CHAPTER LXXIII

THE TRANS-HIMALAYA

On the map of the Jesuits, now two hundred years old (D'Anville, 1733) (Map 2), a series of mountains runs on the north side of the upper Brahmaputra, bearing from east to west the following names: Youc, Larkin, Tchimouran Coïran, Tchompa, Lop, Tchour, Takra concla, Kentaisse (Kailas) Latatsi, etc. These mountains and ranges have never been transferred to modern maps of Tibet, probably because geographers regarded the material collected by trained Tibetans as too unreliable and indefinite. Yet these chains of mountains are nothing else but the Trans-Himalaya, though the representation is confused and inexact.

When Brian Hodgson in his map of southern Tibet (_Selections from the Records of the Government of Bengal_, No. xxvii.), here reproduced in facsimile (Map 3), drew a huge unbroken chain north of, and parallel to, the Tsangpo, he took a step which could only be based on the Jesuits' map and the data he received in the year 1843 from the Maharaja of Nepal. No doubt lofty mountains existed to the north of the Tsangpo--that was known to the Jesuits even in the time of Kang Hi. But Hodgson's hypothetical Nyenchhen-thangla (Trans-Himalaya), which he looks upon as a prolongation of the Karakorum, and the natural boundary between northern and southern Tibet, is by no means an original conception, and is no advance on previous knowledge, or, more correctly, theory. For already, in the year 1840, Dufour had inserted a similar huge uninterrupted chain north of, and parallel to, the Tsangpo, on the map which illustrates the famous description of the travels of the Lazarist missionary, Father Huc (Illust. 381)--_Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet et la Chine, 1844-46_. Dufour's map is even better than Hodgson's, for he has adopted from the Jesuits' map a northern affluent to the Tsangpo, passing through the great range, which, like the Jesuits, he calls Mts. Koïran.

Huc and Gabet were probably the first Europeans to cross the Trans-Himalaya, and one wonders where they made the passage. Probably by the Shang-shung-la along the Mongolian pilgrim road from Kuku-nor and Tsaidam to Lhasa. It is vain to seek any information on the subject in Huc's famous book. During the two years Huc stayed in Macao he worked up the scanty notes he had made on his journey. He mentions Burkhan Bota, Shuga, and Tang-la, and also the large village Nakchu, where the caravans exchange their camels for yaks, but he says not a word about the pass by which he crossed one of the mightiest mountain systems of the world. He says, indeed, that he went over a colossal mountain range, and as its position agreed with that of the Mts. Koïran of Dufour and the Jesuits, he adopts this name, which he certainly had never heard on his journey, and which probably was changed on its way from Tibet to the Jesuits' note-books in Pekin. All he has to say of his journey over the Trans-Himalaya is contained in the following sentences: "La route qui conduit de Na-Ptchu à Lha-Ssa est, en général, rocailleuse et très-fatigante. Quand on arrive à la chaîne des monts Koïran, elle est d'une difficulté extrême" (ii. p. 241).

Another attempt to represent the course of the Trans-Himalaya was made by Trelawney Saunders in his map of Tibet (Map 6), which is found in Markham's _Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet, and of the Journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa_ (London, 1879), and in Edwin T. Atkinson's _The Himalayan Districts of the North-Western Provinces of India_ (Allahabad, 1882). Like Dufour and Hodgson, Saunders draws a huge continuous chain all through Tibet. For the western parts, north of Manasarowar, and for the eastern, south of Tengri-nor, he has relied on the cartography of the pundits; the rest, between 82° and 89½° E. long., is partly a reproduction of the Jesuits' map, partly pure fancy, and has not the remotest resemblance to the reality, as will be apparent from a comparison of Saunders' map with mine. I will only point out that the Trans-Himalaya consists not of one chain but of many, and that the source of the Chaktak-tsangpo lies to the south, not to the north of the principal one. All the central and largest part of the system, which I explored, is therefore quite incorrect on Saunders' map.

