I. 1890, pp.
588-589), that he went down a considerable distance along the south-north
course of the Aksu, in the Aktash Valley, and did not turn towards Tash
Kurgan, by the Neza Tash Pass, crossed by Gordon and Trotter. The descent
from this pass to Tash Kurgan finishes with a difficult and narrow defile,
which may well be overflowed at the great melting of snow, from the end of
May till the middle of June, even to July.

"Therefore he must have left the Aksu Valley to cross the Pass of
Tagharma, about 50 or 60 kilometres to the north of the Neza Tash Pass;
thence to Kashgar, the distance, in a straight line, is about 200
kilometres, and less than 300 by the shortest route which runs from the
Tagharma Pass to little Kara Kul, and from there down to Yangi Hissar,
along the Ghidjik. And Marco Polo assigns _forty_ days for this route,
while he allows but _thirty_ for the journey of 500 kilometres (at least)
from Jerm to the foot of the Tagharma Pass."

Professor Paquier (_Bul. Soc. Geog._ 6'e Ser. XII. pp. 121-125) remarks
that the Moonshee, sent by Captain Trotter to survey the Oxus between
Ishkashm and Kila Wamar, could not find at the spot marked by Yule on his
map, the mouth of the Shakh-Dara, but northward 7 or 8 miles from the
junction of the Murghab with the Oxus, he saw the opening of an important
water-course, the Suchnan River, formed by the Shakh-Dara and the
Ghund-Dara. Marco arrived at a place between Northern Wakhan and Shihgnan;
from the Central Pamir, Polo would have taken a route identical with that
of the Mirza (1868-1869) by the Chichiklik Pass. Professor Paquier adds: "I
have no hesitation in believing that Marco Polo was in the neighbourhood of
that great commercial road, which by the _Vallis Comedarum_ reached the
foot of the Imaues. He probably did not venture on a journey of fifty
marches in an unknown country. At the top of the Shihgnan Valley, he
doubtless found a road marked out to Little Bukharia. This was the road
followed in ancient times from Bactrian to Serica; and Ptolemy has, so to
speak, given us its landmarks after Marinus of Tyre, by the _Vallis
Comedarum_ (Valley of actual Shihgnan); the _Turris Lapidea_ and the
_Statio Mercatorum_, neighbourhood of Tash Kurgan, capital of the present
province of Sar-i-kol."

I must say that accepting, as I do, for Polo's Itinerary, the route from
Wakhan to Kashgar by the Taghdum-Bash Pamir, and Tash Kurgan, I do not
agree with Professor Paquier's t