THE RAGA-TSANGPO AND THE MY-CHU
On April 3 we journeyed steadily along the way to the west by smiling
villages and small convents, and again we approached the bank of the
Tsangpo, at a place where a swaying rope-bridge is stretched between two
loose blocks on the banks. Here the river forms rapids, and above this
point it is only 50 yards broad, often still less, and the valley above
the Yeshung expansion is narrow and confined. From the village Pusum,
where we encamp, is seen the mountain Nayala, one of the fixed points in
Ryder's triangulation. His and Rawling's expedition travelled to the
south of the Tsangpo, and it would be two months more before I should
first come in contact with their route. The river will rise a month
longer in consequence of the melting of ice in the higher parts of its
course in the distant west.
The village Pusum lies on a steep terrace above the river. Cones of
detritus descend to the bank, and steep mountains rise on the southern
side. The valley is narrow and quite straight, so that Pinsoling, the
end of the next day's march, can be seen from Pusum; it is perched on
its rocky promontory like a castle on the Rhine. The path passes over
steep disagreeable slopes of pebbles. Only grey and red granite, with
black schist, is seen both in the solid rock and in the débris.
Almost immediately south of Chagha, a village of a couple of stone
houses in a grove of old willows, the monastery and dzong of Pinzoling
appear on the right bank. The river is narrow, and the bank full of
round granite boulders a yard in diameter, so the necessary material
for a bridge is at hand. Two huge pyramids of stone are erected on the
banks, and two smaller ones behind them. Two thick chains are stretched
between them, which pass on to the smaller pyramids, and are made fast
again to them. Between the chains a network of ropes is stretched like a
hammock, and on this narrow planks are laid; on these passengers walk,
using the chains as hand-rails. The Pinzoling bridge has not been used
for three years; any one who wants to cross to Pinzoling from Chagha
must go upstream to Ladse-dzong and make use of the ferry there. I
inquired how old the bridge was. "As old as the monastery," was the
answer. "And how old is the monastery?" A villager answered at random,
"A thousand years." Another said that this was an exaggeration, for the
monastery had been founded two hundred and fifty years ago by a lama
named Yitsyn Tara Nara. Two hundred monks belong to the monastery of
Pinzoling, but half of them had gone on their travels. An official of
the dzong, with the title of Dsabo, lived in Chagha, and examined our
passport (Illustration 180).
The river was at its lowest level, but during high-water it is said to
come up to the chains of the bridge, which seems to me improbable, for
they hang fully 6 feet above the surface of the water at their lowest
part. A channel remains open in the middle of the river even in cold
winters. Boats reach the side valley in which Shigatse lies in four to
five days, but during the summer in two or three days, for then the
river flows down with tremendous velocity. It is considered less
dangerous to travel in a high flood, for then the boats glide smoothly
over boulders and sandbanks, and it is said that a man is very seldom
drowned, or a boat's cargo lost.
Black and dark-purple mountains rise around the village, their surface
only visible in some places in strips between belts of drift-sand; they
are like tiger skins. Near a ridge to the south-west lies a large dune
as though it were attached to it.
The order of the day for April 5 was that Muhamed Isa with the hired
animals and the baggage should encamp at the point where the
Raga-tsangpo flows into the upper Brahmaputra. The rest of us rode up to
a small pass, Tsukchung-chang, on a spur of the mountains which extends
to the bank of the main river. From the summit there is a grand view
over the main valley and its stream, which meanders over gravel and sand
in two arms. Below we caught sight of mule caravans, mere specks, but
their bells filled the valley with their noise. The way runs headlong
down to the valley bottom so that we had to engage extra men to carry
the baggage, with which the horses could not clamber down the
precipitous slopes. Large dark fish swam in a stopped-up arm of the
river, and here sat Shukkur Ali with his rod. Sand-dunes ten feet high
are a common occurrence, and on the steep side, turned from the wind,
that is, the east side, pools are often formed.
To the south-west opens a large portal with shelving mountains in the
background and short side valleys, the whole forming a beautiful scene.
Through this portal the Brahmaputra comes down towards the Raga-tsangpo,
but this river is known here in its lowest course by the name Dok-chu,
while the main river is known as the Dam-chu (= Tamchok). At the
confluence no tents were to be seen, and Muhamed Isa told me afterwards
that he could not stay there as the country was quite barren. We
therefore rode up the Dok-chu valley to the village Tangna, consisting
of ten stone houses. The inhabitants cultivate peas, wheat, and barley,
but cannot count with certainty on a harvest.
