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

the elevated plateaus draining into the Khara-nôr and Koko-nôr lakes was surveyed along
its northern face and proved to rise in its western portion to peaks over 20,000 feet high. ⁴²
From the wide mountain-girt basin some 13,000 feet above sea-level, where the Su-lo-ho
gathers its main sources on ground showing a curious combination of dunes and marshes
similar to that of the river's terminal basin in the Tun-huang desert more than 300 miles
away, we made our way over bog-covered uplands to the headwaters of the Ta-t'ung river. ⁴³
This is the northernmost large tributary of the Hoang-ho, and here our surveys touched the
drainage area of the Pacific Ocean.
Thence we gained the valley of the uppermost Kan-chou river by a difficult snowy
pass and finally effected our passage through the Richthofen Range.
Route across A succession of high transverse spurs dividing the western tributaries
Richthofen Range.
of the Kan-chou river, had to be crossed on our way to the Li-yüan-ho
and the valley plains of Kan-chou. They provided very good plane-table stations and thus
offered compensation for the trouble experienced from the flooded streams in the deep-cut
tortuous valleys between them. ⁴⁴
At Kan-chou I had reached the easternmost goal of my journey, and on September
3rd we started again westwards in order to gain our base at An-hsi.
Journey from While I followed the high road to Su-chou and from it made an
Kan-chou to An-hsi.
excursion northward beyond the oasis of Chin-t'a, Rām Singh skirted
the foot of the mountains and thus usefully supplemented the survey of the Tārim basin. ⁴⁵
For the journey from Su-chou to An-hsi we followed what since ancient times must have
been the great Chinese highway from Kan-su towards the Tārim basin. A long reconnais-
sance pushed to the north of Yü-mên-hsien enabled me to determine the point where the line
of the ancient Limes coming from the east first struck the course of the Su-lo-ho near the
river's great westward bend. ⁴⁶
At An-hsi Rām Singh whose health had proved unequal to the hardships of a
second winter campaign in the desert, was relieved by Surveyor Rai
Rām Singh relieved Sahib Lāl Singh whom Sir Sidney Burrard in response to the request
by Lāl Singh.
made by me on return from the expedition into the Lop desert in the
preceding spring had kindly started on his long journey. Rai Lāl Singh subsequently
gave splendid proofs of his exceptional zeal and fitness for surveying work under trying
conditions, as tested before on many hard survey tasks he had shared from the Yemen to Tibet
and Eastern China. Rai Rām Singh regained India via Khotan. Advantage was taken of
his journey to traverse with a plane-table the more circuitous route through the mountains
from Tun-huang to Charkhlik which alone is available for use until the salt springs on the
desert route freeze towards the end of December. ⁴⁷
On October 8th we commenced the two months' journey of nearly 900 miles from
An-hsi to Kara-shahr for our winter's work in the Tārim basin.
Desert route to Hāmi. Lack of time and a heavy convoy of antiques obliged me to follow the
usual caravan track across the stony desert of the Pei-shan to the
oasis of Hāmi. ⁴⁸ Though it has been followed by more than one European traveller since
the days of the old Jesuit surveyors of the 17th century, its detailed survey proved of
interest for the historical topography of a route which since the 1st century A. D. has served
the Chinese as the main line of access to their Central-Asian dominions whenever they
were able to assert their control. ⁴⁹ The short stay I made in the Hāmi tract in order to