162 REPORT — 1869. 



into wMch most scientific geographers had fallen, namely, that of assuming that 

 the mighty Himalayas presented a grand impassable bulwark, and that the moun- 

 tains of the Kuen Luen rose like a wall 17,000 feet high, with scarcely a crest or 

 depression throughout their entire extent. There were two great outlets for trade 

 from Northern India : one, the route of a veiy large commerce, crosses the Indus at 

 diflerent points between KuiTachee and Peshawur, and threading the various 

 passes of Bolan, Goleri, Kyber, &c., finds its way into AiFghanistan, Balkh, 

 Bokhara, Kokan, and Western Turkistan ; the other crosses the Himalayan passes, 

 and enters Eastern Turkistan or Chinese Tartaiy, a region containing several 

 ancient and renowned cities, such as Yarkund, Yangihissar, Khoten, &c. It was 

 this latter outlet which had been most studied by the author. Between the years 

 1750 and 186:3 the Chinese held military possession of all Eastern Turkistan ; in 

 the last-mentioned year the Tungani insurrection against their rule commenced, 

 and the Chinese were finally expelled in 1864. One of the leaders in the revolt was 

 Yakoob Beg, who took the Chinese fort of Kashgar, and is known by the title of 

 Koosh Begi, or Comm<ander-in-Chief. This man now holds the chief power in the 

 countiy, and is a brave, energetic, liberal-minded man, with whom and his subjects 

 the author contended it was for the advantage of India to establish commercial 

 relations. Dming the period of Chinese domination aU trade over the passes 

 north of Cashmere to Eastern Turkistan was extremely hazardous. The physical 

 difiiculties opposed to extensive communication had recently been found not so great 

 as was supposed. Formerly the route over the Karakorum pass was the one chiefly 

 used ; by this traders had to march five or six days consecutively without obtaining 

 one blade of grass or one atom of fuel ; but by anew route further to the east, which 

 the author had lately endeavoured to establish, namely, the Changchenmo, fuel 

 and grass eoidd be found at nearly every stage. After this route had been explored 

 by Mr. Johnson and Dr. Cayley, and declared by them to be perfectly practicable, it 

 was still difficult to induce the native traders in Cashmere to try the road. The 

 author, however, whilst at Ladack, succeeded in prevailing upon the Vakeel of the 

 Koosh Begi to return by the new route last year, and was gratified to learn that he 

 had accomplished the journey with the utmost ease. Since then Mr. Shaw, an 

 EngUsh tea-planter, had succeeded in reaching Yarkund by this I'oute. Four 

 passes have to be crossed between the plains of Hindostan and Leh ; but onlj 

 the lowest, the Rotang, is spoken of by traders with anything like fear, owing 

 to the severity of its ascents and to the danger fi-om sudden storms, caused by the 

 proximity to the monsoons of the plains. Atmospheric influences and deficiency 

 of fuel fOpart, there would be little physical difficulty in lading a railroad from Tso 

 Moreri Laie to Yarkund. 



On the Existence of Sir Walter Raleir/h's El Dorado. 

 By Dr. C. Le Neve Foster. 



The author advanced his own experience as acquired in a recent journey to the 

 Caratal gold-mines of the Oiinoco, as confirming the veracity of Sir VValter Raleigh, 

 so coarsely impugned by the historian Hume, who says, " On his return Raleigh 

 published an account of the country full of the grossest and most palpable lies 

 that were ever attempted to be imposed on the credulity of mankind." Schom- 

 burgk, in defending Raleigh's statements, had, in his time, no positive evidence of 

 the existence of gold in Venezuelan Guiana. The gold-mines which the author 

 visited last year were discovered in 1849 by Dr. Louis Plassard, in the bed of the 

 Yuruari, near the old Spanish Mission of Tupuquen. The Yuruari falls into the 

 Yuruan, a tributaiy of the Cuyuni, which enters British Guiana, and eventually 

 pours its waters into the Essequibo. In 18-57 people began to flock to the place, 

 and washed for gold in the river-bed, establishing the settlement of Caratal. The 

 author had given the geological details of these mines in a paper recently read 

 before the Geological Society. He maintained that the present Caratal gold-field 

 was the one of which Raleigh heard such wonderful accounts. The " white spar " 

 in Raleigh's detailed description was imdoubtedly quartz ; for spar is the name stiU 

 used for quartz in Devon and Cornwall, and the author had himself seen outcrops 

 of lode in Caratal where gold was visible in blocks of quartz rising up fi'om the 



