Bernier, François, Travels in the Mogul Empire A.D. 1656-1668

(Westminster, Eng. :  Constable,  1891.)

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THE PARADISE,OF THE INDIES           427

pendent upon Kachemire, and four days' journey from the
city of Kachemire : from Gourtche, they were eight days in
reaching Eskerdou} the capital of Little Tibet; and in two
days more they came to a small town called Cheker} also
within the territory of Little Tibet, and situated on a river
celebrated for its medicinal waters. In fifteen days they
came to a large forest, on the confines of Little Tibet, and
in fifteen days more they arrived at Kacheguer, a small
town which was formerly the royal residence, though now
the King of Kacheguer resides at Jourkend} a little more to
the north, and ten days' journey from Kacheguer. These
merchants added that the distance from the town of Kache¬
guer to Katay * is not more than a two months' voyage;
that caravans go thither every year, which return laden
with the articles I have enumerated, and proceed to Persia
by way of Usbek; as there are others that go from Katay
to Patna, in Hindoustan. They also informed me that the
way from Kacheguer to Katay is through a small town,
eight days' journey from Coten, and that Coten' is the last
town on that side in the kingdom of Kacheguer. The road
from Kachemire to Kacheguer, they said, is extremely bad,
and among other difficult paths, there is the place where, in
every season, you must go a quarter of a league over ice."

! Skardii, taken by the Maharaja Giilab Singh in 1840. Vid Gurez,
it is fourteen marches from Srinagar ; the marches may have been
longer in Bernier's time.

^ Shigar, on the river of that name.

" Yarkand is to the south-east of the town of Kashgar.

* It is interesting to note Bernier's use of this word here. It is the
name for China which would be used by his informants, the merchants
from Kashgar, see p. 426, although he was probably under the im¬
pression, a very common one at his time, that Katay or Cathay was a
country to the north of China. Father Martini, in his Novus Atlas
Sinensis (1655), was one of the first to fully recognise its identity wdth
China.    See p. 155 text, and footnote ^.

^ Khotan.

" This refers to a route from Skardii to Yarkand, which crossed the
Baltero Glacier, which now, owdng to changes in the ice, is no longer
passable.
  Page 427