Trans-Himalaya: Discoveries and Adventurers in Tibet. Vol. 1 (of 2)

CHAPTER XXXIII

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.

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 31⁄3 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.

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.

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.

CHAPTER XXXIV

TO LINGA-GOMPA

The day’s march on April 13 takes us along the valley of the My-chu like a hollow way excavated in the solid rock of fine-grained granite, porphyry and crystalline schist, and the landscape is one of the grandest I have ever seen. We follow the western bank, from which rise wild precipitous rocks like the ruins of old walls and embattled forts. A footpath runs along the left bank also, and looks extremely dangerous, passing up above abrupt walls of rock. Here and there valleys open out on the west side, affording views of part of a snow-covered crest in the background. This is, however, a subsidiary range, for it branches off from the Trans-Himalaya southwards and borders the basin of the My-chu on the west. It in turn sends out ramifications eastwards, between which flow the western tributaries of the My-chu. And these again give out branches of the fourth and fifth order; the whole appears in a plan like a tree with its branches and boughs.

The road runs on steep pebble terraces high above the river, which here rages among the boulders in its deeply eroded bed and forms whirlpools. On our left rocky precipices tower above our heads, and avalanches of detritus have slipped down from them and fallen across the road. Many are quite fresh; in other places there has been time to set up the blocks in protecting walls on the inner side and in a breastwork at the outer. And often we pass places where a new landslip may take place at any moment, and where huge blocks are poised in the air and seem ready to roll down the declivity. Flourishing hawthorns in large numbers grow on the stony banks, and high up above rock pigeons have built their nests. Still higher eagles soar with outspread pinions along the mountain flanks. We are 150 feet above the river, where here and there on the bank is room for small tilled fields; a juniper bush has in some places struck root in a fissure of the rock.

The valley is like a trough, and I obtain fine views of constantly changing scenes. We might fancy we were passing through a Gothic cathedral with a colonnade of huge shafts attached to the walls and spanned by a roof of grey and white canvas, the clouds to wit, between which small patches of light blue cloth appear.

The guide, accompanying us on this day, is a half silly old fellow, who laughs and chatters continuously, and frequently begins to dance on the road, flinging his legs about, stamping on the ground and turning round so quickly that his long pigtail flies round him. He tells us in confidence that his wife is a wicked hideous old dragon, whom he has long wished to carry off to the home of the vultures, for there will be no peace in his house till he has done so. When I halt to sketch, he takes his breakfast out of his coat, lays it out on the sand, fetches water from the river in a small bag, shakes tsamba from another into a wooden dish, pours water over it, stirs it with his forefinger and then swallows bowl after bowl of this delicious mixture. He hopes to receive so much pay, that for once he can afford himself a plentiful meal while his old woman cannot see him eat. As often as one looks at him, out shoots his tongue and hangs like a fiery red flag in the middle of his black face. When he has finished he licks his plate clean and rubs it with sand to dry it. Then he wraps his things up in a bundle and hides it under the stones. When Robert tells him that people are about who have seen him hiding it, he quickly takes his bundle out again, thinks over the matter for a while, rummages about and at last finds another hiding-place. Then he sits down beside me, puts out his tongue as far as it will go, winks at me with his little pig’s eyes and takes a large pinch of snuff. When he walks in front of my horse, he turns round every hundred paces and puts his tongue out at me—a token of pure goodwill and deep respect.

