dance that it would supply the whole world to the end of time. [Other mountains there grow almonds and pistachioes, which are exceedingly cheap.]2

When you leave this town and ride three days further between north-east and east, you meet with many fine tracts full of vines and other fruits, and with a goodly number of habitations, and everything to be had very cheap. The people are worshippers of Mahommet, and are an evil and a murderous generation, whose great delight is in the wine shop; for they have good wine (albeit it be boiled), and are great topers; in fact, they are constantly getting drunk. They wear nothing on the head but a cord some ten palms long twisted round it. They are excellent huntsmen, and take a great deal of game; in fact, they wear nothing but the skins of the beasts they have taken in the chase, for they make of them both coats and shoes. Indeed, all of them are acquainted with the art of dressing skins for these purposes.❜

When you have ridden those three days, you find a town called CASEM, which is subject to a count. His other towns and villages are on the hills, but through this town there flows a river of some size. There are a great many porcupines hereabouts, and very large ones too. When hunted with dogs, several of them will get together and huddle close, shooting their quills at the dogs, which get many a serious wound thereby."

This town of Casem is at the head of a very great province, which is also called Casem. The people have a peculiar language. The peasants who keep cattle abide in the mountains, and have their dwellings in caves, which form fine and spacious houses for them, and are made with ease, as the hills are composed of earth."

After leaving the town of Casem, you ride for three days without finding a single habitation, or anything to eat or drink, so that you have to carry with you everything that you require. At the end of those three days you

VOL. I.

L

reach a province called Badashan, about which we shall now tell you."

NOTE 1.-The Taican of Polo is the still existing TALIKAN in the province of Kataghan or Kunduz, but it bears the former name (Tháikán) in the old Arab geographers. Both names are used by Baber, who says it lay in the Ulugh Bágh, or Great Garden, a name perhaps acquired by the Plains of Talikan in happier days, but illustrating what Polo says of the next three days' march. The Castle of Talikan, called Nukra Kuh, or "Silver Hill," resisted Chinghiz for seven months, and met with the usual fate (1221). Wood speaks of Talikan thirty years ago as a poor place of some 300 or 400 houses, mere hovels. Market days are not usual in Upper India or Kabul, but are universal in Badakhshan and the Oxus provinces. The bazaars are only open on those days, and the people from the surrounding country then assemble to exchange goods, generally by barter. Wood chances to note: "A market was held at Talikan . . . the thronged state of the roads leading into it soon apprized us that the day was no ordinary one." (Abulf. in Büsching, V. 352; Sprenger, p. 50; P. de la Croix, I. 63; Baber, 38, 130; Burnes, IV. 8; Wood, 241-2; Pandit Manphul's Report.)

The distance of Talikan from Balkh is about 170 miles, which gives very short marches, if twelve days be the correct reading. Ramusio has two days, which is certainly wrong. XII. is easily miswritten for VII., which would be a just number.

NOTE 2.-In our day, as I learn from Pandit Manphul, the mines of rock salt are at Ak Bulák, near the Lataband Pass, and at Darúná, in the Karligh, or Kallakh Tract, and these supply the whole of Badakhshan, as well as Kunduz and Chitral. The former site certainly (and I believe the latter also) is due cast of Talikan. But the name of a river that flows from the mountains on the south-Shor-Ab, or Salt Rivermay indicate deposits also in that direction which may formerly have been worked. There are also mines of rock salt in Kuláb, north of the Oxus. (See Wood, 399, and Burnes, III. 144.)

Both pistachioes and wild almonds are mentioned by Pandit Manphul; and see Wood (p. 383) on the beauty and profusion of the latter.

NOTE 3.-Wood thinks that the Tajik inhabitants of Badakhshan and the adjoining districts are substantially of the same race as the Kafir tribes of Hindu Kush. At the time of Polo's visit it would seem that their conversion to Islam was imperfect. They were probably in that transition state which obtains in our own day for some of the Hill Mahomedans adjoining the Kafirs on the south side of the mountains the reproachful title of Nimchi Musulmán, or Half-and-halfs. Thus they would seem to have retained sundry Kafir characteristics; among others, that love of wine which is so strong among the Kafirs. The

boiling of the wine is noted by Baber (a connoisseur) as the custom of Nijrao, adjoining, if not then included in, Kafir-land; and Elphinstone implies the continuance of the custom when he speaks of the Kafirs as having wine of the consistence of jelly, and very strong. The cord twisted round the head was probably also a relic of Kafir costume: "Few of the Kafirs cover the head, and when they do, it is with a narrow band or fillet of goat's hair . . . about a yard or a yard and a half in length, wound round the head." Something very similar, i.e. a scanty turban cloth twisted into a mere cord, and wound two or three times round the head is often seen in the Panjab to this day.

The Postin or sheepskin coat is almost universal on both sides of the Hindu Kush; and Wood notes: "The shoes in use resemble halfboots, made of goatskin, and mostly of home manufacture." (Baber, 145; J. A. S. B. XXVIII. 348, 364; Elphinst. II. 384; Wood, 274, 333; J. R. A. S. XIX. 2.)

