IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Southern Tibet : vol.7 |
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Citation Information
IIO
YEFREMOFF, DANIBEG, AND OTHERS.
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of the boat could save their lives. After 19 days the shipwrecked men finally reached shore at the mouth of the river Kikaja (Akyab?). By a fishing boat they were taken in two days to Bachar-Kann (Bakargang), and to Calcutta on an English ship.
On his way from Calcutta to Kashmir he mentions the following cities: Serampur, Tshitshru (Chandarnagar), Marshitabad or Machsutabad, Munkir (Monghyr), Asimabad or Fatona (Patna?), Banaris (Benares), Laknahor (Lucknow), Kamber (Cownpur),
Farachabad, Mered (Meerut), Delhi, Fadifur (Fatehpur), Lahor and Norpor or Far (Kistavar?). From Kashmir he reached the town Tibet (Leh) in zo days, and thence Yarkand in 4o days. His way took him over a desolate, uninhabited country, through terrible precipices and over the highest snow mountains, but here there are no geographical details whatever, and his narrative is as poor as Yefremoff's. According to Professor W. W. GRIGORIEFF Danibeg's own description of this part of his journey runs as follows:
»This journey was very annoying to me as the barrenness of the country
I was travelling through .... and the very high mountains amongst which some were covered with ice, rose in my heart an unsupportable feeling of sorrow, and this feeling became the more heavy as the whole country was uninhabited. And therefore, my only wish was to travel through these regions as quick as possible. At last one could see the town Yarkant. The luxuriant parks that surround it present to the traveller a very agreable and consoling view.» 1
From Yarkand Danibeg was 13 days on his way to Aksu, from where he
directed his steps to Turfan and in three months to Semipalatinsk. Viâ Omsk he finally came to Moscow. Danibeg does not say how long he stayed in every town, but his remarkable journey took him a considerable part of his life or 18 years. When he returned Grusia had been conquered by Russia, and it was to Tsar Alexander I that he dedicated his work.2
I am indebted to General Stubendorff for a third letter, dated March 27, 1911, in which he tells me that Mr. Kobeko has found a narrative of another traveller, who, however, is not Russian and has only visited eastern Tibet. But his journey is of interest as he, in 1792, visited Lhasa. He was of Greek extraction and belonged to a family living in Venice, became a priest and carried during ten years the title
3e.u.Ae6lvdmuie K. Pumrnepa. TeoipaOisi cmpaua Asia. Bocmouuuü u.tu Kumaücxiü Typxecmauv. BIIrlycx-B BropoH. ,JlorloJIHexix. C.-IIeTep6ypri 1873, CT. 413.
a Prof. H. H. WILSON makes a short reference to Danibeg, quoting MEYENDORFF: La Relation d'un Voyage aux Indes, by Raphael Danibeg, »a Georgian gentleman, printed at St. Petersburgh in 1815. He travelled from Kashmir to Semipalatinsk by way of Kashgar.» (Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan etc. ... by William Moorcroft, published by H. H. Wilson, London 1841.) The works from which more detailed information may be got regarding the journeys of Yefremoff and Danibeg are enumerated in Vol. I, Part r of Prof. N. KÜHNER'S Work: OnllcaHie Tu6etna, HpuMmtauist,
CT. 78. Humboldt quotes the following passage of his narrative: Ich ging von Kaschmir nach Tibet,
einer auf Hügeln erbauten Stadt, deren Einwohner viel Wolle aus Lassa beziehen und nach Kaschmir ausführen. Humboldt observes that Danibeg's City of Tibet is Leh. — Central Asien, II, p. 231.
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