CHAPTER XXII

TO THE BANK OF THE BRAHMAPUTRA

The Sham valley narrows like a pear, and at the entrance of this funnel huts stand at three different spots, and large herds graze on the mountain slopes. A _mani_, 148 feet long by 5 feet high, was covered with clods to protect the upright stones sculptured with prayers. At length the Sham valley enters a large valley coming from the east, which occupies a prominent place in this river system. It is traversed by the Bup-chu-tsangpo, the largest river we have yet seen. Immediately below the place where the two valleys unite is the confluence of a third river, which is called Dangbe-chu and flows from the south-east. Thus three considerable streams meet in this small expansion of the valley. The explanations of my guide made this complicated river system of the My-chu-tsangpo clear to me. The sources of the Bup-chu-tsangpo lie two long days' march to the east, and are of course to be found in the great offshoot of the Pabla which forms on the east the watershed of the My-chu-tsangpo. From the confluence where we now stood the Bup-chu-tsangpo continues its course for two short days' journey south-westwards, and then at the monastery Linga-gompa enters the My-chu-tsangpo, which has its source in the main range of the Pabla.

The Bup-chu-tsangpo was at this season converted into a huge sheet of ice, but had an open water channel. We crossed dry-footed at a place where the ice formed a bridge all across the bed of the stream, and then marched in a south-easterly direction through the narrow Dangbe valley.

At camp No. 121, on February 3, we left Tundup Sonam and Tashi behind with our own yaks, which were so exhausted that they could be driven only very slowly. The men were given money for their keep, and were ordered to move on towards Shigatse at a very slow pace. The rest of the caravan set out early, in good weather and at a minimum temperature of only 11.3°.

Our course is south-south-east and afterwards east. All the valleys are full of ice, which we strew with sand as the caravan passes. The pass to-day is the Dangbe-la, decorated, as usual, with a cairn and streamers; its height is 17,224 feet, or much less than that of the preceding pass. It is interesting, as lying on the watershed between the Bup-chu (My-chu) and the Rung-chu. The latter river does not unite with the My-chu, but takes its own course direct to the upper Brahmaputra. When I asked why we could not descend the Rung valley to avoid the two passes in front of us, I was told that the valley is very narrow, is confined by precipitous mountains, and is filled with ice. There is, however, a path used in summer which runs sometimes along the slopes, sometimes over the valley bottom, but is hard to follow after rain, for then large volumes of water pour down the valley, thundering over falls and rapids.

We bivouacked in a locality called Ngartang in the Rung valley, where twelve tents remain standing all through the year. The valley is considered cold, whereas the Sham is reputed warm. Indeed, we had found there some juniper bushes, and were so delighted at seeing them that we had adorned the inside of our tents with branches. It never snows in summer in the Sham valley, but it does in the Rung valley. In many years there is much rain in both valleys.

As though to prove the truth of the Tibetans' assertions, the thermometer again fell in the night to -19.1°. We were prepared for a long day's journey and a difficult pass, and therefore it was still dark when I heard the yaks being driven into the camp. After we have left the Ma-lung river behind us we ride up hills consisting of firm soil overgrown with moss, and an inextricable entanglement of mountains is displayed to our view. We ride steeply upwards along the valley coming down from the pass, passing over detritus and among boulders, with votive cairns here and there. A stretch of almost level ground follows, and then at last the path rises steeply to the pass, which is strewn with innumerable blocks of grey granite. This is the Ta-la or "Horse Pass," and its absolute height is 17,835 feet.