In the year 1867 Colonel Montgomerie (Illust. 380) sent out three pundits for the purpose of compiling a map of the country north of Manasarowar. One of them was the incomparable and wonderful Nain Sing, another was the man who was at Yiachan prevented from discovering the source of the Indus. On their way to Tok-jalung they crossed the Trans-Himalaya at the Jukti-la, which they called Gugti-la, assigning to it a height of 19,500 feet: I found its height was 19,070 feet. Mr. Calvert crossed the same pass a year before me. On their return they crossed the Trans-Himalaya by following the eastern branch of the Indus down to where it breaks through the range and unites with the Gartok branch.

A pundit also went between Manasarowar and Tok-jalung, past the Ruldap-tso--a name and lake I sought for east and west in vain, but I will not therefore deny its existence. Moreover, of this pundit's route I have no precise details. It seems likely that he crossed the Trans-Himalaya by a pass called Sar-lung.

On January 8, 1872, one of Montgomerie's explorers, a young trained Tibetan, travelled over the Trans-Himalaya by the Khalamba-la, 17,200 feet high. In Markham's account of this journey it is said that he returned across the mountains by the Dhok-la, though the actual water-parting pass he came to was much more probably the Dam-largen-la. This pass was crossed the following year (1873) by Nain Sing on his famous journey from Leh to Lhasa, which is described so conscientiously by Colonel Sir Henry Trotter. Nain Sing assigns to Dam-langren-la a height of 16,900 feet.

The great pundit A. K., or Krishna, who contends with Nain Sing for the foremost place, crossed the most easterly parts of the Trans-Himalaya on his journey in 1881, and more probably by the pass Shiar-gang-la than the Nub-kong-la, as I have already suggested; but from his map it is difficult to decide whether the Shiar-gang-la is a dividing pass of the first rank or not. In any case, it is situated on the chain which forms the watershed between the Salwin and the Brahmaputra, and is undoubtedly an immediate continuation of the Nien-chen-tang-la, or Trans-Himalaya. A similar assumption is also made by Colonel S. G. Burrard in his and Hayden's admirable work, _A Sketch of the Geography and Geology of the Himalaya Mountains and Tibet_ (Calcutta, 1907). On map xvii. in this work Burrard has, quite rightly in my opinion, inserted the prolongation of the range, though we have no sure data about its course.

Thus we find that after Father Huc several of Montgomerie's and Trotter's pundits, as well as Mr. Calvert in the year 1906, crossed the Trans-Himalaya in Tibet. So far as I know, there are only two more names to be added to these--namely, Littledale, who on his bold journey in 1894-95 passed over the system by the pass Guring-la (19,587 feet), and Count de Lesdain, who crossed it by the Khalamba-la in 1905. Both describe the magnificent spectacle Nien-chen-tang-la presents from Tengri-nor, but the latter added nothing to our knowledge of the Trans-Himalaya, for he made use of the same pass, the Khalamba-la, as Montgomerie's pundit. In his narrative, _Voyage au Thibet, par la Mongolie de Pékin aux Indes_, he mentions not a single pass, much less its name. But he followed the western shore of Tengri-nor, and he says (p. 340): "Des massifs de montagnes très durs et absolument enchevêtrés formaient un obstacle insurmontable. En conséquence, je résolus de suivre le premier cours d'eau, dont la direction ferait présumer qu'il se dirigeait vers le Brahmapoutra. C'est ainsi que nous cheminâmes plusieurs jours en suivant les bords d'une rivière sans cesse grossissante, appelée Chang-chu...." This river is the Shang-chu, which comes from the Khalamba-la.

Two Frenchmen and two Englishmen have, then, crossed the Trans-Himalaya before me, besides half a dozen pundits. Farther west in English territory innumerable Europeans have passed over the system, especially by the Chang-la, where I surmounted it three times. Between the Indus and the Panggong-tso I travelled over the system on November 22, 1907, by the easy pass Tsake-la.

