to this day, a holy man is respected throughout the pagan East, no matter what his faith may be. The Khân was interested and attentive; even impressed. He raised his hands towards heaven, cast himself on the ground, kept Hiuen-Tsiang about his person for some days, and earnestly besought him to give up his project. “You must not go,” he said. “The country is a very hot one. You look too frail a man to give hope of your success. The natives are black; they go about naked; they have no modesty; they are unworthy of your presence among them.” “Whatever I may be,” replied the Master of the Law, “I burn with longing to seek for the commands of Buddha, to inspect the ancient monuments, and to follow lovingly the track of our Lord’s footpath on earth.” What followed marks yet once more the personal ascendency of our hero in every situation. This half-savage head of wild Mongolian hordes sought straightway for some one who knew Chinese and could also interpret the confusion of tongues in his own subject-lands to the south. Such a man was speedily picked out of the Khân’s army; for Chinese had been carried off by the Turkish Hiung-nu (a people possibly, though by no means certainly, identical with the terrible Huns whom Attila led to devastate Europe) and had settled down in towns, deserted when Hiuen-Tsiang arrived in the district, but where they had kept up their native tongue, although they had adopted Turkish dress and ways. With true Eastern courtesy to a guest, the great Khân accompanied our traveller some little way on his journey.
At first the route lay westward towards the “Land of the Thousand Sources”—a region of lakes and pools, great trees, much vegetation, and a sweet and wooing air. Hither the Khân was wont to repair in summer. Still travelling westward, Talas was reached, and then, by bending round to the South-West and South, Samarkand, the “storehouse of precious merchandise from many foreign countries.” Our traveller found the ruler “full of courage, and controlling neighbouring countries” with his fierce soldiery. He received the pilgrim with an air of lofty disdain; but Hiuen-Tsiang was not a man to be daunted, and, next day, when he boldly set forth his faith, contempt became respect. Buddhism was practically dead in Samarkand. The monasteries were empty. Two young monks who were with Hiuen-Tsiang sought to pass the night in one of these vacant buildings; but the populace threw burning brands at them and drove them out. The King condemned the offenders to decapitation; but Hiuen-Tsiang pleaded for mercy; so they were merely beaten and expelled from the city. His successful intercession increased the fervour of his missionary zeal; nor did he toil in vain; the monasteries were re-opened; and he ordained priests to fill them.
Leaving Samarkand, about 90 miles off, he entered a pass bordered by mountains “of prodigious heighth, with a narrow road” to add “to the difficulty and danger.” The pass was closed by double wooden doors, studded with iron, and hung with bells. The pass owed its name—The Iron Gates—to these strong defences.
The Oxus was reached and crossed, and our pilgrim now deviates considerably from the direct route to fulfil a promise which he had made to the Khân of the Uïghurs to visit his son-in-law, the son of the great Khân of the Turks, who ruled over a little Khânate, called Hwo, and probably identical with the district which lies east of the Surkh-âb. When he arrived, he found the monarch on his death-bed; and was obliged to wait two months until the funeral ceremonies were done with. During this time a tragedy took place which casts a lurid light on court-life in Central Asia during the Seventh Century, and which reminds us of the Italian tragedies during the High Renaissance. The wife of the Khân had died, and the Khân replaced her by marrying her young sister. At the instigation of a son by the first marriage, the bride murders her husband. “The serpent that did sting his father’s life now wears his crown,” and marries his aunt-step-mother. A similar atrocity is recorded of the Chinese Imperial family in Hiuen-Tsiang’s time. In A.D. 655 the Emperor, Kao-Tsung, deposed the Empress and married one of his father’s widows, who wholly ruled him, cut off the feet of the Empress, and of another queen, and then had these unfortunate ladies drowned “like Clarence in his Malmsey-butt,” in a vat of wine.
Hiuen-Tsiang was fortunate in finding a monk who had dwelt in India and had studied the Scriptures there; and the twain set forth for Balkh in some sort of waggon. At Balkh, he found no fewer than a hundred Buddhist monasteries, three thousand monks, and sacred memorials and relics beyond count. He might have become very rich; for the Kinglets around Balkh were eager to secure a visit from such a holy being, and offered to load him with gold and jewels. But he was not the man to depart from the straight and narrow path he had chosen. He refused them one and all, and set forth for ways “even more difficult and dangerous than the deserts of ice. Every moment one is at battle there with frozen cloud or snow-whirlwind. Sometimes one is faced with worse than this, even, namely, morasses of mud, dozens of feet wide. Ice, pile on pile, rises into mountain masses, snow-blasts dash on for a hundred leagues.” “The raging spirits and demons of the mountains send every kind of calamity; and there are murderous robbers to be met with.” Thus does Hiuen Tsiang describe the passage of the Hindû Kûsh.
At Bâmiyân, in the heart of Afghanistan, a great centre of Buddhism after the model of the Little Vehicle, he was honourably received by its ruler and rested five days in his palace. He visited the great Buddhist images, hewn out of the solid rock (which our soldiers saw in the Afghan Campaign of 1843) and other remarkable monuments. On the second day after leaving Bâmiyân, he was caught in a blinding snowstorm, lost his way, and was like to perish, when mountaineers who were out hunting came across him and put him on the right track. A mountain pass brought him to the Kapiśa of Ptolemy and Pliny. It was situated a little to the north of the present Kâbul. Here “the people were fierce and cruel speaking a rude tongue, their marriage a mere intermingling of the sexes.” The monarch, shrewd, brave, firm and sagacious, had established a little empire by bringing ten neighbouring States under his overlordship, and had won the love of his subjects. Hearing of the approach of the pilgrim, this potentate set out to meet him, accompanied by a procession of monks. These pietists of various monasteries of the Great and Little Vehicle remained sufficiently human to quarrel as to which house should shelter so rare a guest. Now the King was an enthusiastic supporter of the more rigid Order; and Hiuen-Tsiang would naturally have prepared to take up his abode in a convent of the Great Vehicle. But the appeal of the monks of a convent following the Little Vehicle, an appeal made on historic grounds, touched him; yet one of the monks who had accompanied him showed strong repugnance to sleep in a house of Hiuen-Tsiang’s rival and stricter sect. Our Chinese was neither a Courtier nor a Pharisee; he could “suffer fools gladly,” and took up his abode with the weaker brethren. Then the rivals had but one voice in entreating him to uncover a treasure, which had been set aside for the repair of some religious house, and which lay buried beneath the foot of an image of Buddha.