May 24, 1858.] KARAKORUM— KUEN LUEN — KHOTAN. 
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pass. The same chain was, however, passed over in its far eastern 
prolongation by those very remarkable missionaries Hue and Gabet, 
though, unfortunately, they have given us no materials by which we 
can define its orographical features. 
Now, the feat of the brothers Schlagintweit, of which I par- 
tially spoke last year, was, that leaving the Karakorum to the 
south, they traversed a diversified and broken plateau of about 
16,500 feet average above the sea, and of about 100 miles in 
breadth from south to north, when, reaching a depression extending 
from west to east, they found between it and the low country of 
Khotan, another parallel east and west range, one of the heights of 
which they determined to be from 19,000 to 20,000 feet above the 
sea. # According to these travellers, this is the Kuen Luen (a 
Chinese name) of Klaproth and Humboldt, and is so called by the 
natives. Leaving these mountains, and descending to Elchi or 
Iltchi, the Khotan of Marco Polo, in the lower country of Turk- 
istan, they were unable to reach Yarkand, and then returned to 
Ladak by another route, or that which leads from the former to the 
latter place. The rivers which they mention as separately flowing 
northwards, and which they have personally examined, are those 
of Khotan, Karakash, Yurongkash, and Keria, two of which were 
engraved in Arrowsmith’s map of Asia (1841), from a large Chinese 
map at the India House, brought home by Colonel Peeve. 
I here, however, repeat what I stated last year; viz., that the 
Schlagintweits are the only geographers who have visited those 
localities. They sustain, in fact, the view of Humboldt, and affirm 
that his Kuen Luen presents all the characters, relations, and 
altitude of an independent chain, as laid down by that great geo- 
grapher in his ‘ Asie Centrale.’ j 
In anticipation, then, of the publication of such maps as their 
very arduous and difficult journey enabled them to make (they 
being disguised as natives), let us willingly accord to these 
brothers (one of whom has, I fear, paid the penalty of his life 
for adventuring too far into those wild tracts) the merit of having 
penetrated so far northwards as Khotan. Let me add that their 
drawings and paintings — particularly those of some of the great 
glaciers — are most striking and effective. 
* Mir Izzet Ullah makes the distance from the north face of the Karakorum to 
Yarkand between 120 and 130 hours of march, which he accomplished in a caravan 
in seventeen days. 
t See Humboldt’s ‘ Asie Centrale,’ 3 vols. and Map. 1843. 
