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0567 Southern Tibet : vol.7
Southern Tibet : vol.7 / Page 567 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000263
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ALEXANDER GARDNER AND ARTHUR NEVE.

395

only one Kumdan Glacier, which must be in reality the Kitchik Kumdan. For the Chong Kumdan must, in 1898, have been at a considerable distance from the river, and, as it is much covered by moraines, may have escaped Novitskiy's observation.

Then he left the Shayok and turned to the right on the little rivulet Chipchak,

which comes from the east. »At the place where we left the Shayok, it flows out from a long, narrow inundation, covered with ice (Tso). This inundation looks like a small lake, and is fed with water from the brooks, which in great abundance are flowing down from the many glaciers which surround it.» This description can hardly be brought into accordance with his statement that the Chipchak, which is only a brook of 3 to 5 sashen breadth, has perfectly clear water, whereas the Shayok is very muddy. For otherwise a river passing through a lake becomes clear, as is well known. But in this case the »tso» may have been too small to allow the water to get rid of the material it kept in suspension.

He places the source of the Chipchak in the Kara-korum Pass itself. Over

the Suget-davan he went down to Shahidullah, and then crossed the Karlik-davan (17,50o feet) west of Kilian-davan. The Karlik-davan is in the same range as, and between, Yangi-davan and Kilian-davan. Over Karghalik he reached Yarkand. A good map is added to this narrative.

Amongst those who have crossed the Kara-korum Pass, at an earlier date,

was also the adventurous Colonel ALEXANDER GARDNER who travelled from Yarkand to Leh as a pilgrim wearing the haji dress. Both Sir HENRY YULE and Sir HENRY RAWLINSON speak in a very flattering way of his achievements, and NEY ELIAS believed in him. But his narrative does not afford anything new from our regions and does not allow us any conclusions regarding the Kumdan Glaciers at his time. He has very little to say of the Kara-korum Pass, »no doubt because it was really much easier travelling than many passes which he had already traversed».'

In the history of exploration in the High Kara-korum the late Dr. ARTHUR

NEVE occupies a very prominent place. He has undertaken very important, daring and difficult glacier wanderings and climbings himself, he has assisted with his great experience nearly all expeditions in these regions,2 and he has given very valuable contributions to the attempts of systematic orographical classification of the Karakorum System. In the following pages his name will be met with at several occasions. Here I will only enter a few words on one of his first mountain trips.

I Memoirs of Alexander Gardner. Edited by Major Hugh Pearse. Edinburgh & London

1898, P. 155•

2 I am higly indebted to Dr. Neve for the kind help he always gave me at Srinagar on the three occasions I passed this town on the road to and from Tibet. — Cp. Transhimalaya, Vol. I, p. 23 and Geographical Journal, Vol. XXXVIII, 1911, p. 356 et seq.