NOTE 4.-Marsden was right in identifying Scassem or Casem with the Kechem of D'Anville's Map, but wrong in confounding the latter with the Kishmabad of Elph.nstone-properly, I believe, Kishnabadin the Anderab Valley. Kashm, or Keshm, found its way into maps through Petis de la Croix, from whom probably D'Anville adopted it; but as it was ignored by Elphinstone (or by Macartney, who constructed his map), and by Burnes, it dropped out of our geography. Indeed Wood does not notice it except as giving name to a high hill called the Hill of Kishm, and the position even of that he omits to indicate. The frequent mention of Kishm in the histories of Timur and Humayun (e.g. P. de la Croix, I. 167; N. et E. XIV. 223, 491; Erskine's Baber and Humayun, II. 330, 355, &c.) had enabled me to determine its position within tolerably narrow limits; but, desiring to fix it definitely, I applied through Col. Maclagan to Pandit Manphul, C.S.I., a very intelligent Hindu gentleman, who resided for some time in Badakhshan as agent of the Panjab Government, and from him I received a special note and sketch, and afterwards a MS. copy of a Report, which set the position of Kishm at rest.

KISHм is now a small town or large village on the right bank of the river of Mashhad, a tributary of the Kokcha. It was in 1866 the seat of a district ruler under the Mir of Badakhshan, who was styled the Mir of Kishm, and corresponded in recent times to Marco's Quens or Count. The modern caravan-road between Kunduz and Badakhshan does not pass through Kishm, which is left some five miles to the right, but through the town of Mashhad, which stands on the banks of the same river. Kishm is the warmest district of Badakhshan. Its fruits are abundant, and ripen a month earlier than those at Faizabad, the capital of that country. The Mashhad river is Marco's "Flum auques grant." Wood (247) calls it "the largest stream we had yet forded in Badakhshan.”

M. Pauthier's location of Kishm near Taish Khan is not very far from the truth, but the latter lies in a different valley.

It is very notable that in Ramusio, in Pipino, and in one passage of the G. Text, the name is written Scasem, which has led some to suppose the Ish-Káshm of Wood to be meant. That place is much too far east -in fact, beyond the city which forms the subject of next chapter. The apparent hesitation, however, between the forms Casem and Scasem suggests that the Kishm of our note may formerly have been termed S'kåshm or Ish-Kăshm, a form frequent in the Oxus Valley, e.g. IshKimish, Ish-Káshm, Ishtrakh, Ishpingao. Gen. Cunningham judiciously suggests (Ladak, 34) that this form is merely a vocal corruption of the initial S before a consonant, a combination which always troubles the Musulman in India, and converts every Mr. Smith or Mr. Sparks into Ismit or Ispak Sahib.

NOTE 5.-The belief that the porcupine projected its quills at its assailants was an ancient and persistent one "cum_intendit cutem missiles," says Pliny (VIII. 35, and see also Aelian. de Nat. An. Į. 31), and is held by the Chinese as it was held by the ancients, but is universally rejected by modern zoologists. The huddling and coiling appears to be a true characteristic, for the porcupine always tries to shield its head.

NOTE 6. The description of Kishm as a "very great" province is an example of a bad habit of Marco's, which recurs in the next chapter. What he says of the cave-dwellings may be illustrated by Burnes's account of the excavations at Bamian, in a neighbouring district. These "still form the residence of the greater part of the population. . . . The hills at Bamian are formed of indurated clay and pebbles, which renders this excavation a matter of little difficulty." Similar occupied excavations are noticed by Moorcroft at Heibak and other places towards Khulm.

Curiously, Pandit Manphul says of the districts about the Kokcha: "Both their hills and plains are productive, the former being mostly composed of earth, having very little of rocky substance.”

NOTE 7.-The capital of Badakhshan is now Faizabad, on the right bank of the Kokcha, founded by Yarbeg, the first Mír of the recent dynasty. When this family was displaced by Murad Beg of Kunduz in the early part of this century, the place was abandoned for years, but is now reoccupied. The ancient capital of Badakhshan, and presumably the city so called by our Traveller, stood in the Dasht (or Plain) of Bahárak, one of the most extensive pieces of level in Badakhshan, in which the rivers Vardoj, Zardeo, and Sarghalan unite with the Kokcha. As far as I can estimate, by the help of Wood and the map I have compiled, this will be from 100 to 110 miles distant from Talikan, and will therefore suit fairly with the six marches that Marco lays down.

*Manphul. He assigns Faizabad to the 17th century, but I suspect means 18th, as in another passage he dates the recent dynasty from only 125 years back.

Wood, in 1838, found the whole country between Talikan and Faizabad nearly as depopulated as Marco found that between Kishm and Badakhshan. The modern depopulation was due in part, at least to the recent oppressions and razzias of the Uzbegs of Kunduz. On their expulsion the native Mirs were reinstated, and these again have very recently been expelled by the Afghans.

CHAPTER XXIX.

OF THE PROVINCE OF BADASHAN.

BADASHAN is a Province inhabited by people who worship Mahommet, and have a peculiar language. It forms a very great kingdom, and the royalty is hereditary. All those of the royal blood are descended from King Alexander and the daughter of King Darius, who was Lord of the vast Empire of Persia. And all these kings call themselves in the Saracen tongue ZULCARNIAIN, which is as much as to say Alexander; and this out of regard for Alexander the Great.'

It is in this province that those fine and valuable gems the Balas Rubies are found. They are got in certain rocks among the mountains, and in the search for them the people dig great caves underground, just as is done by miners for silver. There is but one special mountain that produces them, and it is called SYGHINAN. The stones are dug on the king's account, and no one else dares dig in that mountain on pain of forfeiture of life as well as goods; nor may any one carry the stones out of the kingdom. But the king amasses them all, and sends them to other kings when he has tribute to render, or when he desires to offer a friendly present; and such only as he pleases he causes to be sold. Thus he acts in order to keep the Balas at a high value; for if he were to allow everybody to dig, they would extract so many that the world would be glutted with them, and they would cease