OVER THE CHANG-LA-POD-LA
We had stayed three days near the monastery Linga, when we went on
north-westwards on April 17 up the narrow My-chu valley, in which the
volume of water was now considerably diminished. Space does not permit
me to describe in detail this wonderful road and its wild beauty. From
the expansion of the valley at Linga routes run eastwards and westwards
into the mountains, with branches to numerous villages, of which I noted
down the names and approximate positions. The traffic is now much less,
but still numerous _manis_ and other religious symbols stand beside the
solitary path.
We ride along the steep slopes of the right bank; below us the river
forms rapids, and the way is dangerous, especially with a horse that is
not sure on its feet. Robert's small bay filly stumbled and fell, so
that the rider was thrown headlong to the ground. Had he rolled down the
slope he would have been lost; but fortunately he fell towards the
mountain.
We encamped in the village Langmar, consisting of a few scattered
houses, at the entrance of the small side valley Langmar-pu.
[Illustration: 190. HERMIT'S GROTTO NEAR THE CHANG-LA-POD-LA.]
We still have hired horses, and now yaks also, and the caravan is
divided into the same detachments as before. Sonam Tsering and Guffaru
command their sections. Tsering's party sets out last and is the last to
come to rest, and Muhamed Isa supervises the whole. In the evening he is
massaged by two men selected for the purpose, of whom Rehim Ali is one.
There is still _chang_, the harmless, but still intoxicating, beer.
Among the singers at the camp-fires, Tsering, as usual, deserves the
first prize. He gives me no end of amusement; he sings like a cow, or at
best like a burst temple drum. His voice cracks continually, and he
loses the time and the melody without being the least put out. But he
considers his singing very fine, and the others take pleasure in it; one
can tell from a distance that the tears are coming into his eyes.
Sometimes he pauses to explain the subject of the ballad and take a
drink, and then he goes on again. When all the others are asleep, and
all is so quiet in the camp that the rushing of the stream is audible
and from time to time the bark of a dog, Tsering's rough voice trilling
harshly still resounds among the mountains.
Next day we draw near to the main crest of the Trans-Himalaya, for to my
great surprise and delight we have been conducted in this direction.
Granite still predominates, and in it erosion has excavated the wild
forms of the valleys; the way is tolerably good, but very stony; small
strips of ice lie along both banks of the stream, within which the
bright green water fills the valley with the roar of its impetuosity.
The dark green of a kind of juniper called _pama_ is a relief to the
eyes, which otherwise perceive nothing but grey slopes of detritus.
The river here is named Langmar-tsangpo, but it is really only the upper
course of the My-chu. It is formed by the Ke-tsangpo coming from the
north and the Govo-tsangpo from the west. The former, called in its
upper course Ogorung-tsangpo, descends from the main watershed of the
Trans-Himalaya, and must therefore be considered the main stream. I was
told that its source may be reached in a day and a half from the
junction of the valleys. On the left bank of the Govo a thicket of
_pama_ shrubs grows, and a safe bridge of three arches spans the river.
Over this bridge runs the important trade route to Tok-jalung which I
have mentioned above. Herds of yaks and flocks of sheep graze on the
slopes, and circular penfolds remind us of our life in the Chang-tang. A
little farther up we cross the Govo, which is half frozen over; springs
and brooks from the side valleys adorn the scene with cascades of ice.
The river is said to be here so swollen in summer that it cannot be
crossed at any point. To the north and south snowy mountains are
visible.
In the village of Govo, consisting of seven stone houses, barley is
cultivated and yields a moderate crop; but the inhabitants are not
dependent on the harvest, for they also possess sheep, goats, and yaks,
with which they migrate northwards in summer. Govo is the last village
where agriculture is pursued, so we here find ourselves on the boundary
between tillage and grazing, and also between stone houses and black
tents (Illust. 182).
