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

After the surveyor had rejoined me towards the end of July, I dispatched my heavy
Start for Yurung-kāsh
sources.
convoy of antiques to the foot of the Kara-koram passes and started
myself with Lāl Singh on my long-planned expedition to the sources
of the Yurung-kāsh river. My previous explorations in the Karanghu-
tāgh region had shown that the furthest headwaters of the river were quite inaccessible
through the narrow and deep gorges in which it has cut its way westwards past the massif
of 'Muz-tāgh' (Pk. 1/61 A, 23,890 ft.). My fresh effort was therefore to be made from the
east where that unexplored mountain region adjoins the extreme north-west of the high
Tibetan plateaus.

We reached the latter by ascending the very confined gorges above Pōlur and by
Ascent above Pōlur.
crossing the northern main range of the K'un-lun to the Seghiz-köl
lake. 68 A two days' halt here enabled Lāl Singh to effect some
supplementary triangulation based on peaks first fixed by Captain
Deasy. Fortune secured the guidance of a hunter of wild yaks, and this enabled us by
proceeding thence westwards to discover the open-end valley of Zailik, draining into the
Yurung-kāsh. It had remained unknown to previous explorers, though its extensive old
gold-pits, now almost deserted, must have been worked for many years. 69

The Zailik valley proved of great value for our survey work. In spite of its extremely
Discovery of Zailik
valley.
confined nature it became possible to ascend from it several spurs falling
steeply from the main range on the north and thus to map a considerable
portion of the grand and wild mountain system containing the
unexplored headwaters of the Yurung-kāsh. On the magnificent snowy range which flanks
them on the south, visible from hill stations for a distance of over 60 miles, a number
of glacier-clad peaks rising to more than 21,000 feet could be sighted. 70

By collecting from among the little groups of miners still toiling in this gloomy
Exploration of upper-
most Yurung-kāsh.
gorge of Zailik a small number of carriers for the transport of instru-
ments and a minimum of baggage we managed to push our way into
the main valley of the Yurung-kāsh and to follow it upwards over a
succession of high side spurs. Above one of the passes crossed, the Mandār-köl-dawān, an
excellent hill-station was climbed at an elevation of 18,612 feet and fixed by triangulation.
Finally after seven trying marches from Zailik we penetrated through the extremely confined
gorge of the main river to the great glacier-bound basin, about 16,000 feet high at its bottom,
where its easternmost and largest branch takes its rise. 71

After thus tracing the river to its ice-bound head, we turned eastwards and having
Passage to Keriya
R. sources.
by September 3rd picked up near the Ulūgh-köl our depot of spare
transport and supplies, crossed the southern main range of the K'un-lun
by the Bāba-Hātim pass (17,584 feet). Thence for three marches we
followed the Pōlur–Lanak-lā route to the south-west. 72 It led us to the bleak plateau, over
17,000 feet in height, where the Keriya river gathers its sources at the foot of a line of
glaciers. Our survey proved these to descend from the same ice-clad range which encloses
the head basin of the Yurung-kāsh sources from the east. 73 From the watershed at the head
of the Keriya river sources we moved westwards to survey the ground which in our atlases has
generally figured as a high plain with the name of Ak-sai-chin but which the provisional issue
of the Survey of India's 1 : 1,000,000 map for this area rightly showed as a blank.

Instead of a plain we found there high snowy spurs separated by broad valleys, and