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| Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.4 |
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Citation Information
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| LITTLEDALE, CAREY, NAIN SINGH, BOWER, AND DEASY. | 509 | ||||||
| had small showers — and we saw the first men since Cherchen, in the middle of April.» It must be regarded as an exceptional circumstance, that Littledale was able to cross the whole of northern Tibet in the summer without experiencing a single shower before he reached the latitude stated. Perhaps however he means a good steady rain and ignores slight passing showers, for these are not at all uncommon in northern Tibet even in early summer. With regard to the rainfall, he made the same observation that other travellers have made, including Rockhill and myself, namely that it increases from north to south, especially during that part of the year in which you are, as it were, riding to meet the rain. After the following brief statement: »We were everlastingly crossing from one lake basin to another, but as we got south the gradient became less steep than what we had met with further north,» Littledale goes on to the equally brief statements about the Selling-tso and the Satschu-tsangpo which I have already quoted. Speaking of the Tengri-nor, he says: »We crossed a low pass, and then came in sight of the Tengri-Nor, locally known by the name of Nam-tso = Great Sky Lake, vividly blue, stretching away far to the east, with here and there a small island. A number of promontories jutted into the lake from the north, while on the south it was fringed by the magnificent range of the Ninchen-Tangla; — a succession of snow-clad peaks and glaciers, partially hidden in clouds and vapour, which added to their size and grandeur, while above all towered with cliffs of appalling steepness the great peak of Charemaru, 24,153 feet.» In the following passage he does give in brief and graphic terms a little résumé of the physical geography, his observations with regard to the dried up lakes being especially interesting. »Almost without exception every lake in this country has greatly decreased in size, and the process is still going on; there are lines of gravel, sometimes six or eight, one above the other, showing the height the water once had been, and marks high up along the rocks, as much as 200 feet above the present water-level, were occasionally found. On the sides of the hills surrounding the Lakor Tso the marks were peculiarly distinct. In past times the size of the lakes must have been vastly larger than at the present day. I noticed in several instances that when lakes had divided into several smaller ones by the subsidence of the water, the top of the ridge of land separating them was usually about 40 yards wide, perfectly level, and having the appearance of an artificially made dam or railway embankment. There was capital grazing in most places, the grass much resembling the bunch grass of the Western States. The country ahead promised to be easy travelling, and so it proved to be — valleys joining on to each other with gentle passes right up to the Ladak frontier, a great contrast to the country south of Cherchen, which resembles a ploughed field on a gigantic scale; and as our course unfortunately did not lie up a furrow, we had to cross from ridge to ridge.» Carey's description of the journey which he and Dalgleish took, in the year 1885-86, through the same parts of Tibet as those traversed by the three north- | |||||||
| I A Journey across Tibet; from North to South, and West to Ladak, by St. George R. Littledale, in Geographical Journal, Vol. VII (May 1896), pp. 453 if• | |||||||
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