We have, then, still time to look into an ordinary Tibetan stone hut
belonging to a family in comfortable circumstances. The walls are built
of untrimmed bare stones, but the crevices are stopped with earth to
keep out the wind. Through a labyrinth of walls and over round stones
where the tripping foot seldom touches the ground we come to two yards
where goats and calves are kept. In a third is a loom, at which a
half-naked coppery-brown woman is working, and in a fourth sits an old
man engaged in cutting up _pama_ shrubs.
From this yard we entered a half-dark room, with a floor of mud, and two
openings in the roof, through which the smoke escapes and the daylight
enters. The roof consists of beams overlaid with a thatch of brushwood,
which is covered all over with soil and flat stones--it must be nice and
dry when it rains. There sat an elderly woman telling off her _manis_ on
a rosary of porcelain beads.
The next room is the kitchen, the general living-room and the principal
apartment of the house. At a projecting wall stands the stone
cooking-range with round black-edged holes for saucepans and teapots of
baked clay. A large earthen pot, standing on the fire, contains barley,
which is eaten parched; a stick with a stiff piece of leather at the end
is twirled round in the barley between the palms so that it may be
roasted equally. It tastes delicious.
I went about, turned over all the household utensils and made an
inventory, and not in Swedish only, but also in Tibetan. There were many
different vessels of iron, clay, and wood for all kinds of purposes, a
large wooden ladle, a tea sieve of sheet-iron, an iron spoon, an ash
shovel, iron fire-tongs, and a thing called a _thagma_, an iron blade
fitted into a piece of wood, something like a closed pocket-knife, and
used to dress newly woven material. A large clay jug was filled with
_chang_. A small cubical vessel divided into four by small cross pieces
of wood is used to measure corn. Brick-tea is pulverized with a stone
shaped like a cucumber in a deep wooden cup. A knife-blade with a haft
at either end is used in preparing and tawing hides. Under one of the
smoke vents stood a small hearth for an open fire with an iron tripod. A
large leathern sack was filled with _tsamba_, and two sheep's stomachs
held fat and butter. On a rack a quantity of sheep's trotters, dusty and
dirty, were arranged; when they are several months old they are used to
make soup, which is thickened with _tsamba_. Tea, salt, and tobacco are
kept in large and small bags.
We saw likewise all kinds of religious objects, votive bowls,
joss-sticks, and small image cases; also bales of home-woven textiles,
coloured ribands for sewing on skin coats and boots, knives, hatchets,
sabres and spears, which, we were told, are for fighting thieves and
robbers; a pair of bellows, two sacks of dry dung for fuel, baskets,
hand-mills for grinding barley, consisting of two round flat stones with
a handle on the upper one; lastly, an oil-lamp and an oil-can, and a
cylindrical tub with iron hoops full of water. In a corner lay heaps of
skins and garments, and against the wall were two sleeping-places still
in disorder.
In another store-room there were provisions in sacks, barley, green
fodder, peas, and great joints of meat. Here three young women and a
troop of children had taken refuge; we left them room to escape, and
they ran away screaming loudly as if all the knives in the house were at
their throats. In the room were balances for weighing, consisting of a
rounded staff with a stone weight at one end and a dried yak hide at
the other. Behind a partition straw was kept. There are high
inconvenient thresholds between the rooms, and the usual bundles of rods
on the roof to protect the house from evil spirits.
After this expedition we inspected the tents of our escort, where a fire
was burning in a broken clay pot, and a skillet stood over it on a
tripod. The smoke escapes through the long slit between the two halves
of which the tent is composed. The owners of the tent were writing their
report to the authorities in Shigatse, informing them that we were on
the right road. At the same time they were eating their dinner of
mutton, a year old, dry and hard; it must not come near the fire. One of
them cut it into strips and distributed it among his comrades. He had
been for twenty years a lama in the monastery Lung-ganden in Tong, but a
few years before had been ejected from the confraternity because he had
fallen in love with a woman. He spoke of it himself, so it was doubtless
true.
