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
35o
disappears in and is, so to say, absorbed by the Tibetan plateau-land. Even if it was as impossible to them as to anybody else to answer this question, their thoughts went in the right direction, and they regarded a prolongation of the system as possible. In 1881 K. E. VON UJFALVY travelled in the Kara-korum Regions. He has
the following general view of the orography:'
Im allgemeinen scheint die Terrainanschwellung gegen den Nordosten zu sich allmählich zu senken. Im Karakorumgebirge erreicht sie ihre grösste constante Höhe, zieht gegen Südosten als Himalaja, als gewaltiger Gebirgszug bis an die chinesische Grenze und stösst dort an das grosse hinterindische Alpenland. Im Nordwesten wird dieselbe Terrainanschwellung zum gewaltigen Bergstock (von dem sich der rauhe Hindukusch abzweigt), der sich an das Pamirplateau, »das Dach der Welt», lehnt. Dieses von einer mittleren Höhe von r 2,000 Fuss, also niedriger als das von Deosai im Süden von Iskardo (12,50oî 3,000 Fuss) , wird im Osten von der Kisel-Yartkette begrenzt, in welcher der Tagarma noch bis zu 20,000 Fuss Seehöhe hinaufragt.2
Ujfalvy travelled in 1881. He started from Skardo »in the morning» without telling which day and month. He crossed the Indus (where?) and ascended a pass (which?). However, from the highest point of the pass he enjoyed a beautiful view, the broad, green, luxuriant Shigar valley lay at his feet, and in the distance he saw the Boltoro Glacier, the largest in the world after the inland ice of Greenland, and in the background the Gusherbrum (26,378 feet) and Dapsang (28,265 feet), second in height on the earth. In the villages Shigar and Tshutrun he met some Pakhpus and Shakshus, who had come across the Mustagh Pass with the intention to barter in Skardo, giving gold dust and skins for stuffs. They were known to plunder on the Yarkand road across the pass.
The third day (?) Askole was reached, which is situated »nearly at the foot of the Biafo-Ganse Glacier», and from where one has a finer view of the ice-sea of the Karakorum than from any other point. To the north and east the mighty BiafoGanse Glacier was seen, farther eastward joined by the enormous Boltoro Glacier. Unfortunately he could not think of attempting the Mustagh Pass which, as he asserts, both in the preface and in the text, was crossed in 1 7 6o by the Portuguese Jesuit 1)'ESPINHA. Ujfalvy only proceeded to the foot of the .pass. He heard that it had been much used in olden times, but that travellers now avoided it on account of the snow storms and the robbers of »the upper Yarkand valley». The Nushik Pass was never used, and was regarded as one of the most difficult passages of the Karakorum. The trade between Eastern Turkestan and the northern parts of India he found to be of much greater importance than was generally believed.
YOUNGHUSBAND, GROMBTCHEVSKIV, DAUVERGNE, DUNMORE, AND OTHERS.
I A country-man of Ujfalvy, L. Berzenczey, had travelled from Yarkand by the Kara-korum Pass already in 1874, following on the heels of Forsyth. No results seem to have appeared of his journey. He was said to be the first European who ever went from Russia through Central Asia to India, which may be true unless 1)anibeg is to he regarded as a European.
2 Aus demn westlichen Himalaya. Leipzig, t 88.I, p. a i G.
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