Beyond the nunnery Döle-gompa the valley of the My-chu unites with the large side valley Lenjo running in from the west, in which, farther up, three villages are situated. From this valley the My-chu receives a very considerable tributary, which is crossed by a solid bridge of three arches resting on four stone piers; thick belts of ice still lie along the banks. Here we find two fine manis with turrets at both ends, where six-pointed stars are cut into the flat stones. These perpetual manis often stand in long rows so near together that they look like a long luggage train, and one expects to see them move and start off for the abodes of the blessed. Everything here denotes a great highway, a mighty commercial artery connecting the sedentary people of the lower-lying lands with the nomads of the plateaus. The road itself is the largest and best kept that I have seen in all Tibet. Bridges span all the affluents which might interrupt the traffic in summer and autumn, and wherever a landslip has occurred, the road is repaired at once. Sacred cairns, walls, and streamers indicate to the traveller at every step that a monastery is near, where the monks expect a visit and a present of money. We are always meeting caravans, riders, peasants, and beggars who extort money from merchants returning home after a good stroke of business. Many of these beggars turn into robbers and pillage undefended huts, but when they meet us they begin to hobble, gasp, and whine. After the harvest the traffic will be still more active than now.

The valley now contracts to a corridor, and the broad shallow stream occupies all its bottom. On the right side, which we follow, the cliffs of schist fall perpendicularly to the river, and the dangerous, narrow road runs like a sill along the wall of rock. Here nature has opposed endless insurmountable obstacles to the engineering skill of the Tibetans. The baggage has to be carried past these dangerous places, and it is astonishing that the horses can get past. Flat slabs of schist, branches, and roots have been inserted into cracks and fissures of the precipice 120 feet above the river, and on these planks, poles, and stones are laid forming a gutter a foot broad, without a scrap of railing, where one must even keep one’s tongue in one’s mouth lest one should lose one’s balance. Of course we traverse this stretch of road, called Tigu-tang, on foot, leaning inwards and supporting ourselves by the rock. We breathe freely again when we are safely over, and the great basin lies before us where, at Linga, two important valleys converge.

Here is the confluence of the My-chu with a river flowing from the east, the Sha-chu, which farther up is called Bup-chu, and which we crossed two and a half months before on its thick coating of ice. On April 15 the Bup-chu brought down 215 cubic feet of water and the My-chu 222, so the rivers were nearly equal, but the ratio may of course vary considerably according to the distribution of the precipitation.

In a short valley in the western mountains the monastery Linga-gompa is placed on the uppermost ledge of a steep flight of terraces, and is as fantastic, fascinating, and attractive as a fairy castle. Its white houses are perched like storks’ nests on mountain pinnacles; a row of manis points out the way up to where the pious, blameless saints dwell in deep silence, far above the riot and tumult of the villages and the roaring and tossing of the stream. Below the monastery stands the village Linga-kok, where our camp is pitched not far from a bridge of ten arches on eleven piers which crosses the My-chu. A crowd of Tibetans, black as Moors, dirty, ragged, capless and trouserless, watch our arrival in silent amazement (Illustration 188).

Not a single tree is seen in the neighbourhood; only up at the monastery there are two. This consolation, then, is no more, and only in our memory do we hear the thick foliage of tree-tops rustling in the wind. Again we may expect the moaning of the storm on the passes of bare alpine ranges. Moreover, the spring has not set in in earnest, for in the night there were still 30 degrees of frost.

I spent all Sunday till twilight in the monastery, with Rabsang and Tundup Sonam. We mounted the acclivity past rows of well-kept manis, which had the appearance of broken-down walls, with red-painted inscriptions chiselled out of the blocks of schist and framed in red. Then we passed through a gate in the convent wall, and mounted higher and higher between forty old and more recent white houses clinging to the rock. The situation is like that of the Hemis monastery in Ladak, but there the houses are not so scattered. Several of them are unoccupied, for the custom prevails here that, when a lama dies, his relations claim possession of his house, lock the door and take away the key. His movable property reverts to the convent. If a newly-come lama takes a fancy to an empty house, he can buy it from the heirs of the former owner; a good house is worth 100 rupees (Illustration 175).

