IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.4 |
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Citation Information
470
EXPLORERS' JOURNEYS IN HIGH TIBET.
know, this would appear to be the case. Rockhill saw at close quarters only a very few of the internal drainage lakes, namely Tra-schi-tso-nak, Dzurken-ula-nor, Tschibtschang-tso, and Namru-tso, and his observations are too few in number to warrant
the formulation of any general laws.
In so far as the wind is concerned, during the three summer months, and in the country that Rockhill travelled through, it was the same that appears to prevail everywhere at all times in Tibet, namely from the west. Almost every day he notes a westerly storm breaking out about 2 or 3 p.m. In respect of this phenomenon we do possess sufficient material to justify us in laying down the general rule, that all the year through and throughout the whole of Tibet westerly
winds prevail.
Finally, we may notice, that Rockhill made the same observation which I did, namely that boggy ground, soft, marshy, swampy, is very common in high Tibet, this being one of the characteristic features of the country, particularly during the rainy season, and it is this which makes caravan travelling in a high degree so difficult. It was especially near the southern foot of the Tang-la that Rockhill experienced the worst difficulties from this cause, and this he ascribed, and rightly so, to the circumstance that the Tang-la mountains arrest a larger measure of the atmospheric moisture than the surrounding regions do, and it is this moisture which, sinking into the ground, renders it wet and miry like a dirty sponge. His experience agreed with mine, that the slopes of the flat hills, built up of loose materials, are generally more boggy than the bottoms of the valleys. The reason of this may be that in the latter the fine detritus is relatively more tightly packed, and has no opportunity to start the slow gliding movement which is discernible on the sides of the hills.
About the same time that the first, second, and third journeys of Prschevalskij awakened the admiration and liveliest interest of the whole civilized world, a series of geographical explorations were carried out in a very unostentatious way by certain Indian pundits, the results of which were at least equally as important as those of the Russian general. In the spring of 1878 General Walker sent the pundit A—K — (Krishna), well equipped with all sorts of scientific instruments, into Tibet, commissioning him to start from Lhasa and cross »the great plateau of Tibet into Mongolia» by the route that he should find most convenient, and then to return to India by some other Tibetan route. The pundit approached Lhasa via Tschumbi and Phari-dschong, and did not leave it until the following year, that is to say on I 7th September 1879, when he travelled north in company with a caravan of Mongols and Tibetans. Sixty miles from Lhasa they crossed over the pass of Lani-la (15,75o feet), and then found themselves on the »highly elevated plateau which occupies the greater portion of Tibet, and is called the Jang- or Chang-tang, which literally means the Northern Plain; on entering it, the Pundit found that he had passed from a cultivated into a pastoral region, and from fixed habita-
tions to wandering encampments.»
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