Volume I Part 68 (1/2)

Those mountains are so lofty that 'tis a hard day's work, from morning till evening, to get to the top of them. On getting up, you find an extensive plain, with great abundance of gra.s.s and trees, and copious springs of pure water running down through rocks and ravines. In those brooks are found trout and many other fish of dainty kinds; and the air in those regions is so pure, and residence there so healthful, that when the men who dwell below in the towns, and in the valleys and plains, find themselves attacked by any kind of fever or other ailment that may hap, they lose no time in going to the hills; and after abiding there two or three days, they quite recover their health through the excellence of that air. And Messer Marco said he had proved this by experience: for when in those parts he had been ill for about a year, but as soon as he was advised to visit that mountain, he did so and got well at once.[NOTE 7]]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ancient Silver Patera of debased Greek art, formerly in the possession of the Princes of Badakhshan, now in the India Museum.

(Four-ninths of the diameter of the Original.)]

In this kingdom there are many strait and perilous pa.s.ses, so difficult to force that the people have no fear of invasion. Their towns and villages also are on lofty hills, and in very strong positions.[NOTE 8] They are excellent archers, and much given to the chase; indeed, most of them are dependent for clothing on the skins of beasts, for stuffs are very dear among them. The great ladies, however, are arrayed in stuffs, and I will tell you the style of their dress! They all wear drawers made of cotton cloth, and into the making of these some will put 60, 80, or even 100 ells of stuff. This they do to make themselves look large in the hips, for the men of those parts think that to be a great beauty in a woman.[NOTE 9]

NOTE 1.--”The population of Badakhshan Proper is composed of Tajiks, Turks, and Arabs, who are all Sunnis, following the orthodox doctrines of the Mahomedan law, and speak Persian and Turki, whilst the people of the more mountainous tracts are Tajiks of the s.h.i.+a creed, having separate provincial dialects or languages of their own, the inhabitants of the princ.i.p.al places combining therewith a knowledge of Persian. Thus, the _s.h.i.+ghnani_ [sometimes called _s.h.i.+ghni_] is spoken in s.h.i.+gnan and Roshan, the _Ishkashami_ in Ishkasham, the _Wakhi_ in Wakhan, the _Sanglich_ in Sanglich and Zebak, and the _Minjani_ in Minjan. All these dialects materially differ from each other.” (_Pand. Manphul._) It may be considered almost certain that Badakhshan Proper also had a peculiar dialect in Polo's time. Mr. Shaw speaks of the strong resemblance to _Kashmiris_ of the Badakhshan people whom he had seen.

The Legend of the Alexandrian pedigree of the Kings of Badakhshan is spoken of by Baber, and by earlier Eastern authors. This pedigree is, or was, claimed also by the chiefs of Karategin, Darwaz, Roshan, s.h.i.+ghnan, Wakhan, Chitral, Gilgit, Swat, and Khapolor in Balti. Some samples of those genealogies may be seen in that strange doc.u.ment called ”Gardiner's Travels.”

In Badakhshan Proper the story seems now to have died out. Indeed, though Wood mentions one of the modern family of Mirs as vaunting this descent, these are in fact _Sahibzadahs_ of Samarkand, who were invited to the country about the middle of the 17th century, and were in no way connected with the old kings.

The traditional claims to Alexandrian descent were probably due to a genuine memory of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom, and might have had an origin a.n.a.logous to the Sultan's claim to be ”Caesar of Rome”; for the real ancestry of the oldest dynasties on the Oxus was to be sought rather among the Tochari and Ephthalites than among the Greeks whom they superseded.

The cut on p. 159 presents an interesting memorial of the real relation of Bactria to Greece, as well as of the pretence of the Badakhshan princes to Grecian descent. This silver patera was sold by the family of the Mirs, when captives, to the Minister of the Uzbek chief of Kunduz, and by him to Dr. Percival Lord in 1838. It is now in the India Museum. On the bottom is punched a word or two in Pehlvi, and there is also a word incised in Syriac or Uighur. It is curious that a _pair_ of paterae were acquired by Dr. Lord under the circ.u.mstances stated. The other, similar in material and form, but apparently somewhat larger, is distinctly Sa.s.sanian, representing a king spearing a lion.