Linga has thirty monks, some of whom accompanied us on our rounds and were always pleasant and friendly, and never bold like the monks in Kum-bum, which I visited in the year 1896. The monastery is subordinate to Sekiya, and the Sekiya-Lama is its highest spiritual superior and contributes towards its maintenance. Linga-gompa also possesses lands, which, however, have not yielded much of late, for the crops have failed several years in succession. The monks are not dependent on the Tashi Lama, and have not a single statue of Tsong Kapa, whence it may be concluded that their sect is older than the reformed church. But it was, as usual, impossible to get any information about the age of the monastery. It seems to be in the interest of the monks to date back its origin to the remotest antiquity, of which no human records are extant. I was told, however, that the abbot, Yimba Tashi, knew its age, which was recorded in an old chronicle of the monastery. Unfortunately, he was not at home, having gone northwards to a district called Kumna, there to track out a band of robbers who had plundered him the year before and carried off all his caravan animals.

Down below the convent is a gorge with a black slope of schist on its side, on which the six holy characters are exhibited in fragments of white quartz, and call out to heaven the eternal truth, “Om mani padme hum,” in all kinds of wind and weather.

A staircase of flags of schist leads up to the Dopcha, an open platform paved with flagstones where the religious spectacles take place on feast days. The usual flagmast stands in the centre, but there is no breastwork of any kind, so that one dares not go there after dark, for bottomless abysses yawn round the open sides. Here the monks had laid carpets and cushions and invited me to tea. I enjoyed for a while the fine view over the valley, the confluence of the two streams, the scattered villages, and the fields like chessboards. Far to the east, behind the Bup-chu valley, the lofty mountains are seen over which we travelled on the way from the Ngangtse-tso.

On the south side of the square is the entrance to the chief temple (dukang), which in all monasteries is in a red-painted stone building. We enter, look round, and are carried away by the singular mysteriousness, though we have often seen it before with trifling variations. I sink on a divan and fancy myself in a museum crammed full of modern trophies and flags of victory, where impenetrable darkness lurks among the pillars, and rows of drums, gongs, prayer cylinders, and trombones are set up. The hall is darker than usual, but bright light falls through a skylight on to the images of the gods. They seem to be soaring from their pedestals in the darkness into the glorious light of the upper regions. The monks glide inaudibly like ghosts and shadows among them, busied with the votive bowls. A wonderfully weird scene! We have wandered into a cavern where gnomes and hobgoblins creep about.

This grotto resounds the whole time with the chant of the monks on the divans, which rises and falls in rhythmical waves, like the roar of the billows and the lapping of ripples on a strand. They sing in unison, keeping faultless time and without exerting themselves, though with astonishing rapidity. Among them are greyheaded men with cracked voices, men in the prime of life, and youths and boys with fresh young voices. The sound is like horses trotting quickly over an endless wooden bridge; all the monks clap their hands and then the horses seem to trot over a paved street, but the next moment they are on the bridge again and the consonants roll like peas out the monks’ lips. Now and then a bass voice rises above the din calling out “Laso, Laso” (an exclamation of thanksgiving). During a short pause there is tea. Then the chant goes on again. There is no excitement, no hurrying of the tempo, all goes on in the same even quick trot. The monks have no books before them; they know their liturgy by heart. But the charm of the rhythm seems to render them oblivious of time and space; they do not suffer themselves to be disturbed, but trot on over the bridge that leads to the home of the gods and to Nirvana. As we go out again we hear the chant die away like the humming in a bee-hive.

