| IIOOKER'S AND CAMPBELL'S RANGES NORTH OF THE I-IIMALAYA. I23 face of Kwen-lun go to the Indian Ocean, he is correct only under two conditions: that the Kara-korum is regarded as a part of the Kwen-lun and that only the western Kara-korum is considered. But when he says that the rivers from the north side of Kwen-lun and Transhimalaya run to Lop, he shows how utterly unknown the interior of Tibet was in 185o. In this Hooker has been influenced by Thomson, whose orographical systems he finds more probable than those of Humboldt. It is, however, difficult to understand what he really means. For, like Thomson, he regards the Pamir or Bolor as the centre from which the three greatest mountain systems of Asia spring: 1. The one to the north-east stretching all the way to Behring's Strait, 2. The Hindoo Koosh, and 3. »The Muz tagh or Kara-korum, which probably extends due east into China, south of the Hoang-ho, but which is broken up north of Manasarowar into the chains which have been already enumerated.» These chains must be Kwen-lun, Kara-korum and the chain north of the »Yaru». But if now, as he says, the Muz tagh or Kara-korum extends due east into China, how can the rivers from the north side of the Yaru chain (= Transhimalaya) flow into the valley of Lake Lop ? When Hooker sometimes speaks of Kwen-lun or Kara-korum and sometimes of Muz tagh or Kara-korum, he obviously means in both cases the same system, in which are situated the Kara-korum pass and the Mus-tagh pass. It is worth while to remember that he and Thomson regarded the Kara-korum, whether alone or as a part of the Kwen-lun, as stretching through the whole of Tibet into China. This was only a hypothesis, for we have seen that the interior of Tibet was utterly unknown. Still the two learned explorers were more perspicacious than some modern geographers who, 6o years later, used the term Eastern Kara-korum for those parts of the system which are situated far in the west, although they have had at their disposal the materials of PRSHEVALSKIY, BONVALOT, BOWER, DE RHINS, WELLBY, LITTLEDALE, etc, and my own crossings in several directions through Tibet. Dr CAMPBELL'S article: Notes on Eastern Thibet,' published in 1855, does not clear up the complicated orography. He says himself that the best account of the Trans-Himalayan regions is to be found in Dr Thomson's Travels. His own contribution runs as follows: »I shall now endeavour to describe the second grand division or 'Eastern Tibet'. It is by all accounts an exceedingly mountainous country, i. e. it contains immense masses and ranges of the most rugged mountains in the world interspersed with extensive plateaus and deep level-bottomed valleys along the streams and rivers. — The Thibetans I have met with, do not recognize a continuous chain of mountains running parallel to the Himalaya; nor are they acquainted with 'Kounlun' as the name of any mountain range. They are familiar with the Himalaya on one hand and call it 'Kangri' which simply means Snowy region, and they know that the country of the Mongols, or Mongolia lies parallel to it on the other I Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. XXIV, 1855, p. 215 et seq. | | | | |
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