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
HÜGEL'S OPINION OF THE KARA-KORUM ROAD.
177
be the superior ridge, since it divides the waters of Central Asia from those which flow south. It is one continuous chain; while, on the contrary, the Himalaya is pierced by both the Kuner and Indus rivers; and no stream that has its rise in this range runs towards the north. n'
Baron CARL VON HÜGEL never went so far east as Ladak, nor did he approach the Kara-korum System at all, so the information he was able to bring back was indeed very poor. He himself regards the road between Ladak and Yarkand as leading through nearly perfectly unknown regions:
Von Ladhak nach Yarkand werden 4o Tage Wegs durch fast gänzlich unbebaute Gegenden angenommen. — Iskardu hat nur mit Kaschmir und Ladhak Verbindung, und obgleich es heisst, dass es möglich sei, seinen Weg von Iskardu nach Turkestan durch Kaschgar und Badakschan zu finden, so wird dennoch von den wenigen Reisenden, welche ein Geschäft dahin führt, entweder jener über Kaschmir und Kabul, oder der über Ladhak und Yarkand gewählt.2
Later on in his narrative Hügel discusses the possibility of an invasion of India by the Yarkand Ladak road: Dass eine Armee diesen Weg durch unbewohnte Wüsten nicht nehmen werde, um Indien anzugreifen, ist augenscheinlich, und einem kleinen Korps würden weder die Chinesen den Durchzug erlauben , noch ihre Erscheinung in Kaschmir von irgend einem Nutzen seyn, wo dasselbe auf sich selbst beschränkt wäre.3
To the second part of Vol. IV of Hügel's work which was published in 1848, John Arrowsmith has drawn a map containing the Bavarian Baron's itineraries.4 The Kara-korum road is entered with all its stations, and between the two Barangsar is a rather mighty range Kara-korum M. The rest of the system is not at all entered on the map ( hide Pl. XXXIX), and the country north of Skardu is left blank.
In G. T. VIGNE'S narrative we find the first autoptic descriptions of the Karakorum Mountains, so far as he came in contact with them on his remarkable journeys He visited our region in 1835, and travelled with open eyes. Only at the end of the second volume of his work we reach those parts of Western Tibet and Karakorum which interest us here. He characterizes it as a country of immense peaks visible from every elevated pass; in this respect Western Tibet differs somewhat with the easterly parts of the Himalaya, where the country is covered by long connected ridges, and where, with the exception of Nepal, there is no table-land on the southern face.
I A journey to the Source of the River Oxus. New Edition, London 1872, p. 24o.
2 Kashmir und das Reich der Siek von Carl Freiherrn von Hügel. Zweiter Band. Stuttgart 184o, p. 200.
3 Op. cit., p. 473.
4 Map of the Panjab, Kashmir, Iskardu, å^ Ladhak ... Compiled from Original Documents, particularly from the Detailed M.S. Map of Baron Charles Hügel, to whom it is Dedicated by John Arrowsmith, 1847.
5 Travels in Kashmir, Ladak, Iskardo etc. Vol. II. London 1844, p. 248 et seq. 23. VII.
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