CHAPTER XLIII
THE SOURCE OF THE SACRED RIVER—A DEPARTURE
Westarted off in beautiful weather, not a cloud hanging over the summits of Kubi-gangri. We followed the left bank of the Kubi-tsangpo, and rode along the foot of the huge moraines, which here rise fully 470 feet above the valley bottom, and which were formerly thrown up on the left or western side of the gigantic glacier, whence proceeded all the glacier tongues now remaining only in short lengths. The morainic character is plainly recognizable, sometimes in curved ridges and walls falling steeply on both sides, sometimes in rounded hillocks rising one above another. The surface is often covered with fine pebbles, grass, and lovely alpine flowers trying to make the most of the short summer. Here and there a landslip has taken place, and then it can be seen that the rock shows no trace of stratification. Occasionally we pass granite boulders, but they are small, the largest not more than 280 cubic feet. On the valley bottom are swamps with rank grass, and wild-geese are enjoying the summer in the ponds. We twice met with fresh spoor of small herds of wild yaks which had moved off to the right bank of the Kubi-tsangpo. The horses’ hoofs splashed in the swampy ground, seldom varied by small patches of boulder clay.
Numerous rivulets descend from the moraines. They are fed by the melting snowfields, and therefore, in contrast to the glacier brooks, are crystal clear. They have eroded deep valleys in the moraines, and one of them has deposited a great dejection cone at the mouth, over whichthe brook falls in ten channels, carrying 106 cubic feet of water. A very considerable proportion of the upper Brahmaputra’s water is derived from melted snow. Rivulets rushed and spurted all about in the rubbish, and all came from the snowfields, which struggled in vain against the heat of the spring sun.
Now we have right in front of us the immense glacier which descends from an extensive firn basin on the western foot of the Mukchung-simo massive. Between its terminal moraines and the older moraines we have skirted, a rather voluminous stream has eroded its valley. Its water is tolerably clear and green, so that it proceeds from snowfields. A little below the terminal moraine it unites with the numerous arms of the muddy glacier stream, of which the largest is the one which flows nearest to the foot of the Mukchung massive. Even 200 yards below the confluence the green water can be clearly distinguished from the brown, but afterwards the cold currents intermingle. Where the river, still divided into a number of meandering arms, turns past camp 201 to the north-east, it receives considerable additions from the glaciers lying further east, and thus the Kubi-tsangpo is formed.
Then we ride up, zigzagging among boulders and pebble beds, over ridges, banks, and erosion furrows, over brooks and treacherous bog, over grass and clumps of brushwood, to a commanding point of view on the top of the old moraine (16,453 feet). Before us is a chaos of huge, precipitous, fissured, black, bare rocks, summits, pyramids, columns, domes, and ridges, moraines, tongues of ice, snow and firn fields—a scene hard to beat for wild grandeur.
Here we made a halt, and I drew the panorama while the horses grazed on the slopes. The largest glacier, which comes from the Kubi-gangri proper, is entirely below us, and we have a bird’s-eye view of it. It is fed by three different firn-fields, and has two distinct medial moraines, which here and there rise into ridges where the ice has been thrust aside. The right lateral moraine is well defined, and is still partially covered with snow. The left is broad in its upper part but narrow below, where the green stream washes its base. Up above, aglacier from the west runs into the main glacier, and where the two join the side glacier is thrown up into a mighty wall, which merges into the left lateral moraine of the other. All the bottom of the glacier front is buried in rubbish, and the ice peeps out only here and there. Here are several small sheets of water, some of an intensely blue colour, others brown, with finely pulverized matter, showing that they are connected with the water of the ground moraine. Two of these small pools have vertical sides of blue ice like entrances to marvellous fairy grottos. A series of marginal crevasses are still partly covered with snow. The terminal moraine is a chaos of mounds, pebbles, and boulders, with patches of snow on the shady side. In a hollow between these hillocks flows the middle glacier stream, after passing two pools. The terminal moraine does not increase in size, for its material is slowly disintegrated and washed away by the stream, which winds in several arms over the even bed of the valley bottom just below in the most capricious curves.
An excursion over the surface of the glacier would not be difficult when one was once up on it. There are many dangerous crevasses concealed under the snow which may be avoided by keeping to the rubbish heaps of the medial moraines. The mass of the Kubi-gangri, which from our point of view lies farthest to the right, to the west-north-west, is called Gave-ting; from it descends the great side glacier.
The front of the main glacier, where the largest of all the glacier streams of the Kubi-gangri rises, is the actual source of the Brahmaputra. The other streams which enter it south-east of camp 201 are smaller and shorter. We could not get to them, for the horses sank too deep in the sand and mud of the main stream.
On our return we made a halt at the place where the principal branch of the Kubi-tsangpo comes out from under the ice, and I found that the source of the Brahmaputra lies at an altitude of 15,958 feet above sea-level. I must leave details for the scientific report of this journey, which will be published in due time.
