CHAPTER XXIII
DOWN THE TSANGPO BY BOAT—ENTRY INTO SHIGATSE
The 9th of February dawned, the great day on which our caravan of yearning pilgrims would reach the goal of their dreams. The day before had been stormy, and in the evening a strange reddish-yellow light spread over the valley in consequence of the dust that floated about in the air; the mountains were indistinct, and the horizon to the east was quite invisible. But the morning was beautiful and the day was calm. Early in the morning Sonam Tsering and some Ladakis went on board two boats with part of the baggage, while Muhamed Isa and Tsering kept along the road with the caravan. That was a stratagem we had devised. If any one appeared at the last moment ordering us to halt, the prohibition would only affect Muhamed Isa and the caravan, while I should slip into Shigatse by water unnoticed.
All the others were on the way when Robert, Rabsang, and I made our way from the terrace down a steep gully, and stepped on board the excellent boat that was to bear us down the holy stream. These Tsangpo boats are both simple and practical. A skeleton, or rather framework, of thin tough boughs and laths is tied fast together, and is covered with four yak hides sewed together, which are attached to a rim of wood forming the gunwale—and the boat is ready. It is very dumpy, of a long rectangular shape, but somewhat smaller in front than behind. It is not heavy, being only an ordinary load for a man. All the boats now descending the river with pilgrims going to the New Year festival, and the boats which convey country produce or fuel to Shigatse and Tashi-lunpo, will be carried back by the owners along the river-bank. A large proportion of the inhabitants of Hlindug-ling, the part of Tanak where we had encamped, gain their living by such transport. These boats are very buoyant; there were four men in mine, and it could have borne a much heavier load.
The rower sits on a thin board and rows continuously, but faces forwards, for he must be able to see the waterway downstream. The blades of the oars are divided like a fork, and a piece of leather is sewed between the prongs like the web of a duck’s foot. Our boatman is a self-confident fellow, and receives my advice with a smile of superiority when I venture to air my experience in river navigation. The current does most of the work, but the oars are in constant use to keep the boat under control.
At first we glided along slowly till we came to the village Segre, with white, clean, and neat houses standing picturesquely on the left bank, and a short distance beyond, to where the river washes the foot of a steep mountain spur. But then the velocity of the boat increased, amounting on an average to 4 feet a second. I was able to look down the river, note the intervals of time, take my bearings, measure the velocity, and draw a map of the river’s course, just as I had before done on the Tarim. We passed no cataracts, but the water formed small rapids in narrow contracted reaches, and seethed round the bends. It was a splendid voyage, the most delightful that I have experienced. The last day’s journey could not have passed more pleasantly. In Tibet, where hitherto Nature had only placed obstacles in our way, we were now borne along by one of Nature’s forces. During half a year we had worked our way through Chang-tang with constant losses, and now the gates stood wide open and I glided as smoothly as on oil to my destination. One of the greatest erosion valleys of the world displayed its wonderful panorama, the air was so still that not the slightest ripple ruffled the surface of the Tsangpo. Undisturbed by the winds of heaven, the emerald-green water gives itself up to the sport of silent eddies, which, coming into existence at cliffs and projecting points, dance rapidly downstream in ever wider circles, and finally vanish altogether. They are born and die, come and go, and the same tongue of land calls forth new ones to life, but every new vortex whirls its spirals in other water of the holy river, which has for thousands of years pursued its course to the mysterious narrows of the Dihong.
What an intoxicating pleasure to be borne along eastwards by the Tsangpo! Is the river one of the forbidden paths of Tibet? If they come now and stop me I shall return: “I am not in Tibet; I am on the holy river of the Hindus; let me alone.” The view changes with quite perplexing frequency: we have a dark wall of rock in front of us; at the next turn it has disappeared, and another comes into sight on the opposite side of the stream. We often wonder what above and below mean here; we seem to remain motionless while the panorama revolves round us. Robert is plunged in thought, looks over the gunwale, and, misled by the water and ice-blocks about us, exclaims with astonishment: “Why, Master, surely we are not moving.” “Look at the sandbank yonder on the left,” I reply, and he is puzzled at seeing it move upstream. And where the river is shallow and the bottom can be seen, it seems as though the gravel, rounded stones, and sandbanks were all passing upwards underneath the boat.
| 106. Ferry-Boats. |
| 107. Pilgrims on the Way to Tashi-lunpo. |
We fall into reverie on this fairy-like voyage. A thought occurs to me: shall we travel on to the mouth of the Ki-chu and thence go up to Lhasa on foot? We can travel by night, and hide ourselves during the day; and Tibetan is Rabsang’s mother-tongue. But it passes away as quickly as the eddies beside the boat. In Lhasa I could add nothing to the knowledge acquired by Younghusband’s expedition two years before; my hopes were fixed on the friendship of the Tashi Lama. On the Sela-la I had conceived a great fancy for the Trans-Himalaya, and no geographical problem on earth had greater attractions for me. All my future enterprises should have the object of making as thorough a scientific investigation of the Trans-Himalaya as could possibly be accomplished by one man in a single journey. Yes, this task was so tremendous that my former longing for Lhasa died away like the red of even in the Tsangpo valley, this gigantic colonnade of granite, this royal highway of Buddha, which, breaking through the mountains and becoming hazy in the far east, leads direct to the mouth of the Lhasa valley, while we now glide along on its floor of liquid emerald to the holiest town of Lamaism. Fascinating and attractive as fairy dances the current carried my thoughts eastwards, but it also prompted new plans of campaign in districts which had hitherto lain outside my sphere of interest. In the valleys which pour their water to the My-chu, I had heard more than once of Nain Sing’s Raga-tsangpo, which some Tibetans had described as quite as important as the Tsangpo itself. Was, perhaps, the Raga-tsangpo the main stream? Had it, perchance, tributaries deriving their water from the heart of the mysterious country to the north? Not an evening had passed during the whole winter when I had not studied attentively Ryder’s and Nain Sing’s maps. Was it certain where the source of the Brahmaputra lay? Had I not here a task before me much more profitable than following in the steps of Tommy Atkins to Lhasa? The sun-lighted waters bearing our boat brought me intelligible messages from distant ravines, from the melting margins of perpetual fields of firn, from bluish glaciers and green ice grottoes in the heaven-kissing crest of the Himalayas, nay, a sonorous echo from the valley where the source of the Brahmaputra bursts out from the rock.