AN EXCURSION TO NYENYAM AND LAPCHE KANG
By a liberal interpretation of the expression "Mount Everest" we
considered it necessary to explore the surrounding country as far as a
hundred miles or more from the mountain, East, North and South; in all
directions, that is, excepting toward the forbidden territory of Nepal.
So it happened one day in July that Major Morshead and I, already nearly
fifty miles from Everest, set out in a South-westerly direction, he
anxious to add a few hundred square miles of new country to his map, and
I intent on animals and plants. Our way lay across the Tingri Plain to
Langkor, both names famous in the annals of Tibetan Buddhism. The
following story was told us by an old monk in the monastery at
Langkor:--
Many generations ago there was born in the Indian village of Pulahari a
child named Tamba Sangay. When he grew into a youth he became restless
and dissatisfied with his native place, so he went to visit the Lord
Buddha and asked him what he should do. The Lord Buddha told him that he
must take a stone and throw it far, and where the stone fell there he
should spend his life. So Tamba Sangay took a rounded stone and threw it
far, so that no one saw where it fell. Many months he sought in vain
until he passed over the Hills into Tibet, and there he came to a place
where, although it was winter, was a large black space bare of snow.
The people told him that the cattle walked round and round in that space
to keep it clear from snow, and in the middle of it was a rounded stone.
So Tamba Sangay knew that the stone was his, and there he made a cell
and dwelt until he was taken on wings to Heaven. And the place is called
Langkor, which means "the cattle go round," to this day. The people for
many miles about had heard the stone as it came flying over the Hills
from India; it made a whistling sound like _Ting_, so the country came
to be called Tingri, the Hill of the Ting.
We visited the Langkor monastery and saw the casket in which the stone
of Tamba Sangay is kept, only to be opened once a year by a high
dignitary from Lhasa. Close by was a fair-sized river, the bridge over
which had been carried away by a recent flood. The greater part of the
population was busily engaged in repairing the bridge, to the
accompaniment at frequent intervals of hideous blasts on a large
conch-shell: this, we were told, was to keep the rain away and stop the
floods. Rain fell heavily in spite of the noise, but the bridge was
finished before nightfall.
On the following day we had a long pull of many miles up to the Thung
La, a pass of 18,000 feet, from which we had hoped for fine views over
the surrounding country. A driving storm of snow blotted out the views
and covered the ground, so that nothing was to be seen but little
clumps, a few inches high, of poppies of the most heavenly blue. Going
down the steep track beyond the pass I was stopped by hearing the
unfamiliar note of a bird, so it seemed: the cry was almost exactly that
of a female peregrine when its eyrie has been disturbed, but coming from
a labyrinth of fallen rocks it could not be. Tracking the note from one
rock to another, I came suddenly within a few yards of a large marmot,
which sat up and waved her tail at me; she called again and two
half-grown young ones appeared close by; then all dived into a burrow.
These marmots are larger and far less timid of mankind than the marmots
of the Alps.
A few miles below the pass the valley widened into an almost level
bottom of half a mile or more, with steep bare limestone hills on either
side. Here and there were small hamlets, where the inhabitants used the
water of the river to irrigate their fields of barley and of blazing
golden mustard, whose sweetness scented the valley in the sunshine. Like
most of the butter, which is made in vast quantities in Southern Tibet,
the mustard seed produces oil for monastery lamps. At one place we came
across a spring, almost a fountain, bubbling out of the foothill, of
clearest sparkling mineral water that would be the envy of Bath or of
Marienbad; in a few yards it had become a racing stream a dozen feet in
width.
Four days of leisurely walking down the valley brought us to the village
of Nyenyam, where the whole population, a most unpleasant-looking crowd
of four or five hundred people, came out to stare at us. A few only were
Tibetans; the majority were obviously of Indian origin, calling
themselves Nepalese, but without any of the distinctive features of that
race. We had received some weeks earlier a cordial invitation from the
Jongpens of Nyenyam to visit the place, and we were accordingly much
disappointed to find that no person of authority came out to welcome us.
A Jongpen, it should be said, is an official appointed by the Lhasa
authorities to administer a district and collect revenues: in a place of
any importance, as at Nyenyam, there are often two, the idea being that
one will keep an eye on the other and prevent him from over-enriching
himself. We visited these worthies, whom we found dressed in priceless
Chinese silk gowns and cultivating the extreme fashion of long nails on
all their fingers, in strange contrast to the squalor and dilapidation
of their dwelling, and were annoyed to find that they denied all
knowledge of the invitation. The bearer of the message was produced and
lied manfully in their cause; the name of Nyenyam was not, as it
happened, mentioned in our passport, and we were made to look somewhat
foolish. Finally the Jongpens said (with their tongues in their cheeks
and reminding us of a vulgar song) that they were very glad to see us,
but they hoped that we would go. They then went out of their way to give
us false information about the local passes and made our prolonged stay
in the place impossible by discouraging the traders from dealing with
us.[15]
[15] In fairness it must be said that this was the only occasion on
which we met with anything but help and civility from Tibetan
officials.
