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0231 Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1
Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1 / Page 231 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000231
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CHAPTER XI

A LITTLE STUDY OF THE MAP

POLITICAL history is as the flesh applied to the
dry bones of the skeleton, geography. Study
of the one implies knowledge of the other. Were
we not, from youth up, generally familiar with the
geography of those countries whose history most
concerns us, we should the more clearly and often
be brought to consider a relation which is obscured,
even by its familiarity. The osteology of Central
Asia and Tibet is peculiarly important to a study of
Asian politics because of its unusual characteristics.
While the field for exploration there is still con-
siderable, yet the important outlines have been well
determined by recent travel. To the practised eye
the map (opposite page ) will be, perhaps, more
instructive than textual description, but a résumé in
words will aid the general reader.

[Let us begin our survey at the point where we crossed
the Russo-Chinese frontier on the way from Osh to
Kashgar—in the Alaï Mountains, approximately 75° east,
40° north. Using round figures for all distances and lo-
cations, let us now go north-east twelve hundred and fifty
miles. We shall then be at the top of Mongolia, 95°
east, 53° north. Everything west of this line is Russian,
everything east of it Chinese—at present,—and our top

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