_Zu-'lkarnain_, ”the Two-Horned,” is an Arabic epithet of Alexander, with which legends have been connected, but which probably arose from the horned portraits on his coins. [Capus, l.c. p. 121, says, ”Iskandr Zoulcarnen or Alexander _le Cornu_, horns being the emblem of strength.”

--H. C.] The term appears in Chaucer (_Troil. and Cress._ III. 931) in the sense of _non plus_:--

”I am, till G.o.d me better minde send, At _dulcarnon_, right at my wittes end.”

And it is said to have still colloquial existence in that sense in some corners of England. This use is said to have arisen from the Arabic application of the term (_Bicorne_) to the 47th Proposition of Euclid.

(_Baber_, 13; _N. et E._ XIV. 490; _N. An. des V._ xxvi. 296; _Burnes_, III. 186 seqq.; _Wood_, 155, 244; _J. A. S. B._ XXII. 300; _Ayeen Akbery_, II. 185; see _N. and Q._ 1st Series, vol. v.)

NOTE 2.--I have adopted in the text for the name of the country that one of the several forms in the G. Text which comes nearest to the correct name, viz. _Badascian_. But _Balacian_ also appears both in that and in Pauthier's text. This represents _Balakhshan_, a form also sometimes used in the East. Hayton has _Balaxcen_, Clavijo _Balaxia_, the Catalan Map _Balda.s.sia_. From the form _Balakhsh_ the Balas Ruby got its name. As Ibn Batuta says: ”'The Mountains of Badakhshan have given their name to the Badakhs.h.i.+ Ruby, vulgarly called _Al Balaksh_.” Albertus Magnus says the _Balagius_ is the female of the Carbuncle or Ruby Proper, ”and some say it is his house, and hath thereby got the name, quasi _Palatium_ Carbunculi!”

The Balais or Balas Ruby is, like the Spinel, a kind inferior to the real Ruby of Ava. The author of the _Masalak al Absar_ says the finest Balas ever seen in the Arab countries was one presented to Malek 'Adil Ketboga, at Damascus; it was of a triangular form and weighed 50 drachms. The prices of _Balasci_ in Europe in that age may be found in Pegolotti, but the needful problems are hard to solve.

”No sapphire in Inde, no Rubie rich of price, There lacked than, nor Emeraud so grene, _Bales_, Turkes, ne thing to my device.”

(_Chaucer, 'Court of Love.'_)

”L'altra letizia, che m'era gia nota, Preclara cosa mi si fece in vista, Qual fin _balascio_ in che lo Sol percuoto.”

(_Paradiso_, ix. 67.)

Some account of the Balakhsh from Oriental sources will be found in _J.

As._ ser V. tom. xi. 109.

(_I. B._ III. 59, 394; _Alb. Mag. de Mineralibus; Pegol._ p. 307; _N. et E._ XIII. i. 246.)

[”The Mohammedan authors of the Mongol period mention Badakhshan several times in connection with the political and military events of that period.

Guchluk, the 'gurkhan of Karakhitai,' was slain in Badakhshan in 1218 (_d'Ohsson_, I. 272). In 1221, the Mongols invaded the country (l.c. I.

272). On the same page, d'Ohsson translates a short account of Badakhshan by Yakut (+ 1229), stating that this mountainous country is famed for its precious stones, and especially rubies, called _Balakhsh_.”

(Bretschneider, _Med. Res._ II. p. 66.)--H. C.]

The account of the royal monopoly in working the mines, etc., has continued accurate down to our own day. When Murad Beg of Kunduz conquered Badakhshan some forty years ago, in disgust at the small produce of the mines, he abandoned working them, and sold nearly all the population of the place into slavery! They continue still unworked, unless clandestinely. In 1866 the reigning Mir had one of them opened at the request of Pandit Manphul, but without much result.

The locality of the mines is on the right bank of the Oxus, in the district of Ish Kashm and on the borders of s.h.i.+GNAN, the _Syghinan_ of the text. (_P. Manph.; Wood_, 206; _N. Ann. des. V._ xxvi. 300.)