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

On the last day of my stay R. B. Lāl Singh safely rejoined me to my great relief after
Lāl Singh's triangula- fully four months of separation. After leaving me in September in
tion along K'un-lun. the mountains beyond Tāsh-kurghān he had pushed on to Kapa and
started triangulation along the main K'un-lun range from the points
to which Rām Singh's work of 1906 had brought it. Trying hardships attended his opera-
tions at great elevations and on ground devoid of all resources. But Lāl Singh faced them
with his often proved determination and succeeded in extending his system of triangles
eastward for fully five degrees of longitude, reaching peaks close to the west of Bāsh-kurghān,
before excessive cold and heavy snowfall obliged him to cease observations in the mountains. ¹⁵
The special difficulties with which the surveyor had to contend in establishing satisfactory
stations and securing safe connections by well-conditioned triangles along a line of mountains
running mainly from west to east, have been noted by Major K. Mason in Appendix A, when
dealing with R.B. Lāl Singh's triangulation work of 1913-15. There an explanation will
also be found of the corrections which the positions shown in the map for his triangulated
points and stations require in order to bring them into agreement with the coordinates
deduced by computation.

It was characteristic of R.B. Lāl Singh's energy that having found further triangula-
Survey of mountain tion impossible, he persisted in continuing survey work with the plane-
route to Tun-huang. table towards Tun-huang, taking special care to obtain astronomically
determined latitudes and many height observations by mercurial
barometer and clinometer along the route through those inhospitable snow-covered moun-
tains. ¹⁶ After reaching the small oasis of Nan-hu he struck through the desert northwards
and returned by the track leading to Mirān and Charkhlik south of the salt-encrusted basin
of the ancient Lop sea. The difficulties of this track, already surveyed by us in 1907, received
fresh illustration by the fact that Lāl Singh's party found no ice yet formed at the most
brackish of the springs along its western portion, and consequently suffered much from the
want of drinkable water.

On January 15, 1914, our reunited party moved from Charkhlik to Mirān where
renewed excavations at the ancient site marking the earliest capital of the 'Kingdom of Shan-
shan or Lou-lan' kept me busy for a fortnight. ¹⁷ Other exacting tasks were provided by
the final preparations for the explorations which were to take our several parties into the
waterless desert north and north-east of the extant Lop-nōr.

News of threatened obstruction on the part of the provincial Chinese administration
Threatened Chinese was a cogent reason for setting out for them with the least possible
obstruction. delay. An edict had in fact been issued by headquarters at Urumchi
ordering the district authorities to prevent all surveying work on our
part and in case of any attempt at continued explorations to arrest and send us 'under escort'
to Kāshgar. How the 'revolutionary' outbreak at Charkhlik opportunely had saved my plans
from being frustrated by passive local obstruction which certainly would have resulted from
these orders, has been related elsewhere. ¹⁸

On January 23rd I started Lāl Singh northward by the Tārim to Tikenlik. Joined
Survey of 'Dry River' to there by Abdurrahim, the hardy hunter, who had been his guide in the
Lou-lan. Kuruk-tāgh in 1908, he carried out an exact survey of the ancient river
bed and its branches by which the waters of the Konche-daryā once
reached the area, now wholly desiccated desert, containing the remains of ancient Lou-lan. ¹⁹
The site of the ruined Chinese station of Lou-lan, first discovered by Dr. Hedin and explored
by me in 1906, was to be our rendezvous. Surveyor Muḥammad Yakūb, who could not be
employed for independent work on unexplored desert ground without risk to himself and others,
was sent off some days later by the Tun-huang caravan track in order to carry out the
levelling operations referred to below from the eastern end of the salt-encrusted ancient
Lop sea basin.