"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.
