Small footpaths from the side valleys join our road, which is now broad and shows signs of considerable traffic. All our guides tell us that this is the great highway to Shigatse, and is also a section of the main road connecting Chokchu with the capital of the country. The road is a collection of parallel footpaths, and where it crosses slopes and steep declivities appears like stripes on the ground.
We continue our ascent in a south-south-easterly direction, and find ourselves about 100 feet above the valley bottom, which is occupied by a huge ice-belt of uniform breadth resembling a great river; we could fancy ourselves transplanted to the Indus valley in its winter dress as seen from Saspul. But the resemblance is only apparent, for after we have passed some rather large side valleys we reach the abundant springs of Mense-tsaka with warm freshwater at a temperature of 118°, which farther down forms pools where small fishes dart about among slimy weeds. The water gradually cools down and forms ice, and runs down over it farther and farther until, as now in the end of January, it has filled the whole valley bottom from the foot of one flank to the other.
From the great meeting-place of the valleys we have passed four manis, in general not more than 10 feet long, but covered with unusually well-dressed slabs of red, white, or green sandstone and slate. On the former, the letters in the weathered crust stand out bright red against the chiselled intervals with their white surface. We are tempted to take away some specimens, but we shall probably have later opportunities of committing sacrilege.
In front of us stands the trough up to the pass; surrounded by the concave crest, where the caravan is seen on the top, the pass seems unpleasantly steep. Above the valleys Shib-la-yilung and Chugge-lung the ascent is difficult, and the horses often pause on the slopes of detritus. At last, however, we are up at the votive cairn with its streamer pole amongst smaller pyramids of stones. This is the Shib-la, which has a height of 17,549 feet. The view is magnificent and is free on almost all sides, for no summits in the foreground obstruct it. Down in the valleys we were sheltered from the wind, but up on the summit it sweeps unhindered over the agitated sea of crests.
The guide points south-westwards to the next pass we have to cross. Between it and the Shib-la stretches a deep boldly eroded ravine, sloping to the west-south-west. Its river, or rather its ice-belt, unites with all the watercourses we have crossed this day—with all, indeed, that we have met with since the Sela-la. We have therefore crossed a number of tributaries, but the main stream, which receives them all, lies to the west of our route and is not visible from any point. It is the river called My-chu, My-tsangpo, or My-chu-tsangpo.
We had still a fairly long march to the camp. It grew dusk. We descended the steep slope on foot, stumbling over the rubbish and the mouse-holes. Darkness came on, but a white streak was seen in the valley, the ice of the river. The light of the camp-fire looked tempting in the cold and darkness. But nothing is so deceptive as a blaze of light in the darkness; you go on and on, but the fire seems no larger. At last, however, tired and starved, we arrived at the camp and sat as close as possible to the glowing argol, and the conversation with Muhamed Isa began—cheerful and animated, as usual.
Four of our spare yaks were thoroughly exhausted and must have a day’s rest. Had I known what was coming behind in our track, I would have left them and hurried off next morning. But we knew nothing, and spent the last day of January quietly in camp No. 119. The thermometer fell to −29.9°: the third time we had recorded the same reading.
I spent the leisure day in studying the maps I had drawn, and endeavouring to form a clear conception of the mountains and valleys among which we had been wandering. This much was evident, that the great watershed between the isolated lake basins of the Chang-tang and the Indian Ocean ran along the main Pabla range, and that this was the immediate western prolongation of the mighty chain Nien-chen-tang-la. We had crossed the Pabla mountains at the Sela-la, and were now in the wide-stretching intricate river system of the My-chu. Nearly parallel to the My-chu flows farther east the Shang-chu, and along its valley the Pundit Krishna (A. K.) travelled in the year 1872 and Count de Lesdain in 1905. Between the My-chu and the Shang-chu there must therefore be a secondary watershed and a considerable mountain elevation, which is really nothing else than an offshoot from the main range of the Pabla. All the watercourses we had crossed from the Sela-la onwards flow westwards, and the secondary watershed, where they take their rise, lies to the east of our route. It is, however, possible that between the My-chu and the Shang-chu another, or perhaps several valleys lie, equal in importance to the valleys of these rivers.
The Pabla is only a part of the main chain of the “Trans-Himalaya,” and the Trans-Himalaya is not only a watershed of the first rank, but is also a geographical boundary of exceptional importance. I have now and then wandered through mountain regions of awful grandeur, but have never seen anything to equal the country to the south of the Trans-Himalaya. In Chang-tang the predominating lines of the landscape are slightly undulating and horizontal; now we had reached the peripheral regions, having a drainage to the sea, and immediately vertical lines came into prominence. On the south side of the Trans-Himalaya the valleys are much more boldly excavated in the rock masses than in any part of the plateau country. And why? Because the precipitation from the monsoon clouds is incomparably more abundant on the south side of the Trans-Himalaya than on the northern flank. It is the same in the Himalayas, where the south side, facing the west monsoon, catches the lion’s share of the precipitation, and is irrigated by much more abundant and more continuous rains than the northern. Now we found springs, brooks, and rivers in every valley, while not very long before we were always in danger of finding no water. In climatic relations, then, the Trans-Himalaya is a boundary line equalled in magnitude and importance by few on the earth’s surface.
My excitement and expectation were constantly increasing; every day I saw plainer indications of the proximity of a religious metropolis—votive cairns, manis, travellers, caravans were all signs of it. My Ladakis were inspired by the same feeling of exultation which the pilgrims of Islam experience when they approach the Arafat mountain, and remember that from that elevation they will behold for the first time the holy Mecca.