y one of the numerous passes struck
the route which leads past Muztagh-Ata and on towards the Gez defile. In
the brief supplementary notes contributed to Professor Cordier's critical
analysis of this portion of Marco Polo's itinerary, I have pointed out how
thoroughly the great Venetian's description of the forty days' journey to
the E.N.E. of the Pamir Lake can be appreciated by any one who has passed
through the Pamir region and followed the valleys stretching round the
Muztagh-Ata range on the west and north (cf. Yule, _Marco Polo_, II., pp.
593 seq.). After leaving Tash-kurghan and Tagharma there is no local
produce to be obtained until the oasis of Tashmalik is reached. In the
narrow valley of the Yaman-yar river, forming the Gez defile, there is
scarcely any grazing; its appearance down to its opening into the plain
is, in fact, far more desolate than that of the elevated Pamir regions.

"In the absence of any data as to the manner and season in which Marco
Polo's party travelled, it would serve no useful purpose to hazard
explanations as to why he should assign a duration of forty days to a
journey which for a properly equipped traveller need not take more than
fifteen or sixteen days, even when the summer floods close the passage
through the lower Gez defile, and render it necessary to follow the
circuitous track over the Tokuk Dawan or 'Nine Passes.' But it is
certainly worth mention that Benedict Goez, too, speaks of the desert of
'Pamech' (Pamir) as taking forty days to cross if the snow was extensive,
a record already noted by Sir H. Yule (_Cathay_, II., pp. 563 seq.). It
is also instructive to refer once more to the personal experience of the
missionary traveller on the alternative route by the Chichiklik Pass.
According to the record quoted above, he appears to have spent no less
than twenty-eight days in the journeys from the hamlets of 'Sarcil'
(Sarikol, i.e. Tash-kurghan) to 'Hiarchan' (Yarkand)--a distance of some
188 miles, now reckoned at ten days' march." (Stein, _Ancient Khotan_, pp.
40-42.)

XXXII., p. 171. "The Plain is called PAMIER, and you ride across it for
twelve days together, finding nothing but a desert without habitations or
any green thing, so that travellers are obliged to carry with them
whatever they have need of."

At Sarhad, Afghan Wakhan, Stein, _Ruins of Desert Cathay_, I., p. 69,
writes: "There was little about the low grey houses, or rather hovels, of
mud and rubble to indica