On July 14 it seemed very hot in my tent, for even atseven o’clock in the morning the temperature was 45.1°; in the night there had been nearly 14½ degrees of frost. The sky was perfectly clear, and therefore I could not refrain from seeking another point of view to investigate the beautiful glaciers of the Kubi-gangri.
After arranging with Tsering that he should meet us in the valley of the Dongdong river, we rode up the banks and ridges of the old moraine, through its hollows and over its terraces of barren soil, which was now soft and treacherous from the melting of the snow, past pools of clear, green water, and to the highest point of its ridge, where there was nothing to hide the view.
I first took nine photographs, forming a consecutive series. Then a cloak was thrown over the stand to make a shelter against the strong wind, and in this sentry-box I sat for nearly four hours drawing a panorama which embraced the whole horizon. Meanwhile my companions lay down and snored, and I was glad to sit alone face to face with these royal mountain giants. The whole architecture is fantastically wild, and the only law which is strictly observed is that each glacier is confined between two huge black crests of rock.
In order to give the reader a notion of the scene I here reproduce a part of the panorama embracing the Kubi-gangri (Illust. 242). To the south, 27° E., is a tetrahedral peak, which our guide called Ngoma-dingding. To the south, 11° E., rises another summit, of almost precisely the same form, which is called Absi. On the east of it lies the Ngoma-dingding glacier, and on the west the Absi glacier. West of this stands the lumpy Mukchung-simo group, with its culminating point lying south, 24° W. The northern side resembles a stable with straight short stalls, each containing a small hanging glacier. To the south-west rise two sharp pinnacles, and in the south, 57° W., a couple of dome-shaped summits consisting only of ice and snow; they belong to the Langta-chen massive, and their firns feed to a great extent the glacier in the front of which the Brahmaputra takes its rise. So the glacier may be called the Langta-chen. To the south, 70° W., 88° W., and north, 83° W., rise the summitsof the Gave-ting group. To the north, 55° W., three peaks of the Dongdong appear, from which one of the sources of the Brahmaputra takes its rise, quite insignificant compared to the Kubi-tsangpo.
Towards the north-east the sharply defined valley of the Kubi-tsangpo runs downwards, and in the distance are seen the mountains of Chang-tang, pyramidal peaks of singular uniformity, and crowded together in great numbers, which form a finely jagged horizon, and in consequence of the great distance merge into the pink tint of the insignificant snowfields. The Trans-Himalaya seems on this side to widen out and become flatter than in the east.
It was late when we rode down the steep path to the camp on the Dongdong. And now we had to hurry westwards and make as many discoveries and collect as much information as possible on forbidden paths, in spite of the Mandarins and the Devashung.
On July 15 we left our former route to the right and directed our steps northwards over intricate moraines, seeing the snowy peaks of Dongdong and Chema-yundung still more clearly from the pass Kargan-la. On the 16th the sky was overcast, a couple of hail showers fell, and the hills around us changed to white. We rode north-westwards past two small lakes, and again fell in with solid rock—green and black schist. From the Tugri-la we had a fine view over a world of mountains, the names of which I have no time to record. We crossed another saddle, Sen-kamba-la, to reach the broad open valley of the Chema-yundung river, which descends from a very extensive glacier in the south belonging to the Chema-yundung-pu massive. Here were several nomad tents, and seven tents inhabited by pilgrims from Bongba stood on a rise. They were on their way with kith and kin to Kang-rinpoche to make the pilgrimage round the holy mountain. Most of the pilgrims from the far east take this southern route and return over the Marium-la.
July 17. It was very hot in the saddle with a temperature of 50° and quite calm air. The brown puppy was very tired of travelling, and drops fell from her hangingtongue, but she could not leave the antelopes and hares in peace. She darted after them full speed, but never caught them, and came back to me disappointed, but began again the useless pursuit. The Ronggak-chu is an affluent of the Chema, and comes from the north-west. We left the little double lake Kuru-chok in the south. To the west-south-west is the place where the Chema-yundung receives the Angsi-chu, the most westerly of all the headwaters of the Brahmaputra.
In the valley of the Tynchung we encamped beside some accommodating nomads, who quickly procured me fresh yaks, for the three musketeers turned back here to Shamsang, after doing their work well. The whole excursion to the sources of the Brahmaputra had cost 110 rupees, and it was well worth more. The natives said that ten robbers had recently made the neighbourhood unsafe, but immediately it was reported that a European caravan was approaching Tynchung, they had entirely disappeared, and therefore we were regarded as deliverers, and the people could not do too much for us. A Hindu merchant from Almora was camping here, buying sheep’s wool and salt from the nomads, and selling them frieze rugs and textiles from Agra and Amritsar.
