Ruined walls, 'the old home of the Khitans'
Editorial contextCrossing a level, well-watered and crowded land between two mountain ranges, Chang De saw many old ramparts and ruined walls. Asking about them, he was told they were the former home of the Khitans, meaning the Qara Khitai empire that ruled here before the Mongols. He reckoned the place nearly 15,000 li from Karakorum.
On the 24th of the second month he passed between the two Yidu mountains. The land is level and the people many, with irrigation channels winding everywhere. There are many old ramparts and ruined walls; when he asked about them, [he was told] they were the old home of the Khitans. He reckoned this land to be a little under 15,000 li from Helin (Karakorum).
Working translation
Original wording
二月二十四日過亦堵两山間土平民夥溝洫映帶多故壘壊垣問之盖契丹故居也計其地去和林萬五千里而近
About Khitans (Qara Khitai), as local people told it
Keep in mind
The identification of the ruins comes from local informants.
Turkistan after the Tatars: nothing but ruins
Editorial contextThe editor quotes the fourteenth-century Arab geographer Shihab al-Din (al-Umari), who was told by a traveller that the land had been ruined 'by the arms of the Tatars'. From a distance a village looks well built, but up close its houses are empty, and the people are now all herders. Elias adds that the towns had been built by earlier settled peoples such as the Uighurs and Kara-Khitai, before the Mongol nomads made it their home.
Since the region has been devastated by the arms of the Tatars," he writes, "it is inhabited only by a scanty population. According to what I have been assured by a man who has travelled through the country, there is nothing to be seen in Turkistan but ruins, and more or less obliterated remains.
About Tatars (Mongols) and the nomads who followed them
Keep in mind
Hearsay at two removes, quoted from Quatremère's French translation.
Sheep sacrificed to a 'volcano' in Lake Alakol
Editorial contextAt Orenburg in 1829 Humboldt copied a caravan report from the papers of General Gens. It described a high mountain rising like an island in Lake Alakol that had once spewed fire and still caused storms that troubled caravans, so travellers sacrificed sheep to it as they passed. Humboldt believed the report came from a Tatar informant.
we saw a very high mountain that once spewed fire. Even now this mountain, which rises in the lake like a small island, causes violent storms that trouble the caravans: that is why, in passing, people sacrifice a few sheep to this old volcano.
Working translation
Original wording
nous vîmes une très-haute montagne qui a autrefois vomi du feu. Présentement encore, ce mont qui s'élève dans le lac comme une petite île, occasionne des tempêtes violentes qui incommodent les caravanes : c'est pourquoi on sacrifie en passant quelques moutons à cet ancien volcan.
About caravan travellers between Semipalatinsk and Yarkand (Tatar informants)
Keep in mind
A later informant, the mullah Sayfulla, knew nothing of a fire mountain or of sacrifices to it, and said the offerings were made at a hot spring instead; Humboldt prints both versions.