On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c6.s6.4

v1.c6.s6.4

Mr Schuyler finds the district here named Thousand Springs in the country to the north of the Alexandrofsky range and between Auliéata and Ak-su. Of his journey from the former of these two places to the latter he writes—"All along my right was the beautiful Alexandrofsky range, with many of its summits then white with snow. At almost every step I crossed rivulets trickling down from the hills, showing well the truth of the old name, 'the thousand sources'."² With this we may compare Dr Bretschneider's opinion—"Vivien de St. Martin, in his geographical notes appended to Stan. Julien's translation of Hüan Thsang's narrative identifies Ts'ients'üan with a place Ming bulak, south of Lake Karakul, thus carrying the traveller far north-west, and then locates his Ta-lo-sz between the aforesaid lake and the Jaxartes. But this view is untenable. Ming bulak meaning 'Thousand Springs' in Mongol and other languages of the East, is a quite frequent name for places in Mongolia and Central Asia. It seems to me that the Thousand Springs of the Chinese traveller, bordered on the south by snowy mountains, whilst on the other sides all was level land, must be rather looked for somewhere on the northern slope of the high mountain stretching from Lake Issik-kül, westward, and marked on Russian maps as *Alexander's Chain*.¹