Next day we crossed the Marnyak-la (17,395 feet) and had the Angsi-chu immediately below us, and on the 19th we left the river behind and followed its small tributary, the Loang-gonga, up to its source at the very low pass Tamlung or Tag-la, which is nothing more than a rise in an open longitudinal valley. But this pass is exceedingly important, for it is the watershed between the Brahmaputra and Manasarowar. Its height is 17,382 feet. To the south is spread out a succession of snowy peaks, and to the west-south-west is seen Gurla Mandatta or Memo-nani, a majestic and imposing group which belongs to the same Himalayan range as Kubi-gangri. The pass is situated among old moraines, where is the little insignificant lake Tamlung-tso, from which the Loang-gonga flows out. At some distance to the south is seen the low watershed between the Angsi-chu and the Gang-lung,a stream that comes from a massive of the same name, and, as the Tage-tsangpo, falls into Manasarowar. The very latest maps of western Tibet give a very incorrect representation of this country, which has never been visited by a European before. Instead of a clearly marked meridional range we found an open, hilly, longitudinal valley with the watershed running among its moraines. Here we took leave of the Brahmaputra, after passing half a year in its basin since crossing the Sela-la. We encamped at a place where the Gang-lung river breaks through a rampart of moraines, forming foaming cascades.
During the following day’s journey it flows through granitic moraines, drift sand, and morasses, and becomes a considerable stream, receiving numerous affluents from the south. A caravan of 50 yaks, and eight men from Purang, armed with guns, and clad in blue with fur-lined cloaks, were on the way to the fair in Gyanima. In the district Tagramoche, where we bivouacked, were many nomads and beggars with staves and bundles on the way to the holy mountain. We also met six merchants from Ladak, who were carrying dried peaches for sale on 45 asses. They had left home a month and a half previously.
On July 21 we rode down the Tage-bup valley among savage cliffs. On its bottom flows the Tage-tsangpo, changing its colour from light green over sandy ground to bluish-purple over dark detritus. Langchen-kamba is a small side-valley on the right, from which robbers are wont to sally forth against defenceless travellers. Just below the valley a spring bubbles forth with crystal-clear water at a temperature of 38°. It is considered holy, and is marked by a pole bedecked with rags and streamers like a scare-crow. This spring is also called Langchen-kamba.
A little farther down the spring Chakko stands on a steep slope on the right bank, and its water (40.3°) is collected in a round pit 3 feet deep. A wall is erected about it, covered with flat stones, on which figures of Buddha and holy texts are carved. Leaves from the holy scriptures are thrust between the stones of the wall, and streamers and rags fly from a pole. Through the water, clear as a mirror, could be seen blue and red beads, twoinferior turquoises, some shells, and other trash, thrown in as offerings by pious pilgrims. The water is supposed to have miraculous powers. Murmuring prayers, our guide filled a wooden bowl with water and poured it over the head and mane of his horse to protect it from wolves. With the same object he tied a rag from the pole on to his horse’s forelock. He drank himself a good draught to render him invulnerable to the bullets of robbers. If a sheep or other animal is ill it is only necessary to sprinkle it with the holy water to make it well again. When a traveller or pilgrim stands at the well and pours water with both hands over his head, it guards him against falling into the hands of footpads, and from other misfortunes. And if he sits and meditates, drinks, and washes his head, hands, and legs, and has sufficient faith, then he finds gold coins and precious stones at the bottom of the well. The sick man who bathes his whole body in the miraculous water becomes strong again. It is a Lourdes in miniature. While my men were engaged in their ablutions I sat at the edge of the well and listened to the mystical music of the fluttering prayer-streamers, and found this fascinating Tibet more enigmatical at every step.
Then we rode over the Tage-tsangpo, where its valley opens into the flat basin of Manasarowar—a new chapter in the chronicles of our journey. Again Gurla Mandatta showed itself in all its glory, and in the north-west Kang-rinpoche or Kailas, the holy mountain, like a greatchhortenon a lama’s grave, rose above the jagged ridge which forms the horizon in that direction. On seeing it all our men suddenly jumped out of their saddles and threw themselves down with their foreheads on the ground. Only Rabsang, a confirmed heathen, remained seated on his horse, and was afterwards well scolded by Tsering.
We are now out on open hilly ground, and see a glimpse of the holy lake Tso-mavang or Manasarowar. We encamp by a small lake called Tso-nyak, whither come Islam Ahun and Shukkur Ali, sent by Guffaru, who is become uneasy at our long absence. We send them back again to Tokchen with orders to Guffaru to proceed to themonastery Serolung-gompa on the holy lake, where we will meet him.
On July 22 we rode over the Tage-tsangpo, which here carried 291 cubic feet of water, where Rabsang got a thorough wetting in consequence of his horse coming a cropper among the boulders in the bed. Tsering said that he deserved a dip because he had not saluted Kang-rinpoche. Camp 210 was set up in the broad valley Namarding, where a clear brook flows to the Tage-tsangpo. The wind blew strongly, and the Tibetans said that the waves on Tso-mavang were as high and dark as nomad tents. Should we venture in our little canvas boat on the lake, exposed to all the winds? It must be very rough before I consented to give up the trip, for the lake had long been the subject of my dreams.