An extraordinarily valuable contribution to the knowledge of the Trans-Himalaya was afforded us by Ryder and Wood on their remarkable journey up the Brahmaputra in the year 1904. They had no opportunity of crossing the system, or even of penetrating a day's journey into the southern transverse valleys, but they took bearings of all the summits visible from their route. And some of these, particularly Lunpo-gangri, are among the very highest which, under a mantle of eternal snow, rise up from the Trans-Himalaya. The absolutely highest is, according to Ryder, 23,255 feet, and is therefore little inferior to Nien-chen-tang-la with its 23,900 feet. Ryder and Burrard took it for granted that these summits stood on a single continuous range, which they represent on their map as the northern watershed of the Brahmaputra. In his text (p. 95), however, Burrard rightly points out that this chain, which he calls "the Kailas Range," is not the watershed, for in some places it is broken through by affluents from the north. Burrard commits the same mistake as Dufour, Hodgson, Saunders, and Atkinson, in assuming the existence of a single continuous range to the north of the Tsangpo. I pondered much myself over this problem, and on a general map of the ranges of Tibet (1905) I inserted two ranges north of the Tsangpo, a conception in accordance with F. Grenard's in his _Carte de l'Asie Centrale_ of the year 1899.

A history of geographical exploration in a region so little known as the Trans-Himalaya must naturally be exceeding short and meagre. With all my researches I have not been able to discover any other predecessors than those already mentioned--that is, in those parts of the system which lie within the bounds of Tibet--and not a single one in the central regions of the Trans-Himalaya. That such an extensive region as southern Tibet has been quite unknown till now, though it lies close to the Indian frontier, has given rise to much reasonable astonishment, and in many circles arguments and proofs, based on more or less apocryphal records and vague hypotheses, have been laboriously sought out to prove that my discoveries have not the priority claimed for them. The maps I have reproduced in facsimile, when carefully compared with my own maps, render any discussion on my part quite superfluous.

I cannot, however, pass over in silence an insinuation that the discoveries I have made are to be found indicated on the famous wall-maps in the Doge's Palace at Venice. The Chief Librarian of the Royal Library in Stockholm, Dr. E. W. Dahlgren, writes in a letter to me: "Only the grossest ignorance and silliness can find on these maps traces of any discoveries previous to yours." Before my return home Professor Mittag-Leffler, Director of the mathematical school in the University of Stockholm, had sent for photographs of these maps with a very detailed description, and he has kindly placed this material at my disposal. This book is not the place in which to publish it, and, besides, the following statement which Dr. Dahlgren has obligingly drawn up at my request makes all further comment unnecessary:

The Wall-Maps in the Sala dello Scudo, in the Doge's Palace at Venice

These maps, four in number, were constructed by the noted cartographer Giacomo Gastaldi in the middle of the sixteenth century, to take the place of older maps which were destroyed by fire in the year 1483; at least, it may be safely assumed that two of them, those of East Asia and Africa, are the work of Gastaldi.

The maps represent:

1. Asia from the mouth of the Indus eastwards to China and Japan, as well as the Pacific Ocean and part of America.

2. Asia from Asia Minor to India (Kashmir).

3. Africa.

4. Italy.

Only maps Nos. 1 and 2 have any interest for Sven Hedin. They correspond completely with the photographs procured by Professor Mittag-Leffler.

All the maps were restored by Francisco Grisellini about the middle of the eighteenth century. In map No. 2 great alterations seem to have been made in geographical details as well as in the text and in the decoration. As the map extends no farther east than Kashmir it has, of course, no connection with Sven Hedin's discoveries.

Map No. 1, on the other hand, has in many essential respects preserved its original character. We can undoubtedly form a good notion of its original appearance by comparing it with the maps in Ramusio's work _Delle Navigazioni e Viaggi_ (2nd Edition, Venice, 1554) and with Gastaldi's _Tercia Parte dell' Asia_ (Venice, 1561). The resemblance to the former is very striking. In these maps, as in the wall-maps, the south is to the top.

On all these maps there is very great confusion in the representation of the river systems of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. The mountains are drawn in at random, and even the Himalayas cannot be identified with complete certainty, much less the ranges of Central Asia. As the map was chiefly designed to illustrate the travels of Marco Polo, it naturally gives no information about countries he did not visit.

E. W. DAHLGREN.

Father Huc concludes the account of his journey with the following remarkable words: "Mais il ne suffit pas toujours du zèle de l'écrivain pour faire connaître des contrées où il n'a jamais mis le pied. Écrire un Voyage en Chine après quelques promenades aux factories de Canton et aux environs de Macao, c'est peut-être s'exposer beaucoup à parler de chose qu'on ne connaît pas suffisamment ... il est en général assez difficile de faire des découvertes dans un pays sans y avoir pénétré."

