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
244 JOHNSON'S JOURNEY TO KHOTAN.
by some thoroughly competent observer, I see no way of avoiding the admission of Johnson's ascent in 1 865 of a peak 23,890 feet in height.» 1
In the narrative of his journey, 1906-1908, Stein returns to the question: »Our explorations of 1900 had revealed very puzzling discrepancies between the sketch-map illustrating Johnson's journey and the actual orography of this region.. ..»2 He, however, now heard the name Brinjaga which actually figured in Johnson's route
sketch. He goes on saying : 3
Six years before I had been greatly puzzled by the topographical features of the sketchmap illustrating the route which Johnson claimed to have followed on his descent to Khotan in 1865. According to this map Johnson had made his way across the Kunlun main range by a very high pass, which he called 'Yangi diwan' (i. e, 'Yangi Dawan', the New'), to an affluent of the Yurung-kash and thence by a second pass, designated as 'Naia Khan Pass', to another valley joining the main river from the south close to Karanghutagh. — It was true that the position assigned to the latter as well as other topographical features were found to differ widely from the actual configuration of these valleys as revealed by our survey, while none of the names of passes, etc., shown south of Karanghu-tagh were known to the hill-men. No help could be got from the very meagre record published of Johnson's remarkable feat. There was no reason to doubt the general fact of his having crossed the Kun-lun main range from the head-waters of the Kara-kash southwards,4 and it was thus a matter of considerable interest to ascertain where his actual route lay.
The great discrepancy between Johnson's map and the real topography, therefore, only allowed conjectures. The »New Pass» of 19,500 feet by which Johnson »claimed to have penetrated the great barrier of the main Kun-lun» appeared »mysterious» to Stein. Of his survey of the Busai valley on the north side of the Kwen-lun, and not far from the place where Yangi-davan ought to be situated Stein says:
I Alpine Journal. Loc. cit., p. 137. At another place Stein says: »The sketch-map by which Johnson illustrated his journey (i 865) from the Upper Kara-Kash to Khotan (see J. R. Geogr. Soc., 1867, p. I) cannot be reconciled with the true topography of the region from Karanghu-tagh southwards. In it the hamlet of Karanghu-tagh appears shifted some twenty miles farther north than its real position, and the Yurung-kåsh river is given a wholly impossible course. By the insertion of a great bend, which in reality does not exist, the valley of the Yurung-kåsh is shown in this map again some twenty miles south of Karanghu-tagh, i. e. approximately in its true position, but with the river flowing to the south-east, a direction exactly opposite to the true one. In this second portion of the valley a locality called Khushlash-langar is marked at a map-distance of some twenty-three miles to the south of Karanghu-tågh. In reality the few huts known by that name are situated only one and a half miles to the south-east of Karanghu-tagh, half way between the village and the left bank of the Yurung-kåsh. A strange kind of duplication seems to have occurred in Johnson's map, for which 1 am unable to offer a satisfactory explanation. Of the other local names recorded on Johnson's route from the Kara-kåsh to Karanghu-tagh, some are unknown to the Tåghliks and some are applied to localities in an entirely different situation. All these discrepancies are the more puzzling since Johnson was a professional topographer who even without the use of a plane table could have secured an approximately correct record of whatever route he actually followed.» Ancient Khotan. Oxford 1907,
p. 129, note 2 2.
2 Ruins of Desert Cathay. London 1912. Vol. I, p. 18i. Op. cit., p. 198.
4 Johnson crossed the Kwen-lun from the Kara-kash northwards, for on his eastern route he '
travelled from south to north. ,
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