We visited some other halls, where I noted down the names of the images. At length there remained only two convent buildings on a sharp ridge of rock. The first was named Chörigungkang, and had a sort of shed in which swords, guns, drums, masks, tiger-skins, and other lumber were stored. In the very front, on the point of the rock, is a cubical house called Pesu. It is surrounded on three sides by a gallery without balustrades, and here the abyss is deeper than elsewhere. Here I stayed to sketch the panorama, but the weather was anything but pleasant, and snowstorms veiled the mountains from time to time. Nevertheless it was hard to leave this terrace. The flat roofs down below look no larger than postage-stamps. Bright as silver, or dark, according as they are lighted, the two rivers hasten to meet each other. Then I could not help thinking how singular it was that the loftiest and grandest alpine country in the world, which must surely impress the human mind more than any other, had not been able to instil into the Tibetans a higher, nobler form of religion than this narrow, limited, dogmatic Lamaism. I grant that it was imported from India more than a thousand years ago and was first modified into the so-called northern Buddhism, but after all it flourishes vigorously in Tibet. One would think that the ancient Bon religion with its copious demonology, its widespread superstition, and its spirits haunting all the mountains and lakes, would be more suitable here. But we have indeed, discovered that Lamaism has absorbed many of its elements. At any rate the Linga monks have a splendid view of an artistically sculptured corner of the world. From their loopholes of windows and their flat roofs they can see winter spreading its white carpet over the mountains and putting the rivers in fetters, and then the spring shedding its gold over the valleys, the summer conjuring out new fresh grass, and lastly the rain torrents of early autumn washing the slopes and swelling the rivers.

We now ascended, as if the mountain itself were not high enough, two steep pitch-dark flights of steps, where it is easy to break one’s neck, into the entrance hall of the Pesu temple. In a smaller room the flame of a butter-lamp struggled vainly with the darkness, casting its dull light on some idols. Pesu is the hall of the gods par excellence, with innumerable statuettes of metal, very old, artistically worked and certainly very valuable. Some figures were of medium size. I stood in front of the altar rank and inspected the gods. Tankas and long narrow scarves in many colours hung from the ceiling. On the right was the small, dark room, and on the left was a shutter creaking as it banged to and open in the wind. Before the gods stood a row of bowls with barley, wheat, maize cobs, and water. I asked a monk who had come up with me how long it took the gods to eat it all. He smiled, and answered evasively that the bowls must always be full; but on entering I had caught sight of some mice which quickly scuttled away in the darkness. What cruel irony, what a picture of self-satisfied vanity and religious humbug! The serving brother has been in the Pesu, has filled the bowls and said his daily prayers, has descended the steps and locked the door behind him. When all is quiet the mice come out of their holes. They climb upon the altar table, stand on their hind-legs, curl their tails round the votive bowls, and consume the nectar and ambrosia of the gods.

Could I not buy some of these charming figures? No, it could not be. The monk showed me a label which is attached with wire to each image. Every object belonging to the furniture of the convent has its number, and this number is entered in the general inventory. The prior is usually elected for a fixed term of years, and when he resigns his office he hands the list to his successor to be checked. If any object is missing, he is responsible and must pay the value.

A monk came up to bring tea for Rabsang and Tundup, who had seated themselves in the outer hall. I remained alone and gazed at the gods, mesmerized by their smiling gilded faces, their portly double chins, and their arched eyebrows. Then something wonderful happened. Their features changed and all turned their heads and looked at me. A curious feeling of awe took possession of me; had I insulted them through some want of delicacy? No, next moment they turned their heads away again and stared straight at the opposite wall. It was only a banner which in the draught from the window had moved so as to alter the shadow on the faces and give them an appearance of motion.

Linga is a ghostly castle, but Pesu was the most ghostly part of it all. There large drums and grinning masks shimmered like ghosts in the gloom, and the wind whistled mournfully through all the loopholes and openings. A man of strong nerves would get the horrors if he were compelled to spend a stormy autumn night alone in this hall of the gods, with the light of the moon falling through the loopholes on the images. He would listen with bated breath for every sound and crack. If the door below banged against its frame, he would hear some one entering the ante-chamber, and when the streamers on the roof fluttered in the wind, he would imagine the unknown person was approaching the hall with light steps and would in a second be bending over him; and the mice running over the floor, and the shutters swinging in the wind on creaking hinges, and the wind moaning in the window recesses and among the rafters, all would strain his imagination to the utmost and make him count the minutes till the dawn. After the gods had turned their heads towards me I felt that I should not like to be in such a position, but would rather go down again to my tent in the valley and sleep.

END OF VOL. I