There is, however, strong inference that the Greeks made use of the Kaoshan, or Parwan, which is also commanded from Andarab. The excellent military road constructed by the late Amir from Charikar, up the Ghorband valley and over the Chapdara Pass, is a modern development.
Here, however, we must take leave of the routes to India, which are sufficiently dealt with elsewhere, and returning to Badakshan see if we can unravel some of the mediæval geography of the region which stretches eastward to the Oxus affluents and the Pamirs. We know that between Khotan and Balkh there was a very well-trodden pilgrim route in the earlier days of our era (from the first century to the tenth), when both these places were full of the high-priests of Buddhism. Was it also a commercial route? The shortest way to determine its position is to examine the map and see which way it must have run at a time when (if we are to believe Mr. Ellsworthy Huntington's theories of periodic fluctuations of climate in High Asia) all that vastly elevated region was colder, less desiccated, and possibly more fertile than now, whilst its glaciers and lakes were larger and more extensive.
Before turning eastward into the highlands and plateau of Asia it is interesting to note that north of the Oxus the districts of Jil (which was the region of mountains) and Waksh were both well known, and boasted many important commercial centres. The two districts (under one government) lay between the Wakshab which joins the Oxus from the north to the north-east of Khulm, and the Khariab, which is clearly another river than the Khariab (now the Kokcha) of Badakshan, and which is probably the Oxus itself (see preceding note). These trans-Oxus regions take us afield into the Khanates of Central Asia beyond Afghanistan, and we can only note in passing that 1000 years ago Termez was the most important town on the Oxus, commanding as it did the main river crossing from Bokhara to Khulm and Balkh; Kabadian also being very ancient. Termez may yet again become significant in history.
References to the Pamir region are very scanty, and indicate that not much was known about them. The most direct road from Khotan in Chinese Turkistan to Balkh, a well-worn pilgrim route of the early centuries of our era, is that which first strikes north-west to Yarkand, and then passing by the stone fort of Tashkurghan (one of the ancient landmarks of Central Asian travel) follows the Tashkurghan River to its head, passes over the Wakhjir Pass from the Tagdumbash Pamir into the valley of the Wakhab (or Panja) River and follows that river to Zebak in Badakshan. So far it is a long, difficult, and toilsome route rising to an altitude of 15,000 to 16,000 feet, but after passing Zebak to Faizabad and so on through Badakshan to Balkh, it is a delightful road, full of picturesque beauty and incident. At certain seasons of the year no part of it would appear formidable to such earnest and determined devotees as the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims. From Huen Tsang's account, however, it would seem that a still more northerly route was usually preferred, one which involved crossing the Oxus at Termez or Kilif. It is a curious feature in connection with Buddhist records of travel (even the Arab records) that no account whatever seems to be taken of abstract altitude, _i.e._ the altitude of the plains. So long as the mountains towered above the pilgrims' heads they were content to assume that they were traversing lowlands. Never does it seem to have occurred to them that on the flat plains they might be at a higher elevation than on the summits of the Chinese or Arabian hills. The explanation undoubtedly lies in the fact that they had no means of determining elevation. Hypsometers and aneroids were not for them. The gradual ascents leading to the Pamir valleys did not impress them, and so long as they ascended one side of a range to descend on the other, the fact that the descent did not balance the ascent was more or less unobserved. Wandering over the varied face of the earth they were content to accept it as God made it, and ask no questions. Recent investigations would lead us to suppose that in the palmy days of Buddhist occupation of Chinese Turkistan, when Lop Nor spread out its wide lake expanse to reflect a vista of towns and villages on its banks, refreshing the earth by a thousand rivulets not then impregnated with noxious salts; when high-roads traversed that which is now but a moving procession of sand-waves following each other in silent order at the bidding of the eternal wind; when men made their arrangements for posting from point to point, and forgot to pay their bills made out in the Karosthi language, the climate was very different from what it is now.