Next morning Tundup Sonam appeared with the news that the Gova of Tokchen would not let his yaks on hire for the journey to Serolung. I had therefore to ride to Tokchen by a road over the pass Karbu-la, and down the river Samo-tsangpo; it is full of fish, but we were asked not to disturb them, for they came up from the holy lake. We were all together again in Tokchen, and I found the Gova a decent fellow, who welcomed me with a largekadakhand a bowl oftsamba.
Now an hour of parting was come, for I sent from Tokchen thirteen of my men home to Ladak. I had several reasons for this. I did not need so many men in western Tibet; twelve were enough, and a small, light caravan accomplishes more and does not excite so much notice. The men were to travel along the great highway to Gartok under the experienced leadership of Guffaru, and there deposit all the baggage I could spare with the British agent, Thakur Jai Chand. I also sent to him a letter packet of three hundred pages to my parents, beside other correspondence. Of particular importance was a letter to Colonel Dunlop Smith, in which I asked for 6000 rupees, provisions, books, revolvers and ammunition, and things suitable for presents, such as gold and silver watches, as well as all the letters which must have accumulated at the Viceregal Lodge.
On the first evening, when I called together all the twenty-five men and told them my decision to send away thirteen, and asked which of them wished to go home, no one answered. They declared that they would follow me until I was tired of Tibet. Then I picked out thirteen and retained the best twelve men. Among these was Tashi, who with Tundup Sonam had accomplished the adventurous journey to Shigatse. But when he saw that I was in earnest about the dividing of the caravan, he begged me to let him go home, so he was exchanged for another man.
We stayed here two days to put everything in order. After the baggage was re-arranged I had only four boxes left, and the rest were to be carried away by Guffaru. Robert sat in my tent like a money-changer and piled up sovereigns and rupees in small heaps, the pay, gratuities, and travelling expenses of the men who were going home. Our treasury was relieved of 2118 rupees all at once. The important correspondence was enclosed in a case, which Guffaru carried in his belt. The men with him were allowed to keep two of our five guns. Late in the evening Guffaru came to my tent to receive his last instructions. Honest old Guffaru, he had in the autumn of his life performed wonders in the winter in Chang-tang, always composed and contented, always doing his duty in the smallest particular. Now he sat, with the tears falling on to his white beard, and thanked me for all I had done for him during the past year. I bade him weep no more, but rejoice that the hard time was over for him, and that he could return safe and sound to his people with 400 rupees in his purse. When we left Leh he was as poor as a church mouse, and now he was a rich man for his position, and he had not needed his shroud. I told him that I should miss him very much, but that I could not entrust the valuable baggage and important letters to any other hands but his.
When I came out of my tent early on the morning of the 26th the 13 yaks were laden and the thirteen men were ready to march off with their Tibetan guides. I thanked them for their faithfulness and patience duringthe time when they were exposed to so many dangers in my service, begged them to remember that they were responsible for the caravan on the way home, and told them that they must obey Guffaru, and that their character would suffer if they did not bear with one another on the way. If they were as conscientious on this journey as in my service, it would be well for them in the future, and perhaps our paths might cross again.
Then old Guffaru came forward, and fell on his knees before me, weeping loudly, and all the others in turn followed his example amid sobs and tears; I clapped them all on the shoulder and hoped that this bitter hour would soon be over. Then they took leave of their comrades, who, deeply moved, sent greetings to their parents, wives, and children in Ladak, and they marched off on foot, as they had travelled so many hundred miles, silent, drooping, and downcast, and soon disappeared behind the hills.
CHAPTER XLIV
A NIGHT ON MANASAROWAR
AfterGuffaru had set out with his men, the small caravan was organized which was to accompany me. It was led by Tsering, and the other men left were Bulu, Tundup Sonam, Rabsang, Rehim Ali, Shukkur Ali, Namgyal, Adul, Ishe, Lama, Galsang, and Rub Das. The Gova of Tokchen was given a Kashmir shawl, a turban, and some rupees for the services he had rendered us, and all the other Tibetans who had been friendly and helpful received presents. The dividing of the caravan had also the advantage that the Tibetans supposed that we were all making for the same destination by different routes, and that I should join Guffaru in Gartok and continue my journey to Ladak, as directed on the passport.