If the ascent among the boulders is troublesome, and both horse and rider have to twist their bodies in all kinds of acrobatic feats, the pilgrim is richly rewarded when he stands at the top of the Ta-la beside the streamer-decked cairn; for anything grander and more overpowering I have never yet seen, unless it were on the top of the Chang-lung-yogma. The panorama to the south-east and east-south-east is so fascinating that we almost forget to dismount. We command a somewhat limited portion of the horizon, for two peaks of the Ta-la crest, like the portal of a great temple, close in the landscape in front of us. Below is a zone of reddish-brown, dome-shaped hills, behind them a nearly black spur, intersected by numerous short transverse valleys, and farther in the background a dark grey ramification. All seem to run westwards and from the watershed, which we have supposed to lie to the east of our route since we crossed the Sela-la. Such scenery as this we had gazed upon time after time. But high above the dark-grey ridge rises a world of mountains which seems to belong to the heavens rather than the earth, so lightly and airily is it poised above the rest of the earth under a canopy of white clouds. It is so far from us that the individual contours are indistinguishable, and it rises like a wall of a universal light blue hue, which, however, is a little deeper than the colour of the sky. The boundary between the two expanses of blue is sharply marked by an irregular bright white line; for what we see before us is the snow-covered crest of the Himalayas, and behind it lies India with its eternal summer. These are the most northern chains of the Himalayas, on the frontier between Tibet and Bhotan. Between them and the dark grey crest, comparatively near to us, yawns an abyss, a huge fissure on the earth's crust, the valley of the Brahmaputra or Tsangpo. The river itself is not visible, but we feel that we are now not far from our destination. Ah, you fearful ranges and passes which we have surmounted in the Chang-tang, where dead horses mark the miles and show in which direction we travelled, at last we have you behind us, and only a single mountain system, the Himalayan, separates us from India! This view strikes us dumb, and it seems wonderful to me that I have succeeded in forcing my way so far.

Tsering and Bolu now reach the pass with the small caravan. They fall on their knees before the heap of stones and recite their prayers, and Tsering tears a strip off his ragged coat to tie as an offering on to one of the strings. We all feel as though we were on a pilgrimage. The Tibetans who let their yaks on hire see after the loading and unloading, gather fuel, and relieve the Ladakis of many of their duties. The older men of our own people are allowed to ride. They have easier work in every way, but still they are pilgrims on the way to one of the greatest centres of Lamaism. Old Tsering holds his cap in his hand as he goes over the pass, and cannot turn his eyes aside from the dreamy light-blue mountains which gleam in the distance among the clouds. He reminds himself that they rise far beyond Tashi-lunpo and that we have not to cross them to reach our longed-for destination.

But we must leave this grand pass, the never-to-be-forgotten Ta-la. Down we go on a break-neck descent among boulders, between steep cliffs, over landslips and spurs, and the Himalayas gradually vanish from sight. Now we see only the line of the crest tipped with eternal snow; after we have descended a couple of slopes, it also is concealed by the dark grey ridge, and our horizon is bounded by its sharp outline. Kabbalo is a village of two tiny stone cabins in the Permanakbo-tang valley where we encamp. Several Tibetans are out of doors and stare at us; for dinner I have butter and radishes, and see no more of the perpetual mutton.

On February 5 we made a short march down the same valley, which is called Dokang, where we set up our camp No. 124. Forty Tibetans stood at the camp-fire. When I rode up they all thrust out their tongues as far as they would go, and their bright red colour formed a strong contrast to the dirty faces. Those who wore caps took them off with the left hand and scratched their heads with the right--another form of salutation. When we spoke with them they repeatedly shot out their tongues, but only from politeness and friendliness; they could not do enough to show their goodwill. Near the camp are the ruins of a _dzong_, or fort, which is called Dokang-pe, and a deserted village called Arung-kampa testifies that the valley was formerly more densely populated than now.

