On July 4 the main body set off, even now very considerable. We were to march direct by a road up to the present date untravelled, our first march being to Lumeh, which was also on the road used by Mallory and by last year’s Expedition. From there we marched up the Dzakar Chu instead of turning to our right and crossing the Arun. We had been largely in summer in Kharta, but on our way to Lumeh we came in, for a time, to some of the very strongest winds we had met since leaving the Rongbuk Glacier. Crossing a little gully, I was nearly blown off my pony. Our camp at Lumeh has been described by Colonel Howard-Bury, and is a very charming spot.
The following march to Dzakar Chu was quite new ground, not travelled by any European, and was very interesting indeed, but extremely rough. It led for part of the way through a steep and deep gorge, extraordinarily like the gorges in the Hindu Kush in Gilgit and Chambal. The gorge, owing to its elevation, is of less depth, but the whole colour and form of the mountains, their bareness and barrenness, and the smell from the wormwood scrub, brought back to me the Hindu Kush in very vivid recollection. Those gorges, however, as so often in the West, are terribly and oppressively hot, but here, at 12,500 to 13,000 feet above the sea, we were in a fresh and exhilarating air. We camped at a village called Dra, at the foot of the pass we were to cross, which is called the Chey La. Our camp was pitched in a very pleasant grove, and here we had, for the last time until we arrived at the Chumbi Valley, a gorgeous and glorious camp-fire. Curiously enough, the wood was willingly given to us by the inhabitants.
The following morning there was a long march and a continual pull to the top of the Chey La, about 17,000 feet, the last thousand feet being a very rapid ascent, but from the top we were almost in sight of Shekar and the Arun Valley. The camp at which we stopped was a very short morning’s walk from our old camp at Pangli, and separated from it by a low ridge.
The next morning, after crossing the Arun at the Arun Bridge, we reached Shekar, where we had a great reception. The Dzongpen played up, and he had no less than 160 mules all collected and ready for us the following morning; and not only that, but every one turned out the evening, and we had a little race meeting of our own and a great tea with exchange of cakes and compliments with the Dzongpen himself. Altogether we were evidently in very good favour both with the Dzongpen and with the great Lama of Shekar. Noel and others paid a very interesting visit to the great Lama, and were shown by him his collections of curios of all kinds. They thought at first that the old gentleman prized and guarded these as Gömpa property, but they were rather surprised to discover that he was perfectly ready to sell at a price—and that his own. He was by far the shrewdest trader that we had come across in Tibet. Most of the things that he was ready to part with, however, were beyond the pockets of our party.
John Macdonald, who has a very good eye for a pony, took out a likely mount in the horse-races and himself won no less than three races that day. He bargained for it, as he was looking forward to the Darjeeling pony-races in the autumn, and before we left Macdonald, to his great joy, had concluded a very respectable bargain.
Panorama at Shekar Dzong.
The following morning we got off not quite as well as we should. We had difficulty in loading and some difficulties on the march. Shekar had proved altogether too much for the porters and the following morning they were not of much use; in fact, it was with the greatest difficulty that many of them were produced at the next camp. The place was called Kyishong. It had not been a very promising little camp, so we thought of stopping down by the river on a very pleasant plot of grass, but on arrival there we found a dead Tibetan in a basket moored to the bank in the water about a hundred yards above our camp, so that was no place for us. Instead of marching back exactly the same way we had come, viâ our camp at Gyangka-Nangpa, we determined to follow up a smaller branch of the Arun which would bring us finally down on to Tinki itself. By so doing we avoided wading the Yaru in two places, and also the rather high and steep Tinki Pass. On our way across the plains of Teng, before one arrives at the great sand dunes of Shiling, we passed a Sokpo, a true Mongolian, whose home was in Northern Mongolia, near Urga, a religious devotee. He was travelling from Lhasa to Nepal, that is, to Khatmandu, on a pilgrimage, by the time-honoured method of measuring his length on the ground for every advance. He was a young man and apparently well fed, trusting to the kindness of the villages through which he passed for his food. He told us that he had been continually travelling and that it had taken him one year to reach the place where we found him from Lhasa, and that he hoped to get to Khatmandu in another year, if he was lucky and able to cross the mountains. We encouraged him the best way we could and left him to his work.
Our halt that night was in a very pleasant camp surrounded by low cliffs at a place called Jykhiop. Our march up this valley was a great contrast to our march into Tibet. A warm sun and a pleasant cool breeze blowing; the clouds drifted across us and we had some rain, which only added to our comfort. We camped one night at a place called Chiu, where we all bathed, and bathed the ponies into the bargain.
Our last march before reaching Tinki was over an interesting pass, which suffers under the terrible name of the Pharmogoddra La, down to a pleasant little camping ground with a very dirty village near it. Here we caught an enormous number of fish, the inhabitants proving quite ready to help us do so. Every one fed freely on fresh fish that night.