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
BURNES, HÜGEL, VIGNE.
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180
of the Kurukurum. Various and most conflicting were the accounts given of its extent, but all agreed that it was very large.
He believes it was 3 or 4 miles in length and less than 1 mile in width. »Not
many years ago, the protecting glacier gave way and the mighty flood, no longer confined, rushed down the valley of the Shy-Yok, destroying every village that came
within its reach ....»
Again Vigne says of the Kara-korum :
I have no means of knowing, with any exactness, the height of the Kurukurum mountain above the sea. On its right, say my informants, the country is more open, and slopes away to the plains of Chang Thung, or others ; whilst very lofty and snowy mountains, spurs from the Murtak, if not the end of the Murtak itself, are visible on the left hand .... The snow , so say the Yarkundi merchants, does not remain upon Kurukurum, for the greater part of the year, and they attribute this to the tremendous power of the winds that sweep over it, rather than to the heat of the sun.
Vigne was informed that on the northern side of the Kara-korum a river goes down to Yarkand and receives an eastern tributary from the »Chang thung». He heard that from »Sir-i-Kol» it was about five days to Cheruk-sa, where the way from Brahaldoh meets the Kara-korum road. He says the Murtak way viz Iskardo is I o days shorter than the other road.
The river of Kashgar rises on the east side of Tyak Dewan (Terek-davan), and is joined, after passing Kashgar, by the river of Yarkand. Farther east it was said to join the Hwang-ho, a statement which betrays its Chinese origin. Vigne adds: »But information from natives is not much to be depended upon.»
From this trip he returned to Leh by another pass, obviously the Kardung-la.
Next year we again find him in Little Tibet intending to proceed to Kokan. There were said to be two roads, one across a shoulder of the Murtak, from the valley of Brahaldoh to Hunza and thence to Pamir, and thence descending upon Kokan from Sir-i-Kol. However, he was not able to realize his plans. Once more he visited Shighur together with Dr. FALCONER. During his stay here an envoy came from Hunza over the Murtak Pass, which proves that this road was still in use in 1836.
About his second journey to the source of the Shayok, Vigne says that he
ascended the low ridge behind the village of Ghortsuh near Khopalu on the Nubra River, and »from the summit beheld the valley of Saltoru, containing several villages and a considerable river, which was winding its way to the Indus». The evening of the third day brought him to the last village in the pass. »There was
scarcely an interval between the precipices that was not occupied by a magnificent glacier.»
Vigne ascended one of these glaciers which are now so well known and says of it that it has half a mile in width, »but afterwards spreading to a much greater
I Ibidem p. 363.
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