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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The following notes refer to a period which is one of considerable historic interest. In the Far East the Emperor Wu-ti, the most enterprising of the Han dynasty, having broken the power of the Turkish empire of the Hiung-nû, i.e. Kara-Nîrus, was engaged in strengthening the internal administration of China, and in extending its influence abroad. In the west the Romans had, B.C. 146, captured and destroyed Carthage, and had reduced Greece to a Roman province. The Ptolemies yet ruled in Egypt; and, in Asia, the Syrian empire under the house of the Seleucidse still survived, but was showing evident signs of decrepitude. In Asia Minor, Pontus was rising into importance under Mithradates V., who was one of the first of the more important sovereigns of the continent to enter into close relations with Rome. This position of affairs finally resulted in the great war between his son Mithradates VI. and Rome, which afforded that encroaching power the opportunity of firmly establishing the Roman rule in Asia, and of eventually overturning the decadent power of Syria, already frittered away by internal dissensions between the members of the royal house of Seleucidæ.
page 78 note 1 Κα δηκα μέχρι Σηρ
ν κα Φρυνν ξέτειναν τν ρχήν.—Strabo, xi. xi.
page 78 note 2 Wan or Yuen, for the word occurs in both forms, may be more simply the representative of Yar in Yarkand.
page 79 note 1 P'u taou tsze 
‘the grape’ is apparently connected with the Greek βότρυς. Strabo, XI. X., speaking of Margiana, calls it υάμπελος, and says of the grapes that they grow in bunches two cubits in size, τν δε βότρυν δίπηκυν.
page 79 note 2 I have left shen here untranslated, as in the sequel it will be found to bear a technical meaning.
page 79 note 3 
Han or Kan is probably in error for 
yu; Kumîl was probably the pronunciation.—See Recorder, Chinese, vol. vii. p. 342.Google Scholar
page 79 note 4 Lob is apparently a corruption of Lavâpa, i.e. ‘salt water.’
page 79 note 5 See Recorder, Chinese, vol. vii. p. 342.Google Scholar
page 79 note 6 In the Shuiking called 
Ch'e-mut, i.e. Aksh-mar-dana.—Id.
page 79 note 7 The Wu-sun are apparently to be identified with the Asii or Asiani, who according to Strabo occupied the upper waters of the Jaxartes, and who are classed as nomades with the Tochari and Sacarauli (? Sara Kauli, i.e. Sarikoolies). This would answer perfectly with Sze-ma's description, both as to locality and customs.
page 80 note 1 K'angku, apparently Karakul; the ultra-sara k' is, however, more regularly the equivalent of g or gh. The proposed identification of these two names, apparently Turkish, Sarik-kul and Kara-kul, seems to raise a difficulty. They stand alone on the Pamîr, in the second century B.C., as Turkish proper names. Shaw (High Tartary, etc., p. 27) speaks of the Sarikolies as of Aryan type, with light complexions; the inhabitants of K'ang-ku are described below in similar terms. There is some difficulty in accounting for so early a use of the Turkish name of Karakul on the Pamîr as the time of Chang-kien's mission, circa B.C. 130. On the whole I am rather disposed to see in it the Rarigha of the 1st Fargard of the Vendidad, which Sir H. Rawlinson (Notes to Monograph on the Oxus, Journ. of Royal Geogr. Soc. vol. xlii. pp. 494, 501Google Scholar) places in the exact position I have marked out for K'ang-ku. Etymologically K'ang (in Cantonese Hong) ‘repose,’ ‘joy,’ and Zend Rañh ‘to sound,’ ‘praise,’ seem to be connected with Sansk. Ras, 1st gustare, amare, 2nd sonare, clamare; so that the old pronunciation of the Chinese word probably approached nearer than the modern to the Zend Rañ, in which case the Chinese name K'ang-ku would represent sufficiently well the Rañha of the Vendidad. The verse in question has been translated so very differently by Spiegel and Haug, that it is difficult amid the conflict of authority to offer any satisfactory explication; Rañha ‘above the waters’ may refer to its position surrounding the lakes of the Pamîr; or, taken in connection with the next sentence, to the legend of the upheaval of Pamir, more explicitly given in the 2nd Fargard, accompanied by the creation of snow and earthquakes, as the land rose from the primeval ocean. The short description, “governed without kings,” will agree with the semi-nomadic character of its inhabitants similar to the Yueh-ti. That they were not Turks we may gather from the text, which always connects them with the Aryan inhabitants of Wan, Yarkand, or Im-t'sai, Samarkand.
page 80 note 2 Im-t'sai-li-kan. It seems not improbable that the first two characters are inverted. T sai-im-li-han 
i.e. Sal-im-ar-kand, for Salmar-kanda, approaches sufficiently near to the modern Samarkand, Marakanda of Ptolemy.
page 80 note 3 Major Herbert Wood, on the evidence of Greek and Persian authors, as well as from his own observations (Shores of Lake Aral), came to the conclusion that the Sir-daria originally ended in a marsh to the south-east of the present Aral. The northern sea mentioned by Sze-ma is, so far I am aware, the first allusion in Chinese literature to Lake Aral.
