XXX., p. 164.  “Now let us proceed and speak of another country which is seven day’s journey from this one [Pashai] towards the south-east, and the name of which is KESHIMUR.”

This short estimate has perplexed Sir Henry Yule, l.c., p. 166.  Sir Aurel Stein remarks in a note, Serindia, I., p. 12:  “The route above indicated [Nigudar’s route] permits an explanation.  Starting from some point like Arnawal on the Kunar River which certainly would be well within ‘Pashai,’ lightly equipped horsemen could by that route easily reach the border of Agror on the Indus within seven days.  Speaking from personal knowledge of almost the whole of the ground I should be prepared to do the ride myself by the following stages:  Dir, Warai, Sado, Chakdara, Kin kargalai, Bajkatta, Kai or Darband on the Indus.  It must be borne in mind that, as Yule rightly recognized, Marco Polo is merely reproducing information derived from a Mongol source and based on Nigudar’s raid; and further that Hazara and the valley of the Jhelam were probably then still dependent on the Kashmir kingdom, as they were certainly in Kalhana’s time, only a century earlier.  As to the rate at which Mongols were accustomed to travel on ‘Dak,’ cf.  Yule, Marco Polo, I., pp. 434 seq.”

XXXII., pp. 170, 171.  “The people [of Badashan] are Mahommetans, and valiant in war....  They [the people of Vokhan] are gallant soldiers.”

In Afghan Wakhan, Sir Aurel Stein writes: 

“On we cantered at the head of quite a respectable cavalcade to where, on the sandy plain opposite to the main hamlet of Sarhad, two companies of foot with a squad of cavalry, close on two hundred men in all, were drawn up as a guard of honour.  Hardy and well set up most of them looked, giving the impression of thoroughly serviceable human material, in spite of a manifestly defective drill and the motley appearance of dress and equipment.

“They belonged, so the Colonel explained to me afterwards, to a sort of militia drafted from the local population of the Badakhshan valleys and Wakhan into the regiments permanently echeloned as frontier guards along the Russian border on the Oxus.  Apart from the officers, the proportion of true Pathans among them was slight.  Yet I could well believe from all I saw and heard, that, properly led and provided for, these sturdy Iranian hillmen might give a good account of themselves.  Did not Marco Polo speak of the people of ‘Badashan’ as ‘valiant in war’ and of the men of ‘Vokhan’ as gallant soldiers?” (Ruins of Desert Cathay, I., p. 66.)

XXXII., pp. 170 seq.

In Chap.  III., pp. 64-66, of his Serindia, Sir Aurel Stein has the following on Marco Polo’s account of Wakhan:—­