Southern Tibet : vol.7 / 331 ページ（カラー画像）

0331	Southern Tibet : vol.7
南チベット : vol.7

0331

Southern Tibet : vol.7

南チベット : vol.7

205
Indian watershed is formed in this way. The Tibetan passes are crossing the low
connecting links, whose alignment forms the main watershed but not the main mountain
crest. From what he knows of the Turkish watershed, he supposes that the same
formation exists there also.¹

He regards the northern Indus as rising at once with a considerable body of
water from the glaciers of Kumdan. As so many geographers of his time, he makes
the Kumdan glaciers responsible for the great cataclysms of the Indus in 1835
and 1839.

Remembering the very scanty material existing in these days it is not sur-
prising that Strachey could pay so little attention to the Kara-korum System. His
own exploration was farther south, and when even the single Englishman who had
reached the Kara-korum Pass reckoned it to the Kwen-lun, Strachey had no direct
cause to believe in the existence of a third tremendous system between the Himalaya
and the Kwen-lun. Regarding the glaciers of Western Tibet he expresses his opinion
in the following correct words:

The chief reservoirs of Tibetan glaciers seem to be in the S. face of the Turkish
watershed, which the joint observations of English travellers and native reports prove to
be full of them, and many of the first class both for size and formation. The main trunk
of the Nubra River issues from two of these, at a place called Kumdan.

I myself found the river of Yarma-Nubra issuing fullformed (being 30 yards wide,
with an extreme depth of 1½ feet, and very rapid, in the beginning of October) from a
large glacier, entirely occupying the head of the valley and (so far as Tibetan information
goes) rendering it impassable.

The Tulumbuti affluent of the Yarma-Nubra River also rises from glaciers, which
are passed on the summer road to Yarkend, upon the S. W. of the Saser La (as mentioned
by Dr. Thomson). Mr. Vigne found several glaciers in the Shigar and Khapalu valleys,
aligning with those of Kumdan and Yarma-Nubra; and the native travellers between
Yarkend and Balti testify to a very large one upon the Turkish watershed, at the head
of the Braldo branch of Shigar, which forms a serious obstacle to this route, and gives
the pass its Turkish name of Mustag, i. e. Iceberg. Mr. J. E. Winterbottom and Lieut.
R. Young found another still farther to the N. W., beyond the Tibetan frontier, in the
northern head of Gilgit.²

Henry Strachey's article quoted above may certainly be said to be the best
monograph ever written on the physical geography of Western Tibet until his time.
It is full of detailed personal observation, and the material is arranged in the most
consciencious way, and with the greatest clear-sightedness and penetration. The map
accompanying his paper,³ and of which Pl. XLVIII is the northern half, is quite worthy of
the erudite text. In accordance with the latter he has desisted from entering any

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