CHAPTER XLVIII

OUR LAST DAYS ON TSO-MAVANG

At this time Robert had perfected himself more than I in the Tibetan language, and he talked it almost fluently. Therefore, while my whole time was taken up with other work, he was able to obtain information about the country and people, and perform certain tasks I set him. On the left, shorter wall of the vestibule of Tugu-gompa was an inscription for the enlightenment of pilgrims, and this Robert now translated into Hindustani and English. Freely rendered it runs as follows:

Tso-mavang is the holiest place in the world. In its centre dwells a god in human form, who inhabits a tent composed of turquoise and all kinds of precious stones. In the midst of it grows a tree with a thousand branches, and every branch contains a thousand cells in which a thousand lamas live. The lake tree has a double crown, one rising like a sunshade and shading Kang-rinpoche, the other overshadowing the whole world. Each of the 1022 branches bears an image of a god, and all these images turn their faces towards Gossul-gompa, and in former times all the gods gathered together here. Once golden water was fetched from the lake, and with it the face of Hlobun Rinpoche in Chiu-gompa was gilded, and what was left was used to gild the temple roofs of Tashi-lunpo. In old times the water of the lake flowed over a pass named Pakchu-la to the Ganga-chimbo. Water flows into the lake from all sides, cold, warm, hot, and cool. Water passes from the lake to the Ganga-shei and comes back again. Vapour rises annually from the lake and hovers over it once in the year, and then sinks down into the centre, and the next year the process is repeated. If any one brings up clay from the middle of the lake, that clay is really gold. The lake is the property of the lake-god. The lake is the central point of the whole world. Sambu Tashi grew out of the lake tree. Sochim Pema Dabge is of very holy, clear, and pure water. The Gyagar Shilki _chhorten_ stands in the lake. The palace of the lake-god is in the lake. All the lamas there recite their prayers with one voice. All the gods assemble together in the lake and sit there among _chhortens_ of all kinds, embellished with gold and precious stones. The spirit king of the southern land resides here in a golden house, and is not angry when any one comes to wash and purify himself. If we pray to the spirit king of the southern land, we shall be very wealthy and fortunate. Four large rivers and four small flow out of the lake by underground channels. The four large ones are one warm, one cold, one hot, and one cool. (The Karnali, Brahmaputra, Indus, and Sutlej.) If any one washes in the lake he is cleansed from sin and all impurities. If any one washes once in the lake, the sins of his forefathers are forgiven, and their souls are relieved from purgatorial fires. Datping Ngacha came with 500 pilgrims from Kang-rinpoche to wash in the lake. Lo Mato Gyamo met him and begged him to come to Tso-mavang. Dachung Ngacha and the pilgrims came with heaps of flowers and strewed them in the lake. Dachung Ngacha went three times round the lake and then ascended into heaven.

Of particular interest is the suggestion made here that the four large rivers stream out of Tso-mavang by subterranean passages. As regards the Sutlej this belief is, in my opinion, quite correct. I was told that the fifth Tashi Lama, whose mausoleum we had seen in Tashi-lunpo, once made the pilgrimage to Tso-mavang and went down to the shore at Tugu-gompa to offer a _kadakh_ to the lake-god. The _kadakh_ remained suspended in the air, that is, it was actually hanging on one of the branches of the holy tree, but as the tree is only visible to Rinpoches and genuine incarnations, the _kadakh_ seemed to ordinary mortals to hang alone in the air.

On August 11 we bade a long farewell to the amiable monks of Tugu-gompa, and gave them liberal presents. They accompanied us down to the shore, when we put off on our voyage westwards. Into a large lagoon of the shore, brown and dirty owing to the numerous gulls and wild geese which here wallow in the mud, a brook from Gurla Mandatta runs, and now discharges 37.8 cubic feet of water in a second. All the way along runs a rubbish heap, the continuation of the pebble terrace on which Tugu-gompa stands. The lake bed consists sometimes of sand, sometimes of detritus--offshoots of the detritus cone of Gurla Mandatta. Large collections of weeds form dark patches. Up above, at the mouths of two valleys of Gurla, are seen foaming streams, and it is strange that they do not debouch into the lake. But the explanation is easy. Twenty to fifty yards from the bank numerous small holes in the sand of the lake bed open and close like the valves of an artery, and the surface of the lake above them bubbles. These are springs. The streams disappear in the detritus cone, and the water runs below over impermeable layers of glacial clay. At the edge of the cone the water comes up again under the surface of the lake. I perceived, then, that I must gauge the rivers at the points where they emerge from the mountain valleys, if I would ascertain the exact amount of the tribute Tso-mavang receives.