The march on the 6th is one I shall never forget; for now we rode down the gigantic staircase, the edge of the Chang-tang, into the Ginunga gap which we had seen from the Ta-la, and in the depths of which flows the upper Brahmaputra. From the camp we marched towards the south-south-east, leaving our river on the right, which, cutting through the mountains in a deep ravine, flows to the Rung-chu. At the entrance of the narrow valley stands a small temple, the Chega-gompa. A pack of wolves howled dismally in a gorge. The ascent to the pass La-rock (14,567 feet) is short and easy, and before we were aware we were up at a great cairn amid smaller heaps of stones, where the _tarpoche_ (votive pole) stands grey and cracked, and much worn by wind and weather (Illustration 100). Several blocks of stone lying in heaps on the east side of the pass were white-washed on their upright sides. We had to cross over two more smaller ridges before we had a free and uninterrupted view. The scene is grand, and reminds one of the landscape seen from the palace at Leh. The northern ranges of the Himalayas were distinctly visible, but heavy clouds rested like a canopy on their peaks. Mount Everest, therefore, the highest mountain of the world, could not be seen. The Tsangpo appeared as a very small bright riband, still at a considerable distance. Below us flowed the Rung-chu, which we could see from the place where it emerges from the mountains. Most imposing are the colossal offshoots and ramifications of the mountains lying to the east and west of our position, which fall suddenly to the valley of the Brahmaputra like an endless row of tiger's claws.

The plain stretched out before us is a very large expansion of the Brahmaputra valley, and is named Ye, or Yeshung, while the river is here called the Yere-tsangpo. It is densely peopled; the great number of dark specks are all villages. To the right, at the foot of a mountain spur, stands the large monastery Tashi-gembe, which with its numerous white-washed houses has the appearance of an Italian coast town. Thence a road runs to the famous monastery Sekya. A fine line meandering towards the south-east is the great highway to Shigatse, Tashi-lunpo, and Lhasa.

From the last platform the path plunges down headlong, so we descend on foot these steep slopes of grey granite rounded by wind and weather. Where loose material fills up the interstices the path is sunk in to the depth of a yard. Many pilgrims, horses, and yaks have passed here before the path became so small. Sometimes we have abysses beside us, sometimes we slide down over the sheets of granite, sometimes we step down as on a staircase, but down we go, ever downwards, and we rejoice to think that every step brings us nearer to warmer, denser air, where we can breathe more easily. Here and there tower up great round granite blocks on a pedestal of loose rubbish, like glacier tables; rain and wind have sculptured out these singular forms.

At last we are down on the great plain into which all the valleys open. We ride past barley-fields, poplar groves, farms and villages with white houses, where blue and red pennants and flags decorate the roofs. We leave the monastery Tugden on our left; a little farther, at the foot of a mountain spur, Muhamed Isa had made a halt. About a hundred Tibetans of all ages and both sexes, exceedingly black and dirty, but very friendly, surrounded the tents. They sold us sheep, fowls, milk, radishes, and malt beer (_chang_), and our tired animals were supplied with plenty of hay and barley. Women with a round arch on their necks by way of ornament, carried wicker baskets of dung to the fires, and were never tired of sitting with us, astonished at us and our wonderful occupations. Here Ngurbu Tundup presented himself and gave me the welcome information that his master, Kung Gushuk, would forward my correspondence. He received only a part of his reward at present, and the remainder would be paid him as soon as I had news that the letters had actually reached Gyangtse. He handed me a _kadakh_, or cloth of welcome, from his master, and said that he was ordered to accompany us and assist us on the way to Shigatse. This was most important news. It signified that we should meet with no obstructions.

Here the absolute height was 12,956 feet, and the air was warm and pleasant. At nine o'clock we had only 5½ degrees of frost, and therefore the tent flap was left open. I held a long consultation with Robert and Muhamed Isa. Should we spend ten days instead of only one in this delightful locality, where there was all we wanted and where the animals could recover their strength, while I visited the curious monasteries perched like storks' nests on rocky promontories, or glittering white at the mouths of valleys? No; we knew nothing definite about the reception that awaited us; it was only eleven days' journey to Lhasa, and we could reach our destination, Shigatse, in three days. We had heard nothing from the Government, but we were expected in Shigatse. Any moment might bring a change unfavourable to us. We would not therefore lose a single precious day, but would start early in the morning, and hurry on as long as the road was open to us.

Our excitement was becoming acute. After all the severe trials and adventures we had experienced should we succeed in reaching our goal? At night the Ladakis sang their Tashi-lunpo hymn more softly and earnestly than ever. At midnight they were singing still, and I listened attentively, though I had so frequently heard the song on the Chang-tang.