It was with such truths in my mind that I began the journey described in this book, the object of which was that set forth by Sir Clements Markham, when in connection with Littledale's last journey he made the following statement (_Geographical Journal_, vol. vii. p. 482): "In the whole length from Tengri-nor to the Mariam-la pass no one has crossed them (the Trans-Himalaya), so far as we know ... and I believe nothing in Asia is of greater geographical importance than the exploration of this range of mountains."

It is not for me to decide how far I have achieved my aim, but when I passed over the Trans-Himalaya for the eighth time at the Surnge-la, I had at least the satisfaction of seeing all the old hypotheses fall down like a house of cards, and a new ground-plan laid down on the map of Asia, where before the blank patch yawned with its alluring "Unexplored."

I have no space here for a complete monograph of the Trans-Himalaya, or, indeed, the material for it, until the bearings and heights of the peaks have been worked out, the rock specimens identified, and a detailed map constructed from the sheets I drew. It will take a couple of years to work up the material. I will here only communicate some general facts, and will begin by citing the passes of first rank as watersheds, appending the names of the travellers who have crossed some of them:

Shiar-gang-la Krishna, 1881 Shang-shung-la Huc, 1845 Dam-largen-la Nain Sing, 1873 16,903 feet. Guring-la Littledale, 1895 19,587 " Tsebo-la Shugu-la Khalamba-la Pundit, 1872 17,200 " Do. de Lesdain, 1905 Sela-la Hedin, 1907 18,064 " Chang-la-Pod-la Hedin, 1907 18,284 " Sha-la Angden-la Hedin, 1907 18,514 " Tsalam-nakta-la Dombe-la Nakbo-kongdo-la Sangmo-bertik-la Hedin, 1908 19,095 " Saggo-la Dicha-la Samye-la Hedin, 1908 18,133 " Dsalung-la Lungmar-la Pechen-la Lungnak-la Yor-la Ganglung-la Men-la Pedang-la Gebbyi-la Yilung-la Tarkyang-la Surnge-la Pundit? Hedin, 1908 17,310 feet Tseti-lachen-la Hedin, 1907 17,933 " Jukti-la Nain Sing, 1867 Do. Calvert, 1906 Do. Hedin, 1907 19,070 "

