IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.4 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
!I~
148
WESTWARDS TO LADAK.
and yet keeping to different parallel latitudinal valleys. These run in fact so close together that I at least often found it impossible to determine whether I had one or more ranges between my route and his, or whether we both used the same valley. Seeing that the valleys are so perplexingly like one another, it is only a map drawn with the detailed completeness of mine that will enable us to recognize
them again.
From the flat pass we descended into the equally flat, round cauldron-shaped valley, and then kept along the lowest part of the slope of the southern range. This necessitated our crossing over a great number of watercourses, which, like those last mentioned, come to an end the moment they emerge upon the lowlands, these being after all nothing more than an expansion of the valley that we were travelling in. To the west of the transverse glen we observed, on the other hand, a distinct watercourse, running immediately along the foot of the nearest range to the north, until it at length enters the transverse glen, though at the present time its summer flood does not appear able to get farther down than to the little salt lake in the upper part of the valley. The range which separates our valley from the big, broad valley to the north is by no means simple, at all events immediately west of the transverse glen, but it is divided into a number of more or less continuous parallel ranges. In one or two places I counted four of them.
Upon leaving this flat expansion we marched up the well-marked thalweg out of which the recently mentioned watercourse issues. Its surface is a good deal broken, and the sides of the glen descend abruptly to the stream that runs down its middle. Occasionally we were able to detect a slight tendency to the formation of terraces on both sides, an indication that the erosive activity was formerly more energetic. In front of us, that is to the west-north-west, rose a not inconsiderable reddish yellow crest, showing, like most of the mountains in that region, soft, though steep, outlines, with rocky points and buttresses projecting here and there, the last surviving portions of rock which have resisted the attacks of disintegration. The acclivity leading up to the pass that forms the western boundary and water-divide of the cauldron-shaped valley is steep, and is composed entirely of earth-covered slopes, furrowed by deep watercourses from each side. The summit of the pass itself is however ,flat, and reaches an absolute altitude of 5,075 m. Hence the latitudinal valley slopes slowly down towards the west-south-west, being bordered on the south by on accentuated crest, rocky, rugged, and wild. On its highest reaches lay a little snow; this occurred however only on the slopes looking north. In the upper part of a watercourse that comes from a small detached butte on the north side of the valley, we discovered a spring, with a Tibetan tent not very far away. This region is reported to be called Scholung. Its absolute altitude is 5,051 m. The rock continued to be the same as hitherto.
October i 6th. Our course this day was towards the west and west-northwest, still up the same monotonous latitudinal valley, though for our wearied caravan it afforded in many respects convenient travelling. It is neither narrow nor broad; but the sides slope down all the way to the main stream, without leaving room in the middle for any level tracts. We travelled all day on the northern side of the watercourse, except for a short distance and then we marched in its
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.