page 80 note 4 The C'hing-i 
says of the Yueh-ti or Ephthalîtse that they “lived some 7000 li north of India. They had pink and white complexions, and were accustomed to shoot from horseback. The most celebrated rubies (
) came from their country, and they were in the habit of dressing in bright-coloured garments.” The ruby mines of the Upper Oxus Valley are still celebrated; and Procopius speaks of their light complexions.
page 81 note 1 
Ngan-sik. The old pronunciation of 
seems to have been ar; cf. Gr. Ἤρευος, Sansk. ram. Parthia was apparently known to the Chinese as Arsak, after the title of its kings.
page 81 note 2 T'iaou is to be compared with Gr. σειρ, showing that the initial was s.
page 81 note 3 Ostriches, whose former range seems to have extended to these regions.
page 81 note 4 The Yok-shui 
‘weak’ or rather ‘dead water,’ is evidently here applied to the Hamun or Lake of Seistan. The Yok-shui of Chinese legend referred apparently to an ancient lake once occupying the greater part of Eastern Turkestan, and of which Lakes Lob and Gash are the decaying representatives. It is associated with the Kwen-lun-shan, i.e. mountains of Gandhâra, and the Si-wang-mu 
. The latter name seems to be a corruption of Sumeru, the character 
being used for 
, in Cantonese mong, and connected with the root mar or mor ‘to die.’ W. F. Mayers, in his Chinese Readers' Manual, s.v. gives a sketch of the wonderful legends which have grown up round these two names. They are evidently connected with the Hindoo stories of the Gandharvas. Finding, as their knowledge of Eastern Turkestan extended, that they could not apply the legends to Lake Lob in its then condition, and hearing of the similar situation of the Hamun, the stories were readily transferred to the new site.
page 82 note 1 Lam-shi-ch'eng 
, the Da-rapsa Δάραψα of Strabo. The phonetic, as seen in 
lam, i.e. λαμβάνω, seems to point to an original lamb. Darampsa was probably the original form of the name.
page 83 note 1 Kien-wei, now Kiating-fu.
page 83 note 2 Sui, now Likiang-fu in Yunnan.
page 83 note 3 T'in-yût 
, apparently the ancient Sthâneswara, now Oude and Rohilkund (see Cunningham, 's Ancient Geog. of India, vol. i. p. 328Google Scholar), but here applied to North-eastern India generally.
page 84 note 1 
. K'i-lien is said by a Chinese commentator to have been the Hiung-nû title for heaven. The How-han-shu gives Chang li, i.e. Tangri, as the equivalent (vide Wylie, A., Journ. of the Anthropological Inst. vol. ii. No. 3).Google Scholar
page 84 note 2 These positions were in the prefectures of Lanchow and Si-ning, in the present Kan-suh. For a detailed account of these operations vide Shiki, ch. 110; also A. Wylie, l.c.
page 84 note 3 A. Wylie, l.c.
page 85 note 1 This tale of suckling by a wolf, familiar in the cases of Romulus and Cyrus, is matched by at least two more tales from Chinese sources. In the Tso-chuen (VII. V.) is given the story of Tsze-wan of T'sû suckled by a tiger (Ch. Class, vol. v. p. 297). Klaproth (Tableau de l'Asie) relates from Chinese sources the similar story of Assena, founder of the modern Turks (p. 114). The addition of the raven (
wu) alone is a play on the name of the tribe (Wu-sun). With regard to the attack on the Wu-sun, Mr. Wylie's translation (op. cit.) may be quoted. In the year 176 B.C. the Shen-yu wrote to the Emperor: “Now, in consequence of a slight breach of the treaty by some petty officials, you pursued the Right Sage Prince till he was driven westward into the territories of the Yueh-ti. There, however, Heaven favoured our cause. Our officers and troops were loyal and true; our horses were strong and spirited; and by slaughter, decapitation, subjugation, and pacification, our army effected the complete reduction of the Yueh-ti; while Low-lan, Wu-sun, Hu-ki, and the adjacent kingdoms, to the number of twenty-six in all, without exception submitted to the Hiung-nû; and thus all the bowmen nations are united in one family.”
page 88 note 1 The whole of this passage is written in a peculiar style. The text is probably corrupt.
page 89 note 1 Near the present Ching-tu-foo in Sze-chuen.
page 89 note 2 See above, p. 83.
page 89 note 3 Tsze-lung says, in his account of the intercourse of the Hans with the Western states: “The southern route led through Sze-chuen 
, the northern by way of Kin-ch'eng 
and Tsiu-ts'iuen 
. The southern route not being opened, they made use of the northern, which they were enabled to do owing to the retreat of the Hiung-nû. The southern route was rougher, longer, and altogether more difficult to travel than the other.”
page 91 note 1 Apparently Mithradatea II., who ascended the throne circa B.C. 124.
