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
124
ELPHINSTONE. - MIR IZZET ULLAH.
To the south of Kara-korum he found a stone shelter for travellers. »The source of the river Shayuk is on the south of Kara-kûrûm, on the north is that of the river of Yarkand.» Wilson adds: »The Shayuk rises by two heads, one from the snows on the southern face of the Karakurum range; the other from a lake in the same position a little more to the west, called Nobra Tsuh. See Vigne's map.» The story about the lake was later on proved to be wrong.
On the northern side of the Kara-korum he mentions a station with 2 or 3 houses, Sarigh-out (Sarik-ot). Other names are Aktåk, Khafalun, before which the road to »Kalian in Kokiar» is passed, Taghneh, Igersåldi, Bagh-i-Hadji Mohammed, Yårtobi and Yanghi Dawån. »"There is another route by Chiraghsaldi mountain, but it is longer by a two days' journey than this. The road to Yanghi Dawån has been known for sixty or seventy years.»
Finally he comes out at Kokyar. He gives a rather short description of the Kwen-lun, but what he says of the Yangi-davan made it probable to his readers that he was at a considerable height on this pass.
These are the chief and most important contents of Mir Izzet Ullah's journal, so far as the Kara-korum road is concerned. Remembering that it is the narrative of a native, it is very good. He is the first reliable traveller across the Kara-korum we know of, and he leads the long series of explorers who since his days have travelled this way. His exploration also says a good deal in favour of Moorcroft, who, some fifty years before Montgomerie, understood that natives could be used for exploration. It is also to his credit that such a clever and intelligent man was sent out.
Before Elphinstone published his narrative he had an opportunity to study the results of Mir Izzet Ullah, which, however, did not change his own views at all. He finds his narrative »highly interesting)) and makes a detailed extract from it. I only quote the following:1 »though Izzet Oollah does not speak of the range of mountains at Karrakoorrum as exceedingly high, he gives a frightful picture of the cold and desolation of the elevated tract, which extends for three marches on the highest part of the country between Yarkand and Ley .... It is obvious that this account of the Indus agrees entirely with Mr. Macartney's, except that it makes the Shauyook have its source in Mooz Taugh, and not in the lake of Surik Kol.»
I An account of the Kingdom of Caubul, etc. London 1815, p. I I I et seq.
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