CHAPTER VIII. 
UP THE ISFAIRAN VALLEY 
O N the borderlands between East and West Turkestan 
the earth’s crust is thrust upwards into a lofty 
plateau or mountain-knot of gigantic dimensions. From 
it radiate some of the most stupendous mountain-ranges 
in the world, eastwards the Kwen-lun, south-eastwards 
the Himalayas, and between these two the Kara-korum 
Mountains, stretching into Tibet. From the same 
elevated region the Tian - shan highlands branch off 
towards the north-east, and In the opposite direction, 
towards the south-west, the Hindu -kush Mountains. 
It is here that several authorities place the home of the 
first parents of our race. The traditions of a dim and 
distant antiquity declare, that the four sacred rivers of 
Paradise, mentioned in the Bible, had their origins in 
these sublime altitudes. The people of High Asia still 
revere the Pamirs, calling them the Roof of the World, 
and regarding them as the coign of vantage from which 
the towering mountain o-Iants look abroad over the whole 
world. 
Until quite recently the Pamirs were, politically, subject 
to the Khans of Kokand. But when Khodiar Khan, the 
last ruler of that country, was deprived of both kingdom 
and crown by his powerful neighbour on the north, Russia, 
she also laid claim to the sovereignty of the Pamirs. For 
some time however, as they were both difficult of access 
ttnd almost uninhabited, she bestowed but little attention 
upoii them. This Indifference on the part of the Russians 
gave encouragement to the adjacent states to annex one 
portion after another of the former territories of the 
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