Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-03-13

weeks before he ended his career in
the field, but by means of these recia-
tions and earned enough money to
help him over the Himalayas to his
home.
| His friends had not seen him for
four years and half, and as few OF
them were in the secret of his work
dead. One rumor gave uneasiness to
the survey department, for it was re-
ported that he had been seized by the
Lhasa authorities, who had cut off his
legs to prevent him from making any
further explorations.
1t is not intended here even to out
line the geographical work he did. IT
is enough to say that in his four jour-
neys he surveyed 4.75O miles of Tibet,
of which $500 miles were surveyed in
the four years during which he made
his last journey.
All his explorations were in the east
ern half Of Tibet. He crossed the great
plateau twice between north and
south, penetrated Mongolia, surveyed
long rotues from the latitude Of Lhasa
to the Chinese border, and made Lhasa
one terminus Of his various routes,
something that no other explorer was
ever able to do.
When the pundit and his servant
reached the Indian border on the last
Homecoming they were emaciated with
their hardships. ragged and destitute,
but they felt triumphant, for they had
brought home every instrument they
had taken away and preserved every
journal and field book. None of his
bretheren in the survey equalled the
exploits of AK and he is counted
among the leading explorers of Tibet;
but he had his limitations like his fell
low surveyors.
Many have supposed that the Ash
attic explorers Of the Indian Survey
were educated native gentlemen, but
| this was not the case. The survey was
never able to secure the services of
we'll educated natives who at the same
time possessed the hardihood courage
and endurance required Of an explor-
er in Tibet.
The best educated among them was
Main Singh and he was merely the
master Of village school. The villa
gers thinking him very learned
man, called him pundit, and so it hap
pened that the same designation was
given to the other Hindu explorers
also, but they were not learned men.
They had just enough education to be
able to acquire the elements Of sur
veying, to make the requisite observa-
tions and measurements and TO keep
up their field books. They could han
die 'latitudes but longitudes were too
much for them.
In spite Of the fact that AK could
not acquire the difficult art Of deter
mining absolute longitudes all his
other data were obtained with so much
care that when the experts in the sur
vey office reduced his observations and
plotted maps Of his routes everything
came out approximately correct. His
surveys are found to fit in surprisingly
we'll with those of the European ex-
plorers.
He could sit by your side and give
you a most interesting narrative of
his adventures and journeys and the
people and places he had seen. But he
could not write an account Of his trav-
els in a form suitable for publication;
and so he was taken in hand and lis
tened to for weeks and his narrative
was translated into English.
1t is mainly geographical or relates
to the details Of his instrumental OBJ
servations, and contains very little
narration Of incidents or description
of the manners and customs of the in
habitants But he secured all the facts
that the British were most anxious to
get.
The verdict Of geographers today
is that AXIS nationality and knowl-
edge of the Tibetan language enabled
him to explore regions which explor-
ers of several of the white races had
found barred against them, and that
he accomplished more than any OF
his rivals all Of whom were much bet
ter educated and equipped than him
self. His achievements were rewarded
by the high honors which some Of the
leading learned societies had to con-
fer, including the bronze medal Of the
| International Geographical congress
at Venice. the gold medal of the Paris
Geograp phical society, and the Murch-
ison Grant of the Royal Geographical
society.