国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

Io8

'l'HE PUNDITS OF MONTGONIERIE.

gomerie that he continues upon the ground of every new piece of information he gets. By intuition he uses even vague and uncertain news and makes the best use of them. Now, going upon the above information, he sent his next expedition of 1868 from Spiti over Chumurti to Demchok, where, in July, the Indus was found to have a breadth of 27o feet, a depth of 5 feet, and a velocity of 23/10 miles an hour. Over Rooksum the party went eastward through Rawung and Tingche to Dak-korkor. Rudok was also touched by the Pundit's route. Henry Strachey had reached 12 miles east of the place and GODWIN AUS'T'EN I2 miles north of it. On the way from Rudok to Thok-jalung the Pundit saw no high peaks to the north or east, a circumstance which persuades Montgomerie to believe in the existence of a large plain in that direction, so much the more as Chang-tang means »The Great Plain».I Nowadays we know that there is in reality very little of a plain. The word, moreover, means »The Northern Plain».

In his instructions the Pundit was told to proceed, if possible, along »the upper road» 2 to Tengri-nor and Lhasa, or, failing that, to take the road through AiIajin and »Shellifuk» to Tradum.

About 20 miles north of the Aling Gangri a place called Dak-korkor was reached by the third Pundit. This place is situated on the right bank of the Alingchu River, which goes eastwards and falls into a salt lake, Hagong-cho, which, formerly, had been more extensive. He also passed the famous salt lake Chak-chaka, which he describes as being all but connected with the Hagong-tso, and he says that an area of about 20 miles by 1 o is all about on a level with those lakes. This space is said to be filled with salt, which at one time evidently had been covered with water. The same phenomenon is, as I found in 1901, very common with many other lakes in Western Tibet.

The same Pundit first heard of a gold-mine Thok-daurakpa, which was said to have a separate Serj5un. It was said to be the chief place in a district called Jung Phaiyu-Pooyu, from where a large river was said to flow northwards and then eastwards towards China. The name of the district also belonged to some high snowy peaks which were supposed to be those at the eastern end of the Kwen-lun range.3 Due north from here was said to be the country of Whor or Hor, which Montgomerie supposes to be the Tibetan name for Eastern Turkestan.

The projected journey to Tengri-nor could not be carried out this time. From Thok-jalung the party went through the l\Iajin country, »partly undulating, and partly quite level, but all about the same altitude, viz. 15,000 to 16,000 feet above the sea. The drainage sloped towards the east, and nothing but comparatively low rounded hills were visible in that direction; whilst on the west

I Montgomerie: Report of the Trans-Himalayan Explorations made during 1868. Proceedings Royal Geogr. Society, Vol. XIV, 1860-70, p. 207 et seq.

2 I. e. the Ser-lam, or gold road in Bongba, which I crossed later on.

3 J. A. Soc. Bengal, loc. cit. p. 5o.