With Robert, Rabsang, and two Tibetans I now ride down the Tokchen valley and up over the hills to the south-west. To the right of our route the turquoise-blue surface of the holy lake is displayed; how beautiful, how fascinating is the scene! One seems to breathe more freely and easily, one feels a pleasure in life, one longs to voyage over the blue depths and the sacred waves. For Manasarowar is the holiest and most famous of all the lakes of the world, the goal of the pilgrimage of innumerable pious Hindus, a lake celebrated in the most ancient religious hymns and songs, and in its clear waters the ashes of Hindus find a grave as desirable and honoured as in the turbid waters of the Ganges. During my stay in India I received letters from Hindus in which they asked me to explore the revered lake and the holy mountainKailas, which lifts its summit in the north under a cupola of eternal snow, where Siva, one of the Indian Trinity, dwells in her paradise among a host of other deities; and they told me that if I could give them an exact description of the lake and river, they would remember me in their prayers and their gods would bless me. But that was not why I longed to be there. The lake had never been sounded—I would sink my lead to the bottom and make a map of its bed; I would follow its periphery and calculate how much water pours into its bosom on a summer day; I would investigate its hydrographic relation to the adjacent lake on the west, the Rakas-tal, a problem which various travellers in this region, from Moorcroft and Strachey to Ryder and Rawling, have explained differently; I would learn something of the monasteries and the life of Hindu and Tibetan pilgrims, for the lake is sacred in the eyes of Lamaists also, who call it Tso-mavang or Tso-rinpoche, the “Holy Lake.” How can Manasarowar and Kailas be the objects of divine honours from two religions so different as Hinduism and Lamaism unless it is that their overpowering beauty has appealed to and deeply impressed the human mind, and that they seemed to belong rather to heaven than to earth? Even the first view from the hills on the shore caused us to burst into tears of joy at the wonderful, magnificent landscape and its surpassing beauty. The oval lake, somewhat narrower in the south than the north, and with a diameter of about 15½ miles, lies like an enormous turquoise embedded between two of the finest and most famous mountain giants of the world, the Kailas in the north and Gurla Mandatta in the south, and between huge ranges, above which the two mountains uplift their crowns of bright white eternal snow. Yes, already I felt the strong fascination which held me fettered to the banks of Manasarowar, and I knew that I would not willingly leave the lake before I had listened, until I was weary, to the song of its waves.
We sat an hour and enjoyed the incomparable beauty of the scene. A slight ripple ruffled the surface of the water, but in the middle the lake was as smooth as if oilhad been poured on it. The Tibetans said that it was always smooth in the middle except when a storm raged. To the south-south-west and south-west are seen the two summits of Gurla Mandatta, the western very flat, and reminding me of the Mustag-ata in the eastern Pamir. The Tibetans called the mountain sometimes Namo, sometimes Memo-nani. South, 60° W., a row of snowy heights rise behind the Purang valley. To the west-north-west is seen the small pyramidal hill where Chiu-gompa stands on the bank of the water channel which once ran into Rakas-tal. To the north-west a couple of lagoons lie on the shore of Manasarowar, and behind them rise chains and ramifications belonging to the Trans-Himalaya, and among them Kailas or Kang-rinpoche, the “Holy Mountain,” called also Gangri or the “Ice Mountain,” dominates the horizon unless its summit is veiled in clouds. And lastly, to the north, 20° W., we see the double-peaked Pundi, not far from the shore, and in the north the two valleys Pachen and Pachung, with roads which lead over the watershed of the Trans-Himalaya to Chang-tang.
When I asked our guides what they thought of a boat trip across the lake, they answered unhesitatingly that it was impossible; mortals who ventured on the lake, which was the home of the gods, must perish. Also in the middle Tso-mavang was not level as on the shore, but formed a transparent dome, and up its round arch no boat could mount; and even if we succeeded in getting the boat up, it would shoot down the other side with such velocity that it must capsize, and we should perish in the waves because we had excited the wrath of the god of the lake.
We mounted again and rode south-south-west over the hills to Serolung, the golden valley, where the monastery Serolung-gompa is hidden in the hollow. There I stayed four hours, making sketches and notes. Serolung, which contains thirty monks, most of whom were away wandering among the villages, is one of the eight convents which are set like precious stones in the chain which the pilgrims stretch round the lake, in thehope of acquiring merit in a future form of existence, of being freed from the burden of sin and the tortures of purgatorial fires, nay, perhaps, of sitting at the feet of the gods and eatingtsambaout of golden bowls.
Our camp No. 212 was pitched immediately south of the mouth of the Serolung valley at the water’s edge. The strip of ground on the bank is quite narrow, and on the hills rising to the east of it are visible six horizontal strand lines, the highest lying 162 feet above the present level of the lake, which is 15,098 feet above the sea.
On July 27 I had a good sleep, and spent the rest of the day in making preparations for the first line of soundings, which was to cross the lake in a direction south, 59° W., where a gap appeared in the hills framing the lake. We waited for good weather, but the wind blew violently and the surf beat and foamed against the shore. I therefore resolved to wait till night, for of late the nights had been calmer than the days. On a trial trip we had found a depth of 130 feet not far from the shore, so we made ready a sounding line 490 feet long. Perhaps even this would not be long enough, for a lake lying among such high mountains is sure to be deep. Shukkur Ali was to go with me, and he accepted his fate with his usual composure, but Rehim Ali, the other victim, was frightened; it was all very well in the day, he said, but in the dark gloomy night on such a great lake! We should certainly have the same trouble as on Lake Lighten, he thought.
