The Itinerary of Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon (Sirikol, the Pamirs and Wakhan, ch. vi. of Forsyth’s Mission to Yarkund in 1873) runs thus:  “Left Kashgar (21st March), Yangi-Hissar, Kaskasu Pass, descent to Chihil Gumbaz (forty Domes), where the road branches off to Yarkand (110 miles), Torut Pass, Tangi-Tar (defile), ’to the foot of a great elevated slope leading to the Chichiklik Pass, plain, and lake (14,700 feet), below the Yambulak and Kok-Moinok Passes, which are used later in the season on the road between Yangi-Hissar and Sirikol, to avoid the Tangi-Tar and Shindi defiles.  As the season advances, these passes become free from snow, while the defiles are rendered dangerous and difficult by the rush of the melting snow torrents.  From the Chichiklik plain we proceeded down the Shindi ravine, over an extremely bad stony road, to the Sirikol River, up the banks of which we travelled to Tashkurgan, reaching it on the tenth day from Yangi-Hissar.  The total distance is 125 miles.’  Then Tashkurgan (ancient name Varshidi):  ’the open part of the Sirikol Valley extends from about 8 miles below Tashkurgan to apparently a very considerable distance towards the Kunjut mountain range;’ left Tashkurgan for Wakhan (2nd April, 1873); leave Sirikol Valley, enter the Shindan defile, reach the Aktash Valley, follow the Aktash stream (called Aksu by the Kirghiz) through the Little Pamir to the Ghazkul (Little Pamir) Lake or Barkat Yassin, from which it takes its rise, four days from Tashkurgan.  Little Pamir ’is bounded on the south by the continuation of the Neza Tash range, which separates it from the Taghdungbash Pamir,’ west of the lake, Langar, Sarhadd, 30 miles from Langar, and seven days from Sirikol, and Kila Panj, twelve days from Sirikol.”—­H.  C.]

[I cannot admit with Professor Paquier (l.c. pp. 127-128) that Marco Polo did not visit Kashgar.—­Grenard (II. p. 17) makes the remark that it took Marco Polo seventy days from Badakhshan to Kashgar, a distance that, in the Plain of Turkestan, he shall cross in sixteen days.—­The Chinese traveller, translated by M. Gueluy (Desc. de la Chine occidentale, p. 45), says that the name Kashgar is made of Kash, fine colour, and gar, brick house.—­H.  C.]

Kashgar was the capital, from 1865 to 1877, of Ya’kub Kushbegi, a soldier of fortune, by descent it is said a Tajik of Shighnan, who, when the Chinese yoke was thrown off, made a throne for himself in Eastern Turkestan, and subjected the whole basin to his authority, taking the title of Atalik Ghazi.

It is not easy to see how Kashgar should have been subject to the Great Kaan, except in the sense in which all territories under Mongol rule owed him homage.  Yarkand, Polo acknowledges to have belonged to Kaidu, and the boundary between Kaidu’s territory and the Kaan’s lay between Karashahr and Komul [Bk.  I. ch. xli.], much further east.

[Bretschneider, Med.  Res. (II. p. 47), says:  “Marco Polo states with respect to the kingdom of Cascar (I. 189) that it was subject to the Great Khan, and says the same regarding Cotan (I. 196), whilst Yarcan (I. 195), according to Marco Polo, belonged to Kaidu.  This does not agree with Rashid’s statements about the boundary between Kaidu’s territory and the Khan’s.”—­H.  C.]