EXPLORATION IN CHINESE TURKESTAN. 749 



mc to anticipate with fair aet-iiracy the coiidition.s of transport and 

 supplies on a great part of the travels before nie. The government 

 of India had granted nie permission to use the route through Gilgit 

 and Hunza for the journey to Kashgar, which was to form my proxi- 

 mate goal. By the end of May the snow on the mountain ranges 

 between Kashmir and Gilgit had melted sufficientlj^ to make the 

 attempt of crossing the passes with laden animals just practicable. 

 By that time, too, the subsurveyor's little party, and another Turki 

 servant sent by Mr. Macartney, the British political agent in Kashgar, 

 had joined me, and all requisite stores and equipment had been duly 

 collected and packed. Owing to the quantity of scientific instruments, 

 photographic glass plates, etc., to be carried, and to the provision 

 that had to be made for stores of all kinds in view of the distances 

 likely to separate us thereafter from civilized "bases of supply," m}^ 

 caravan numbered 16 baggage animals when it set out on the morning 

 of May 31 from Bandipur, the little port on Volur Lake and the 

 starting point of the "" Gilgit Transport Road." 



Though the snow still la}" deep and the weather was trying, the Trag- 

 bal and Burzil passes (approximately 12,000 and 13,000 feet above the 

 sea, respectively) were crossed without mishap. Pushing on l)y rapid 

 marches through the Dard vallej^s of Astor, imposing in their barren 

 grandeur, and across the rock-bound bed of the Indus near Bunji, we 

 reached the Gilgit cantonment on June 11. Fresh transport arrange- 

 ments necessitated a short halt at this last outpost of Anglo-Indian 

 civilization. Thanks to the kind offices of Capt. J. Manners Smith, 

 V. C, C. I. E., then political agent at Gilgit, I was there able not onl}'^ 

 to make good various small defects in the equipment of mj^ caravan, 

 but also to collect interesting information concerning the customs and 

 traditions of the Dard p()]iulation inhabiting these valleys. The Dards 

 deserve, indeed, to be treatinl with respect by the historical student 

 and ethnographist, for their tri])es have clung to this forbidding 

 ground of bleak rock}" gorges and ice-crowned ranges ever since tlie 

 days of Ilerodotos. Ancient, like the mountains themselves, looks 

 the race, with its sharply defined ethnic characteristics and language. 



On June 15 I started from Gilgit filled with a grateful recollection 

 of the kind help and hospitality which I had enjoyed among the last 

 British officers I was to see for some time. Marching round the mighty 

 Imttresses of Mount Rakiposhi(with its highest needle-like peak soar- 

 ing to an elevation of over 25,000 feet) and through mountain scenery 

 that under a sky of dazzling clearness looked as grand as any I have 

 ever seen in the Himalaya, we passcnl on the third day into the terri- 

 tory of the chiefs of Hnnzaand Nagir. C-lose to the hill fort of Nilth, 

 famous for th(» ])riiliant little campaign of LS1»1, I visited with interest 

 the deep-cut gorge descending from a glacier of llakiposhi, where 

 Captain Manners Smith climbed the most precipitous clifi's Avith his 



