Southern Tibet : vol.4 / Page 181 (Color Image)

0181	Southern Tibet : vol.4

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there seemed to be ruins of five other houses, though doubtful, as the stones were
in great disorder. No tools or utensils of any kind could be found, and none of
the slabs with the usual formula *om mani padme hum* had been hewn. The walls
may be very old and they may remain as they now are for many centuries.

So far as my observations go, this place is situated at 84° 24' East long. and
34° 43' North lat. But it is very difficult to tell what object these old houses have
served. If the walls have only served as a solid frame or foundation for very small
tents, these tents cannot possibly have been inhabited by simple nomads or hunters, for
they never take so much pains at a place where they are staying only for a few months,
not even if they return to the same spot every year. On the contrary, their camps
have always a very temporary character. On the other hand it is very unlikely
that the walls we found should have been the foundations for stone houses, which
now have disappeared. Nobody would have had any interest in pulling down
abandoned houses.

Even as late as in 1792, an old road was reported to exist, which diagonally
crossed the whole of Tibet from N. W. to S. E. It is entered on the Ta-ch'ing map
as published by Dutreuil de Rhins, who calls it »Route de Khotan à Lhassa». We
find it, for instance, on the map of Tibet in Stieler's Hand-Atlas for 1875, where
one point on it comes so near to my *Camp XLVIII* as: 84° 24' East long. and
34° 49' North lat. The road begins from *Khotan* and proceeds to *Polu*, crosses the
*Kwen-lun* System, and continues over a series of named places, nearly all of them
unknown to us, as *Ilitsi (Ilchi), Aritau-tun, Atan-gol, Suget, Imam-Mula, Sari,*
after which it follows the northern shore of *Chargut-tso* to *Nakdsong* and finally
proceeds to the western shore of *Tengri-nor*. Still on Stieler's map of 1901, this
road is to be found, though the point that should be identical with my *Camp XLVIII*,
now is placed at 35° North lat. between *Suget* and *Imam-mula*. The latter place is
represented as being surrounded by six small lakes. In the edition of 1904 of the
same map, the old road has definitely disappeared. However, this road is, no doubt,
the same one by which the famous general of Tsevang Rabtan, Tsering-dondob,
marched in 1717 from *Khotan* across the *Kwen-lun* and the whole Tibetan plateau-
land down to *Tengri-nor*.¹

Now it does not seem unlikely at all, that the ruins of *Camp XLVIII* were
a kind of halting-place or station on this extraordinary and impossible military high-
way. If this be true, this road must necessarily have followed the eastern part of the
great latitudinal valley I have described, but probably not farther than the lake of
*Camp XXXIII* or the region thereabout, from where it must have been in some
comparatively practicable communication with *Polu, Keriya* and *Khotan*. The country

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Citation Information

OCR Text

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books