He returned to Gyala and rejoined Captain Morshead, and they proceeded to piece their knowledge together. At Gyala a small stream drops from the cliffs, making a waterfall, in which the god Shingche Chogye is concealed. The image of the deity is carved or painted in the rock behind the fall, but it is only possible to see it in winter when there is little water. This, apparently, was Kinthup's fall of 150 feet. Now, why should so meagre a natural feature have attained such celebrity among the Tibetans, for the fame of it had spread far and wide over the country? The reason seems to be that it is unique, because there are no other high falls. Had this deduction been made from Kinthup's evidence, the mystery of the Brahmaputra gorges would have been solved long ago.
The travellers collected their observations on the altitude of the river level and the speed of the current. At Pe, where they had first struck the Tsangpo, the height was 9,680 feet; thirty-four miles below it the river level was 8,730 feet, giving a drop of 28 feet a mile. At Pemakochung the altitude was 8,380 feet, and the drop 24 feet a mile. Three miles farther down the altitude was 8,090, giving a drop of 97 feet a mile, which included the 30-feet drop of Kinthup's fall. At the lowest point Captain Bailey reached in the river bed the altitude was 7,480 feet, giving a drop of 48 feet a mile. The next point on the river which they had visited was Lagung, below the gorges, where they could not take an observation in the river bed; but forty-five miles downstream the altitude was 2,610 feet.
There remained, therefore, some fifty miles of gorge which had not been, and could not be, explored, and the information about it was only indirect. From Lagung upstream to where the Po-Tsangpo joined the Tsangpo, lay a stretch which many natives had visited. The altitude of the junction was estimated at 5,700 feet, which would give a drop of 3,090 feet in the seventy-five miles down to their observation of 2,610 feet—a fall of some 41 feet per mile. Here there was clearly no waterfall. From the junction of the two streams to the point where Captain Bailey turned back was not more than twenty miles, and the drop 1,780 feet, giving a fall of 89 feet a mile. The Monbas whom he met told him that they had hunted on the right bank of the stream throughout this unknown stretch, and that, though there were many rapids, there were no big cascades.
We are not concerned with the rest of the journey of Captain Bailey and Captain Morshead, which took them upstream to Tsetang, where Nain Singh had gone in 1874, and back to India by the wild country of the Bhutan border. Their evidence may be considered to have finally solved the riddle of how the great river breaks through the highest range on the globe. It does it by means of a hundred miles of marvellous gorges, where the stream foams in rapids, but there is no fall more considerable than can be found in many a Scottish salmon river. I am not sure that the reality is not more impressive than the romantic expectation. The mighty current is not tossed in spray over a great cliff, but during the æons it has bitten a deep trough through that formidable rock wall. Curiously enough, the rivers which break through the Himalaya chose the highest parts of the range through which to cut. South of Pemakochung is the great peak of Namcha Barwa, 25,445 feet high; north of it is the peak of Gyala Peri, 23,460 feet. The distance between these mountains is only some fourteen miles, and through this gap, at an altitude of just under 9,000 feet, flows the great river.
III
THE NORTH POLE
THE NORTH POLE
I
When sceptical people say that Polar exploration has been of no benefit to mankind, it is permissible to think that their judgment is as unsound as their point of view is limited. Not only have Polar explorers added enormously to the scientific knowledge of the world, but they have also materially aided commerce. But even if these voyages had been barren of scientific and commercial results, they would have been infinitely worth making.