TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 795 



reached next spring. From this point the expedition will endeavour first to explore 

 Northern Tibet, which is his main object, in the direction of Lhasa and Lake 

 Tengri-nor, and then returning northward, cross the Tibet plateau by new routes 

 to Lake Lob-nor. After the re-assembly of the expedition at this point, it wil! 

 probably regain Russian territory at Issyk-kul. Colonel Prejevalsky is accompanied 

 by two officers, an interpreter, and an escort of twenty Cossacks. 



12. As you are aware, we have been chiefly indebted to natives of India for 

 several years past for our knowledge of the regions beyond the British boundary. 

 Mr. McNair, of the Indian Survey Department, who received the Murchison premium 

 of this year, is the first European who has ever penetrated so far as Chitral, which is 

 ouly 200 miles from Peshawur. In various disguises, however, natives, carefully 

 instructed, have penetrated the neighbouring but unneighbourly regions of Afghan- 

 istan, Kashmir, Turkistan, Nepaul, Tibet — in almost every direction — and these 

 achievements were|crowned by one of them, known as A.K., reaching Saitu or 

 Sacku, in Mongolia, in 1882, and thence returning in safety to India, after an 

 absence of four years. His route took him to Darchendo or Tachialo (lat. 31°), 

 the most westerly point reached by the late Captain J. Gill, E.E., in 1877, and 

 thus connects the explorations of that accomplished and lamented traveller with 

 Central Asia. A-k has brought fresh evidence that the Sanpoo and the Brah- 

 mapootra are one; the quite modern opinion that the former flows into the 

 Irrawaddy being shown to be groundless. After draining the northern slopes of 

 the Himalayas, the Brahmapootra makes a loop round their eastern flanks, where 

 it has been called the Dehang, and thence, as everybody knows, flows westerly to 

 join the Ganges : the maps have been shown in this instance to be right. The 

 travels of these native explorers, their stratagems and their disguises, their hazards 

 and sufferings, their frequent hair-breadth escapes, are teeming with excitement. 

 One of them describes a portion of his track at the back of Mount Everest, as 

 carried for the third of a mile along the face of a precipice at the height of 

 1,500 ft. above the Bhotia-kosi river, upon iron pegs let into the face of the rock, 

 the path being formed bj' bars of iron and slabs of stone stretching from peg to 

 peg, in no place more than 18 inches, and often not more than 9 inches wide. 

 Nevertheless this path is constantly used by men carrying burdens. 



One of the finest feats of mountaineering on record was performed last year by 

 Mr. W. W. Graham, who reached an elevation of 23,500 ft. in the Himalayas, about 

 2,900 ft. above the summit of Chimborazo, whose ascent by Mr. Whymper in 1880 

 marked an epoch in these exploits. Mr. Graham was accompanied by an officer of 

 the Swiss army, an experienced mountaineer, and by a professional Swiss guide. 

 They ascended Kabru, a mountain visible from Darjeeling, lying to the west of 

 Kanchinjunga, whose summit still defies the strength of man. 



13. And here I may refer to that great work, the Trigonometrical Survey of 

 India. The primary triangulation, commenced in the year 1800, is practically 

 completed, although a little work remains to extend it to Ceylon on one side and to 

 Siaru on the other. Much secondary triangulation remains to be executed, but 

 chiefly outside the limits of India proper. The Pisgah views, by which some of 

 the loftiest mountains in the world have been fixed in position, sometimes from 

 points in the nearest Himalayas, 120 miles distant, only serve to arouse a warmer 

 desire for unrestrained access. The belief long entertained that a summit loftier 

 than Mount Everest exists in Tibet is by no means extinct, but it is possible that 

 the snowy peak intended may prove eventually to be the Mount Everest itself of 

 the original survey. Still, however, science, in spite of fanatical obstruction, makes 

 sure advances. The extraordinary learning and research by which Sir H. Rawlin- 

 son was enabled a few years since to expose a series of mystifications or falsifications 

 relating to the Upper Oxus, which had been received on high geographical authority, 

 can never he forgotten. That river has now been traced from its sources in the 

 Panjah, chiefly by native explorers, and to them we may be said to be indebted for 

 all we know of Nepaul, from which Europeans are as jealously excluded as they 

 are from the wildest Central Asian Khanate, although Nepaul is not so far from 

 Calcutta as Kingston is from Quebec. 



Carrying their instruments to the most remote and inaccessible places, and 