It has, then, been my lot to cross eight Trans-Himalayan passes, while seven have been crossed by other travellers. Seven of my passes were unknown before. Of the others I have seen the Dicha-la and Men-la, while of the remainder I have only gathered oral information. The Jukti-la is the watershed between the two headwaters of the Indus, the Tseti-lachen-la between the Sutlej and the Indus, the Surnge-la between the Sutlej and the Nganglaring-tso. Shiar-gang-la and Shang-shung-la lie on the watershed between the Salwin and the Brahmaputra. All the others lie on the great continental watershed between the ocean and the isolated drainage of the plateau. It appears from the list that all the passes crossed before by Europeans and pundits belong to the eastern and western parts of the system. Between the Khalamba-la and the Surnge-la the Trans-Himalaya had not been crossed in a single line, and it was exactly between these two passes that the great white space was situated. All that was known of it was the peaks fixed by Ryder and Wood, and some summits seen by Nain Sing from the north. If the Pundit's journey between Manasarowar and Ruldap-tso be disregarded, of which I have no information, the interval between the Khalamba-la and the Jukti-la measures 590 miles, or about as far as from Linköping to Haparanda, or from London to Dornoch Firth. And between these limits lie all the passes by crossing which I was able to trace the course of the Trans-Himalaya, and prove that its known eastern and western sections are connected and belong to the same mountain system, and that this system is one of the loftiest and mightiest in the world, only to be compared with the Himalayas, the Karakorum, Arka-tag, and Kuen-lun. Between the Shiar-gang-la and Yasin, not far from the sharp bend of the Indus, its length amounts to 1400 miles, but if it can be shown that the Trans-Himalaya merges into the Hindu-Kush and continues along the Salwin, its length extends to 2500 miles. On the north and south its boundaries are sharp and clearly defined; the northern is formed by the central lakes discovered by Nain Sing and myself, and the southern by the unheard-of Indus-tsangpo valley. In breadth it is inferior to the Himalayas, and its peaks are lower, but the heights of the Trans-Himalayan passes are considerably greater than those of the Himalayas. The average height of the five following Himalayan passes--Shar-khalep-la, Man-da-la, She-ru-la, No-la and Kore- or Photu-la--is 16,736 feet, while the average height of my first five Trans-Himalayan passes is 18,400 feet. It may be said generally that the dividing passes in the Trans-Himalaya of the first rank are 1600 feet higher than in the Himalayas. But the highest peak of the Himalayas, Mount Everest, with its 29,000, is 5100 feet higher than the Nien-chen-tang-la, the culminating point, as far as we know. Herewith are connected the different forms of relief predominating in the two systems; the crests of the Trans-Himalaya are flatter, its valleys shallower and broader, while the crests of the Himalayas are sharp and pointed, its valleys deep and much eroded. The former system is more compact and massive than the latter, as we may expect if we remember that the Himalayas are deluged by the precipitation of the south-west monsoon, and that its waters have for untold thousands of years degraded its valleys, while the Trans-Himalaya on the dry plateau country receives a comparatively insignificant share of the monsoon rain. Were it possible to compare the volumes of the two systems, we should no doubt find that the northern is much more massive than the southern, for such a comparison must proceed from sea-level, and though the Trans-Himalaya is the narrower of the two, its ascent begins from heights of 10,000 to 16,000 feet, from the Tsangpo valley, while the Himalayas rise from sea-level or a few hundred feet above it. As a watershed the Trans-Himalaya occupies a higher and more important place than the Himalayas. In the west the Himalayas parts the waters between the Indus and some of its tributaries, and in the east the system is a divide between the Brahmaputra and the Ganges. But every drop of water which falls on the Himalayas goes down to the Indian Ocean. On the other hand, all the central Trans-Himalaya is a watershed between the Indian Ocean on the south and the enclosed drainage area of the plateau depression on the north. Only in its western section is the Trans-Himalaya also a watershed between the Indus and some of its right-hand tributaries, and in its eastern between the Salwin and Brahmaputra. Within the boundaries of Tibet there is only one river which takes its rise from the northern flank of the Trans-Himalaya and breaks through the system by a transverse valley; but this river is a lion, and is called by the Tibetans the Lion river, the Singi-kamba or Indus. The Salwin also springs from the northern flank of the system, but finds its way to the ocean without passing through the mountains. All the other rivers rising on the northern slopes, of which the Buptsang-tsangpo and the Soma-tsangpo are the largest, flow into the undrained salt lakes on the north. Only in the central parts of the Trans-Himalaya, stretching, however, over a distance of nearly 600 miles, does the continental watershed coincide with the main axis of the system, for to the west the watershed runs northwards from the source of the Indus, and then westwards, so as to leave the Panggong-tso within the isolated drainage basin of Tibet, and in the east runs northwards from the region between the source streams of the Salwin and Tengri-nor.

I have called this book Trans-Himalaya, because the incidents and adventures described in these two volumes occurred in this huge mountain system lying to the north of the Tsangpo and in the country to the north and south of it. When I first crossed the dividing range at the Sela-la I thought of retaining the name Hodgson had assigned to it, that is, Nien-chen-tang-la, and I did not change my mind after crossing the Chang-la-Pod-la and Angden-la, for these three passes lie on one and the same range, which on the southern shore of Tengri-nor is called Nien-chen-tang-la. After crossing the Tseti-lachen-la and the Jukti-la I supposed that these passes lay on the western prolongation of the Nien-chen-tang-la, and that the conception of Hodgson, Saunders, Atkinson, Burrard, and Ryder was correct. But after the second journey right through Tibet, and after I had crossed Bongba in several directions and found that there was no question of a single continuous range, but that a whole collection of ranges quite independent of one another existed, I perceived that the name Nien-chen-tang-la, which only denotes one of all these ranges, could not be given to the whole system. Equally inappropriate would be the names Lunpo-gangri, Kamchung-gangri, Targo-gangri, or any other local name. Saunders' "Gangri Mountains" I consider still more unsuitable, for every mountain in Tibet clothed with eternal snow is called a _gangri_, and the name in this connection would have a meaningless sound. Neither could I accept Burrard's "The Kailas Range." A name must be found suited to the whole of this intimately connected association of mountain ranges, a geographical conception which would leave no room for misunderstanding, and I decided to call the whole system, the connection and continuity of which I had succeeded in proving, the Trans-Himalaya.

