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
386
A—K—, BONVALOT, ROCKHILL, AND OTHER TRAVELLERS IN THE EAST.
The journey of Miss TAYLOR who crossed the Hwang-ho in the end of September 1892, was stopped at Najuca and reached Tatsienlu April I 2 th 1893, as well as the expedition of Roborovskiy and Kosloff 1893, are outside of our regions.'
WILLIAM WOODVILLE ROCKHILL is one of the most serious and erudite explorers that ever have visited Tibet. His journeys, however, only very slightly come into contact with our regions, i. e. with the eastern continuation of the Kara-korum.
Of the »great mountain chain which marks the border of the high Tibetan table-land», with the passes of Nomoran and Hato and the road to the Burhan bota and Lhasa, Rockhill remarks:
On our maps this range figures under a variety of names, none of which are known in the country. The name Kuen-lun is given it generally, but early Chinese geographers applied this one to another range, in all probability the Koko-nor or Nan-shan. Prjevalsky calls it Burh'an Buddha range and on other maps it is called Angirtakshia, both incorrect expressions. Burhan Buddha is properly Burhan bota (as pointed out by Huc, II, 215), and means 'The Buddha's kettle'. Angirtakshia is the name of a pass, as is Nomoran, Hato, Burhan bota. Prjevalsky, who gave names to so many peaks, lakes, and localities which had well-known native ones, missed a fine chance here. The range has no name. Why not give it his, as he was the first scientific European traveller who crossed it? or that of the much maligned Huc, if it must have one? 2
On his second journey 3 1891 — 1892, Rockhill saw a good deal of the Tang-la.
Marching in the valley of a little feeder of the Murus, PRSHEVALSKIY'S Murusu, he makes the observation that limestone is the principal rock in the hills to the south, and that, judging from the gravel and débris washed down from the northern hills, sandstone, mostly reddish, predominates there.
June 2 5th, camping at a height of 16,85o feet, he says: »We have also reached the west end of the Dang la range.» The ground was covered with gravel and grassgrown hummocks. »From here the western end of the Dang la seems to be a line of low black hills, over which our route must lay.» Both limestone and sandstone were now to be found, though the rugged outlines of Dang-la indicated an eruptive formation.
Crossing the foothills of the Dang-la Rockhill continued to the W. S. W. by West. »To our west, some twenty miles away, rose a short range of mountains with its central portion covered with snow.» There was a little lake into which the watercourses of the neighbourhood emptied. Here was at last »the Central plateau of North Tibet».
I The latter is described in an extract by von Krahmer in Petermanns Mitt., 41. Band, 1895 4ia
l'• 6, 33, 62 and 109 et seq. bbl
2 William Woodville Rockhill : The Land of the Lainas. Notes of a journey through China, Mongolia and Tibet. London 1891, p. 139.
3 William Woodville Rockhill: Diary of a journey through Monçolia and Tibet in 1891 and 1892. Washington 1894, p. 218 et seq.
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