WALKER, TROTTER AND BURRARD.
3
It was not considered desirable to send the (Hindû) Pandits into localities inhabited solely by a Mahomedan population, and hitherto they had been chiefly employed in surveying various lines of routes between Ladakh and Yarkand, some new, others old but requiring rectification. But while Captain "Trotter was absent in Wakhån one of these men, Krishna, was sent via Sanju to Khotan, with instructions to penetrate as far eastwards as possible. He traversed the ancient road to China, as far as the Sorghåk gold fields, and then, returning to Keria, struck southwards along the road to Rudok, crossed the Kuen Luen range and the great table-lands of the higher Himalayas on the western confines of Chinese Thibet, and reached the village of Nob, which is about 20 miles to the north of Rudok ; here he was stopped by the Chinese officials and nearly turned back again by the road he came, but eventually he was permitted to go direct to Leh by the Pangong Lake. His work was very carefully executed, and has stood the tests, furnished by comparing the route survey with the astronomical and trigonometrical determinations of position most satisfactorily, and this is all the more important in the present instance, in that large corrections have been shown to be needed in the work of 1865-66, which has hitherto been accepted, though with some misgivings. I
The range which, north of Leh, separates the drainage of the Indus and the Shayok, and which in winter is crossed by the Diger-la (17,93o) and in summer by the Kardung-la (i 7,900), »is the well-known Kailas Range».2 This is the one which in BURRARD'S orographical system is called the Ladak Range. TROTTER says: »After crossing the Kailas Range and entering the Shayok Valley, the traveller has now before him the great Muz-tagh or Karakorum Range.» As we know now, and as is clearly shown by Burrard, one has first to cross what Burrard calls the Kailas Range, and which in his system runs over the Kailas peaks and then north of the Tsangpo, — before one comes to the Great Kara-korum. On TROTTER'S excellent map (P. LXI) 3 accompanying his paper, there is one branch from the main
I Gen. Rep. on the Operations of the Gr. Tr. Sur. of India during 1873-74, by Colonel J. T. WALKER, Dehra Dun 1874, p. 34. — Two years later Colonel Walker reported on the famous journey of Nain Singh from Leh to Lhasa: .... Nain Singh the Pandit par excellence of Major Montgomerie's Transhimalayan Explorations — »was one of the explorers who were attached to Sir Douglas Forsyth's Mission .... he was sent on his return from Yarkand to Leh, on an exploration to Lhasa .... He left Leh in July 1874, and succeeded in crossing the Tibetan frontier, in the disguise of a Lama, or Buddhist priest. Passing about 15 miles to the north of Rudokh, he travelled nearly due east for a distance of more than Soo miles, over a new line of country, separated from the valley of the Tsangpo — or Great River of Tibet — by an almost continuous range of snow mountains, which trends eastwards' from the Alang Gangri peaks, in longitude 81' , up to the Ninjin 'I'hangla peaks, south of the great Tengri Nur Lake, in longitude goy°. His road lay, throughout, over an extensive table-land ranging in height from 13,900 to nearly 16,000 feet above sea-level, a region containing a few gold fields, and numerous lakes and streams and almost covered with rich pastures .... The Pandit struck the Tengri Nur Lake at its northwest corner, and travelled along the northern coast of the lake, --- a distance of nearly 5o miles — to the opposite corner, whence he turned southwards to Lhasa.» — Gen. Rep. on the oiler. of Gr. Trig. Surv. of India during the year 1874-75. By Colonel J. T. Walker, Dehra Dun 1876, p. 20.
2 On the Geographical Results of the Mission to Kashgar under Sir 7. Douglas Forsyth in 1873-74. By Capt. H. Trotter. Journal Royal Geographical Society. Vol. XLVIII. 1878, p. 173 et seq.
3 Map of Central Asia to accompany the Paper by Capt"• H. Trotter on the Geographical Results of Sir T. D. Forsyth's Mission to Kashghar, 1873-74. Journ. Roy. Geogr. Soc. Vol. XLVIII, 1878, p. 173.
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