When the sun set the wind increased in strength, and heavy clouds spread up from the south-west. At seven o’clock it was pitch dark all round, not a star shone out, not a trace was visible of the outline of the shore and of the snowy mountains, and the sea was buried in the shades of night. But an hour later the wind fell, the air became quite calm, but the waves beat in a monotonous rhythm on the bank. The smoke of the camp fires rose straight up into the air.
Then I gave orders to set out. The baggage was stowed and the mast stepped to be ready if we had a favourable wind. Provisions for two days were put inthe boat. I wore a leathern vest, Kashmir boots, and an Indian helmet, and sat on a cushion and a folded fur coat on the lee side of the rudder, on the other side of which the sounding-line with its knots lay ready on the gunwale. The log, Lyth’s current meter, was attached to the boat to register the whole length of the course, and compass, watch, note-book, and map sheets all lay close beside me, lighted by a Chinese paper lantern, which could be covered with a towel when we did not want the light. I used the towel after every sounding to dry my hands. Rehim Ali took his seat forward, Shukkur Ali in the stern half of the boat, where we were cramped for room and had to take care that we did not get entangled in the sounding-line.
Tsering took a sceptical view of the whole adventure. He said that the lake was full of wonders, and at the best we should be driven back by mysterious powers when we had rowed a little way out. And a Tibetan agreed with him, saying that we should never reach the western shore though we rowed with all our might, for the lake god would hold our boat fast, and while we thought that it was advancing it would really remain on the same spot, and finally the angry god would draw it down to the bottom.
Robert had orders to wait at camp No. 212 for our return, and when we put off from the bank at nine o’clock all bade us farewell in as warm and gentle a tone as though they thought that they had seen the last of us. Their spirits were not raised by the lightning which flashed in the south and might portend a storm. The darkness, however, was not so intense, for the moon was coming up, though it was still covered by the hills rising behind our camp. But its light threw a weird gleam over the lake, and in the south Gurla Mandatta rose like a ghost enveloped in a sheet of moonshine, snowfields, and glaciers.
At my command, the boatmen took a firm grip of the oars and the boat glided out from the beach, where our men stood in a silent thoughtful group. Our fires were seen for a while, but soon disappeared, for they were burning almost on a level with the water. Robert told me afterwards that the little boat sailing out into the darkness wasa curious sight; owing to the lantern and the reflexion of the light on the mast the boat was visible at first, but when it reached the moon-lighted part of the lake it appeared only as a small black spot, which soon vanished.
The great lake was dark and mysterious in the night, and unknown depths lurked beneath us. The contours of the hills on the shore were still visible behind us, but we had not gone far before they were swallowed up by higher mountains farther off, which gradually came into view. After twenty minutes’ rowing we stopped and let down the line, sounding 135 feet. The roar of the surf on the beach was the only sound in the silence of night, except the splash of the oars and the voices of the oarsmen singing in time with their strokes. At the next sounding the depth was 141 feet. If the bottom did not fall more rapidly our line would be long enough. Every hour I recorded the temperatures of the air and the water. Now the god of sleep paid us a visit; Shukkur Ali yawned at every ninth stroke, and every yawn was so long that it lasted three strokes.
The air is quite still. A long, smooth swell causes the boat to rock slightly. All is quiet, and I ask myself involuntarily if other beings are listening to the splash of the oars as well as ourselves. It is warm, with a temperature of 46.9° at eleven o’clock. The next two depths are 143 and 164 feet. My oarsmen follow the soundings with deep interest, and look forward to the point where the depth will begin to decrease. They think it awful and uncanny to glide over such great depths in the dark night. Again blue lightning flashes behind Gurla Mandatta, which stands forth in a pitch black outline, after appearing just before in a white robe of moon-lighted snowfields. A little later all the southern sky flames up like a sea of fire; the flashes quickly follow one after the other, and shoot up to the zenith, seeming to stay a moment behind the mountains, and it becomes light as day, but when the glow dies out the darkness is more intense, and the sublime, poetic solemnity of the night is enhanced. By the light of the flashes I can see the faces of the twomen, who are startled and uneasy, and do not dare to disturb the awful stillness by their singing.
When I let down the line at the fifth point, the two men asked permission to light their water-pipes. The depth was 181 feet. A slight south-westerly breeze rippled the surface. The cry of a water-bird broke shrilly on the silence of the night, and made us feel less lonely. A slight hiss of the surf breaking on the south-eastern shore was audible. In the south the clouds gathered round the summit of Gurla Mandatta, the breeze fell. We glided slowly over the inky black water, and between the wave crests the path of moonlight wound in bright sinuosities; the depth increased slowly 183.4 feet, 189.3, 192 and 212.6. The temperature was still 45.9°, and I did not want my fur coat.
