1865.] Notes. on Central Asia. 121 
plored valley of lake Issyk-Kul. Colonel. Khomentofski, the officer 
in command of this force, and General Siverhelm who was in charge 
of the Survey of the newly organized Semipalatinsk region, were the 
first educated Russians who beheld this extensive lake and the snowy 
summits of the Celestial range. Unfortunately this detachment in 
consequence of its critical position amidst the wandering mountain 
tribes, the animosity of one of which against the Russians was decided, 
while the friendliness of the other was open to much suspicion, was 
soon recalled, and the surveying parties were unable to penetrate into 
the interior of the Celestial mountains. The southernmost. point 
attained at the foot of the Tian Shan, by Ensign Yayooski the topo- 
grapher attached to the expedition, was where the Faiki rushes out 
if its narrow defile on the Issyk-kul plateau. 
In the same year of 1856 I was sent by the Imperial Russian Geo- 
graphical Society on an expedition to explore those more accessible 
portions of Central Asia, which had previously been but little visited. 
Naturally the great object of attraction for me on this journey was the 
Tian-Shan or the Celestial range. The signification of this stupendous 
chain in position the most retired in the whole continent of Asia, had 
already been pointed out by Ritter and Humboldt ; but the labyrinth of 
the Celestial mountains had not as yet been penetrated by any scientific 
trayeller.* All the learned and critical researches of Ritter and 
* Atkinson, the English artist, in his travels, which were published in 1858, 
"gives an account of his journey from the river Kurchum, in the Southern Altai, 
across the Black Irtysh to lake Ubsa-noor, thence southwards, past Ulusutai, to 
‘the neighbourhood of the Chinese town of Barkul, at the base of the Tian-Shan; 
_ travelling then parallel with this chain, though at a considerable distance from 
‘it, as far as the meridian of Bogdo O’la mountain, and finally proceeding in a 
North Westerly direction, past lake Kyzyl-bash, until he reached lake Ala-kul 
in Russian territory. Unfortunately so extraordinary a journey, unprecedented 
in the history of the exploration of the Asiatic Continent, has had no beneficial 
: ‘Scientific results. The narrative, which occupies 115 pages of text, so little 
_ characterises the explored region, that it might with equal fitness be applied 
any portion of the Kirghiz Steppe. The critical enquirer finds nothing 
throughout the whole narrative, to satisfy him of the genuineness of the 
described journey, which extends over no less a distance than 3,000 miles of 
Chinese territory. This is the more striking as undoubted proofs of the actual 
performance of journeys of which descriptions have been given, may easily be 
found in the short itineraries and accounts of travellers of different ages and 
nations; as for instance in the travels of Hue and Gabet, in the marche-routes 
of Tartar traders, collected by Humboldt, and in the more ancient accounts of 
Baikof, Marco Polo, the Armenian prince Getum, in the marche-ronte of the 
army of Gulagu Khan, (compiled by one of his officers in the 13th century) 
and lastly in the narrative of the travels of the Buddhist Missionaries Fa-Hian 
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