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
472
EXPLORERS' JOURNEY IN HIGH TIBET.
are partially known at the present time. Krishna's journey marks an epoch in our knowledge of Tibet, and in respect of purely geographical discoveries he surpassed
the contemporary European explorers — Prschevalskij, Gill, and Széchenyi. His observations have also confirmed the correctness of several of Huc's statements, which before that had been somewhat doubted; Prschevalskij in particular, after his first journey, criticised Huc sharply.
From a native possessed of no greater general culture than that which Krishna commanded a detailed account of his journey on the European model was not to be expected. His task was simply to work like a machine or a self-registering instrument, and that task he executed in an ideally perfect way. Along that part of his route which directly interests us, namely the section between Lhasa and Tsajdam, he linked the topography together by astronomical observations, and also determined the altitudes above sea-level by means of boiling-point thermometers. He crossed the three large rivers which we know from Prschevalskij's third journey, and from Rockhill's route, his own itinerary running between these two. He calls the Murus (Mur-usu) the Maurus, Thoktho, or Di-Chu, and the Toktomai-ulan-muren becomes with him the Ulangmiris or Chu Mar; but he calls the Tschu-mar or Namtschutuulan-muren, correctly, the Chu Mar or Ma Chu.
The Pundit's original map was prepared for publication by Hennessey, and on it the parallelism of the mountain ranges with an east and west strike is very distinctly shown. But Hennessey has committed the error of inserting at 91° and 92° E. long. a meridional range, from which all the southern parallel ranges are shown as east-going spurs, while the Tang-la appears to intersect this range at right angles. Yet, considering the defective knowledge which then existed with regard to the structure of the Tibetan highlands, this conception was very plausible and natural. The Pundit had forded a number of rivers flowing towards the east, and what could be more probable than that they had their sources on the same common meridional range, a gigantic water-divide between these rivers and the unknown Tibetan highlands to the west. In what precedes I have already dwelt upon the existence of a similar boundary wall, so extraordinarily important from the physical geographical point of view, although it possesses in reality very different dimensions and a quite other geographical position than those which Hennessey supposed; for it actually reveals itself as for the most part a series of flat transverse thresholds or sills in the broad latitudinal valleys that lie between the parallel mountain-
ranges.
It will be interesting to call to mind what General Walker says about the knowledge that was possessed of the lofty Tibetan swelling in the year 1884: »Notices of the western portion of this region have appeared in former communications to the Geographical Society, notably in the admirable paper on the Physical Geography of western Tibet by Captain Henry Strachey ; but as yet the fact of its enormous extent, as well as great elevation, does not appear to have been fully recognised. It is a vast expanse of softly undulating plains, diversified with lakes and rivers and hill ranges and, occasionally, great mountains. In this region the hills spring from a level which is not much less on an average than 15,000 feet or little below the highest mountain in Europe. Though highly elevated, it is not
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