Abstract
AT Monday's meeting of the Royal Geographical Society Lieut. F. E. Younghusband gave an account of his journey across Central Asia, from Manchuria and Peking to Kashmir and the Mustagh Pass. This is the most important paper which has been read at the Society during the present session, and the journey one of the most remarkable ever made, considering its length, the time taken—April to November, 1887—and the novelty and value of the results. We have only space to refer briefly to Lieut. Younghusband's observations on the Mustagh Pass, which he has been the first European to cross. He crossed the Gobi Desert to Hami by a route lying between those of Marco Polo and Mr. Ney Elias. His observations in the Gobi are of much interest. The clearness and dryness of the atmosphere were remarkable. Everything became parched up, and so charged with electricity that a sheepskin coat or blanket, on being opened out, would give out a loud crackling noise, accompanied by a sheet of fire. At the western end of the Hurku Hills, beyond the Galpin Gobi—the most sterile part of the whole Gobi—is a most remarkable range of sand-hills. It is about 40 miles in length, and is composed of bare sand, without a vestige of vegetation of any sort on it, and in places it is as much as 900 feet in height, rising abruptly out of a gravel plain. With the dark outline of the southern hills as a background, this white, fantastically-shaped sand-range presents a very striking appearance. It must have been formed by the action of the wind, for to the westward of this range is an immense sandy tract, and it is evident that the wind has driven the sand from this up into the hollow between the Hurku Hills and the range to the south, thus forming these remarkable sand-hills. It was near this region that traces of the wild camel were met with, and both wild asses and wild horses seen. As far as Hami the country continues to be mainly desert. From Hami, Lieut. Younghusband went on to Yarkand, and by the Yarkand River to the Karakorum Range, which he meant to cross by the Mustagh Pass. The difficulties, owing to the enormous glaciers, the rugged nature of the mountains, and great height of the pass, were very great for Lieut. Younghusband, his men, and his ponies. The glaciers here are of enormous size, and Lieut. Younghusband has added considerably to the information obtained by Colonel Godwin-Austen, who surveyed the region to the south of the pass twenty-six years ago. “The appearance of these mountains,” Lieut. Younghusband stated, “is extremely bold and rugged as they rise in a succession of needle peaks like hundreds of Matterhorns collected together; but the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, and all the Swiss mountains would have been two or three thousand feet below me, while these mountains rose up in solemn grandeur thousands of feet above me. Not a living thing was seen, and not a sound was heard; all was snow and ice and rocky precipices; while these mountains are far too grand to support anything so insignificant as trees or vegetation of any sort. They stand bold and solitary in their glory, and only permit man to come amongst them for a few months in the year, that he may admire their magnificence and go and tell it to his comrades in the world beneath.” After some extremely difficult prospecting, Lieut. Younghusband made up his mind to cross the old and long-abandoned Mustagh Pass, instead of the new one. “Next morning,” he stated, “while it was yet dark, we started for the pass, leaving everything behind, except a roll of bedding for myself, a sheepskin coat for each man, a few dry provisions, and a large tea-kettle. The ascent to the pass was quite gentle, but led over deep snow in which we sank knee-deep at every step. We were now about 19,000 feet above the sea-level, and quickly became exhausted. In fact, as we got near the summit, we could only advance a dozen or twenty steps at a time, and we would then lean over on our alpenstocks, and gasp and pant away as if we had been running up a steep hill at a great pace. But it was not till midday that we reached the summit, and then on looking about for a way down we could see none. Huge blocks of ice had fallen from the mountains which overhang the pass, and had blocked up the path by which travellers used formerly to descend from it, and the only possible way now of getting to the bottom was by crossing an icy slope to a cliff, which was too steep for a particle of snow to lodge on it, even in that region of ice and snow. From this we should have to descend on to some more icy slopes which could be seen below.... We had first to cross the icy slope; it was of smooth ice and very steep, and about thirty yards below us it ended abruptly, and we could see onothing over the edge for many hundreds of feet. As Wali hewed the steps we advanced step by step after him, leaning back against the slope, all the time facing the precipice, and knowing that if we slipped (and the ice was very slippery, for the sun was just powerful enough to melt the surface of it), we should roll down the icy slope and over the precipice into eternity. After a time we reached terra firma in the shape of a projecting piece of rock, and from here began the descent of the cliff. We had to let ourselves down from any little ledge, taking every step with the greatest possible care, as the rock was not always sound; and once a shout came from above, and a huge rock, which had been dislodged, came crashing past me and as nearly as possible hit two of the men who had already got some way down. At the bottom of the cliff we came to another steep ice-slope.” After eighteen hours of this task the party were glad to lie down for a few hours' rest. At daybreak next morning they were on their legs again, and after a few hours' travelling emerged on to the great Baltoro Glacier, which was explored by Colonel Godwin-Austen in 1862, when making the Kashmir survey. They travelled all that day, and for two days more, till they reached Askoli, a little village on the Braldo River, surrounded by trees and cultivated lands.
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Geographical Notes . Nature 38, 65–66 (1888). https://doi.org/10.1038/038065b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/038065b0