Near camp 218, quite close to the shore, a spring came to the surface, and where it welled up it had a temperature of 38.1°, and therefore brought down the cold of the glaciers to the lake. As the melted water of the Gurla glaciers retains its low temperature on its subterranean course, it probably assists in keeping the water of the lake cool during the summer. Whole shoals of fish sported at the surface of the water, and snapped at plumed gnats, which were gathered in thick clouds.

On August 12 I rode with Rabsang and a Tibetan up to the foot of Gurla Mandatta. We crossed the great highway between Tugu-gompa and Purang. A wolf took to flight; occasionally a hare leapt up out of the steppe grass, and locusts flew about noisily. We rode into the mouth of the Namreldi valley, a resort of robbers, and its crystal stream, between walls of solid rock, carried 101 cubic feet of water, as compared to the 37.8 cubic feet at the place where it enters the lake. The rest of the water, therefore, pours into the lake under the detritus. A few miles farther west we halted at the mouth of the Selung-urdu valley, which has a glacier in its upper part. At half-past nine o'clock the bed was dry, but at half-past one a river with rapids and waterfalls poured down a volume of 63.9 cubic feet of exceedingly muddy water, which reached the lake in the subterranean springs. The view from this elevated spot is magnificent. We have a bird's-eye view of Tso-mavang, and in the west gleams the bright blue Langak-tso. The survey we can here take of the country is very instructive. The denudation cones of Gurla Mandatta, consisting of sand, rubbish, and boulders, extend northwards like inverted spoons; their extremities dip under the surface of the lake, and cause the fluctuating depths sounded on lines 1 and 2. From camp 218 Robert executed a line of soundings at right angles to the bank down to a depth of 190 feet.

Every day with its observations brought me nearer to the solution of the problem I had proposed to myself. As we rode northwards on the 13th along the western shore we dug wells at some places 10 yards from the bank. The ground consisted of alternate layers of sand and clay: on the top, sand; then a layer of decaying vegetable remains; then a foot and a half of sand which rested on clay. A pit 2 feet deep slowly filled with water up to the same level as the surface of the lake. The water permeates the sand and rests on the clay. If this layer of clay stretches, as seems likely, across the narrow isthmus to the shore of Langak-tso, it is evident that the water of Tso-mavang filters through the beds of sand and pebbles to the western lake. I was already convinced that even now when the old canal has ceased to act, an underground connection must exist between the two lakes. But the fact that the water of Tso-mavang is quite sweet is no proof that the lake has an outlet, seeing that it is only a few years since the canal was silted up.

Again we encamped below the hospitable monastery Gossul. On August 15 I rode with Rabsang and a Tibetan across the hilly isthmus between the two lakes in order to get a look at the country on this side also. We ascended sharply to the highest point of the ridge, where there is a fine view over Langak-tso with its picturesque rocky shores and projecting points and capes, its bays and islands, and its frame of steep mountains. In form it is very different from its neighbour, which is round and has no islands. We stood at a height of 16,033 feet, and therefore were 935 feet above the surface of Manasarowar. Then we rode down a valley clothed with brushwood, which emerges on to the flat, irregularly curved shore belt. Here are old, very plainly marked, shore lines, the highest 67.9 feet above the level of the lake. When the Langak-tso stood so high it had an outlet to the Sutlej, and the old bed of this river may be seen leading off from the north-eastern corner of the lake.

A strong south wind blew, and rolled the waves to the shore, where I sat a good hour, drawing and making observations. Then we rode again over the isthmus, at its lowest (15,289 feet) and broadest place. A salt swamp, begirt by hills, lies on its eastern half, quite close to the shore of Tso-mavang, with its surface 7.7 feet above that of the lake. In the sand and rubbish between the two are abundant streams of water, passing from the lake to the swamp. The swamp lies in a flat hollow of clay, in which the water evaporates, and the trifling quantities of salt contained in the lake water accumulate. At this place, then, the water of the eastern lake is prevented from seeping through to the western.