I would on no account miss seeing the confluence of the two rivers, and
therefore ordered my men to descend the Dok-chu valley next day to this
point. But the escort would not hear of it. It was clearly stipulated in
the passport that we must not go backwards and forwards as we liked, but
must march straight to Ladak. At last they yielded under the condition
that the excursion should not last more than one day.
In the morning Muhamed Isa took the boat and the oars down to the river,
while ropes, stakes, axes, poles, and provisions were carried by Ladakis
down to the confluence by the way we had come the day before. On
arriving at the bank I found the boat already put together, and took my
seat in it with a Tibetan who was familiar with the river and handled
the oars as skilfully as though he had done nothing else all his life,
but he was accustomed to steer his own boat between the banks at Tangna,
and knew the channel downstream.
Our voyage through the rapids is exciting and adventurous. The fall of
the river is by no means uniform, but changes from place to place,
roaring rapids alternating with deep quiet basins. Large and small
boulders have fallen into the river from the mountain flanks and
sometimes it seems impossible to get through them. But the oarsman knows
how to steer the boat. We hear the roar of the next rapid from a
distance, and keep a sharp look-out in front. Some of our Ladakis run
along the path on the bank and warn us of serious dangers.
[Illustration: 181. GROUP OF TIBETANS IN THE VILLAGE OF TONG.]
[Illustration: 182. INHABITANTS OF THE VILLAGE OF GOVO.]
The boat rushes flying downstream. The boatman sits silent with his
teeth clenched and his feet firmly planted against the bottom, and
grasps the oars so tightly in his horny hands that the knuckles become
white. We had passed successfully several rapids and were gliding
pleasantly over a reach of smooth water, when we heard the warning roar
of the next rapids, this time louder than ever, and two Ladakis stood
shouting and gesticulating. I got up in the boat and saw that the
Dok-chu split into two arms, and that the water dashed foaming among
dark sharp-edged boulders. The place looked impassable, the intervals
between the boulders seemed much too narrow for the boat, which might
any moment have its bottom torn by treacherously hidden stones; over
some of these the water poured in bright-green hillocks, and then was
scattered into foaming spray. "I shall be glad if all goes well," I
thought, but I left the boatman to his own devices. We were soon in the
sucking current, which endures no resistance, and flew quicker and
quicker towards the two rapids. With powerful strokes the oarsman forced
the boat to enter the left branch. The Ladakis stood speechless on the
bank, and waited till we were wrecked to wade into the rapids and rescue
us. Now we dashed towards the first block, but the boatman guided his
boat into the deepest water and let it slip down a small waterfall,
after which we received a thrust from the other side. Now the channel
became broader but also shallower, and we grazed the bottom, fortunately
only with the keel and without springing a leak. The current was strong
enough to carry us away over stones and rubbish.
After a while the two arms re-unite and the river becomes smooth and
deep. The boatman has never changed countenance, and now he helps on
with the oars. We are on the north side of the valley, and just at the
bend where the river turns southwards the water rages and boils more
furiously than ever, and here the undaunted boatman declares that we can
go no farther. I hold my breath at the sight of the white foaming water
which breaks over the threshold of the fall; the boat will be carried
away in a second by the suction of the water and will be infallibly
capsized. But just at the right moment the boatman steers our nutshell
aside into a bay with a back current, and we are able to land. The
Ladakis hurry up, draw the boat ashore, and set it afloat again below
the waterfall.
Now we float pleasantly past the steep rocky walls of the southern bank,
where the depth is sometimes 5 feet, and sometimes less than a foot. I
have a pole and help to hold off the boat from the bank. Again we are
carried to the northern side of the valley and dance and rock through a
series of small lively rapids, usually quite deep enough. Now and then
we graze the bottom, but the wooden keel resists the thumps. Below a
gigantic boulder lying in the middle of the stream is a sucking
whirlpool, into which we nearly stumble, but we get past safely, and at
last arrive at the point where the Dok-chu pours its snow-fed waters
into the flood of the Brahmaputra.
