Los Angeles herald., 1908-09-18
SWEDE EXPLORES
FORBIDDEN LAND
DR.. HEDIN INVADES TIBET
AND DRAWS MAPS
Paint Face Daily to Avoid Dis
covery by Government
Spies
[By Associated Press.l

LONDON, Sept ia special dis
patch from Simla, British India, says
that by deceiving the Tibetans re-
garding his intentions, Sven Hedin, the
Swedish explorer, who has just arrived
there after extended explorations in
Tibet, was enabled to evade the I'll
betan spies when he started in De-
cember, 1907.
A short distance from Karokoram
he passed due east, and in continu-
GUS fall of snow and amid great hard
ships he reached Aksai Chin lake in
January. From that on the snow OBJ
liberated the roads and the caravan
was in terrible straits.
Some of the party suffered from
frostbites and frozen feet. 1t was
necessary to kill Off their flock OF
sheep for food. Eventually, however,
they reached Shementso. Here friend
ly nomads resupplied him with animals
and a twenty-days' march east and
southeast, passing Lem Chang lake,
brought the explorers to point where
the plunge into the unknown had to
be made.
After burning their European cloth
ing and everything indicating their
nationality and hiding their money and
instruments in rice bags, DR.. Hedin
adopted a disguise of a common La
dakhi, daily painting his face dark
color and pretending to be the driver
of animals. When wandering tribes
met them, Karin, a trustworthy man
familiar with Tibet, was posing as the
head of the caravan. Thus they trav-
eled without discovery for two months
in furious gale through an unknown
tract, ending at Tongsto.
Mountain of Ice
From March they traversed the
northern edge of a great tract be-
tween latitudes 80 and 32, stretching
from his old route to the Bramaputra,
which was the great object of his
journey.
The explorers then marched due
north, crossing several ranges running
east and west, and passed the enor-
nous ice mountain known as the
Shakangsham, on the east from which
point flowed a big river.
Thence they crossed Ladang pass
into an open valley and Bongda pro-
vince. which no European had ever
entered, lay before them. Here pre-
cautions We're redoubled and the ex-
plorers had several narrow escapes
from discovery by the watchful Tib-
etans
DIR. Hedin discovered Lake Chunitso
and followed its west shore for
whole day and first heard of the great
salt of Tabia Tsakha. which is
source of considerable wealth to the
government in the salt business.
Two more valleys We're passed and
an open plain entered which was
bounded on the south by a mountain
range 1000 miles long, stretching east
and west, the grandest physical fea-
ture north of the Bramaputra valley.
Snow and glaciers everywhere bound
ed the horizon.
DR.. Hedin was rewarded by discov-
ering the continuity of this chain,
which no explorer heretofore had ap-
preached from the north. He crossed
the range eight times at various points,
naming it originally the Min Chan
Tangla.
The success with which he had met
in his explorations stimulated him to
attempt the solution of the problem of
the course of the Charta Tsanpo. a big
tributary of the Bramaputra. He
found that it's course has been wrongly
marked on the maps and it is fed from
huge snow peaks, lake being formed
from whence the river reached the