Among English geographers many have approved of this name and an equal number have disapproved. To the latter category belongs Colonel Burrard, who points out that for some years back all the regions lying beyond the Himalayas have been called Trans-Himalayan. And in a letter he has lately written to me he says:

Pupils of Montgomerie naturally ask why an old word should be given a new meaning when it is possible to invent any number of new names for newly discovered mountains. I do not see that it is necessary to give an important name to newly discovered mountains. A new name will become important because of the mountains to which it is attached, and your mountains would have rendered any new name important.

I cannot share Colonel Burrard's view, for I answer that just because of the circumstance that Montgomerie's pupils, officials of the Survey of India and pundits, have for fifty years and more called the country north of the Himalayas "The Trans-Himalayan regions," it was incumbent on me not to reject this name for the mountain system which can be nothing else but the Trans-Himalaya _par excellence_.

To give a quotation from the other side, I will here reproduce an expression of opinion from Lord Curzon, formerly Viceroy of India, whose knowledge of Asia is unsurpassed. In the _Geographical Journal_, April 1909, he says:

Alongside of this great discovery (Bongba and Chokchu) I would place the tracing for hundreds of miles and the assurance of a definite orographical existence to the mighty mountain palisade or series of palisades to which he has, in my opinion very appropriately, given the title of the Trans-Himalaya. This range has been surmised to exist in its entire length for many years; it has been crossed at its extremities by Littledale and by native surveyors. But it was reserved for Dr. Hedin to trace it on the spot and to place it upon the map in its long, unbroken, and massive significance.... It is no mean addition to human knowledge that we should realize the assured existence of one of the greatest mountain masses in the world. As regards the name which Dr. Hedin has given to it, I will only say that the desiderata for the title of a new and momentous geographical discovery appear to be these: (1) that the name should if possible be given by the principal discoverer; (2) that it should not be unpronounceable, unwriteable, over-recondite, or obscure; (3) that it should if possible possess some descriptive value; and (4) should not violate any acknowledged canons of geographical nomenclature. The name Trans-Himalaya combines all these advantages, and it has a direct Central Asian analogy in the Trans-Alai, which is a range of mountains standing in the same relation to the Alai that Trans-Himalaya will do to Himalaya. I am not in the least impressed by the fact that the name was once given to another range, where its unsuitability secured its early extinction. Any attempts to substitute another title on the present occasion will, in my opinion, be foredoomed to failure.

My long journey backwards and forwards over the Trans-Himalaya cannot be regarded as more than a cursory and defective reconnaissance of a country hitherto unknown. It is easier to go to Lhasa with a force armed to the teeth, and shoot down the Tibetans like pheasants if they stand in the way, than to cross Tibet in all directions for two long years with four Governments and all the authorities of the land as opponents, twelve poor Ladakis as companions, and not a single man as escort. It is no merit of mine that I was long able to maintain a position which from the first seemed untenable. The same lucky star looked down, as often before, on my lonely course through vast Asia, and it is twenty-four years since I first took up my pilgrim staff. I have been able to follow and lay down only the chief geographical lines; between my routes many blank spaces are still left, and there is sufficient detailed work for generations of explorers and travellers more thoroughly prepared and better equipped than myself.

Go, then, out into the world, thou ringing and sonorous name for one of the world's mightiest mountain systems, and find thy way into geographical text-books, and remind children in the schools of the snow-crowned summits on the Roof of the World, among which the monsoon storms have sung their deafening chorus since the beginning. As long as I live, my proudest memories, like royal eagles, will soar round the cold desolate crags of the Trans-Himalaya.