The tributary here forms a delta with two branches between gravelly
banks 5 feet high. A post was driven in on the left bank of the main
arm, to which we fastened one end of a rope, with the other end I rowed
over to the right bank, where the rope was fastened to another post. The
breadth was 59 yards. Then I measured the depth at eleven points at
equal distances apart, and found that it did not exceed 3-1/3 feet. The
velocity was measured on the surface, half-way down, and at the bottom,
with Lyth's current meter. Taking the breadth and the average velocity
we arrive at the discharge, which in the two arms of the Dok-chu
amounted to 1165 cubic feet per second.
Where the two streams unite the Dok-chu is rapid and tumultuous, the
Brahmaputra slow, deep, and quiet. Its breadth was 50 yards and its
maximum depth 15.3 feet; the bed is therefore narrow and very deeply
excavated. The discharge amounted to 2966 feet in the second, or two and
a half times that of its tributary the Dok-chu.
When I had finished this work, our friends Tso Ting Pang and Lava Tashi
accompanied me on a short excursion down the main stream, and then we
landed on a promontory where our men lighted a fire and served up the
best provisions we had, namely, hard-boiled eggs, slices of cold
chicken, and milk. A cordial and mixed party, a Swede among Tibetans,
Chinamen and Ladakis, we partook of our late dinner amidst the grandest,
and most boldly sculptured landscape conceivable. While the others
smoked their pipes and sipped their greasy tea, I drew a sketch of the
mighty gate of solid granite through which the Brahmaputra rolls its
volumes of water on its way to the east, to the valley of the Dihong and
the plains of Assam. We should have liked to stay here longer, watching
how moment after moment the insatiable stream gathers in its abundant
tribute from the Dok-chu, but it was growing dark and we had a long way
to go back, so we packed up our boat and stowed it on hired horses with
the other baggage, mounted into the saddle, and rode up the valley. As
had often happened before, we were to-day overtaken by the darkness.
Rabsang went in front with a Tibetan on either side, and all three
bellowed as loud as they could. All were in excellent spirits, it was so
fresh and pleasant under the twinkling stars, and the merry singers,
accompanied by the jingle of the bells on the Chinese horses, awoke a
shrill echo in the recesses of the mountains. At a dangerous place near
a village, where the road runs above the river over a ledge built up of
stones, men came to meet us with paper lanterns, and soon after we sat
resting in our tents after a hard but very instructive day's work. Next
day we marched gently up the Dok-chu valley in a north-westerly
direction, a charmingly beautiful road, where one would like to dismount
repeatedly to enjoy conveniently the wild mountain scenery.
But now I cannot loiter; one page after another of my journal must be
turned over if I am ever to come to an end of my description of this
journey on which so many hard experiences and disagreeable adventures
awaited us.
We ride through rubbish and coarse sand, the weathering products of the
grey granite, and pass a succession of transverse valleys and several
picturesque villages. One of these, Machung, is finely situated at the
foot of steep rocks on the northern side of the valley, from which an
oval block has fallen down and stands like a gigantic egg in the sand, a
pedestal waiting for an equestrian statue. On its eastern side, smoothly
polished by wind and weather, a regular tricolour is painted, white in
the middle, red on the left and blue on the right, but neither Bonvalot
nor Dutreuil de Rhins has left this memorial behind, for no traveller
has ever been in the neighbourhood. It is the inhabitants of the village
who have made this flag, and beside the tricolour is another symbolical
painting, a white cross on a black field. Near the village some gnarled
trees are reflected in a pool. The villagers stand staring at the
corners and in the house-doors, and a man offers my servants a drink of
_chang_ from a wooden bowl. The rocks are sculptured into singular
forms; the granite is in vertical dykes and stands in perpendicular
crags in the valley. We often pass by _mani_ cists, for we are in a
country where monasteries are numerous and the whole road is adorned
with religious tokens. At every cist the road divides, for no one,
except adherents of the Pembo sect, omits to pass it on the left, the
direction in which the prayer mills revolve. On the tops of many of the
rocks are seen ruins of walls and towers, a proof that the valley in
bygone times was more densely peopled. At two places sheltered clefts in
the rock harbour some stunted juniper trees. On the northern side of the
valley the river has at some time polished the base of the granite
wall, and on the smooth surface two rock drawings have been executed.
They consist of outlines of Buddha pictures, and are very artistically
drawn. The western has two others beside it, now scarcely traceable, and
below them all kinds of ornamentation, tendrils, and designs are hewn in
the granite. We encamped just above this spot in a very picturesque and
interesting expansion of the valley at the village Lingö.