Nyenyam, though more squalid and evil-smelling than any place in my
experience, is of some importance as being the last Tibetan town before
the frontier of Nepal is reached. It is well placed on a level terrace
above the junction of the Poe Chu with an almost equally big river
flowing from the glaciers of the great mountain mass of Gosainthan.
Immediately below the town the river enters the stupendous gorge that
cuts through the heart of the Himalaya to the more open country of
Nepal, 8,000 feet below. To the West of Nyenyam rises a great range of
mountains culminating in the beautiful peaks of Gosainthan, which we had
hoped to visit, and somewhere to the East lay the mysterious sacred
mountain of Lapche Kang. Our friends the Jongpens assured us that there
was no direct route to Lapche, that we must go back the way by which we
had come, and so on; but we were weary of their obstructions and made up
our minds to find a way to the holy places.
So far our transport animals had been the yak, or the cross-bred ox-yak,
a stronger beast; we were now going through country where only coolies
could carry loads. We retraced our steps a few miles up the valley to a
village ruled over by a friendly woman, the widow of the late headman.
True, she demanded for the coolies an exorbitant wage, which we cut down
by about a half, but she pressed into our service every able-bodied
person in the neighbourhood, young and old, men and women. They have a
fair and simple way of apportioning the loads. All Tibetans, men and
women alike, wear long rope-soled boots with woollen cloth tops
extending toward the knee, where they are secured by garters, long
strips of narrow woven cloth. When all the loads are ready, each person
takes off one garter and gives it to the headman, who shuffles them well
and in his turn hands them over to some neutral person who knows not the
ownership of the garters. He lays one on the top of each load, and whose
garter it is must carry the load without any further talk. It is amusing
to watch the excitement in their faces as the garters are dealt out, and
to hear the shrieks of delight of the lucky ones and the groans of the
less fortunate. It makes one feel weak and ashamed to see a small girl
of apparently no more than fourteen years shouldering a huge tent or an
unwieldy box, until one remembers that they begin to carry almost as
soon as they can walk and are accustomed to far heavier loads than ever
they carry for us.
Our path led us up a steep side-valley from the Poe Chu, ascending over a
vast moraine to the foot of a small glacier about two miles in length.
Here I saw a rare sight: a Laemmergeier (bearded vulture) came sailing
down in wide circles and settled on the ice barely a hundred paces from
us, where he began to peck at something--a dead hare perhaps, but it was
impossible to see or to approach nearer over the crevasses. The
Laemmergeier, vulture though it is, is one of the noblest birds in flight
that may be seen: hardly a day passes in the high mountains without one
or more swooping down to look at you, sometimes so near that you can see
his beard and gleaming eye; but to see one on the ground is rare indeed.
The long-tailed aeroplane at a very great height resembles the
Laemmergeier more than any other bird.
We struggled up the glacier, inches deep in soft new snow, crossed
crevasses by means of rotten planks which gravely offended our
mountaineering sense, and came through dense fog to our pass at its
head. Here began the sacred mountain of Lapche Kang, and on the rocks
beside the pass, and on many of the pinnacles high up above the pass as
well, were cairns of stones supporting little reed-stemmed flags of
prayers. Some of our party had brought up from below such little flags,
which they planted where their fancy prompted. As we went down on the
other side we came to countless little "chortens," miniature temples,
and, where the ground was level for a space, to long walls of stones,
each one inscribed with the universal Buddhist prayer OM MANI PADME HUM.
Yaks are most satisfactory beasts of burden; if their pace is slow--it
is seldom more than two miles an hour--they go with hardly a halt,
cropping a tuft of grass here and there, until daylight fails. But the
Tibetan coolie is of quite another nature; he (or she) starts off gaily
enough in the morning, but very soon he is glad to stop for a gossip or
to alter the trim of his load, and then it is time to drink tea, and
again at every convenient halting-place more tea, not the liquid that we
are accustomed to drink, but a curious mixture of powdered brick-tea,
salt, soda and butter, of a better taste than one would suppose. So on
this occasion it was long after noon when we had crossed the pass, and
when the day began to fade in a drenching cloud of rain, the Tibetans
found shelter in some caves, and persuaded us to camp. An uneven space
among rocks just held our tents; we dined off the fragrant smoke of
green rhododendron and soaking juniper, and we slept (if at all) to the
roar of boulders rolling in the torrent-bed a few feet from where we
lay.
But it was well that we had not stumbled on in the dark. In the morning
light we walked over grassy "alps" still yellow with sweet-scented
primulas, and the steep sides of the narrowing valley below were bright
with roses, pink and white spiraeas, yellow berberis and many other
flowers. Soon it became evident that we were approaching a place of more
than ordinary holiness; every stone had its prayer-flag, and the tops of
trees, which began to appear here, were also decorated. Great boulders
were defaced with the familiar words engraven on them in letters many
feet in height. In a little while we came to a small wooden hut filled
from floor to roof with thousands of little flags brought there by
pilgrims; the posts and lintel of the door were smeared with dabs of
butter, and the crevices of the walls were filled with little bunches of
fresh-cut flowers. Outside was a rude altar made of stones from the
river-bed, where a Lama was burning incense and chanting prayers.
