Vlll 



JVA TURE 



r Sii/>ple»ieni, 

 \_f annary i8, 1894 



the two volumes maybe read with pleasure and with 

 profit. It is particularly pleasing to notice the reticence 

 regarding his own doings, and the generous recognition 

 given to his native attendants and the merchants and 

 i^ficials who showed his party kindness by the way. 



Starting from Rawal Pindi on April 9, 189:", Lord 

 Dunmore passed through Kashmir to Leh over familiar 

 ground, climbed the Laoche Pass (iS,oco feet) on yaks, 

 crossed the Shyok valley, the scenery of which appeared 

 on a grander scale than any in the Rocky Mountains, 

 and completed the outfit of the expedition at Panamik, 

 the last outpost of civilisation. On July J, the expe- 

 dition, including 30 men, 60 yaks, and 56 ponies, left 

 Panamik, crossed the great Dapsang Plateau, 

 an undulating plain averaging over 16,000 feet 

 of elevation, which Lord Dunmore names 

 "the Roof of Asia,'' easily surmounted tie 

 Karakoram Pass (about 19,000 feet, but all 

 these measurements varying within a few 

 hundred feet as determined by different 

 aneroids), and reached Yarkand on August 4, 

 after passing through the finest scenery of 

 the whole journey. For eight days they camped 

 at elevations exceeding 17,000 feet, but ex- 

 perienced no difficulty from mountain sick- 

 ness. At Yarkind fresh supplies were laid 

 in, and on August 18 the expedition set out 

 again, crossed the waterless desert of Shaitan- 

 kum, penetrated the difficult " Sariq-qol " 

 country, and on September 6 formed a per- 

 manent camp in the Kukturak valley of the 

 Taghdumbash Pamir, at an elevation of 15,000 

 feet. It was too late in the year for good 

 sport, as the Ovis poli were able to find pasture 

 close to the edge of the perpetual snow, and 

 were often driven by herds of wild dogs 

 right up amongst the glaciers ; but some 

 sport was obtained and the camp inhabited in 

 spite of the growing cold until October 30. 

 The Kirghiz were found to be an extremely 

 hospitable and pleasant people whenever their 

 encampments were visited, but they were 

 curiously lacking in notions of space or time. 

 They could not in the least understand the 

 laboriousness of the Tibetan coolies, supposing 

 that only as a very lieavy punishment could 

 people be called upon to carry loads on their 

 heads, or travel on foot. The journey now led 

 zig-zagging across the Pamirs, in bitterly cold 

 weather, past frozen lakes and along the beds of 

 frozen rivers to Kashgar. Lord Dunmore crossed the 

 source region of the Oxus, and speculates as to which of 

 several tributaries, rising within a few miles of each other 

 but pursuing widely devious routes, is the true " high 

 mountain cradle in Pamere." From a geographical 

 point of view such a discussion is vain, since only an 

 accurate survey could decide which stream of all the 

 streams was the longest, highest, or possessed of the 

 greatest drainage area, and then it is a matter of hair- 

 splitting defiuition to determine whether one or another 

 of several nearly equal tributaries should retain the name 

 of the main stream. There is, we imagine, no system 

 akin to primogeniture which could discriminate the 

 NO. 1264, VOL. 49] 



rights of the twin or triplet sources of the Amu-daria to 

 exclusive physical continuity with the mature river in 

 which they all converge. The similarity of the name 

 Aksu, which belongs to one of them, with the name 

 Oxus, even if, as Lord Dunmore urges, not accidental — 

 which it certainly is — could only prove that an earlier 

 and more ignorant generation had imagined some sort 

 of continuity. Gn Lake Victoria, in the Great Pamir, 

 a thousand miles from the sea, Lord Dunmore re- 

 ports that he saw a common seagull, but he did not 

 secure the specimen. He also discovered a new pass 

 leading to the Alichur Pamir, to which he gave the name 

 of Hauz Dawan, from a remarkable cistern-like lakelet 



Fic. 3. — 1 he Gtz dffile. 



which occupied its summit. Following up the Alichur 

 river and crossing the Rangkul Pamir, the caravan 

 wound its way through the long Gez defile which forms 

 the narrow access to Kashgar, and after a short stay 

 under Chinese protection, took the road to Osh, in 

 Russian territory, where it was disbanded on January i, 

 1893. Major Roche returned to Kashmir, the Russian 

 officials not allowing him to cross the frontier, and Lord 

 Dunmore proceeded by tarantass and sledge through 

 Khokand and Tashkent to Samarkand, whence the trans- 

 Caspian Railway brought him back to Europe. 



The meteorological data obtained are incomplete, as 

 the registering thermometers were only graduated ta 



