“Certainly; but which way do you think of taking? If you wish to go to the Dangra-yum-tso, you must cross the Kam-la, which lies a little farther up this valley. But if you prefer the route to the Ngangtse-tso, you must travel on eastwards. It is all the same to us which way you take, but I must know for certain. I will ride back to my tent and fetch parched meal, which you can buy when I overtake you in a few days. The yaks I will send to-morrow morning.”
Karma Tamding seemed so trustworthy that I handed him half the purchase money in advance, and the next day we bought 3 yaks at 20 rupees a head, and received a guide, who conducted us over two difficult passes, eastwards to the Rara country, and on December 16 over the Pike-la, a gap in a longitudinal valley running parallel to the Bogtsang-tsangpo.
We were compelled to camp early by one of our three mules, which could not travel any farther. He came up to the fire with trembling legs and laid himself down. “The news of his death will be the first I shall hear in the morning,” I thought, but I had not to wait so long, for before the stars had begun to twinkle he lay stiff and cold in the smoke of the camp-fire. Only two of the Poonch mules were left.
Then Karma Tamding rode up with twelve other Tibetans, two of them women. They sat down by the fire and looked at me; and I looked at them. The older woman had a fine sheepskin, and on the forehead an ornament of pendent coral and silver coins from Lhasa. The younger was similarly dressed, and had a huge lambskin cap. Little could be seen of her, but the little that was visible was dirty beyond belief. The men were strongly built and well proportioned—one could perceive that, when they drew off the right sleeve and exposed their breasts to the heat of the fire.
When we had gazed at one another long enough, and I had learned that the small lake near by was called the Tarmatse-tso, the whole party crawled into Muhamed Isa’s tent to offer their edibles for sale. And there parched meal and barley was bought to the value of 68 rupees; it was quite a pleasure to see with what an appetite our last twelve animals emptied their bags of barley; they had so long had to put up with the execrable grass of the desert.
Next day we took leave of honest Karma Tamding. “On the boundary of Naktsang you will meet with an elderly man, named Chabga Namgyal, who is just as nice as I am,” were his last words. We continued our long winter journey through Tibet eastwards along the same convenient longitudinal valley, and bivouacked in the district Neka, an ominous name (it means in Swedish to refuse), which might perhaps have brought us bad luck had the supreme chief of Tang-yung, whose headquarters are here, been at home at the time. Fortunately he had a short time before set out with his wife and children to Tashi-lunpo for the New Year festival, and had consigned his large herd of yaks and flock of sheep to the care of his servants and his herdsmen. They sold us milk and butter, but disapproved of my disturbing the gentle fish in a neighbouring pool. Within an hour I had twenty-five on dry land, which were a great treat at dinner. Robert had been unwell for some days, and now developed high fever, which confined him to his bed. Sonam Tsering suffered from a curious mountain sickness, in consequence of which all his body swelled up and assumed a livid hue. Two others were unwell, and the medicine chest stood open again. Sonam Tsering’s tent was like an hospital, where all the sick found shelter as soon as they were incapacitated. Only old Guffaru was still healthy, did the work of two, and had at present no use for the shroud he brought from Leh. His large white beard had turned yellow in the smoke of the fires, and his hands, frost-bitten in winter, were dark and hard as iron. We stayed two days in camp No. 90, to give the invalids a rest. My dapple-grey from Yarkand was nearly drowned in a spring; fortunately he was seen from the camp, and ten strong men pulled him out of the mud. Then he was dried at the fire, rubbed well down, and covered with cloths. But his days were numbered.
On December 20 we ride on along the longitudinal valley parallel to the Bogtsang-tsangpo, and encamp at the mouth of a transverse valley, which belongs to the southern mountains, and is called Kung-lung. Frozen springs are seen on all sides; the farther we advance southwards the more the country is fertilized by the monsoon rains. The ground is honeycombed by millions of mouse holes; they are so close together that there is no room for more. The field-mouse here does the work of loosening and ploughing up the ground that the worm does in our soil. But the herbage derives no benefit from it, for the mice subsist on the roots and destroy the grass.
When we had passed the boundary between Tang-yung and Naktsang, and had just pitched our camp at the source of the brook draining the Kung-lung valley, three riders with guns suddenly appeared, who were making for the same spot, and behind them came a dark group, perhaps soldiers. Probably they were about to arrest us here, at the first camp in Naktsang. No; another false alarm. They were simply peasants from the Bogtsang-tsangpo, who had been to Naktsang to barter salt for tsamba (parched meal) and barley, and were now on their homeward journey. The troop consisted of members of several tent villages, among which the goods would be distributed. The tsamba and the barley were carried by yaks, horses, and sheep, and seemed sufficient to last many households all the winter.
Here I heard for the first time of the lake Shuru-tso, but I little thought that I should bivouac on its shore next spring. The range on the north, in which the Keva is the highest summit, is the water-parting between the Dagtse-tso and the Kung-tso, a lake visible to the east. On the south we had the range which we had first seen at the Dangra-yum-tso, and which afterwards skirts the south side of the Tang-yung-tso.