EXPLORATION IN THIBET

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14280, 31 July 1908, Page 5

EXPLORATION IN THIBET

DR SVEN HEDIN SAF&

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyiiglit, CALCUTTA, July 30. (Received July 30, at 10.20 p.m.) Sven Hcdins servant, in the course of a letter which has been received at Kashmir, reports tluit his master is well in Thibet and that his caravan is ill good condition.

About three weeks ago serious fears were expressed concerning the safety of the famous explorer.

I)r iSvcn Hcdin, in his latest journey in Asia, lias been in Thibet just two years, and the last letter received from him was dated J' Gurtok (in the south-east), October i, 1907. In this letter, which is printed in "I'clcrnianns Mitteilungen," he says: ''It is exactly half a year since I left Sbigatse, and maily great and important discoveries have been made in the interval. Tho great range which I first crossed at tho Scla-la (pas?) I have now surmounted by four other high passes, and so have been able to trace its course. It is an enormous chain, certaintly not inferior in length to the Himalayas, and the mean height of the passes is greater; only in the height O'f tho peaks do the Himalayas retain, of course, tho advantage. . . . After paying a short visit to Nepal, I followed the discovery of the source of th~2 Brahmaputra., which conies from a huge glacier mass, the Kuoi-gangri, belonging to tho northernmost chain of tho Himalayas. Then for five weeks I studied the Suflej problem. The real source of the river lies not where it is marked on the maps, but two long days' journey east-soul h-oast of Manasarowar. On tho some pass from which the most westerly branch of the Brahmaputra flows eastwards begins the river Tagelsitnpo, which falls into the Manasarowar. Then I made a pilgrim journey round the ICailas, and from the Temple of Diri-pu an excursion to the source of tho Indus, where, so far as I know, no European has been hitherto. The source is called by the Tliilietans SingiKalxip—that i-*, the mouth out of which the Indus comcs. Prom here I travelled through unknown country (o Yamta-matsu, in 33dcg, north latitude, and then back to Gartok, crossing the Indus again. Maps must now undergo many extensive alterations. Especially remarkable will he a quite new gigantic range right across tho whole of Thibet, for the Nm-jeng-fang-ln, to the south of the Toiigririior, is the same chain which I crossed a few days ago to the north of Gartok by the high' and difficult pass Juktila. . . . Now I am on my way to L»<lak. A year and three months in Thibet is enough for any ordinary man, and now another winter is licginning, with the thermometer already at a minimum of 21.3 Centigrade, as it was last night."