Part of the inhabitants of Lingö migrate in summer with their herds, six
or seven days' journey northwards, for the soil round Lingö is very poor
and the harvest cannot be depended on. The Dok-chu cannot be crossed
here in summer except by boat; in the winter it freezes over, but seldom
so firmly that the ice will bear. The interesting point about this
expansion is that the Dok-chu, or Raga-tsangpo, coming from the west,
here unites with our old friend the My-chu, which discharges 534 cubic
feet a second. I had the day before calculated 1165 feet as the
discharge of the Dok-chu, so the difference of 631 cubic feet is the
volume of water brought down by the Raga-tsangpo, and consequently the
My-chu is only a tributary. On the other hand the Dok-chu pours through
several delta arms with rapids into the My-chu which lies lower and
flows more gently, and by this test the My-chu should be the main river;
it is all a question of choice.
We had another fine day on April 8, 52.5° in the shade at one o'clock.
We were to make a closer acquaintance with the My-chu, a river we had
hitherto known only from hearsay, but we had more knowledge of its
eastern tributaries which we had crossed on our journey south. As usual
we change our baggage horses in almost every village at which we encamp,
and Robert pays the hire to the villagers, that the escort may not have
an opportunity of putting it into their own purses, at any rate not in
our presence. Generally the caravan marches a little in advance, while
two villagers come with me and give me information about the country.
[Illustration: 183. LAMA IN TONG.]
[Illustration: 184. OLD TIBETAN.
Sketches by the Author.]
Immediately beyond Lingö we turn into the My-chu valley, riding
northwards, and now leave behind the westerly valley of the
Raga-tsangpo. Right at the turn we come to a colossal cone of round
blocks of granite, among which the path winds up and down in zigzags,
sometimes transformed to a staircase, which laden animals cannot
possibly pass. We therefore take with us some peasants from the village
to help in carrying the baggage. We have the river on our left, deep and
sluggish. The fallen boulders of grey granite contrast strongly with the
dark-green water in which whole shoals of black-backed fishes swim and
rise. On a surface of granite is a Buddhist rock-drawing half
obliterated by time. Then follows one _mani_ after another. A smith is
housed in a cave with a vaulted roof blackened with soot, and sheltered
by a small screen of stones, and offers his services to travellers. High
up on a rocky terrace stands Gunda-tammo, a small nunnery, and below a
chain bridge between two stunted pyramids spans the river. It is only
for foot passengers. The river bed is deeply excavated between its bank
terraces, and two strips of clear green ice yet remain. The bed is as
regular as a canal. On a rocky wall at the entrance of a side valley a
face 6 feet in diameter is painted in black, with eyes, nose, and mouth
in red.
The farther we go up the more frequently we are reminded that we are on
a hallowed road leading from one temple to another, a sacred way of the
monks, a pilgrim route on which "Om mani padme hum" is murmured more
repeatedly than on ordinary roads. Sometimes boulders and cliffs are
painted red, sometimes cairns are heaped beside the way, now we see
chimney-like monuments with bundles of rods decked with streamers, then
again long _mani_ mounds, one of them nearly 400 feet long. Two blocks
lying on the road are covered all over with raised characters--a
formidable piece of work. We are also in a great commercial artery, more
frequented than the bank of the Tsangpo. We constantly meet caravans of
yaks and mules, mounted men and foot-passengers, monks, peasants, and
beggars. They salute me politely, scratching their heads with their
right hands, while they hold their caps in their left, and putting their
tongues far out of their mouths, and they call out to me: "A good
journey, Bombo!"
Clear rivulets trickle across the road, the valley contracts and its
contours become bolder and more pronounced; the granite ceases and is
replaced by fine-grained crystalline schist. In the district of Tong,
where several villages stand high above the river, we encamp below the
monastery Lun-ganden-gompa (Illustration 176), in which 21 monks of the
Gelugpa sect live, and, as usual, a prior of Kanpo rank dwells in the
Labrang. We paid them a visit, but preferred the lovely view over the
valley to the images of the gods in the darkness. The brethren are
maintained partly by the Tashi Lama, and obtain the rest of their food
from the produce of their fields, for the convent has large glebe lands.
