Page:England & Russia in Central Asia,Vol-I.djvu/29

Rh dominions of the Ameer of Bokhara were carried to the foot of the Pamir. Karategin passed at the same time under the influence of Khudayar Khan of Khokand, and when that potentate was deposed, partly by his own people and partly by Russia, in 1875, it is to be conjectured, although nothing definite has been said upon the subject, that Karategin passed under the controlling influence of Russia. In the summer of 1875 a Russian mission visited Hissar, and proceeded through that province to Kulab on the borders of Badakshan and Darwaz. That mission was composed of Messrs. Vishniefski, Maieff, and Captain Schwartz, and their object was to throw light on the little-known province of Hissar and the country lying east of that district in the direction of the Pamir. Our chief information of those places was derived from the Chinese, and to a great extent we are in a no better position now, as the results of the Russian explorations have been only partially divulged. The journey of the Indian explorer, Faiz Baksh, which will be referred to in a later chapter, alone to some degree makes us independent of Russian sources of knowledge. It is known, in a general way, that this mission acquired some very useful and important information concerning Hissar and Kulab, and more especially of the Guzar and Shirabad oases. At the place called Baisun, close to the road to Shirabad, there is a range of mountains through which there passes a gorge that these Russian explorers pronounced to be impregnable. The importance of Baisun is to be found in the fact that it is on