page 91 note 2 Such gifts were evidently customary in these countries. When Pandion (King of the Indo-Scyths?), who a little later reigned over the north-west of India, sent an embassy to Augustus at Samoa, the mission brought as presents a partridge larger than a vulture (περδικ τε μείζω γυπός), and a hermes (a man without arms, who shot from a bow with his feet), as well as tigers, snakes, and a large river tortoise. (See Strabo, lib. xv.) The bird was apparently one of the Struthionidæ; the descriptions point to the ostrich, hut the ostrich was well known to the Romans, who ought certainly to have known better than to call it a partridge. There is no physical difficulty involved in the supposition that the range of the ostrich formerly extended across the Persian Gulf to the deserts of Karmania and Sarangia. Its eastern limit would thus coincide with that of the lion. It is possible, of course, that a second species of Struthio, now extinct, inhabited these districts at the time in question, and that it was sufficiently distinct to justify the description of Strabo.
page 92 note 1 Hwan-ts'im, Kharism, Zend Quairizem, Gr. Χωράσμια. Ta-yik, possibly the Δέρβικες of Strabo, the Δροπικο of Herodotus.
page 93 note 1 
An-yan. As in the similar case of Parthia, we must pronounce the initial syllable Ar—the Aria or Arian-a of Strabo and Herodotus, the Haraêva of the Avesta. It lay south-west of Bactria, and its name survives in the Herat of to-day. Strabo says of it that it is “partly composed of valleys inclosed bymountains, and partly of inhabited plains. The plains are watered by the rivers Arius (Heri Rud) and by the Marqus (Murg-ab) … Its length is about 000 stadia, and the breadth of the plain 300 stadia” (XI. X.). Kiao-t'sze is robably the Arachôsia of Strabo, situated on the banks of the Araohotus, the Haraqaiti of the Avesta, the 
I-lo-k'i-ti of the Shui-king.
page 93 note 2 The Chinese name for the grape 
, or as it is here written 
p'u-tao, is not native. As the grape itself was introduced from the neighbourhood of Yarkand, we have to look to that locality for the origin of the name. Strabo speaks in many places of the exuberant growth of the grape in Central Asia. The wines of Asia, he said, might be kept for three generations in unpitched vessels (εἰς τριγονίαν παραμένει ν πιτώτοις ἄγγεαι). So in his account of Margiana, he speaks of bunches of grapes two cubits in size. It seems not unlikely that in the Chinese word, therefore, which regularly represents the Greek βότρυς (see ante, p. 79), we have a vestige of the Greek occupation of Bactria. It is possible too that the 
muk-suk of the Chinese may have some connexion with the Μηδικ βοτάνη of Strabo (XI. viii.).
page 94 note 1 A curious coincidence with Strabo's description of Bactria (XI. xi.): πολλ δ᾽στ κα πάμφορος πλν λαίου—“It is an extensive country, producing everything except oil.”
page 94 note 2 Urh-shi-ch'eng, the capital of Ta-wan, has not been identified; it was probably not far from the site of the modern Yarkand. On p. 97, infra, we are told that the “royal city of Wan had no wells within the walls, and was altogether dependent on streams without the city for its supply of water.” This perfectly tallies with the description of Tarkand given by Hayward (Journ. of Royal Geogr. Soc. vol. xl. p. 4Google Scholar): “Both the city and fort are supplied with water from several tanks, into which it is conveyed by canals cut from the river. These are frozen in the winter, and the supply is then stopped, but the tanks contain sufficient water for the consumption of the inhabitants until the regular supply is renewed in the spring.”
page 96 note 1 Yûk-ch'eng 
. The position is doubtful. It lay north of the road to Urh-shi. The first syllable probably represents the Turkish Ak.
page 97 note 1 B.C. 103. The Marquess of Tsok-yi had left Suh-fang in the spring of the year with 20,000 cavalry. The left commandant-general of the Turks had offered to transfer his allegiance to China, and the Marquess retired to join his forces. The plot had been discovered before his arrival, and the commandant been put to death. The Turks fell on the Chinese, but were defeated. The latter however retired, but before their arrival at the frontier were set on by the Turks, their leader killed, and his army cut to pieces.—Wylie, in Journ. of Anthropological last. l.c.
page 98 note 1 We are as yet too ignorant of the geography of Eastern Turkestan to be able to fix the position of Lûn-t'ow. It lay west of Lake Lob, and the indication that thence to Ta-wan the road was leyel would seem to place it at the western extremity of the mountains known to lie south-west of the lake. Lûn-t'ow 
Possibly represents Dârsila, i.e. Cleft-rock; cf. K'wen-lûn for Gandhâra.
page 99 note 1 Shen horses 
. Is it possible that these are connected with the celebrated Nesæan horses of Strabo and the other Greek writers p Strabo (XI. xiii.) says: Τοὺς δε Νησαίους Ίππους, δ
ς χρντο οἱ βασιλες ρίστους ο
σι κα μεγίστους. (See also Herod, , vii. 40Google Scholar.) Possibly, like the grapes, the race was introduced through Bactria from west of the Pamîr.
page 100 note 1 
Mui-t'sai, apparently Malsalya, i.e. Belophoros, saggitarius; so Mu-kwa is possibly Mahavîra.
page 100 note 2 Apparently representing some such forms as Hari-urva, terra gilva, and Ugra-jara, male dura.