“After Wu-k’ung’s narrative of his journey the Chinese sources of information about the Pamirs and the adjoining regions run dry for nearly a thousand years.  But that the routes leading across them from Wakhan retained their importance also in Muhammedan times is attested by the greatest mediaeval travellers, Marco Polo.  I have already, in Ancient Khotan [pp. 41 seq.], discussed the portion of his itinerary which deals with the journey across the Pamirs to ‘the kingdom of Cascar’ or Kashgar, and it only remains here to note briefly what he tells us of the route by which he approached them from Badakhshan:  ’In leaving Badashan you ride twelve days between east and north-east, ascending a river that runs through land belonging to a brother of the Prince of Badashan, and containing a good many towns and villages and scattered habitations.  The people are Mahommetans, and valiant in war.  At the end of those twelve days you come to a province of no great size, extending indeed no more than three days’ journey in any direction, and this is called VOKHAN.  The people worship Mahommet, and they have a peculiar language.  They are gallant soldiers, and they have a chief whom they call NONE, which is as much as to say Count, and they are liegemen to the Prince of Badashan.’ [Polo, I., pp. 170-171.]

“Sir Henry Yule was certainly right in assuming that ’the river along which Marco travels from Badakhshan is no doubt the upper stream of the Oxus, locally known as the Panja....  It is true that the river is reached from Badakhshan Proper by ascending another river (the Vardoj) and crossing the ’Pass of Ishkashm, but in the brief style of our narrative we must expect such condensation.’ [Polo, I., pp. 172-3.] Marco’s great commentator was guided by equally true judgment when he recognized in the indications of this passage the same system of government that prevailed in the Oxus valleys until modern times.  Under it the most of the hill tracts dependent from Badakhshan, including Ishkashim and Wakhan, were ruled not direct by the Mir, but by relations of his or hereditary chiefs who held their districts on a feudal tenure.  The twelve days’ journey which Marco records between Badashan and ‘Vokhan’ are, I think, easily accounted for if it is assumed that the distance from capital to capital is meant; for twelve marches are still allowed for as the distance from Baharak, the old Badakhshan capital on the Vardoj, to Kila Panja.

“That the latter was in Marco’s days, as at present, the chief place of Wakhan is indicated also by his narrative of the next stage of his journey.  ’And when you leave this little country, and ride three days north-east, always among mountains, you get to such a height that ’tis said to be the highest place in the world!  And when you have got to this height you find [a great lake between two mountains, and out of it] a fine river running through a plain....  The plain is called PAMIER.’  The bearing and descriptive details here given point clearly to the plain of the Great Pamir and Victoria Lake, its characteristic feature.  About sixty-two miles are reckoned from Langar-kisht, the last village on the northern branch of the Ab-i-Panja and some six miles above Kila Panja, to Mazar-tapa where the plain of the Great Pamir may be said to begin, and this distance agrees remarkably well with the three marches mentioned by Marco.