A blind man, who was not of the fraternity, sat like a machine at the
prayer mill, turning it for the monks, and complained of his hard lot.
The Gova, the district chief, of Tong rules over several villages in the
neighbourhood, and lives like a prince in his solid house.
On April 10 we continued along the course of the My-chu, past villages
and convents hitherto unknown. The villages stand just below the mouths
of side valleys where the water can be most effectively applied to
irrigation. A caravan of about 100 yaks, driven by men and women and
some carrying riders, had been at Tok-jalung and had sold there _tsamba_
from Tong; they had spent three months on their return from those
gold-diggings in western Tibet. They follow a route through the
mountains where there is suitable pasture for yaks. Thus the produce of
the soil in the more favoured parts of the country reaches the nomads,
who give in exchange for it wool, hides, and salt. After a short march
we bivouacked in Ghe, which has nineteen houses. An _angdi_ (musician)
scraped and plucked a two-stringed instrument (Illustration 185), while
his wife danced before us.
[Illustration: 185. STROLLING MUSICIANS.]
Here our escort from Shigatse turned back, after handing our passport to
four other men, the chief of whom was the Gova of Tong. They had done us
excellent service, so I gave them good testimonials and presents. They
were satisfied and would pray for my prosperity till their lives'
end. I felt particular sympathy for one of the Tibetans who had lost his
two sons in the battle at Guru; the one was twenty-three years old, and
the other twenty-five, and the father could not understand why they had
fallen, for they had done nothing wrong.
Next day the escort, jingling like a sledge party, accompanies us up the
My-chu, which retains the same character. Granite and schists alternate.
The river tosses about, though it has occasionally quiet reaches. In the
background of the side valleys are often seen great mountains lightly
covered with snow, and at their entrances villages with stone houses and
fields where only barley and peas are grown, seldom wheat. The black
tents we see occasionally belong to merchants who are on their way from
or to western Tibet. Bridges cross the affluents, flat slabs of stone on
a pair of beams between rather high slightly overhanging piers of stone.
The religious stone heaps are still numerous; one has caused a sand-dune
to be formed. Wild ducks, wood pigeons, and partridges occur here, and
the latter, sorely against their will, make acquaintance with Tsering's
kitchen. In the village Sir-chung the population is large, for here
several routes and side valleys converge. Among the crowds of spectators
was a young woman so extraordinarily pretty that I took two photographs
of her. She was twenty years old and was named Putön (Illustration 186).
The day following we visited the adjacent monastery Lehlung-gompa, where
the twenty-six monks belong to some heterodox sect, for they recognize
neither Tsong Kapa nor the Tashi Lama; the prior had shut himself up in
his dwelling sunk in deep speculations. A lama and three inhabitants of
the neighbouring village Nesar had died the day before, so our Tibetan
escort warned us not to go up to the monastery lest we should catch the
infection, and when we nevertheless went, they begged to be allowed to
stay behind. This dreary dilapidated monastery stood proudly on its
point of rock, pretty far up a side valley which descends from the left
to the My-chu. From its flat roof we had a splendid view and could make
out the topography of the My-chu valley. A novelty to us was a row of
stuffed yaks, hard as wood and dry as bone, with their horns, hoofs, and
hides, hung up on the ceiling of a verandah. None of the monks could
remember when they had been hung up. They looked very old, and
apparently were for the same purpose as the four ghostly kings and the
painted wild animals, that is, to scare away evil spirits.
Below the monastery twenty-four _manis_ stand close together in a row
like a parish boundary on a topographical map. All the way up these
sacred structures are so numerous that they even outnumber those near
Leh. The country assumes a more alpine character, and the valley becomes
wilder and more desolate; but some trees form a small thicket at
Lehlung-gompa. At length we ride over a pebble terrace, perhaps 130 feet
above the stream, which now pours over small falls and murmurs
pleasantly among boulders. The caravan has pitched its tents in the
narrow valley on the bank of the My-chu and not far from the side valley
Kathing. Most of the luggage has been carried by Tibetans, for no pack
animals were to be had, and now some hundred black-headed fellows sit in
groups by their fires among the large boulders.
Here we were at a height of 13,875 feet, and therefore had only mounted
up 1175 feet from Shigatse (12,700 feet). But the air was cooler; the
night before we had noted 23 degrees of frost.
[Illustration: 186. THE HANDSOME WOMAN, PUTÖN.]