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
DREW AND OTHERS.
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296
difficult, a new one was struck out up a more northerly glacier that leads to where Mustagh Pass is marked on the large map. This one I followed for some distance up the glacier,
hut not as far as the summit of the Pass, to which as yet no European has reached.
Formerly Hunza robbers made the passage dangerous on the farther side of the range. The pass is open for but a short time in summer; as soon as snow falls on it the crevasses are hidden and the journey becomes dangerous. Drew was in Braldu in 1863 and got information from natives. All the difficulties caused the road to be disused. From 1863 to Drew's second visit in Baltistan in 187o, there had been no communication with Yarkand.
Drew gives the conclusive explanation of the famous and terrible Indus floods at Chach in Hazara in 1841 and at Attok in 1858. CUNNINGHAM and HENDERSON had searched for the cause in the breaking of the icy barrier of the lake above the Kumdan glacier. DREW, however, proves that the barrier must have been situated below the junction with the Shayok. The answer which was found out by Major BECHER in 1858-59 corroborates the views of Drew, who visited the place himself. Drew found that an earthquake caused a heavy landslip near Hatur Pir late in the autumn of 1840. Thus a lake was formed. The lake went up the Gilgit valley and must have been 3 5 miles long, and the lake branch in the main Indus valley must have had the same length. It got filled in 6 or 7 months. Then the dam gave way and the whole lake drained off in a day. There have been lakes formed at Kumdan he says, but they have nothing to do with the catastrophe of Chach.
In Drew's work we find some interesting tables of different routes. His route Nr. 23 goes from Leh viå Kara-korum to Yarkand, passing Burtse, Kisil-unkur and Dowlet Bek-öldi; this is the summer route; the winter route passes the same stations. Nr. 24 is taken from The Panjao Trade Re fort for 1862. As in both cases the eastern road is mentioned, the Kumdan route seems to have been closed. On his map the Chong Kumdan glacier reaches the river, and the Kichik Kumdan and Aktash glaciers proceed very near it.
Drew's beautiful general map is chiefly taken from the Great Trigonometrical Survey's maps of 1874.' Here the Mus-tagh or Kara-korum l'Iountains are marked as a very conspicuous system just as nowadays. The Lokzhung Mts. are drawn as a S. E. continuation of the Kara-korum Mountains, the uppermost Kara-kash River forming a transverse interruption. The Aksai-chin Lake is entered as on the preceding maps, and the draftsman has made use of the discoveries of the British travellers dealt with in the previous chapters. South of the Eastern Kuen-lun of HAYWARD, and east of Kara-kash there is a group of small salt lakes, obviously the
I The Territories of the Maharaja of Jummoo and Kashmir with portions of the adjoining countries. Compiled chiefly from the Maps of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, 1874. P1. LXIII is the N. E. part of this map.
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