Southern Tibet : vol.7 / 326 ページ（カラー画像）

0326	Southern Tibet : vol.7
南チベット : vol.7

204

He supposes that the great mountainous mass of the Tibeta ntable-land and
Himalaya is continued till it ends abruptly about 40° North. lat. in Bulut Tag in the
very centre of Turkestan.¹ He gives a very good résumé of what we know from
the journeys of MOORCROFT and HEARSAY, himself and his brother and WINTER-
BOTTOM. This is not much, »but we have obtained a distinct though distant view
of the mountains in this quarter as far as E. long. 82°; and native information regarding
the remaining corner to the S. E. has been tolerably precise». After VIGNE he
mentions the explorations of Lieut. R. YOUNG, J. E. WINTERBOTTOM and P. VANS
AGNEW in 1847, extending to 35° 50′ north, in the valley of Haramosh and in
other valleys farther west. Henry Strachey himself reached the eastern head of the
Chang-chenmo »without attaining any knowledge of a Turkish watershed».

Regarding the names of peaks and ranges, Henry Strachey writes the wise words:
The Tibetans have proper names for a few remarkable peaks and for all of the
passes, but no general name for whole ranges; and when such appear upon our maps
they are the misapplication of purely local names by English surveyors and European
geographers. Thus.... the Turkish Mus-Tag, i. e. Ice-Berg, and Kara-korum, i. e. Black Gravel,
applied by the natives exclusively to the mere passes, and the Indian Kailâsh to a mere
peak, have been raised to that wrong eminence upon the map of Asia. ²

This observation is quite correct. But still such names are absolutely necessary
by want of any better. There is, however, a great difference between the three
names mentioned by H. Strachey as examples. For »Mus-tagh» are always the
highest mountains, viz. such that give rise to glaciers, as, for instance, Mus-tagh-ata.
Kara-korum is the name of one single pass; but as the most important road through
Western Tibet crosses it, it has become more famous than any other pass in these
regions, and is known by whole nations. Kailas, on the other hand, is an Indian
name belonging only to one special peak. The appellation Kailas Range, as CUNNING-
HAM has it, is quite superfluous.

Henry Strachey regarded the mountain system of Western Tibet as consisting
of a series of parallel ranges running right across the breadth of the table-land in
a direction so extremely oblique to the general extension of the whole as often to
confound the one with the other, or to convert the transverse direction to a longi-
tudinal one. The supposed primary arrangement would be converted into the existing
varieties of valley and drainage by short transverse necks connecting the main ranges
in some parts, fissures cutting through them, and projecting spurs of a secondary
order. The connecting necks may be confounded with the main ranges. Secondary
spurs also may be so high and so obliquely joined to the primary ranges as to
make it difficult to distinguish between the two. Strachey believes that much of the

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