Exploration in North-West and Dzungaria: Discussion Author(s): Thomas Holdich, Francis Younghusband and C. W. Campbell Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 39, No. 6 (Jun., 1912), pp. 551-553 Published by: geographicalj Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1778191 Accessed: 20-06-2016 01:36 UTC

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This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 01:36:13 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms EXPLORATION IN NORTH-WEST MONGOLIA AND DZUNGARIA. 551 yurts, and appeared to be well-to-do. One is always struck by the paradox which thus presenfcs itself, of a people at a standstill in a magnificent and pregnant land. There is land to waste in the Borotala; it would hold a far denser population, and only the fact of Chinese protection of the Mongol righfcs of ownership hinder the Kasaks from overrunning it. Yet the Kalmuks do not appear to increase. The Mohammedan Kazak is every? where on the increase, and moving eastwards. There is a great flood of these nomads from the Eussian territory always tending to overrun the Chinese preserves. They have done it in the Tekkes valley in the , and they are doing it in the Tarbogatai region. The Mohammedan is on the increase ; the Buddhist must give way. On leaving the Borotala we passed out of the region we had made it our work to study. Later in the summer we crossed the Tian Shan by the well-known Muzart pass, and descended to the plains of Chinese Turkestan. Journeying with the sole object of getting home as quickly as possible, we passed to Aksu, , and Yarkand. In October we bade farewell to the heart of Asia for the crest of the Karakorum pass, and in due course reached Leh, Srinagar, and Bombay.*

Sir Thomas Holdich, Vice-President (before the lecture): Mr.Douglas Carruthers, who is to address us to-night, is a young gentleman who has devoted nearly the whole of his time to scientific exploration. Some six years ago he was connected with an exploration of Mount Ruwenzori in Africa. In 1908 he was with Mr. Rickmer Rickmers in an exploration in . In 1909 he undertook a most adventurous and what I consider a most risky journey in Northern Arabia, the results of which were communicated to the Society, and for which he was awarded the Gill Memorial, More lately, during the last two years, he has been engaged with two companions?Mr. Miller and Mr. Price?in exploring a region in Central Asia which is of particular interest to us in many ways, including the upper ITenesei basin and the , and the results of that journey he is going to tell us to-night. I wish you particularly to note the names of his companions, Mr. Miller and Mr. Price, because Mr. Carruthers informs me that not only is he indebted very much to these gentlemen for their assistance in scientific research, but they also bore on their shoulders a great part of the responsibility of fmancing the expedition. I think that Mr. Carruthers needs no further introduction by me, and I will ask him to commence his paper. Sir Thomas Holdich (after the paper): We have listened to a paper which I think I may say in many respects is a model of what a geographical paper should be. It has been suggestive, instructive, and extremely interesting at the same time. But the suggestion in it which appeals to me most is that which touches a long- forgotten phase of Central Asian history. You will remember that when the Nestorian Christians scattered eastwards about the middle of the fifth century they

* The botanical collections made by Mr. Price on this expedition are being worked out at Kew, and the geological specimens by the Geological Department of the British Museum. The entire zoological collection has been purchased by the trustees of the British Museum (Nat. Hist.). This consisted of 250 birds and 160 mammals ; from the latter Mr. Oldfield Thomas has named 14 new species. Other zoological speci? mens, consisting of numerous species of the larger animals, were collected by Mr. Miller, an account of which he is preparing for the Zoological Society.

This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 01:36:13 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 552 EXPLORATION IN NORTH-WEST MONGOLIA AND DZUNGARIA. went to India, to Persia, to Arabia, and to Central Aaa; and wherever they went they had by the eleventh century established themselves as a strong political factor in the countries which they visited. For my own part, I believe that " Prester, or Presbiter, John " was no myth at all. When Mongolian supremaey had made Asia secure for European travellers, there was a great demand for Prester John. He may have been one of two or three potentates in the East. He may have been Gur Khan who established the great Kara Khitai empire previous to the rise of the Mongol ascendancy. Or he may have been (as Mr. Carruthers apparently thinks, and as Sir Henry Yule also agrees) Wang Khan, chief of the Karaits, the Nestorian Christian tribe to which Mr. Carruthers has alluded. Now, to me it is very strange that a large Christian community should ever have existed in Central Asia and left no marks behind it. You all know that Dr. Stein has recently unearthed a marvellous chapter in the history of Buddhism by the results of his researches in Chinese Turkestan. I think we might reasonably look to Mr. Carruthers in the book hc has promised us for something of the history of Christianity in those regions. This will be even more interesting than the Buddhist records. As regards another feature of Mr. Carruthers' work, there is no time to go into any details, but I must express my admiration of the energy he has shown in carrying out his surveys with his own hand, whilst at the same time he was burdened with all the responsibilities of the leadership of an expedition such as this. To my mind, it once again rather emphasizes the fact that it is advisable under similar circumstances for travellers in unknown and unmapped countries to attach to their parties, if they can, a trained professional geographer, who will do the spade-work of such map-making and surveying as has been accomplished by Mr. Carruthers. You can easily understand that when an explorer starts from one set of geographical values and reaches out far into unknown districts, and there ties his work to the results of another explorer's work who started from another part of the world, there must be a great deal between the two to compare and reduce to a common co-ordinate value ere we obtain a starting-point for future travellers to work from. This has been the case with Mr. Carruthers, who started from Russian values to work down to the Karlik range, and Dr. Stein, who based his work on Indian values, and, carrying triangula? tion along the Kun Lun, ended somewherc on the same range. Hereafter we shall have established a fresh fixed point of departure for all travellers in these very wild regions of Central Asia. But this I hope will be matter for future consideration by that branch of our Society which is known as the Research Department. In this connection I am happy to tell you that by new arrangements the Research Depart? ment meetings are to be open to all Fellows of the Society without waiting, as lieretofore, for special invitations to be sent to those who happen to be specially interested. As we have here to-night several old geographical friends who have travelled in Central Asia, I will ask Sir Francis Younghusband to address you. He himself knows a good deal of Mongolia. Sir Francis Younghusband : I think you will agree with the words of the chairman as to the suggestiveness of Mr. Carruthers' paper. It will only have whetted our appetite for those full results which he hopes to give us in the form of a book and in a paper to the Research Department of the Society. With a good personal scientific equipment and with a well-organized expedition, he visited that extremely interesting part of Asia from which the great Mongolian invasions took place. He saw the actual rendezvous of Jenghiz Khan's forces, and I think we here this evening must rather regret that he pulled himself up short, and did not give us the results of his investigations as to the causes that originated that tremendous invasion both of Asia and Europe. I had myself, until I had seen Mr. Carruthers, imagined that it must have been connected with that constant

