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

After triangulating a number of high peaks to the north of the river, Rām Singh
Survey east of surveyed its deep-cut gorge for some 40 miles. He took considerable
Muz-tāgh-ata. risks in moving along very precipitous slopes and in repeated crossings
of the river. Further progress was barred by the swollen state of the
river, notwithstanding the early season, and the surveyor was obliged to turn northward.
In accordance with my instructions he ascended the important tributary of Pas-robāt to its
head and after crossing the Merki pass, nearly 15,000 feet high, endeavoured to follow down
the Merki and Kara-tāsh rivers which drain the eastern slopes of the Muz-tāgh-atā massif. ²
Again he was thwarted by the flood from the melting snows which renders the Kara-tāsh
valley quite impassable during the summer months. He was now forced north-eastwards
across the Ghijak pass and gained the caravan route from Sarikol to Kāshgar above Ighiz-yār.
The Kara-tāsh valley thus remained unexplored until I descended it in September, 1913.
Nevertheless Rām Singh was able to survey its debouchure into the plains west of Yangi-
hissār before he rejoined me at the latter place towards the close of June.

In order to gain time for urgent preparations at Kāshgar, I had taken the main caravan
route from Tāsh-kurghān across the Chichiklik plateau and via Chihil-
Journey to Kāshgar. gumbaz and Ighiz-yār. This having already been surveyed on the
Forsyth Mission of 1873, I felt little regret that the six forced marches
of nearly 180 miles left no time for plane-table work. ³ At Kāshgar the organization of my
caravan which was to serve for over two years' explorations, was completed within a fort-
night with the ever effective assistance of Mr. (now Sir George) Macartney, the British
Consul General.

Then I was free to set out for the initial portion of those explorations in the south of
the Tarim basin. At Kizil on the road to Yārkand I detached
Routes to Yārkand Rām Singh to survey the route which crosses the easternmost
and Karghalik. offshoots of the Muz-tāgh-atā range and which joins the caravan route
from Chihil-gumbaz to Yārkand below Arpalik and the Kizil-dawān. ⁴ Re-united at Yārkand,
we proceeded at the beginning of July across the fertile tract between the Yārkand and
Tiznaf rivers north-westwards to the edge of the great drift-sand desert where an old site called
for examination, and then reached Karghalik by a new route along a previously unsurveyed
portion of the Tiznaf river in the plain. ⁵

From Karghalik we marched to Kök-yār, a small oasis in the foothills to the south,
where during a halt of over two weeks I was kept busy with a variety
Surveys in of scientific tasks. From there I sent Rām Singh into the mountains
westernmost K'un-lun. to the south-east to map portions of the outer K'un-lun towards Khotan
which were then unexplored or imperfectly surveyed. The success with which in the course
of a month he effected the tasks I had indicated deserves all the more notice in view of the
considerable hardships and risks encountered. He first approached the snowy range which
forms the water-parting towards the uppermost Tiznaf and Yārkand river courses by ascend-
ing the streams that carry fertility lower down to the flourishing little oases of Yūl-arik and
Ushak-bāshi. ⁶ The attempt to cross the Karlik-dawān by which I had wished the surveyor
to reach the unexplored ground at the head of the Toghra-su, a tributary of the Kara-kāsh
river, ⁷ had to be abandoned owing to the depth of snow still covering the pass. This failure,
however, was compensated by the advantages which the subsequent crossing of a succession