The Challis messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1912-current, 1924-05-14
A Square In Kokand, Feruana.

Prepared by tho National Geographic So
ciety Washington. D. c.
Continual reports from Moscow tina
the soviet government Is seeking t
become a leader of Asiatic peoples
arouse interest In Fergana, the coun
try which was the Russian empire.
deepest southeastern wedge driven into
Asia, country of deserts and GASES
towering mountains and picturesque
valleys, where the territories of Rus
sian, Chinese and Briton almost meet
Fergana, formerly Kokan, has
numerous bids to fame, but among
them two stand out. Its northern fer.
tile valleys and GASES constituted the
heart Of Russia's cotton producing
country; and its borders south and
east marked the terminal moraine, so
to speak, Of the great Slav glacier
which had moved slowly down through
Asia, bringing its deposit Of Russian
dominion and culture, until 1t hung
over both India and China.
The southern portion of Fergana is
a sort of Russian Kashmir, with the
delightful vale left out-a country of
high but deep valleys and towering
peaks, bleak slopes and sparkling
lakes. 1t is, In fact, the reverse to
Kashmirs diverse in so far as the
more rugged portions of Kashmir are
concerned, for it lies just over the
mountain divide from that better
known land of towering peaks; so
close that Titan-or a Big Bertha, If
one might be gotten there-might hurl
q missile from Russian to British terri
tory. Only a narrow strip Of Afghan
land, reserved to Afghanistan because
of the long jealousy and diplomatic
struggle between Britain and the old
Russian empire, lies between. In
places 1t is as narrow as twenty miles.
The southern portion of Fergana
e the Pamir, or, more properly, the
Pamirs. 1t has a Persian name also
that has intrigued the worlds interest,
Roof of the World"
Toward the middle of the Nineteenth
century, the Pamlrs, to which scant
attention has been given before, be-
came the worlds mystery region. The
meager references to it in the writ
ngs of early Chinese Buddhist pill
yrims were ferreted out, together with
hose of Marco Polo and other daunt-
ess early travellers who had crossed
The forbidding region. Agents of the
British Indian government were sent
IN secret expeditions to survey the
irea from Kashmir northward; and
after Russia absorbed the Khanate of
Kokan In 1875 and fell heir to its
claims to the northern Pamirs, Rus
'ian explorers began to penetrate the
mystery region from the north. Thus
here was born the great rivalry be-
ween Russia and Britain in central
Asia which gave rise to mutual sus-
,icions and almost led to acts Of war
IN several occasions.
Lofty Valleys Almost UnpeopIed.
1t was found, when the observations
# the various explorers were pieced
ogether, that the Pamirs made up an
lmost unpeopled country of such
Ugh altitude and severe climate that
t could never be permanently In
abited. "Pamir" has been generally
ccepted to mean valley at the foot
f mountains" and the Pamirs, cover
ng an area roughly $50 miles square,
re series of these characteristic I
alleys, their river-fed floors mountain
Ugh when compared to the mountains
( most other lands, with snow
overed and glacler-clad peaks rising
everal thousand feet above them.
he bottoms of practically all the
'amirs are at least 1900 feet high
nd some are over 1900.
Only few hundred Kirghiz nomads
lander over the region in summer,
wing in their hemispherical felt tent
uts, and making for the lower coun-
~, whether, India, Afghanistan,
hina or Russia, in the winter For
Inc months of the year mountains and
alleys alike are wrapped in Arctic
Ike cold, everything covered with
eavy blanket of snow and ice.
Once imperial Russia got possession
the Pamirs in 1893. she drew even
ghter about 1t the cloak of secrecy
lat Nature had all along maintained.
ct 1t became known, though the re-
orts strained the credulity of British
xplorers, that military roads were
'aversing what had appeared to be
npassable terrain. They reached out
ON the railroads Of northern Fer
ana through gorges and over lofty
asses into the Pamirs and over them
was not impossible to drag artillery
, the very threshold Of British India.
ew persons other than trusted i'm
srialists were permitted to traverse ,