[Illustration: TEMPLE AT LAPCHE KANG.]
We passed through the village, a tiny hamlet of a dozen houses, and came
to the celebrated temple of Lapche. A square stone wall, about 60 yards
each way, on the inner side of which are sheds to shelter pilgrims,
encloses a roughly paved courtyard where stands the temple, a plain
square building of stone with a pagoda-like roof surmounted by a
burnished copper ornament. There is nothing remarkable about the temple
excepting the hundred and more prayer wheels set in the wall at a
convenient height for the pilgrims to turn as they walk round the
building. Inside are countless Buddhas, the usual smell of smoky
butter-lamps, and an effigy of the saint. The whole place is dirty and
dishevelled, in the supposed care of one old woman and a monk, and
nobody would believe that this is one of the most famous places in the
country and that every year hundreds of Buddhists from India and from
all parts of Tibet make pilgrimage to it.
Mila Respa, poet and saint and (it is said) a Tibetan incarnation of
Buddha, spent his earthly life in this mountain valley, living under
rocks and in caves, where the faithful may see his footprints even now.
He seems to have been not lacking in a sense of humour. He was walking
with a disciple on the mountain one day, when they found an old yak's
horn lying in the path. Mila Respa told the disciple to pick it up and
take it with him. The disciple refused, saying that it was useless, and
passed on without noticing that the saint himself had picked up the horn
and put it under his cloak. Soon afterwards a mighty storm descended on
them--whether or not it was caused by the saint is not known. He took
the horn from under his cloak and crept inside it. "Now," said he, when
he was safely sheltered from the rain, "you see that nothing in the
world is useless."
We stayed for two days at Lapche Kang, picking flowers and enjoying the
beauty of the place, in spite of the clouds which swept up from the
South and filled the valley from early morning onwards. To a naturalist
it was a tantalizing place; there were many unfamiliar birds that we had
not seen in Tibet, but in such a sacred place I dared not offend the
people by taking life, and I even had some qualms in catching
butterflies. One of the prettiest sights I saw was a wall-creeper, like
a big crimson-winged moth, fluttering over the temple buildings in
search for insects.
Having found Lapche Kang, where no European had before penetrated, and
having placed it on the map, our next object was to go over the ranges
Eastward to the Rongshar Valley, the head of which had been visited by
members of the Expedition a few weeks earlier. This was accomplished in
two long days of rather confused climbing over two passes of about
17,000 feet, crossing sundry glaciers and stumbling over moraines, and
nearly always in an impenetrable fog. Our views of mountains were none
at all, but the beauty of the flowers at our feet was almost
compensation for that. Among many stand out two in particular, both of
them primulas. One was ivory-white, about the bigness of a cowslip, with
wide open bells and the most delicate primrose scent: the other carried
from four to six bells, each as big as a lady's thimble, of deep azure
blue and lined inside with frosted silver.[16]
[16] Both of these are new species; the former has been described as
_Primula Buryana_, the latter as _P. Wollastonii_.
As we went down the last steep slope into the Rongshar Valley, the
clouds parted for a few moments, and across the valley and incredibly
high above our heads appeared the summit of Gauri-Sankar,[17] one of the
most beautiful of Himalayan peaks, blazing in the afternoon sun. It was
a glorious vision, but it rather added to our regret for the views of
peaks that we might have seen. The next morning at daybreak the whole
mountain was clear from its foot in the Rongshar River (10,000 feet) up
through woods of pine and birch, to rhododendrons and rocks, and so by a
knife-edged ridge of ice to its glistening summit. It recalled to me the
Bietsch-horn more than any other Alpine peak, a Bietsch-horn on the
giant scale and seemingly impassable to man.
[17] Gauri-Sankar (23,440 ft.) was for many years confused with Mount
Everest, which is still misnamed Gauri-Sankar in German maps.
[Illustration: GAURI-SANKAR.]
The valley of the Rongshar, like the Nyenyam and other valleys we had
visited, though within the Tibetan border, is really more Nepalese in
character. The climate is much damper than in Tibet, as one can see by
the wisps of lichen on the trees and the greenness of the vegetation far
up the mountain sides, especially at this season of monsoon, when the
South wind blows dense clouds of drenching moisture through the gorges.
Like those valleys the Rongshar is sacred, which is inconvenient when
the question of food supply is pressing. The people had cattle and
flocks of goats; they would sell us an ox or a goat, but we must not
kill it within the valley, or ill-luck would come to them. They were a
friendly and good-tempered people, much given to religion. In many
places we had seen prayer wheels worked by water, but here for the first
time we saw one driven by the wind. Though it does not do much work at
night, it probably steals a march on the water wheels in winter, when
the streams are frozen.
We walked up the valley of Rongshar, which in July should be called the
Valley of Roses; on all sides were bushes, trees almost, of the deep red
single rose in bloom, and the air was filled with the scent of them.
After a journey of about 150 miles through unknown country we came to
the village of Tazang, which had been visited by some of us before.
Thence over the Phuese La (the Pass of Small Rats) we came into real
Tibet again, and so in a few days to the Eastern side of Mount Everest.