The queen of night, with diamonds in her dark hair, looks down upon the holy lake. The midnight hour is passed, and the early morning hours creep slowly on. We sound 203, 200, 184, 184, 180, and 190 feet, and it seems therefore as if we had passed the deepest depression. Leaning on the gunwale I enjoy the voyage to the full, for nothing I remember in my long wanderings in Asia can compare with the overpowering beauty of this nocturnal sail. I seem to hear the gentle but powerful beat of the great heart of Nature, its pulsation growing weaker in the arms of night, and gaining fresh vigour in the glow of the morning red. The scene, gradually changing as the hours go by, seems to belong not to earth but to the outermost boundary of unattainable space, as though it lay much nearer heaven, the misty fairyland of dreams and imagination, of hope and yearning, than to the earth with its mortals, its cares, its sins, and its vanity. The moon describes its arch in the sky, its restless reflexion quivering on the water, and broken by the wake of the boat.
The queen of night and her robe become paler. The dark sky passes into light blue, and the morn draws nigh from the east. There is a faint dawn over the eastern mountains, and soon their outlines stand out sharply, as though cut out on black paper. The clouds, but now floating white over the lake, assume a faint rosy hue, whichgradually grows stronger, and is reflected on the smooth water, calling forth a garden of fresh roses. We row among floating rose-beds, there is an odour of morning and pure water in the air, it grows lighter, the landscape regains its colour, and the new day, July 28, begins its triumphal progress over the earth. Only an inspired pencil and magic colours could depict the scene that met my eyes when the whole country lay in shadow, and only the highest peaks of Gurla Mandatta caught the first gleam of the rising sun. In the growing light of dawn the mountain, with its snowfields and glaciers, had shown silvery white and cold; but now! In a moment the extreme points of the summit began to glow with purple like liquid gold. And the brilliant illumination crept slowly like a mantle down the flanks of the mountain, and the thin white morning clouds, which hovered over the lower slopes and formed a girdle round a well-defined zone, floating freely like Saturn’s ring, and like it throwing a shadow on the fields of eternal snow, these too assumed a tinge of gold and purple, such as no mortal can describe. The colours, at first as light and fleeting as those of a young maiden in her ball-dress, became more pronounced, light concentrated itself on the eastern mountains, and over their sharp outlines a sheaf of bright rays fell from the upper limb of the sun upon the lake. And now day has won the victory, and I try dreamily to decide which spectacle has made the greater impression on me, the quiet moonlight, or the sunrise with its warm, rosy gleam on the eternal snow.
Phenomena like these are fleeting guests on the earth; they come and go in the early morning hours, they are only seen once in a lifetime, they are like a greeting from a better world, a flash from the island of the phœnix. Thousands and thousands of pilgrims have wandered round the lake in the course of centuries, and have seen the dawn and sunset, but have never witnessed the display which we gazed upon from the middle of the holy lake on this memorable night. But soon the magical effects of light and colour, which have quickly followed one another and held me entranced, fade away. The country assumes its usual aspect, and is overshadowed by denseclouds. Kailas and Gurla Mandatta vanish entirely, and only a snowy crest far away to the north-west is still dyed a deep carmine, only yonder a sheaf of sunbeams penetrates through an opening in the clouds. In that direction the mirror of the lake is tinged blue, but to the south green. The wild-geese have waked up, and they are heard cackling on their joyous flights, and now and then a gull or tern screams. Bundles of seaweed float about. The sky is threatening, but the air is calm, and only gentle swells, smooth as polished metal, disturb the water, which looks like the clearest curação. The boat moves with weary slowness to its destination, for now, at six o’clock in the morning, my oarsmen are tired and sleepy and quite at an end of their strength. They sleep and row alternately. “Hem-mala-hém” calls out Shukkur Ali, accenting the last syllable, when he energetically grasps his oar, but he goes to sleep between, and the oar hovers in the air; his own voice wakes him up, he dips the oar in and goes to sleep again.
The hours pass by, but there is no sign that we are nearing our destination. We cannot decide which bank is nearest, and we seem to be in the centre of this boundless lake. In the midst of Gurla Mandatta is seen a huge deeply eroded ravine, its entrance standing out picturesquely below the dense mantle of clouds. For a moment, when all around lay buried in shadow, the interior was lighted up by the sun, and it presented a fantastic appearance, resembling a portal into a hall of the gigantic dome lighted up by innumerable candles. The valleys and erosion channels between the different spurs of the massive are sharply defined, and wind down to the lake among flat cones of detritus, the outer margins of which cause the variations in the depth of the bottom. This now increases again to 200, 203, 213, and 240 feet. At fourteen points, these included, the bottom temperature is observed. The sounding occupies a considerable time. The line must first be paid out to the 230 feet, and then be held still till the thermometer has assumed the bottom temperature, and then it must be drawn up again, the depth must be noted, the thermometer read, thetemperature of the surface water and the air must be ascertained, and the log-reading taken.
