144 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 



his work at the Darkot pass, having contributed enormously to the 



existing geographical knowledge of Badakshan. M S was 



presented with one of the two medals which were placed at the 

 disposal of the Surveyor- General of India by the Venice International 

 Geographical Congress for award to meritorious Native explorers. 



At the time that the late Colonel Montgomerie and his assistants 

 had been employed in surveying on the north-western confines of 

 Kashmir, operations had not been extended across the Indus owing 

 to the unfriendliness of the Gilgit people, but in 1878 matters 

 were so improved that on his return from Southern Kafiristan 

 Colonel H. C. B. Tanner was deputed thither with two native 

 surveyors. His first task was to extend the regular survey over 

 Gilgit and the vicinity, where he mapped an area of about 2,000 

 square miles on the J-inch scale. The great ridge referred to 

 in the preceding paragraph proved to be most difficult to map, 

 the central backbone being like a huge broken table-land running 

 up into wave-like ridges, rising but a few hundred feet above the 

 general level of the range, and practically impossible to distinguish 

 apart. This, added to the inclemency of the season, snowstorms 

 being exceptionally frequent, prevented many of the peaks being 

 satisfactorily identified . 



Colonel Tanner was returning to recess quarters to bring up his 

 mapping and calculations of work done during the summer of 1880, 

 and had reached Lahore when he was ordered back to Srinagar, 

 and placed in command of a body of troops in the service of the 

 Maharajah of Kashmir under instructions to proceed to Gilgit for 

 the relief of Major Biddulph, the Political Officer stationed there, 

 who was threatened by a general rising of the surrounding tribes. 

 This prevented the completion of the mapping, but with the assist- 

 ance of his native surveyor, Ahmed AH Khan, he made a survey of 

 an area of about 2,000 square miles, and extended the limits of the 

 Gilgit map as far as Astor to the south-east, northwards to the 

 great range separating little Guhjal from Gilgit, southwards to 

 Chilas, and westwards to the mouth of the Wurshigum river at, 

 the entrance to the Yasin river. The positions of several distant 

 peaks on the Hindu Kush range were fixed, among them the 

 summit of the notable Tiraj (Tirich) Mir north of Chitral, first 

 brought into prominence by Major Biddulph.* Its height as deduced 

 by Colonel Tanner from his calculations is 20.425 feet above the sea. 



Minor Biddulph is the author of an interesting work, " The tribes oi' the Hindoo 

 Koosh," containing much valuable information accumulated by him during his sojourn 

 in those regions. 