Robert's bay horse was reported dead on the morning of April 20. His
late tumble now seemed to us like an omen; though fat and sleek, he died
suddenly about midnight. We now ride on again towards higher regions
over uncomfortable blocks of stone, but the valley becomes more open and
the relative heights diminish. Though the little that is left of the
stream still swirls and foams, the ice becomes thicker, and at last
covers almost all the bed, and the water is heard rushing and murmuring
under it. Juicy moss skirts the banks, the view becomes more extensive,
and the whole character of the landscape becomes alpine. We saw ten men
with guns in a sheepfold, carrying gun-rests with yellow and red
pennants on one of the prongs; perhaps they were highway robbers. Dark
clouds sweep over the ridges, and in a minute we are in the midst of
icy-cold drifting snow, but it does not last long.
The last bit of road was awful, nothing but boulders and débris, which
we could sometimes avoid by riding over the ice of the river. The
camping-ground was called Chomo-sumdo, a valley fork in a desolate
region, but the escort had seen that some straw and barley were brought
up on yaks for our horses.
From here we had to ride on the ice, smooth and firm after 27 degrees of
frost in the night. The neighbourhood is not, however, uninhabited, for
yaks and sheep were seen grazing in many places, belonging to nomads
migrating northwards or merchants coming from Tok-jalung. At two black
tents the people were packing up for the day's march; they had goats,
with strips of red cloth bound round the ears.
A little farther up is a precipitous rock on the right side of the
valley, and two caves open their black mouths in the wall. The lower one
(Illust. 190) is the entrance to a passage leading to the upper, where a
famous hermit has fixed his solitary abode. The upper opening has a
partly natural balcony decorated with streamer-poles and ribands. Below
the lower stand _mani_ cairns, long garlands of string with coloured
prayer-strips, a prayer-mast, and a metal idol in a niche of the rock.
We tethered our horses at the edge of the ice and went up to the lower
grotto. Here two young nuns from Kirong (on the border of Nepal) met us,
and two mendicant monks from Nepal, one of whom spoke Hindustani, so
that Robert could converse with him. The nuns were pretty, well-grown,
sun-burnt, and somewhat like gypsies; their large black eyes had the
shimmer of velvet, and their black hair was parted on the forehead and
fell in luxuriant waves over their shoulders; they were clothed in red
rags and wore Tibetan boots adorned with red ribands. They spoke
cheerfully and pleasantly in strikingly soft, extremely sympathetic
voices, and were not in the least timid. Their simple dwelling, which we
saw, was in the great entrance of the grotto, under a smoke-blackened
vault, surrounded by a small wall and a palisade of _pama_ branches, and
partly hung with cloth. A sleeping-place was made of rugs of interwoven
strips of cloth, and a tea-kettle was boiling on the fire. One of the
men had a thick pigtail and a red lama frock; the other wore a
sheepskin, and had not had his hair cut in the present, twentieth,
century. The dwelling proper was situated in a higher part of the
cavern.
All four had come in autumn, and were waiting for the warmer season to
proceed to Lhasa, and return thence home again. In the meantime they
voluntarily waited on the two holy hermits sojourning in this mountain,
and thereby earned their living and gained merit, according to the ideas
of their order. When they go off again on their wanderings, other
serving brethren and sisters will be found ready to take their place.
A winding staircase on the left, partly natural and partly constructed
of flagstones, leads to the upper regions of the cavern. At first it is
dark, but becomes lighter as we approach a loophole in the rock. Here
and there are streamer-poles, and the holy syllables are incised. From
the loophole the staircase turns steeply to the right; if we slipped on
the smooth stone we should tumble down right into the nuns' kitchen,
which from here looks like the bottom of a well. The passage ends at a
point where a small stone staircase goes up to a trap-door covered with
a slab. Pushing aside the slab, one reaches the larger grotto chamber of
which we had seen the opening from the valley. But the serving brothers
and sisters would not take us so high.