Five furlongs to the north the smooth swell shows a curious fiery yellow colour, and I cannot make out the origin of this singular reflexion. The clouds gather in the south-west, and a breeze sweeps over the lake, producing waves which retard still more the progress of the boat. Rehim Ali cannot keep himself awake any longer, and Shukkur Ali is very comical in his overpowering sleepiness. The old man looks like a weather-beaten sea-dog in a south-wester—his Ladaki cap with its spreading flaps. He snoozes innocently with his oars up, and rows again and again in the air, still calling out his constant “Shu-ba-la-la.” He talks in his sleep. Rehim Ali wakes up and asks him what is the matter, and no one knows what it is all about. Towards seven o’clock the dustman pays me a visit, but is not admitted. Only for a moment I see red wild asses running over the water, hear harps playing sweetly in the air, and behold the great black head of a sea-serpent rise above the waves and then sink down again; green dolphins and small whales arch their backs among the waves—but no, I must keep awake, for a storm may come down upon us any moment. I give my boatmen a good douche with the hollow of my hand, wash my own hands and face, and order breakfast—a hard-boiled goose egg, a piece of bread, and a bowl of milk, and then I light my pipe and am as lively again as a lark. At the twentieth sounding-place, 259 feet deep, the other two follow my example.
At nine o’clock, when we have been exactly twelve hours on the water, we sound a depth of 268.4 feet, but the south-western shore seems to our eyes as far off as ever. Rehim Ali thinks it is awful to have so much water under the keel. The clouds on Gurla lift a little, and we see deeper into the recesses of the great valley the more we come opposite its mouth. The lower points of the snowfields come into sight below the clouds. West of them is seen a broad erosion channel, grey with detritus and dotted with dark brushwood. The water reflects the forms of the mountains like a mirror; it turns blue whenthe sky is clear, but green again as soon as the clouds gather. A shoal of fishes plays in the water and splashes on the surface.
And again the hours of the day pass by. We glide slowly forwards, now over calm rising swell, whispering gently as spirit voices, now over small pyramidal waves produced by the meeting of two systems of undulations from different directions. Four small squalls from different quarters threaten us, but we catch only a flip of their tails, which cannot stir up the waves to a dangerous height. The last, from the south-east, is the strongest, and then the sail is hoisted. But still the shore seems far distant; perhaps Tsering was right with his Lamaistic wisdom.
All details, however, become sharper and clearer. Gurla turns three mighty gables towards the lake, and between them huge fans of detritus and erosion channels come to view. The fans become flatter towards the shore, and extend under the water down to the greatest depths of the lake; on the north shore, where a wide plain lies, the lake bottom might be expected to sink more slowly. Gurla is a splendid background to the holy lake—no artist in the world could conceive anything more magnificent and interesting.
Then we sounded 253, 243, 253, 223, 190, 177, and 82 feet, and perceived at length that the shore was near, for yaks and sheep were visible on the hills. The sea was now fairly high, and we had to bale the boat twice, and my fur coat on the bottom was wet. The two tired and sleepy men laboured painfully at the oars. We talked of how pleasant it would be to land, kindle a fire, and take our tea and food, but the shore still retired before us, and the hours of the afternoon slipped past. Gurla seemed to rise in the south directly from the water, its level skirts and low slopes being much foreshortened. The monks of the monastery here do not depend for water on the brooks, but drink the holy water of the lake, which has in reality the taste of the purest, most wholesome, spring water. Its crystal purity and dark greenish-blue colour are as beautiful as the flavour, and to pilgrims from adistance the water of Manasarowar is preferable to sparkling champagne.
At last we were released from imprisonment in the boat. We saw the bottom through the clear water, and a few strokes of the oar brought the boat to a wall of clay and decaying weeds, which the winter ice had pushed up on the bank. Inside the wall lies a longish lagoon, with mud in which one sinks to the knee. The time was half-past one, so we had been 16½ hours on the lake. But when we had reached the shore we found it impossible to get on land. After I had thought over the matter, while the men looked about them, we rowed northwards, and after an hour and a half discovered a place where the boat could be drawn ashore. Then we had been eighteen hours on the water.
A herdsman was seen, but he made off quickly. Fuel was collected and a fire lighted. Tea was infused and mutton fried, and when the three of us had eaten our dinner a temporary tent was constructed of the oars, mast, and sail, in which I lay down to sleep towards seven o’clock, wrapped in my fur, and with the life-buoys for a pillow. I had toiled for thirty-one hours continuously, so I went to sleep at once, and knew nothing of the storm which raged all night, or of the twenty-five pilgrims who passed by at dawn on their circuit of the holy lake.