Then the fires went out in our first camp in the valley of the Brahmaputra. The crowd collected before the tents on the morning of the 7th was a very mixed one. Horses, mules, and cows were to carry the luggage, for there were no yaks here. A south-west storm blew when I started fully an hour later, and the whole population of the neighbourhood collected to witness our departure. Just as I was mounting into the saddle three emissaries appeared from a certain Cheppa Deva, a friend of Kung Gushuk. They brought me a present from him consisting of a whole slaughtered sheep, a thick sweet cake, with figures in relief and preserved fruits on the top, three large lumps of butter, and thirty eggs. I could not send any present in return, for the caravan was already gone on, but I gave them 15 bright rupees and begged them to convey my hearty greeting to the unknown Cheppa Deva. Then the chief of the three said: "We must hand over this money to our master, and therefore it would be well if the Bombo Chimbo would give us an extra tip." This was a cute, sensible speech; they received an additional sum of money and went away contented.

A number of other people accompanied us, giggling and chattering, as far as the highroad to Shigatse. The attractive monasteries on the right and left of the road passed out of sight, and we rode through part of the village Dzundi, inhabited by smiths, and past a warm medicinal spring, over which a bath-house is erected--unfortunately it was just then occupied by a patient, and we could not enter; white clouds of steam issued through the roof, windows, and doors. And further proceeds our picturesque party, through more villages and barley-fields, past fresh monasteries, rocky cliffs and valley openings, till the road winds over a barren plain more and more to the south, towards the Brahmaputra, just as one approaches the Indus from Leh, and, as there, loose stones have been removed from the road and lie along the sides.

Where the valley contracts we have the large monastery Tarting-gompa on its rock to the left, and on the right or southern bank of the river the village Rokdso with its ferry; and now we reach the first granitic spur, which extends to the neighbourhood of the river. Beyond the village Karu with its cornfields and small gardens we ride through a hollow way 13 feet deep, a corridor in the yellow löss; here and there the banks are broken through by rain gutters, and through the gaps, as from the windows of a gallery, we have a glimpse of the great side valley So, which drains from the south into the Tsangpo. The rain has modelled the loam into pyramids, sometimes as much as a yard high, like a forest of gigantic mushrooms. We meet dark bare-headed peasants, driving before them laden horses and mules, and women and children with baskets on their backs, containing fuel or roots. An old woman sat astride on her mule and rose in her saddle with the step of the animal; a man of higher position, on horseback, accompanied his wife; some country people whistled as they followed their cows laden with hay; a party of men and women in picturesque costumes of blue, red, and yellow were making a pilgrimage to the New Year's festivities in Tashi-lunpo, which my Ladakis had long hoped to attend. All the traffic was making eastwards, and we met only men who were going on business from one village to another.

The road now runs over low land which is flooded in summer, so that those who pass this way are then obliged to travel along the flanks of the mountains. Even now the Tsangpo is an imposing stream, and we rest for a while on its bank, which our road touches for the first time. For the first time in my life I drink of the holy water of the Brahmaputra. Bluish-green and almost perfectly transparent, it flows slowly and noiselessly in a single bed to the east, while here and there fishes are seen rising. Only a very thin crust of ice confines the water at the margin, but a bright clump of ice, like a mountain crystal, frequently sweeps past us. A raft laden with barley floats down on the way to the great market in Shigatse, and soon vanishes round the next corner, where the steersmen with their long poles must keep a good look-out--a sight reminding me vividly of my voyage on the Tarim in the year 1899.

To the east of this point the soil is sandy and rises into barren dunes 6 feet high. One can tell at the first glance how they are formed, especially on a day like this, when the westerly storm sweeps the drift-sand before it in clouds, often hiding completely the steep rocky walls on the right bank of the river. During high-water the river deposits quantities of mud and sand on the shallows, which are exposed and dry up in winter. The west wind carries away the silted material to pile up dunes farther east; where these lie low enough, the next high-water clears them away, and when it has fallen the process is repeated. Thus in the valley of the Tsangpo a continuous displacement of solid matter from west to east is going on. It is not alone that the river excavates the bed with its own weight, and loads its water with masses of mud; but also the material deposited at the banks is borne away by the wind which comes to the help of the water. Wind and flowing water work together in harmony to the same end, washing out this gigantic drainage channel deeper and deeper. They have laboured at the work for untold thousands of years, and the result is the Tsangpo valley as we see it to-day.

