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ASIA
ward were the European pioneers of geography into the central dominion of Kashgar, arriving at Yarkand within a few weeks of each other in 1868. Shaw subsequently accompanied Forsyth’s mission in 1870, when Trotter made the first maps of Chinese Turkestan. The next great accession to our knowledge of Central Asiatic geography was gained with the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission of 1884-86, when Afghan Turkestan and the Oxus regions were mapped by surveyors under Holdich ; and when Ney Elias crossed from China through the Pamirs and Badakshan to the camp of the commission, identifying the great “ Dragon Lake,” Rangkul, on his way. About the same time a mission, under Lockhart, crossed the Hindu Kush into Wakhan, and returned to India by the Bashgol valley of Kafiristan. This was Woodthorpe’s opportunity, and he was then enabled to verify the results of M'Kair’s previous explorations, and to determine the conformation of the Hindu Kush. In 1885 Carey and Dalgleish, following •more or less the tracks of Prjevalski, contributed much that was new to the map of Asia; and in 1886 Younghusband completed a most adventurous journey across the heart of the continent by crossing the Muztagh, the great mountain barrier between China and Kashmir. It was in 1886-87 that Bonvalot, accompanied by Prince Henri d’Orleans, crossed the Tibetan plateau from north to south, but failed to enter Lhasa. In 1889-91 ex*/ora ^ie American traveller, Rockhill, commenced his Hons. ' Tibetan journeys, and also attempted to reach Lhasa, without success. By his writings, as much as by his explorations, Rockhill has made his name great in the annals of Asiatic research. In 1891 Bower made his famous journey from Leh to Peking. He, too, failed to penetrate the jealously guarded portals of Lhasa; but he secured (with the assistance of a native surveyor) a splendid addition to our previous Tibetan mapping. In 1891-92-93 the gallant French explorer, De Rhins, was in the field of Tibet, where he finally sacrificed his life to his work; and the same years saw Curzon in the Pamirs, and Littledale on his first great Tibetan journey, accompanied by his wife. Littledale’s first journey ended at Peking; his second, in 1894-95, took him almost within sight of the sacred walls of Lhasa, but he failed to pass inside. Greatest amongst recent Asiatic explorers (if we except Prjevalski) is the brave Swede, Sven Hedin, whose travels through the deserts of Takhla Makan and Tibet, and whose investigations in the glacial regions of the Sarikol mountains, occupied him from 1894 to 1896. His is a truly monumental record. From 1896 to 1898 we find two British cavalry officers taking the front position in the list of Tibetan travellers—Wellby of the 18th Hussars, and Deasy of the 16th Lancers, each striking out a new line, and each rendering most valuable service to geography. The latter continued the Pamir triangulation, which had been carried across the Hindu Kush by Holdich and Wahab during the Pamir Boundary Commission of 1895, into the plains of Kashgar and to the sources of the Zarafshan. Meanwhile, in the farther east so rapid has been the progress of geographical research since the first beginnings of investigation into the route connexion between Burma and expioraChina in 1874 (when the tions. brave Margary lost his life), that a gradually increasing tide of exploration, setting from east to west, and back again, has culminated in a flood of inquiring experts intent on economic and commercial development in China, essaying to unlock those doors to trade which are hereafter to be propped open for the benefit of humanity. Gill, of the Indian survey, first made his way across China to Eastern Tibet and Burma, and subsequently delighted the world with his story of the River of Golden Sand. Then followed another charming writer,
Baber, who, in 1877-78, unravelled the geographic mysteries of the western provinces of the Celestial empire. Mark Bell crossed the continent in 1887, and illustrated its ancient trade routes, following the steps of Colquhoun, who wandered from Peking to Talifu in 1881. Meanwhile, the acquisition of Burma and the demarcation of boundaries had opened the way to the extension of geographical surveys in directions hitherto untraversed. Woodthorpe was followed into Burmese fields by many others ; and amongst the earliest travellers to those mysterious mountains which hide the sources of the Irrawaddy, the Salween, and the Mekong, was Prince Henri d’Orleans. Burma was rapidly brought under survey; Siam was already in the mapmaking hands of M‘Carthy, whilst Curzon and Warrington Smyth added much to our knowledge of its picturesque coast districts. Turning our attention westwards, no advance in the progress of scientific geography is more remarkable than that recorded on the northern and north-western frontiers of India. Here there is little matter of ^^iers— exploration. It has rather been a wide extension Afghaniof scientific geographical mapping. The Afghan stan, Baluwar of 1878-80; the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission of 1884-85; the occupation of Gilgit and Chitral; the extension of boundaries east and north of Afghanistan, and again, between Baluchistan and Persia—these, added to the opportunities afforded by the systematic survey of Baluchistan which has been steadily progressing since 1880—have combined to produce a series of geographical maps which extend from the Oxus to the Indus, and from the Indus to the Euphrates. In these professional labours the Indian surveyors have been assisted by such scientific geographers as Houtoum Schindler, Vaughan, and Sykes in Persia, and by Robertson and Cockerill in Kafiristan and the Hindu Kush. In still more western fields of research much additional light has been thrown since 1875 on the physiography of the great deserts and oases of Arabia. The labours of Doughty and Blunt in Northern ArabiaArabia in 1877-78 were followed by those of Schweinfurth and Glaser in the south - west about ten years later. In 1884-85 Mills made his adventurous journey through Oman, whilst Bent threw searchlights backwards into ancient Semitic history by his investigations in the Bahrein Islands in 1888, and in Hadramut in 1894-95. In Northern Asia it is impossible to follow in detail the results of the organized Russian surveys. The vast steppes and forest-clad mountain regions of Siberia have Northern assumed a new geographical aspect in the light Asia, of these revelations, and already promise a new Siberia, world of economic resources to Russian enter- &c' prise in the near future. A remarkable expedition by Baron Toll in 1892 through the regions watered by the Lena, resulted in the collection of material which will greatly help to elucidate some of the problems which beset the geological history of the world, proving inter alia the primeval existence of a boreal zone of the Jurassic Sea round the North Pole. The distinguished scientist, Richthofen, has enriched the world by the results of his investigations into the physiography of the North-East in China, Korea, and Japan. It is not possible further to follow the footsteps of that great company of geographers of all nations who have searched for new material for the illustration of Asiatic geography, geology, and history. In no period of the world’s history, of equal length of time, has so much scientific enterprise been directed towards the field of Asiatic inquiry as during the last quarter of the 19 th century.
