652-658)
contains The Lob-nor Controversy, a full statement of the case,
summarising Kozlov's pamphlet.
Among the documents relating to the
controversy, Kozlov "quotes passages from the Chinese work Si-yui-shui-
dao-tsi, published in 1823, relative to the region, and gives a reduced
copy of the Chinese Map published by Dr. Georg Wegener in 1863, upon which
map Richthofen and Sven Hedin based their arguments." Kozlov's final
conclusions (Geog. Jour. l.c. pp. 657-658) are the following: "The
Koncheh-daria, since very remote times till the present day, has moved a
long way. The spot Gherelgan may be taken as a spot of relative permanence
of its bed, while the basis of its delta is a line traced from the
farthest northern border of the area of salt clays surrounding the Lob-nor
to the Tarim. At a later period the Koncheh-daria mostly influenced the
lower Tarim, and each time a change occurred in the latter's discharge,
the Koncheh took a more westward course, to the detriment of its old
eastern branch (Ilek). Always following the gradually receding humidity,
the vegetable life changed too, while moving sands were taking its place,
conquering more and more ground for the desert, and marking their conquest
by remains of old shore-lines....
"The facts noticed by Sven Hedin have thus another meaning - the desert to
the east of the lakes, which he discovered, was formed, not by Lob-nor,
which is situated 1 deg. southwards, but by the Koncheh-daria, in its
unremitted deflection to the west. The old bed Ilek, lake-shaped in
places, and having a belt of salt lagoons and swamps along its eastern
shores, represents remains of waters belonging, not to Lob-nor, but to the
shifting river which has abandoned this old bed.
"These facts and explanations refute the second point of the arguments
which were brought forward by Sven Hedin in favour of his hypothesis,
asserting the existence of some other Lob-nor.
"I accept the third point of his objections, namely, that the grandfathers
of the present inhabitants of the Lob-nor lived by a lake whose position
was more to the north of Lob-nor; that was mentioned already by Pievtsov,
and the lake was Uchu-Kul.
"Why Marco Polo never mentioned the Lob-nor, I leave to more competent
persons to decide.
"The only inference which I can make from the preceding account is that
the Kara-Koshun-Kul is not only the Lob-nor of my lamented teacher, N. M.
Prjevalsky, but also the ancient, the historical, and the true Lob-nor
of the Chinese geographers. So it was during the last thousand years, and
so will it remain, if 'the river of time' in its running has not effaced
it from the face of the Earth."
To Kozlov's query: "Why Marco Polo never mentioned the Lob-nor, I leave to
more competent persons to decide," I have little hesitation in replying
that he did not mention the Lob-nor because he did not see it. From
Charchan, he followed, I believe, neither Prjevalsky's nor Pievtsov's
route, but the old route from Khotan to Si-ngan fu, in the old bed of the
Charchan daria, above and almost parallel to the new bed, to the
Tarim, - then between Sven Hedin's and Prjevalsky's lakes, and across the
desert to Shachau to join the ancient Chinese road of the Han Dynasty,
partly explored by M. Bonin from Shachau.
There is no doubt as to the discovery of Prjevalsky's Lob-nor, but this
does not appear to be the old Chinese Lob-nor; in fact, there may have
been several lakes co-existent; probably there was one to the east of the
mass of water described by Dr. Sven Hedin, near the old route from Korla
to Shachau; there is no fixity in these waterspreads and the soil of this
part of Asia, and in the course of a few years some discrepancies will
naturally arise between the observations of different travellers. But as I
think that Marco Polo did not see one of the Lob-nor, but travelled
between them, there is no necessity to enlarge on this question, fully
treated of in this note.
See besides the works mentioned above: Nord - Tibet und Lob-nur Gebiet...
herausg. von Dr. G. Wegener. Berlin, 1893. (Sep. abd. Zeit. Ges. f.
Erdk.) - Die Geog. wiss. Ergebnisse meiner Reisen in Zentralasien,
1894-1897, von Dr. Sven Hedin, Gotha, J. Perthes, 1900.
Bonvalot and Prince Henri d'Orleans (De Paris au Tonkin, a travers le
Tibet inconnu, Paris, 1892) followed this Itinerary: Semipalatinsk,
Kulja, Korla, Lob-nor, Charkalyk, Altyn Tagh, almost a straight line to
Tengri Nor, then to Batang, Ta Tsien lu, Ning-yuan, Yun-nan-fu, Mong-tsu,
and Tung-King.
Bonvalot (28th October, 1889) describes Lob in this manner: "The village
of Lob is situated at some distance from [the Charchan daria]; its
inhabitants come to see us; they are miserable, hungry, etiques; they
offer us for sale smoked fish, duck taken with lacet. Some small
presents soon make friends of them. They apprize us that news has spread
that Pievtsov, the Russian traveller, will soon arrive" (l.c. p. 75). From
Charkalyk, Prince Henri d'Orleans and Father Dedeken visited Lob-nor (l.c.
p. 77 et seq.), but it was almost dry; the water had receded since
Prjevalsky's visit, thirteen years before. The Prince says the Lob-nor he
saw was not Prjevalsky's, nor was the latter's lake the mass of water on
Chinese maps; an old sorceress gave confirmation of the fact to the
travellers. According to a tradition known from one generation to another,
there was at this place a large inland sea without reeds, and the elders
had seen in their youth large ponds; they say that the earth impregnated
with saltpetre absorbs the water. The Prince says, according to tradition,
Lob is a local name meaning "wild animals," and it was given to the
country at the time it was crossed by Kalmuk caravans; they added to the
name Lob the Mongol word Nor (Great Lake). The travellers (p. 109)
note that in fact the name Lob-nor does not apply to a Lake, but to the
whole marshy part of the country watered by the Tarim, from the village of
Lob to end of the river.
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