After a ride of eight hours we came to a small village composed of thirty houses, called Rungma (Illustration 104), where the tents were set up in a garden among poplars and willows. How pleasant it seemed to us, who had passed a whole half-year on the desolate Chang-tang plateau, to hear the wind soughing again through the leafless branches of the trees! Now the fires were no longer fed with dried dung; dry faggots crackled between the tents and threw a bright light on the trees and the Tibetans.

On February 8 we had another long ride. Ngurbu Tundup complained that his mule had run away, so that he must stay behind, and begged me to pay him the remainder of the reward I had promised. But this trick was too transparent.

We suspected that the letters had not reached Gyangtse after all. However, we were not far from the village when Ngurbu came riding after us on a borrowed horse with jingling bells. When we had pitched our camp, Ngurbu was immediately sent off as a punishment to Shigatse, to inform Kung Gushuk that we should arrive the next day, and that I wished to have a good house prepared for me. That was a thoughtless step, for if Kung Gushuk had told what he knew to a Chinaman, we should have been stopped at the last moment before reaching the town.

The winding highway runs further and further eastwards along the northern bank of the Tsangpo, past fields laid out in terraces and watered by the river. It is astonishing to find in Tibet so much cultivable land, and such a number of inhabited villages with solid stone houses and gardens.

At Lamo-tang the river washes the mountainous foot of the left bank, and here a narrow break-neck path runs in zigzags up the slopes. But it need not be used except when the water is high. Now we travel along the embankment beside the river. The river has quite a different appearance to-day: its surface is half covered with porous ice-blocks, but then at night there were 33.8 degrees of frost. Leaping and clattering they drive downstream and graze the fringe of ice attached to the bank, piling up on it small white walls of ice. They keep in the line of the strongest current, and often remain stranded on sandbanks which show a reddish-brown tinge amid the clear green water. A grand landscape under a blue sky and among ponderous fissured mountain masses! In the afternoon the drift-ice had decreased in quantity, and in the evening, before our camp, had disappeared altogether (Illustration 101).

Upwards over the extreme point of a rocky projection by a stony staircase where we prefer to go on foot. Then we descend again to the level valley-bottom, past more villages and monasteries, always surrounded by _chhortens_ and _manis_, and often, like the Tikze-gompa in Ladak, perched on rocks. Tanak-puchu is a great valley coming down from the north, and its river irrigates the fields in Tanak. I could not obtain a clear description of this valley: all I heard was that it came from a pass to the north; so I do not know whether it comes from the Trans-Himalaya, like the My-chu and Shang-chu valleys. If such is the case, however, then the eastern watershed of the My-chu is a hydrographic boundary between it and the Tanak-puchu, not the Shang-chu. The question can only be solved by future investigations on the spot.

In the Tanak ("The Black Horse") valley we encamped in a pretty garden (Illustration 105), where a small house with a gaily painted verandah is occupied by the Tashi Lama, when the prelate pays his annual visit to the temple Tashi-gembe. The garden is situated on a terrace of detritus, which descends sheer down to the river and affords a magnificent view of the Tsangpo. The river is here called Sangchen, or sometimes Tsangpo-Chimbo, that is, the great river. The Tsangpo is the river of Tibet _par excellence_. According to Waddell this name is sometimes so written that it is a strict translation of the name Brahmaputra, which means "Son of Brahma." We have already mentioned the name Yere-tsangpo, and farther westwards we shall meet with other names. In the lower part of its passage through the Himalayas it is called Dihong, and it assumes the name of Brahmaputra only when it emerges from the mountains to water the plains of Assam.