The following day we sailed with a favourable wind to the north-western corner of Tso-mavang, where Chiu-gompa stands on a pyramid of rock. This spot, camp No. 219, was to be our headquarters for several days. The outline of Tso-mavang is like that of a skull seen from the front, and we had now to explore the very top. A day of rest was devoted to a preliminary investigation of the channel where several cold and hot springs rise up; two of the latter had temperatures of 117° and 122° respectively, while in testing the third a thermometer graduated up to 150° did not suffice, and the tube burst. A spring of 117° in a walled basin is said to be used as a medical bath, but one must be a Tibetan to stew in water so hot. A small stone cabin beside it serves as a dressing-room. A little farther down the channel is spanned by a bridge constructed of four beams resting on two stone piers; it is in extraordinarily good condition, and is another proof that the canal contained water not so very long ago. On the piers of the bridge watermarks are still conspicuous 18½ inches above the present stagnant pools, smelling of sulphur and full of slimy weeds, which are fed by springs. Young wild-geese were swimming in one of them, and had great difficulty in protecting themselves from the brown puppy.

Chiu-gompa, the fifth of the eight monasteries of the lake which I visited, is small, and contains fifteen lamas who enter it for life, while the abbot is changed every three years. It owns some yaks, 500 goats, and 100 sheep, which are employed in transporting salt to Purang, where the monks barter it for barley. One monk, a youth twenty years of age, named Tsering Tundup, is one of the Tibetans whom I think of with particularly kind and warm feeling. His mother also lived in the monastery, and looked after the sheep and goats when they were driven in the evening into the penfolds. He was unusually handsome, refined, amiable and obliging, and showed me everything with full explanations. From his small bare cell he could dream and gaze at the holy lake in the east, and could see on the west Langak-tso, despised by the gods; but yet he was melancholy, and on that account we were sympathetic. He acknowledged openly that he was weary of the monotonous life in Chiu-gompa; every day was like the last, and the monks had hard work to procure a scanty subsistence, and must always be prepared for the attacks of robbers. It must be pleasanter to live as we did, and roam about freely among the mountains. He asked me if he might come with us, and I replied that I would willingly take him to Ladak. Then his face brightened, but he begged to be allowed to think over the matter until I returned from my next trip on the lake.

It rained all night, and in the morning everything was wet--even the things in my wind-beaten and torn tent, where little puddles had been formed. But Tsering came with the linen, so I was not so badly off. We had a long voyage before us, to camp No. 212, the first place we had encamped at on the holy lake. The programme of the excursion also included visits to the three other monasteries, the gauging of the volumes of water in the streams from the north, and the drawing of a map of the northern shore. We therefore took provisions for four days, which Rabsang and Adul were to transport along the bank on horses' backs. We were to meet them at the entrance to the valley Serolung, at Serolung-gompa. This last voyage was to complete my investigation of the lake, but precisely because it was the last it was looked forward to with fear by my men. They thought that I had so long defied the god of the lake that now my time was come, and that he would avenge himself and keep me for ever.

But the morning was beautiful, and when at half-past five we rowed out over the smooth lake, the temperature was 48.6°. The cloud cap of Gurla extended down to the water, and nothing could be seen of the country to the south. The Pundi mountain was covered with snow and had a wintry appearance. At the first sounding-station (66 feet) the tents were seen as white specks hovering above the lake. Chiu-gompa stands proudly on its rocky point, and is a landmark visible from all parts of the lake shore except from the west. At the second station the sounding was more than 130 feet. Shukkur Ali and Tundup Sonam row like galley-slaves, for they hope to finish this line, and then the work will be at an end. Sometimes the boat passes through belts of foam and weed. At the fifth station (161 feet) the tents can still be seen with the glass, but after that they disappear. Gossul's memorable monastery can also be dimly descried on its rock.

"Now we have traversed a third of the way," I said.

"Thank God!" replied Shukkur Ali. "I hope the weather will hold up to-day."

A large fish floated on the water, belly up; fish washed ashore are used by the people as medicine. The depths remain the same; the lake bed is very even. But at the thirteenth point we found 108 feet, and at the fourteenth 180 feet, which indicated a ridge in the lake bed or a cone of detritus from the foot of the northern mountains. At about an hour's sail from the eastern shore we saw Rabsang and Adul coming up, and they waited for us at the rendezvous. They proposed we should pass the night in a stone cabin at the right side of the mouth of the Serolung valley, but I refused, for pilgrims and tramps are wont to harbour there. Six monks from the convent, old friends of ours, paid me a visit, and four happy, laughing women, black and dirty, came rushing like a whirlwind down the slopes with baskets of fuel on their backs. Puppy had followed Rabsang, and had found at a monastery on the way an elegant little cavalier with a red collar and bells. With a feeling of satisfaction at having completed this last line of soundings, I went to sleep on the sandy shore under the light of the everlasting stars.

