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

a route leads to the high Yulduz plateau. ⁸³ From Kuchá he proceeded again northwards and keeping throughout along the line of the highest localities with cultivation, many of them never surveyed before, made his way to where the Muz-art river debouches from the mountains into the basin-like district of Bai. He then ascended the river to its headwaters below the ice-clad Tien-shan in the vicinity of the great Tengri-khân peak. Notwithstanding the heavy winter snow still covering the glacier approach to the Muz-art-dawân he pushed up to within about a thousand feet of the top of the pass; the summit of it was quite impracticable at this early season. ⁸⁴ When coming to meet me at Ak-su he had to follow the route already surveyed in 1907, none other being available.

I myself after visiting a number of interesting Buddhist sites in the district of Bai
Surveys between Kuchá and Kāshgar.
away from the high road which crosses it, reached the 'Old Town' of Ak-su on May 17th. At Kara-yulghun, two marches to the east, Afráz-gul had rejoined me. From Kuchá he surveyed an old and more direct track through the scrub-covered desert belt along the foot of the barren hill range fringing the Bai basin. ⁸⁵ During my two days' halt at Ak-su I was able to secure the needful official help and the guidance which enabled Lâl Singh to proceed to Kâshgar by a new route leading over ground almost wholly unsurveyed. It took him through and along the utterly arid hill ranges which form the southern and outermost rampart of the Tien-shan, first to the small oasis of Kelpin and then past the Kirghiz winter grazing grounds of Kara-jol to Kalta-yailak, the north-eastern outp·st of Kâshgar cultivation. ⁸⁶

I myself was obliged to proceed to Kâshgar by forced marches in order to secure adequate time for manifold and urgent labours, and had hence necessarily to follow the main road via Marâl-bâshi. My regret at this necessity was tempered by the fact that this journey of close on 300 miles covered in eleven days made it possible to complete our survey of the northern main trade route of the Târim basin right through to its western terminus. ⁸⁷

I reached Kâshgar on May 31st and was during the following five weeks kept
Stay at Kâshgar.
incessantly busy at the British Consulate General with the careful repacking of my collection of antiques (eighty heavy camel-loads in all) for dispatch to India; I had also to prepare for my own journey across the Russian Pâmirs to Bokhâra territory and Persia. Within a week of my arrival I was rejoined by Lâl Singh and after a fortnight also by Muhammad Yakûb who had safely effected his long journey along the left bank of the Târim from west of the Inchike junction to above Âbâd. ⁸⁸

The inundations caused by the spring floods had considerably impeded his progress and
Muhammad Yakûb's survey along Târim R.
confined his plane-table work, somewhat rough as was usually the case when carried on by him independently, to the close vicinity of the track followed from one riverine shepherd station to another. The defects inherent to a plane-table traverse of such length from the accumulation of errors in distance estimates, etc., could fortunately be checked by reference to previously surveyed route lines which crossed or touched this traverse at a number of points between Shahyâr and Merket. During the remaining weeks of my stay at Kâshgar the surveyors were kept fully occupied by the preparation of tracings from the many plane-table sheets (157 in all) which our combined surveys had yielded.

The completion of all my arrangements allowed me by July 6, 1915, to leave Kâshgar