IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
184 TO THE NISSA GLACIERS
CH. XV
concluding proof-sheets of _Ancient Khotan. An auspicious chance thus allowed nie to finish my last task on that work in an Alpine entourage singularly recalling Kashmir, where its first plan had been formed, and yet within the true confines of Khotan.
The reconnaissance survey of the Nissa Valley and the high range southward brought back from my previous expedition was based solely on the view, extensive and clear though it was, which we had then obtained from a
single plane-table station above the Brinjak Pass. In
order to supplement and rectify it by more exact details, it was absolutely essential to climb to some commanding height above the head of the valley. The latter bifurcates about a mile below the Kashkul Glacier, and only by ascending the high rocky spur which flanks the latter on the east could we hope to get a view of the higher peaks south-eastwards and of the glaciers likely to descend from them.
The morning of August i 9th, when we set out for this purpose with full survey equipment, was delightfully clear, with neither clouds nor that ominous dust-haze which on previous days usually about noon had swept up from the north to hide all distant mountains. The wish to visit en route also the crest of the ice-stream induced me to attack the spur with Ram Singh from the side of the Kashkul Glacier. It took us more than an hour to traverse the glacier, though its width was scarcely more than three-quarters of a mile near its end ; so troublesome were the confused masses of rock débris travelling slowly downwards on its surface among which we had to pick our way. The ice of this terminal portion, even where exposed in steep wall-like falls and by the side of small pits filled with half-frozen green water, looked almost black.
Once across the glacier we found ourselves at the foot of what looked like a huge wall composed of enormous rock fragments. They seemed as if torn out from the mountain by a colossal explosion, or heaped up by the hands of
Titans. Their size and the sharpness of their edges
strikingly illustrated the forces of disintegration at work on these mountain slopes, where they are not protected by
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