ROMAN" ORIENT AND FAR EAST — SELIGMAN 551 



across Sinkiang (Chinese Turkestan), skirting the Tarim Desert either 

 north or south to reach Kashgar (Issedon Scythica), the gate of the 

 Pamirs. Kashgar is some 1,500 miles from Lan Chou, and Turfan, 

 the region of Stein's great discoveries, lies roughly halfway between 

 the two cities. 



The middle section crosses the Pamirs to reach Merv (Antiochia 

 Margiana) by alternate routes, via Samarkand (Marakanda) or 

 Balkh (Bactra). 



From Merv the western section ran west and south across northern 

 Iran to Hecatompylos and Hamadan (Ecbatana) to Seleucia-Ctesiphon 

 just below the modern Baghdad, crossing the Euphrates at Zeugma 

 where there was a Roman legionary camp, and thence to Antioch, 

 whence the goods were distributed through the Empire. 



This is no place to discuss the ethnology of the peoples along the 

 trade route, though variation in cultural habit must necessarily have 

 greatly influenced commerce along the highway. West of the Pamirs 

 the inhabitants may in a general way be called Iranian ; east of this it 

 would perhaps be natural to expect a Mongol or at least predomi- 

 nantly Mongoloid population, but this is not so. The careful analysis 

 by T. A. Joyce of the measurements and photographs brought back 

 by Stein indicates that east of the Pamirs the ethnic type is predomi- 

 nantly Alpine, with considerable Turki admixture and traces of 

 Turki and Afghan, definitely not Mongol. 7 This may to some extent 

 account for the hold that various items of western thought and habit 

 achieved along the trade route, though too much can be made of the 

 reputed Chinese unwillingness to adopt foreign ideas and practices; 

 for, as noted later, the T'ang period — perhaps that of China's greatest 

 brilliance — was marked by the influx and ready acceptance of foreign- 

 ers and of foreign (Western and Indian) ideas. 



Although there were many factors that tended to the early utiliza- 

 tion of the silk route by the Chinese and emphasized their determina- 

 tion to keep it open, it cannot be too strongly stressed that it was 

 neither desire for geographical knowledge nor love of conquest or of 

 gain that dictated China's exploration of the West. It was in the 

 first place due to sheer military necessity, the same need that led to 

 the building of the Great Wall in order to counter the attacks of the 

 barbarians of the North. These were the Hsiung Nu nomads, a 

 Turki-speaking stock, identified with the Huns who invaded Europe 

 a few centuries later. Under the Emperor Wu (141-87 B. C.) the 

 struggle, waged intermittently for a couple of centuries, became a 

 desperate contest, into which was thrown the full strength of the 

 Empire. The hope of finding assistance in the West and so outflank- 



7 Joyce, T. A., On the physical anthropology of the oases of Khotan and Keriya, Journ. Roy. Anthrop. 

 Inst., vol. 33, 1903; and Notes on the physical anthropology of Chinese Turkestan and the Pamirs, op. cit., 

 vol. 42, 1912. 



