Ney Elias

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Woodcut Ney Elias (1844-1897)

Ney Elias (born February 10, 1844 in Widmore Kent , † May 31, 1897 in London ) was an English explorer , geographer and diplomat.

Life

Ney was the second son of Ney Elias († 1891) from Kensington and his wife Sophia, both of whom came from long-established Jewish trading families. After his parents converted, Elias and his four brothers and two sisters were raised in the Christian faith. He received his education in London, Paris and Dresden. In 1865 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and studied geography and surveying under the Society's teachers. In 1866 he was sent to Shanghai to work in the trading house of his mother's family, Barnet & Co., who traded between Bristol and Shanghai.

On research trips

Elias could not make friends with the trading business of his family and undertook three research trips in 1867, 1868 and 1869, on which he successfully determined the course that was changed between 1851 and 1853 and is now the new course of the lower Hoangho (or Yellow River). He was the first to give a more detailed report in 1868, for which he received mention and congratulations from the Royal Geographical Society.

In June 1872 he left with his chines. Servant of Moses Peking , with the intention of crossing the Gobi Desert and western Mongolia . He traveled nearly 2,500 miles to the Russian border and then another 2,300 miles to Nizhny Novgorod in the European part of Russia. The section of the journey was particularly noteworthy: it crossed Chinese provinces that were overrun by Tungani (also called Dungan or Tungrians) rebels and was in constant danger of being attacked. The Tunganis were Chinese Muslims who were attacked for their beliefs. His caravan was small, which he preferred, but vulnerable as a result. The weather was bitterly cold, the terrain was often mountainous and communication with the outside world was always difficult. Despite these difficulties brought back the usable meteorological data and geological rocks. Surveys were particularly important and they made it possible to produce a remarkably accurate map. For the achievement he was awarded the Founders Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1873 .

In the service of the Indian government

Elias had given up his career as a businessman and now needed a new job. On the recommendation of Sir Henry Rawlinson of the Royal Geographical Society and Sir Bartle Frere , he was employed by the Government of India. After accepting insignificant positions in Calcutta and Mandalay , he was appointed deputy to Horace Browne in 1874 for the overland mission from Burma to China to open up the area for trade. The job failed after her translator, Augustus Raymond Margary , was murdered. Fortunately, Elias had chosen a different route. His survey of the Shueli River was the only positive result of this disastrous expedition.

In articles in The Times and elsewhere, Elias tried to draw attention to the political situation in Central Asia. But he became increasingly frustrated by his lack of opportunities to compile geographic and political data to counter growing Russian influence. His plan for an expedition to Tibet in 1876 came to nothing in the face of government disinterest. In 1877 he was assigned to Robert Shaw's unsuccessful mission to Kashgar . He traveled as the vanguard to Leh , where, after the death of Jakub Bek , who had ruled East Turkestan for 10 years , he left the expedition. Elias remained in East Turkestan as the commissioner of Ladakh and reported on the events in Kashgar, which had just been reoccupied by the Chinese.

In 1879 he started inspecting the route across the Karakoram on his own initiative and sent a friendly message at the border to the Chinese Amban (official representative of the imperial court) of Yarkund , who invited him to come further into the country. Captain Bridges, an ex-Dragoons officer, accompanies him. They did not wait for a message from the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ban the operation and they traveled to Yarkund. Although educated in a Jesuit college in Beijing, the Amban pretended to have never heard of England or India, and the outrageous remarks of some Brave Hunan residents almost led to a clash. However, the visit ended without serious mishap. The Indian government gave its consent to this and subsequent trips to East Turkestan. Thus it was officially announced that Elias was "on special service" in Yarkund from June 14th to August 17th, 1879 and "seconded to Kashgar" from May 8th to September 1885.

In between he made home leave in England, where he cured a liver disease.

In September 1885, on the orders of the Indian government, Elias left Yarkund on a secret mission to explore the Pamir highlands and the course of the Upper Oxus , which flows into the Aral Sea. He had planned this trip since 1880. Today it is known that the Oxus irrigates and drains parts of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. Nonetheless, he measured the stretch of 600 miles from the Chinese border to Ishkoshim in Tajikistan, determined various points and mountain heights, and visited the confluence of the Murghab and Panjah rivers, where measurements of the currents indicated the latter was the upper main course of the Oxus forms. The solution to this question was politically important because the river was accepted as the eastern and northern borders of Afghanistan. Contrary to his conclusion, the Wakh-Jir is now considered to be the source of the Oxus. However, Elias' information on the ethnology of this area was just as significant because it confirmed the political importance of this sensitive border region and completed John Wood's earlier assessment .

Elias was the first Englishman to cross the Pamir Mountains in winter and the first to visit the Afghan dependencies Shigan and Roshan . Elias surveyed more than a dozen unmapped passes over 12,000 feet (approx. 4,000 m) and located and identified a previously unknown mountain peak over 24,000 feet Mustagh Ata 7,500 m in the Chinese Pamirs.

At Herat he met the Afghan Border Commission, which was now under the direction of Colonel JW Ridgeway, and waited for further instructions from Calcutta. Since these did not arrive and Col. Ridgeway had only offered him a post under his command - presumably for reasons of competition - although Elias would have liked to measure the Wakham , he made his way back to India via Balch and Chitral Badachschan . He had crossed northern Afghanistan without an escort, but under the protection of Emir Abdur Rahman .

He was honored with the CIE in January 1888 , but he never accepted the award.

From November 1888 to February 1889 he was on a special mission with special tasks in connection with the Sikkim War .

In October 1889 he took over the management of the task to report on the political and geographical situation of the Shan states on the Siamese - Burmese border.

On December 14, 1891 he was appointed agent of the governor general in Mashhad and consul general for Khorasan and Seistan , where he resided until 1896. For health reasons he then had to give up his service.

Ney Elias died of blood poisoning on May 31, 1897 in his North Audley Street apartment, London. He wasn't married.

Source

  1. ↑ On a Journey Through Western Mongolia read by Ney Elias on May 12th, 1973 Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London Vol. 17, No. 3 (1872-1873), pp. 184-192
  2. ↑ Wars with the Tungani - Chapter VIII, page 119 in Demitrius C. Boulger THE LIFE OF YAKOOB BEG;
  3. ^ History of the Medals and Awards of the Royal Geographical Society
  4. ^ Sir Bartle Frere, 1815-1884 by DP O'Connor, MA
  5. ↑ Chapter 16 - The Murder of Margary - Elias and Cooke's visit to Muangnow In: J. Anderson: Mandalay to Momien
  6. ↑ A Visit to the Valley of the Shueli, in Western Yunnan (February 1875) by Ney Elias Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London Vol. 20, No. 4 (1875-1876), pp. 234-241
  7. ↑ A Visit to Yarkand and Kashgar. by Robert B. Shaw An article from Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 14. Published January 1, 1869
  8. ^ Demetrius Charles Boulger: The Life of Yakoob Beg. Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar. Publisher WH Allen, London 1878
  9. ↑ Map of the Oxus / Amu Darya of the watershed in Central Asia
  10. ↑ The Afghan Boundary Commission “Illustrated London News” (1885)
  11. ^ 'Introductory Sketch of the History of the Shans in Upper Burma and Western Yunnan' Printed at the Foreign Department Press, Calcutta, 1876.

Fonts

Most of the records are in the Government of India archives.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Elias, Ney
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English explorer, geographer and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1844
PLACE OF BIRTH Kent
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1897
Place of death London