CHAPTER I.
THROUGH THE KARA-KORUM VALLEYS.
In Vol. II, I have described my journeys around and across the Manasarovar and Rakas-tal Lakes and those to the sources of the three famous rivers, the Brahmaputra, the Satlej and the Indus, as well as my journey in the valley of the upper course of the first-mentioned, the Tsangpo. In Vol. III, I have given a description of my eight crossings of the Transhimalayan mountain system and of my researches in the region of the Central Lakes, situated just north of the Transhimalaya. It now remains to give a short narrative of the observations undertaken during my two crossings of Northern and Central Tibet, the first in i 906 and the second in 1908. Having thus finished the description of the whole journey from the point of view of physical geography, I will try to give a résumé of the orographical, morphological, hypsometrical and hydrographical observations as compared with my earlier results and those of other travellers. These conclusions will be found at the end of Vol. VII which deals chiefly with the discoveries in the Kara- korum Mountains. This gigantic system which from a point of view of genetic orography may be called the backbone of High Asia, is to a very great extent touched by the two crossings described in Vol. IV. In the résumé at the end of Vol. VII, I will attempt to analyze, if and how far the orographical boundaries of the Kara-korum System may be fixed with the assistance of the store of knowledge we possess at the present day.
The practical arrangements of this journey, as, for instance, the number of servants and animals in my caravan, the equipment, the instruments, etc. having been dealt with in my personal narrative, I leave them alone in this connection, and only direct my attention to the journey itself and to the geography of the traversed country. The first days' marches I have described elsewhere. Be it sufficient here to say that we left Leh on August 141h, 1906, and travelled viâ Tikse, Chimre, Singrul, Sultak, and Drug-ub to Tankse, a village which I reached on August 19th, and which is the first place entered on my map in i : 300 000, Pl. 1. Here, according
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