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
RAW'LINSON AND SAUNDERS. 2 5 I
to Badakshan. He sent »the Havildar» by the Lahori Pass to Chitral and Faizabad, capital of Badakshan. Returning to Chitral he used the Dora Pass.
»This route survey», says Montgomerie, »with the peaks which were determined trigonometrically last season, may be said to have put into my hands the key of the geography of the whole of the unknown region which it was desirable to explore,» and he hopes to get a further opportunity of exploring the unkown country.'
In 1871-72 Montgomerie in a new report says:
From Yarkand the explorations follow the route to the Karakoram pass, and thence the connection is continued by the regular operations of this survey to the Panggong lake, and south to the Indus, where that river first enters Ladak near Demchok ... .
From the Panggong our explorers have extended the line by a traverse to Rudok, the capital of the Chinese districts of Panggong &c., and thence, over the very elevated plateaux north of the Great Aling-Gangri peaks, to the Thok-Jalung gold field, passing through a succession of gold and borax fields. 2
In February 1870 ROBERT SHAW lectured to the Geographical Society on A Visit to Yarkand and Kashgar.3 He said that Eastern Turkestan was like a bay between two ranges: the Tianshan and the Himalaya. »Both converge towards one another as they run westwards, and are united by a cross-range, supporting the high plateau of Pamir.»
After the paper Sir HENRY RAWLINSON said that one of MONTGOMERIE'S Pundits had also explored what had hitherto been a sort of terra incognita to Europeans. He had travelled from the Indian frontier into the central desert, and had proved that from Rudok right to the wall of China there were no high- mountains. »Thus, after leaving the Pangkong Lake a four-in-hand might be driven to Kashgar.» It is curious that such an absurd idea could be expressed so many years after the journeys of the SCHLAGINTWEITS and JOHNSON!
T. SAUNDERS, at the same occasion, thought that SHAW had erred with respect to the physical geography of the country he had crossed, in supposing that the Himalayas and the Kwen-lun were to be regarded as one system.
The mass of mountains to the north of India was upwards of 2000 miles in length, by 600 in breadth. It descended by steep slopes on all sides, by the Himalayas to the plains of India on the south, and by the Kwen-lun Mountains to the great desert of Gobi on the north. On the east it descended by equally steep slopes to the plains of China, and starting from that base the two ranges, the Kuen-lun and the Himalaya, met together as in an apex at the great mountain knot of Pusht-i-Khar, where they join the Hindoo Koosh Range. But eastward they were 600 miles apart, and he thought it was not
I Gen. Rep. on the Oper. of the Gr. Tr. Sur. of India during 1870-71, by Major T. G. Montgomerie, Dehra Doon, 1871, p. 23.
2 Gen. Rep. of the Gr. Tr. Sur. of India during 1871-72, p. 18.
3 Proceedings Royal Geographical Society. Vol. XIV. 1869-70, p. 124 et seq.
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