In this upper grotto, Choma-taka, the 100-years-old hermit, Gunsang
Ngurbu, of high repute in all the country for his holiness, has dwelt
for seven years. Gunsang means hermit, and Ngurbu is a very common name
signifying precious stone. Every seventh day his attendants place
_tsamba_, water, tea, and fuel on the steps under the trap-door, and
these things are taken in by the old man, who may not speak with men,
but only with the gods. Through a hole under the slab I caught sight of
a _chhorten_ constructed of stones and mud, and some painted pictures of
gods on the wall of the grotto. Behind the _chhorten_, and unfortunately
out of sight, the old man sat in a niche in the wall, crouching down and
saying his prayers; now and then he blows a shell horn.
[Illustration: 191. ROBERT AND RABSANG BY THE ICE ON THE WAY TO THE
CHANG-LA-POD-LA.]
[Illustration: 192. A LHADSE DECKED WITH MANI-STONES AND
PRAYER-STREAMERS.
(N.W. of the Kore-la.)]
I wished to push aside the shutter and mount into the upper grotto, but
the consciences of my companions would not permit such a thing for
all the money in the world. It would disturb the old man in his
meditations, and interrupt the period of his seclusion, and, moreover,
the old man would throw stones at us. The life of the hermit Ngurbu must
be idyllic compared to that of the immured Linga monks, for he sees the
valley, the sun, the whirling snow, and the stars sparkling in the sky;
but he must suffer from ennui. In another grotto, side by side with
Ngurbu's, lives another hermit, but the two have never met and know
nothing of one another. They may eat no meat, only _tsamba_ and tea, and
they receive these from the neighbouring nomads and the travellers
passing along the road.
After this digression we cross the ice of the river again and pass up
over the ever-present detritus. Before us is the flattish saddle of the
Chang-la-Pod-la. We accomplish the ascent with great effort, the icy
wind blowing right in our faces. I cannot commence my observations at
the cairn till I have warmed my hands over a dung fire. The view is
limited, flat, and of little use for orientation. However, towards the
way we have come, we can see the deeply eroded valleys, and we seem to
be higher than the ridges enclosing them. The height is 18,284 feet.
Chang signifies north, north country; Pod or Pö, Tibet, _i.e._ Tibet
proper, chiefly inhabited by a settled population. Chang-la-Pod-la is,
then, the pass between the northern tableland of the nomads and the
country to the south having drainage to the sea. It is this property of
a boundary between these two regions which renders the Trans-Himalaya of
such prime importance, and therefore there are many passes called
Chang-la-Pod-la. Often and often I was told that a pass, whatever might
be its especial name, was a Chang-la-Pod-la when it lay on the watershed
between the inland drainage of the north and the river basin of the
Tsangpo in the south. I had then crossed the Trans-Himalaya a second
time by a pass lying 44 miles to the west of the Sela-la, and had been
able to ascertain that the huge range of the Nien-chen-tang-la extends
thus far. It was still more my earnest desire to follow it step by step
to the west.
After we had encamped on the pass, where the thermometer fell at night
to -9½°, we rode on April 22 slowly down the valley of the Shak-chu
river, which gradually becomes broader, and is begirt by flat rounded
mountains, in which rock _in situ_ seldom occurs. We have passed from
the maze of mountains intersected by the affluents of the My-chu,
abundantly fed by the rains, on to the wide plains of the plateau
country, and notice again that the Trans-Himalaya is also an
extraordinarily important climatological boundary.
The Lapsen-Tari is a heap of clods with a sheaf of rods stuck in the
middle, from which streamer strings are carried to other rods. From this
point there is a fine view over the plateau and its wreath of mountains.
To the north, 55° west, we see the Targo-gangri again, but more
majestic, more isolated, and more dominant than from the Ngangtse-tso,
where, shrouded in clouds and surrounded by other mountains, it was less
conspicuous.
