In the nineteenth century, Russia and England vied for control over Central Asia, Persia and Tibet. Knowledge of the terrain was of course of much importance in this early version of the Cold War, commonly known as the 'Great Game'. Thus, both sides sent out several explorers to these areas. The most important and famous of the Russian explorers was Nikolai Przhevalski.
His first voyage started in November 1870, setting out from Irkutsk. After visiting Urga (present-day Ulan Bator), where he noticed that the city was marred by a large number of beggars, he crossed the Gobi desert and reached Kalgan (Zhang-Jiakou) and Peking (Beijing). Next he went north again to the Tari-Nor ('Nor' means lake), finding the Mongolian landscape desolate and monotonous: "There are no landmarks to steer by, one hill is exactly like another, and as soon as you have ascended one, dozens more, all as though in the same mould, rise up in front of you. From there, he went west to and along the Hoang Ho (Huang He) River.
Przhevalski next crossed the Ala-Shan, a southern extension of the Gobi desert. Some of these sands are so extensive, as to be called by the Mongols 'Tingeri', i.e. 'sky'. Not a drop of water is to be found in them; no birds, no animals are visible; and their deathlike solitude fills with involuntary dread the soul of the man who has wandered there. Because of the wreckedness of their country, the Ala-Shan Mongols were regarded among the poorest of all Mongols, Przhevalski noted. He next climbed the Holan Shan, intending to travel on to Koko Nor, but lack of money forced him to turn back one month (600 km) short of his target. Through Mongolian plains, which Przhevalski, passing them in Winter this time, found as cold (-32°C) as they would be hot (+37°C) in Summer, and despite having his camels stolen, he returned to Kalgan in early January 1872, where he immediately took in new men, provisions and trade goods for a second attempt to reach Koko Nor.
This time Przhevalski had to endure the Summer heat in the Ordos desert: By day, the heat surrounded us on all sides - the hot sun above, the burning ground below. Once again he entered the Nan Shan range, and this time he managed to reach Koko Nor. This was the original goal of his expedition, but Przhevalski now set himself a new one: Lhasa. He pressed on, but having reached the headwaters of the Yangtze-Kiang, but still 800 km from Lhasa, he had to give up, having again run out of funds.
Reaching Lhasa would also be the object of his next voyages. On the first, in 1876-1877, he was the first European to reach Lop Nor since Marco Polo, and discovered the Altin Tagh range. He found that it formed one continuous range of mountains with the Kun Lun in the west and the Nan Shan in the east, together spanning the complete Tibetan northern border. Because it was Winter, he was unable to cross these mountains.
On his third voyage (1879-1880) he came closest to achieving his goal of reaching Lhasa. This time he set out from Russian Turkestan, and crossed the western end of the Nan Shan into northeastern Tibet. He came to 270 km from Lhasa, but the Chinese ambassador in Lhasa had spread rumours that he had intentions to kidnap the Dalai Lama. Tibetan guards attacked Przhevalski and forced him to turn back.
On his next attempt, in 1884-1885, Tibetan officials once more stopped him on his tracks, but he did collect a lot of information on northeastern Tibet, among which the source of the Hoang Ho. On his route back to Russia, he crossed the Altyn Tag, the Takla Makan desert and the Tien Shan.
In 1888, just starting on his fifth voyage of discovery, Przhevalski died in Karakol on the Issyk Kul Lake (now in eastern Kyrgyzstan), after drinking typhoid-infected water. The Russians later changed the name of the city to Przhevalsk in his honour. Although he never achieved his wish of visiting Lhasa, Przhevalski was a great explorer and naturalist. Among his discoveries were the wild camel as well as the Przewalski Horse, the only extant species of wild horse.
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This page, part of Discoverers Web was created by Andre Engels.