This content downloaded from 131.172.36.29 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 01:36:13 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms EXPLORATION IN NORTH-WEST MONGOLIA AND DZUNGARIA. 553 desiccation which is so prevalent in parts of Asia very close to that visited by Mr. Carruthers. I have travelled about 2000 miles through Mongolia. I had seen it at its extreme eastern end; I passed all alon* the south; and traversed it across tbe centre; and in the whole course of my travel I do not believe I saw a single tree. It was in great part prairie land and greater part still arid desert. It came to me, therefore, as a surprise to see that there is a portion of Mongolia (which, considering its size, must be really a very considerable country in itself) which was well watered, very thickly forested, and in other parts forming a magnificent grazing-ground. He in forms us that there is still most ample room for development there, and therefore I conclude it cannot have been the desiccation of climate which is the prime cause of these migrations'of over Asia and Europe. Possibly the cause of the Mongol unrest, instead ofibeing destitution, was prosperity; for we have experience that prosperity is quite as much the cause of unrest and movement as is destitution. It was not the recent great famine in India that caused unrest; it was rather the prosperity in India. And at the present moment here in England, it is not so much destitution amongst the very poorest classes as the prosperity amongst the best paid classes of our workers which is causing the existing unrest. Possibly Mr. Carruthers, when he comes to tell us of his investigations, will be able to give us some information on that point? whether it was the prosperity of the Mongols which set them thinking whether they might not still further improve their lot in other parts of Asia. Another interesting point upon which he has fortunately favoured us with his opinion to-night is the cause of the deterioration of the Mongols at the present day. It is an extraordinary fact that these Mongols who had ruled and India and the greater part of Asia are now people of comparatively insignificant importance. The conclusion he came to is one to which I had quite independently come my? self, that the main cause at any rate is their religion. Mongols are of the same religion as the Tibetans. They both acknowledge the Lamaist form of Buddhism, and I have myself read a paper before the Sociological Society, giving my conclusion that the reason for the deterioration of the Tibetans was this form of Buddhism. The Tibetans at one time were a people of considerable importance in Asia. They were not confined entirely to Tibet; they were able to resist Chinese pressure upon them, and even to aggress upon the Chinese themselves. Dr. Stein's investi? gations have shown that about the eiglith and ninth centuries a.d. they expanded over Tibet into Turkestan and into the province of Kansu, in China Proper, and he has seen the Tibetan walls in the Baroghil pass, on the northern frontiers of Chitral bordering on Afghanistan. It seems to me that this Lamaistic form of Buddhism emphasizes too much the idea of peace. The Tibetans' one idea is peace and to be left alone, and the consequence is that too great an attention to this ideal (which, after all, is not the highest ideal in the world) has led them not only to peace, but to sloth and laziness, which is one of the characteristics of the Mongols also. It is a fascinating subject, and I am sure, in Mr. Carruthers' hands, we shall have it treated most fully and with great scientific acumen. I think we may congratulate Mr. Carruthers upon his extremely successful journey and upon the very valuable paper he has read, and we may hope that we shall have still further journeys from him and still more interesting papers in future. Mr. C. W. Campbell then made a few remarks. Sir Thomas Holdich: As visitors to Mongolia seem to be rather rare and exceedingly reticent, I think I may now ask you to join in a very cordial vote of thanks to the reader of the paper to-night, and to wish him all success in his future travels.

No. VI.?June, 1912.] 2 q

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