ABSTRACT
A 'pamir' really means a high rocky table-land. In Asia there are several large pamirs grouped together, some of them in China, others making up a vast region stretching from Fergana down to the upper course of the Oxus, which forms the north-eastern frontier of Afghanistan. The natives on and around the Pamirs call the ailment 'tootek', and it is a thing of common knowledge that certain places are tootek-stricken while others, though at greater heights, are not. The people in the small states are of the same stock as us: they are Indo-Europeans, of Iranian origin. The political trouble which brought there had arisen owing to the international delimitation having handed them over to Bokhara. Travelling in the Pamir valleys is giddy work. The path often soars up to incredible heights, following, as a rule, the river edge and clinging on to the cliff sometimes thousands of feet above the foaming water. Ovrings have to be repaired occasionally.
