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
HERMANN, ADOLPH AND ROBERT VON SCHLAGINTWEIT.
228
In a reprint in Calcutta of the same article, the title is more correct: An account of a Tourney across the Chains of the Kuenluen, fro1n Ladak to Khotan.' But even in this article, which is written by Hermann and Robert themselves, it is surprising to read : »Extensive glaciers are chiefly met with in the range to the north of Karakorum, and another group, apparently the largest accumulation of glaciers in the Kuenluen, was found in the environs of Sassar, but both much smaller than the groups near the Diamer, to the north-west, investigated y our brother Adolphe.» Here the range which is crossed in the Kara-korum Pass is obviously regarded as one of the chains of the Kwen-lun System.
AHMED SHAH did not leave the least doubt regarding the road he took, namely over the Kumdan glaciers. The Schlagintweits' report is not quite clear on this very point. But as they have nothing to say of the Kumdan glaciers and only describe the way up to the Dapsang plateau, and say that they returned the same way, it seems obvious that they took the Murghu road. They say in the last-mentioned report: »we were obliged (as the river was still too swollen) to leave the road down the Shayok Valley at Sultan Chûck6l, to go up the Valley to Sassar, and follow from thence our old route. We had to cross in one day, not without difficulty, the Shayok River five times before we reached Sassar.» At first sight this looks as if they came by the Kumdan road, for, coming from Murgu and going to Saser, one needs to cross the river only once. But probably they went down some distance, and finding the river too strong, returned northwards back to Saser.
More interesting is the following passage : 2 »The point where the plateaux reach the greatest mean elevation, probably the loftiest plateau in the world, is a little to the north of the sources of the Shayok. To the south of this region between Karakorum and the Nubra Valley, a second region of a great general elevation was found, in which some single peaks seem to attain the greatest absolute height.» These words to a certain extent indicate that they suspected the existence of two more or less parallel Kara-korum Ranges.
Speaking of a little sketch map sent by HERMANN and ROBERT SCHLAGINTWEIT
in May 1859 to the Geographical Society in Paris, Dr. A. PETERMANN says:3
Diese Karte belehrt uns vor Allem, dass der Küenlüen eine von der des Kara-korum durchaus verschiedene Bergkette ist, indem der erstere etwa unter 36° N. Br. von West nach Ost, die letztere vom Kara-korum-Pass an nach Südosten, parallel dem Himalaya, verläuft. Diese Anordnung hatte Alexander von Humboldt aus einigen Andeutungen Chinesischer Reisenden errathen und auf seiner bekannten Karte der Gebirgsketten und Vulkane in Centralasien (1843) dargestellt; spätere Forscher, wie Dr. Thomson, identificierten aber den Küenlüen wieder mit dem Kara-korum und keiner war im Stande, aus eigener
I Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal. Vol. XXVI, 1857, p. I I O et seq.
2 Ibidem, h. I I 6.
3 Peterinanns Mitteilungen, 859, p• 35 I.
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