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
| I 2 6 | WILLIAM MOORCROFT. | |
| Government of India, he travelled viâ Kabul to Bokhara, on a road new to Europeans. Only BENEDICT GOES had travelled from Kabul to Kashgar. In Moorcroft's diaries there are some references to the Kara-korum Mountains which demand our attention, »Ladakh is bounded on the north-east by the mountains which divide it from the Chinese province of Khoten, and on the east and south-east by Rodokh and Chan-than, dependencies of Lassa .... The north is bounded by the Karakoram mountains and Yarkand.» He gives a very good general description of Ladak and proves to have been rather well informed regarding its eastern part. »The Shayuk is the principal river that joins the Indus on the north. Rising from the foot of the Karakorum mountains, it flows several days' journey to the south till within two days' journey to the northeast of the village of Ahkam. There it receives the Duryukh, a river that collects the waters from the eastern portions of the northern valley ....» He collected some information about the trade with Lhasa and Yarkand. »The Garphan is the chief of Chan-than. Rodokh is a province north of this and along the lake of Pangkak. The people are chiefly shepherds, who subsist by the sale of their wool to the merchants at Le. From Rodokh a road is said to cross the mountains to Khotan, and the journey is one of three or four days only. All attempts, however, to reach Khotan by this route are rigidly repressed by the Chinese.» He gives a description of Yarkand, which had been visited by MARCO POLO and MIR IZZET ULLAH — nothing else was known about it at that time. »On the north Ladakh is bounded by the Pamer or Karakorum mountains, a very rugged and difficult road through which leads to the province and town of Yarkand or Yar-kiang.» WILSON mentions TIMKOVSKY and BURNES for further information about Yarkand. »Eastward from Yarkand, and separated by lofty mountains on the south, a continuation of the Karakoram chain, is the district of Khoten. .D He did not The Yarkand River »rises in the northern face of the Karakoram chain, and after running to the north-west some way, is joined on the west by the Serakol river, a large branch from the Karakol Lake in the Pamer mountains, and then takes a bend to the east, past the city of Yarkand.» Regarding the Tarim System he has unreliable information. It is interesting to notice Wilson's footnote on the subject. He remarks that all the maps represent the Yarkand River as terminating in »the small lake of Lop». But he finds it »scarcely probable that the lake of Lop absorbs the waters» of such a considerable river as the Yarkand and all its tributaries. If he had known STRAHLENBERG'S great map, which had already been quoted by HUMBOLDT, he would have obtained some support from it, for there is no Lake | ||
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