Next day I rode with Rabsang 17 miles to the north, in order to measure the volumes of water in the Pachen and Pachung valleys. We arranged to meet the others on the northern shore, whither they were to row with the baggage. Were we long away they were to light a beacon fire on a hill for our guidance. We followed for a time the shore with its banks of mud, small projections, and lagoons, and then we rode through the Samo-tsangpo from the Tokchen valley, and passed on the left hand two small lakes in the midst of rich pasturage, where a number of kiangs grazed, glared at us, pricked up their ears, and ran away at a slow gallop; then we crossed the _tasam_, or the great trunk-road, and rode up the sharply sculptured Pachen valley, with a foaming river carrying 69.9 cubic feet of water. Then we rode westwards, up and down hills, and enjoyed a new view of the holy lake with Gurla Mandatta in the background. The Pachung river carried 83.3 cubic feet of water. When our work was done we rode south-westwards. Wild asses were on the meadows; they are nearly tame, for no one puts an end to life on the shores of the holy lake. Thirty mares stood on a mound guarded by a stallion; the sun was sinking, and perhaps this is how these animals prepare for the dangers of the night. Now and again a mare left the group and made a circuit about her sisters, but the stallion ran after her immediately and forced her to return to the others. This game was frequently repeated, and it seemed to me that the mares were making sport of the stallion.

We ride over swampy meadows and small sandhills; nothing can be seen of the lake; we should like to hear its waves roaring under the south-west breeze, but new hills always crop up in front of us. At last we catch sight of the smoke of the camp-fire. Adul had caught a kiang foal four months old, which was ill and kept always turning round. The mother came to look after it in the night, but gave it up for lost, and it died soon after.

August 20 was spent in surveying a map of a part of the northern shore which is very slightly curved, and in a sounding excursion on the lake out to a depth of 154 feet. While the surface water had a temperature 55.6° everywhere, with an air temperature about constant, the temperature at the bottom sank from 56.1° to 46° at the depth of 154 feet.

We gradually began to suffer want. The collops which Adul tried to pass off on me on the morning of the 21st were decidedly bad, and therefore landed in Puppy's stomach. As Rabsang and I rode northwards to Pundi-gompa, the temperature was 56° and really too warm, so that a shower of rain was not unpleasant. Pundi lies on a rocky ledge in a ravine; its abbot is eighty years old, and has eight monks under him. One was a Chinaman from Pekin, who had lived forty years in the convent and had become a thorough Tibetan, though he had not forgotten his mother tongue. From there, too, there is a splendid view over the lake. As we were about to ride down to camp No. 222 on the shore, a messenger came from Robert with the news that the authorities in Parka had refused to provide us with transport animals or assist us in any way, for they had never heard that we were permitted to spend a whole month on the lake. He also said that our Ladakis were much frightened by all kinds of stories of robbers which were current in the neighbourhood, so that every one was anxious for my presence.

The camp was quite close to the monastery Langbo-nan, at the mouth of the Gyuma-chu. After we had measured this river and ascertained that it discharged 73.8 cubic feet of water, we had tracked up all the waters pouring into Manasarowar on the surface, and we found that the whole volume was 1094.8 cubic feet in a second, or 94,590,000 cubic feet in twenty-four hours, which would make a cube measuring nearly 456 feet each way. But how much water flows to the lake by underground passages which we could not measure? Probably a volume considerably in excess of the surface water; for Manasarowar lies in a trough between huge mountains which are constantly feeding the subterranean springs. At any rate the surplus water, so far as it is not lost by evaporation, filtrates through subterranean passages to the Langak-tso, which lies lower.