Just at the mound we passed the last corner which obscured the view, and
suddenly the whole grand mountain appeared in its dazzling whiteness,
shining like a lighthouse over the sea of the plateau, in a mantle of
firn fields and blue glistening ice, and rising bold and sharply against
the sky of purest azure blue. The mound is therefore placed where the
traveller coming from Shigatse first comes in sight of the holy
mountain. Our guides bared their heads and murmured prayers. Two
pilgrims, whom we had seen at the grotto of the hermits, lighted a fire
and threw into it a scented powder, an offering of incense to the gods
of Targo-gangri. South and south-west runs a lofty range, of uniform
height, with patches of snow glittering in the sun on its
brownish-purple summit--another part of the Trans-Himalaya.
As we sat here a trading caravan came along the road to Penla-buk, which
lies on the west side of the Dangra-yum-tso, and is a rendezvous for
gold-prospectors and wool-dealers. Our tents formed a little village on
the Kyangdam plain, where wild asses abound, and some sixty nomads of
the neighbourhood encamped around it.
In the evening the escort from Ghe presented themselves to inform me
that as we were now in the Largep district, subject to the Labrang, they
would return home and consign us to a new guard. The latter consisted of
five men far advanced in life. Their leader was a small grey-headed man
with trembling hands and very indistinct enunciation. When the Ghe men,
who longed to return to their warmer villages, had gone off next morning
in spite of a violent storm, I had a serious talk with the new men. They
intended to lead us over the pass Sha-la (Trans-Himalaya) in the
south-west, where the Targo-tsangpo rises, on the banks of which we had
passed the day. According to Nain Sing's map this river flows round the
east side of Targo-gangri, and then enters the Dangra-tso, as the holy
lake is called here. But Nain Sing was never there, and I wished to gain
an insight into the geography of the country. So we came to an agreement
that we should travel north-westwards; and I pointed out to the men that
Raga-tasam was put down in our passport as the next place; that two
roads led thither, one over the Sha-la, the other deviating northwards
to the Targo-gangri, and that I had chosen the latter. The passport
prohibited us from visiting Lhasa, Gyangtse, and the monastery
Sekiya-gompa, but contained not a single word about the road to the
Dangra-yum-tso. They ought then to comply with my wishes. The old man
hesitated, pondered awhile, and summoned his followers to a council. His
tent was soon full of black, bare-headed men in grey sheepskins. Then
the consultation was adjourned to Muhamed Isa's tent. After some
consideration they agreed to my proposals, on the condition that I
should pay them a whole _tenga_ per day for each yak instead of half a
_tenga_. I rejoiced at the hope of seeing the holy mountain coming
closer and closer, and its finer details becoming more conspicuous, of
beholding it in cloud and sunshine, disappearing behind the hills and
peeping out again like a man-of-war in a rough sea with high white waves
round the bow, or, more correctly, like a ship under full sail on the
sea of the plateau. Of course I exposed myself to annoyances by ignoring
the passport, but geographical discoveries were concerned and all
considerations must be set aside.
On Vega day, April 24, we had a strong wind in our faces, it was cold,
and Targo-gangri partly disappeared behind the clouds. Escorted by the
old gentleman and four horsemen who were as much alike as if they had
been cast in the same mould, and who had all matchlocks on their backs,
I rode along the bank of the Targo-tsangpo in the contracting valley
which slopes with an extremely gentle gradient, imperceptible to the
eye, to the lake. At last the valley becomes so narrow that the ice
fills all its bottom. The road therefore leaves the river on the left,
and passes over flat hills, among which we cross a succession of small
affluents. Black tents, tame yaks grazing, stone folds for sheep, wild
asses, and millions of field mice recall to mind the Chang-tang. The
wild yak, however, does not occur in this country. The feathered kingdom
is represented by ravens, wild ducks, and occasionally a small bird.
When we came to the Bumnak-chu, a right-hand tributary of the
Targo-tsangpo, a large number of men came to meet us, saluting with the
tongue, and gazing at us cheerfully and good-temperedly with their long
black unkempt hair, their small grey skins, and their torn boots.
