Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
To the south stand the immense highlands of Tibet, where the great rivers of India and China take their rise. On the west is the Pamir, the "Roof of the World," where the two great rivers of the Sea of Aral begin their course.
He is not killed, but the most cruel tortures are devised for him. When heavy winter snow falls in the Alai valley, the wolves return to the higher wilds of the Pamir where the snow lies less deep, and here they chase the wild sheep, Ovis Poli, as it is named after its discoverer, Marco Polo. It has large, round, elegantly curved horns and is somewhat larger than the wild sheep of Tibet.
Here they met with some obstacle and turned from Hormuz, and traversed successively Kerman and Khorassan, Balkh, and Badakhshan, by the way of the upper Oxus, to the plateau of Pamir; thence crossing the steppes of Pamir, the three travellers descended upon Kashgar, whence they proceeded by Yarkand and Khotan to the vicinity of Lake Lob; and, crossing the desert of Gobi, they reached the province of Tangut in the extreme northwestern corner of China, or Cathay.
They rendered excellent work in consolidating the empire and in carrying out what may be called the imperial mission of China. Yunnan and Leaoutung were made provinces for the first time. Cochin China became a vassal state. The writ of the emperor ran as far as the Pamir. The wealth and trade of the country increased with the progress of its armies.
Regions, previously completely closed, have been, so to speak, simultaneously opened by the energy of explorers, who, like Livingstone, Stanley, and Nordenskiold, have won immortal renown. In Africa, the Soudan, and the equatorial regions, where the sources of the Nile lie hidden; in Asia, the interior of Arabia, and the Hindoo Koosh or Pamir mountains, have been visited and explored.
The Pamir tableland divides revolutionary Russia from India, which, with its 300,000,000 inhabitants, is enslaved by a handful of Englishmen. On this tableland the signallers of revolution must hoist the red flag of the army of liberation. May the peoples of India, who fight against their English oppressors, soon know that friendly help is not far off.
I shall never forget the tortures which we had to undergo in climbing almost on all fours to a mountain top, three thousand feet high. The carriers were out of breath; every moment I feared to see one tumble down the declivity with his burden, and I felt pained at seeing my poor dog, Pamir, panting and with his tongue hanging out, make two or three steps and fall to the ground exhausted.
We wound in and out of the canyons, over dry and running streams, always ascending, climbing the eastern shoulder of Mt. Palomar, not to the top, but to a pass by which the ranch is reached. Before 4 o'clock we were on Warner's Ranch. This property could well be described as the "Pamir" of Southern California.
Two great uprisings of the people occurred in opposite directions, both commencing while the Taeping Rebellion was in full force, and continuing to disturb the country for many years after its suppression. The one had for its scene the great southwestern province of Yunnan; the other the two provinces of the northwest, Shensi and Kansuh, and extending thence westward to the Pamir.
Northern Turkestan has frequently suffered from earthquake the terrible experience of 1887 will not have been forgotten and at Tachkend, as at Samarkand, I saw the traces of these commotions. In fact, minor oscillations are continually being observed, and this volcanic action takes place all along the fault, where lay the stores of petroleum and naphtha, from the Caspian Sea to the Pamir plateau.
Word Of The Day