On the 22nd we again rowed straight out from the bank into the lake till we reached a place where the depth was 135 feet, and then sailed back with a favourable wind to the starting-point. It was the last time that I sank my lead in the holy water, and I was quite convinced that I should never do it again, for I had now 138 soundings, evenly distributed over the lake and affording ample material for the construction of an isobathic map. It was comical to hear Shukkur Ali when I remarked to him that this was our last voyage on Tso-mavang. He held his hands before his face as if he were about to pray, and said solemnly that in spite of all dangers "we had had the good fortune to bring our work to a successful conclusion by the favour of Allah, the favour of the Sahib, the favour of the papa and the mamma of the Sahib, and the favour of all his relations." I ventured to remark that he had forgotten the favour of the lake god, but he dismissed the suggestion with a wave of the hand, and said he had no more faith in the god.

Afterwards I rode with Rabsang up to the monastery Langbo-nan, while the others went on to Chiu-gompa. I shall omit here a description of this convent, where the most remarkable sight was the twelve-year-old abbot Tsering, an intelligent, frank, and lively boy, with sharp bright eyes, white teeth, a fresh, healthy complexion, and an attractive appearance (Illust. 262). He sat on a divan before a lacquered table in his library, called _tsemchung_, and showed a great interest in all my plans, glanced into my sketch-book, tried my field-glass, and asked me for a couple of pencils. During the hour I spent in his cell we became good friends, and when at length I bade him farewell we little thought that we should meet again only a year later.

As we made the round of the monastery we came in the gallery of the court upon a poor fellow who lay ill and seemed to be suffering. I asked him how he was, and he told me that on August 18, the day when Rabsang and Adul came to meet us, he was taking eleven mules and two horses laden with _tsamba_ and barley to Parka, the Gova of which was the owner of the caravan. Where the Pachung river enters the eastern lagoon he was attacked at eleven o'clock in the morning by twelve robbers, who rushed down from the direction of the Pachung valley. They were all mounted, and armed with guns, swords, and spears, had two spare horses for provisions, and wore masks on their faces. They dismounted in a moment, threw a mantle over his head, tied his hands behind his back, and cleared him out, taking among other things 400 rupees, and then they rode off again to the Pachung valley, which Rabsang and I had hurriedly visited the next day. He then summoned help by shouting, and in a very pitiable condition found refuge in Langbo-nan. He showed us some deep stabs in his legs, his skin coat, and the saddle, which had suffered severely when he made a desperate attempt to defend himself. This was the incident which had so alarmed our Ladakis.

The way from here to Chiu-gompa is charming. Perpendicular, sometimes overhanging rocks of green and red schist fall to the shore, which here has a shingly beach only 20 yards broad. Two gigantic boulders stand like monuments on the shore, and on the rocky walls we see black caves and hermits' dwellings, and we often pass the usual three stones on which tea-kettles of pilgrims have boiled. Farther to the west the projections form a series of recesses in lighter tones; at one of these cliffs a new and fascinating view is displayed. A water mark lying 5½ feet above the present level of the lake is very easily recognized. On the rocky pinnacles eagles sit motionless as statues, watching for prey.

Chergip-gompa is built on a terrace in the broad mouth of a valley. It is a small, poor monastery, but it has its _lhakang_ and its vestibule with a large bronze bell, in which the six holy characters are cast. When the bell is rung at morning and evening the unfathomable truth is borne on the waves of sound over the lake, which, with its blue surface and its background of the snowfields of Gurla Mandatta, forms a charming landscape as seen from the court of the monastery. But its sound is heard by no one but Chergip's single monk. Poor man, what must be his feelings in winter evenings when storms sweep the drifting snow over the ice of Tso-mavang!

I remained with him fully two hours, for he had much to tell. He had travelled far, had been at Selipuk and the Nganglaring-tso, and offered to conduct me thence in twenty days to the Dangra-yum-tso; he had no suspicion that I was roaming about in the forbidden land under a political ban. But he revived my desire to visit the great unknown country to the north of the holy river. I was full of thoughts, full of plans, and full of an insatiable _desiderium incogniti_ which never left me in peace, when at length I departed from the eighth and last monastery of Tso-mavang as the evening spread its dark veil over the lake I had conquered.

We had still a long way to go to the camp. At the last mountain spur stands a _chhorten_, from which our fire was visible. Soon we sat again among our companions. Late at night two horsemen rode past our camp; the watchmen called out "Who's there?" but they made no answer. Then Rabsang awoke and thoughtlessly sent a bullet after the unknown men, being convinced that they were robbers. My men had reached such a pitch of nervousness that they saw robbers everywhere.

This was our last night on the shore of the Tso-rinpoche, the "holy lake," and I listened sadly to the song of the surf dying away as the wind fell.