On April 25 we rode over the Ting-la pass; at its foot is a _mani_ in
good preservation, with a yak skull as ornament, a form of prayer being
incised in the frontal bone between the horns. From the top of the pass
Targo-gangri is seen expanded into a row of peaks covered with snow. The
whole region is like a sea with a strong swell on, and the Targo-gangri
is as white foaming surf on the coast. A little later the summits of the
mass stood clearly out white on a background of bluish-black clouds; the
highest two, twin peaks, had the form of a Tibetan tent on two poles.
Our camp in the Kokbo valley contained not fewer than eleven tents, for
now we had about forty companions of all ages, and at least a hundred
yaks. The loads were transferred to other yaks on the march to spare the
animals. When the caravan moves over the rounded hills it is like a
nomad tribe on the march. Most of our Tibetans ride yaks or horses.
We had made a short march, and plenty of time was left for me to go
about, make a visit to each tent, and see how the men were getting on.
They were all drinking tea and eating _tsamba_, their greatest pleasure
in life. The dung fire burns in the middle, and the form of the tent
certainly is the cause of the draught which prevents smoke from
collecting inside. Round about stand kettles, teapots, and wooden cups.
A huge quantity of provisions lies at the sides. Saddles and harness are
deposited in a row before the tent. When I enter, all rise, but I beg
them to sit down again and go on eating, while I take a seat on a barley
sack at the door of the tent. All have the right arm bare, and many both
arms; when they let their sheepskins fall down their backs the whole
body is naked down to the waist. They are copper-brown and covered with
a layer of dirt, but well-grown, powerful, manly, and in good
proportion. The cook of the tent community pours out tea for all, and
then each one brings out his own bag and takes out a pinch of _tsamba_
to sprinkle into his tea. They eat meat either raw or boiled in a pot.
They are all quiet and orderly, no angry words are heard, no quarrelling
and shouting, they are all the best of friends, and make themselves
comfortable after their day's march, talking and laughing together.
Their wigs are dust-traps and make them look like Indians. Most of them
wear a pigtail, consisting mostly of plaited threads with white bone
rings and small silver image boxes which have a couple of turquoises
inlaid in the lid. Some have the pigtail wound round the head, forming a
singular crown, the diadem of the wilderness.
In another tent the dinner was finished and the "covers" were empty.
There a man sat with an awl, cobbling a torn boot; another sewed the
girths of his saddle on firmly; and a third lay on his back, with legs
crossed and an arm supporting his head, and took his after-dinner nap.
Seen from above he makes a very absurd figure with his huge nostrils,
into which mice might easily walk in mistake for their holes. A smirking
youth is smoking his pipe, while his neighbour busily and carefully
searches for suspected lodgers in his sheepskin.
I drew several of them without exciting the least uneasiness; on the
contrary, they made a joke of the sitting, and laughed heartily when
they saw their counterfeits, which they embellished with prints of their
buttery fingers on the margin. They asked me why I drew them, and for
what purpose I wished to know their names and ages. They were all
sympathetic, polite, and friendly, and I enjoyed their society (Illusts.
193, 194).
A begging lama, too, looked in; he was on the way to Kailas, and was
quickly sketched, to the intense amusement of the other men. He bore a
lance with a black tassel and red strips, a timbrel, an antelope horn to
protect himself against snappy dogs, and a trombone of human bone, which
he set in a corner of his mouth when he blew it. It caused him much
amusement to be the object of universal attention, and he took advantage
of it to make acquaintance with the nomads with a view to an appeal to
their liberality (Illust. 195).
[Illustration: 193, 194. NOMADS SOUTH OF TARGO-GANGRI.]
[Illustration: 195. MENDICANT LAMA BLOWING ON A HUMAN BONE.]
[Illustration: 196. TIBETAN BOY.
Sketches by the Author.]