The tributary here forms a delta with two branches between gravelly banks 5 feet high. A post was driven in on the left bank of the main arm, to which we fastened one end of a rope, with the other end I rowed over to the right bank, where the rope was fastened to another post. The breadth was 59 yards. Then I measured the depth at eleven points at equal distances apart, and found that it did not exceed 31⁄3 feet. The velocity was measured on the surface, half-way down, and at the bottom, with Lyth’s current meter. Taking the breadth and the average velocity we arrive at the discharge, which in the two arms of the Dok-chu amounted to 1165 cubic feet per second.

Where the two streams unite the Dok-chu is rapid and tumultuous, the Brahmaputra slow, deep, and quiet. Its breadth was 50 yards and its maximum depth 15.3 feet; the bed is therefore narrow and very deeply excavated. The discharge amounted to 2966 feet in the second, or two and a half times that of its tributary the Dok-chu.

When I had finished this work, our friends Tso Ting Pang and Lava Tashi accompanied me on a short excursion down the main stream, and then we landed on a promontory where our men lighted a fire and served up the best provisions we had, namely, hard-boiled eggs, slices of cold chicken, and milk. A cordial and mixed party, a Swede among Tibetans, Chinamen and Ladakis, we partook of our late dinner amidst the grandest, and most boldly sculptured landscape conceivable. While the others smoked their pipes and sipped their greasy tea, I drew a sketch of the mighty gate of solid granite through which the Brahmaputra rolls its volumes of water on its way to the east, to the valley of the Dihong and the plains of Assam. We should have liked to stay here longer, watching how moment after moment the insatiable stream gathers in its abundant tribute from the Dok-chu, but it was growing dark and we had a long way to go back, so we packed up our boat and stowed it on hired horses with the other baggage, mounted into the saddle, and rode up the valley. As had often happened before, we were to-day overtaken by the darkness. Rabsang went in front with a Tibetan on either side, and all three bellowed as loud as they could. All were in excellent spirits, it was so fresh and pleasant under the twinkling stars, and the merry singers, accompanied by the jingle of the bells on the Chinese horses, awoke a shrill echo in the recesses of the mountains. At a dangerous place near a village, where the road runs above the river over a ledge built up of stones, men came to meet us with paper lanterns, and soon after we sat resting in our tents after a hard but very instructive day’s work. Next day we marched gently up the Dok-chu valley in a north-westerly direction, a charmingly beautiful road, where one would like to dismount repeatedly to enjoy conveniently the wild mountain scenery.

But now I cannot loiter; one page after another of my journal must be turned over if I am ever to come to an end of my description of this journey on which so many hard experiences and disagreeable adventures awaited us.

We ride through rubbish and coarse sand, the weathering products of the grey granite, and pass a succession of transverse valleys and several picturesque villages. One of these, Machung, is finely situated at the foot of steep rocks on the northern side of the valley, from which an oval block has fallen down and stands like a gigantic egg in the sand, a pedestal waiting for an equestrian statue. On its eastern side, smoothly polished by wind and weather, a regular tricolour is painted, white in the middle, red on the left and blue on the right, but neither Bonvalot nor Dutreuil de Rhins has left this memorial behind, for no traveller has ever been in the neighbourhood. It is the inhabitants of the village who have made this flag, and beside the tricolour is another symbolical painting, a white cross on a black field. Near the village some gnarled trees are reflected in a pool. The villagers stand staring at the corners and in the house-doors, and a man offers my servants a drink of chang from a wooden bowl. The rocks are sculptured into singular forms; the granite is in vertical dykes and stands in perpendicular crags in the valley. We often pass by mani cists, for we are in a country where monasteries are numerous and the whole road is adorned with religious tokens. At every cist the road divides, for no one, except adherents of the Pembo sect, omits to pass it on the left, the direction in which the prayer mills revolve. On the tops of many of the rocks are seen ruins of walls and towers, a proof that the valley in bygone times was more densely peopled. At two places sheltered clefts in the rock harbour some stunted juniper trees. On the northern side of the valley the river has at some time polished the base of the granite wall, and on the smooth surface two rock drawings have been executed. They consist of outlines of Buddha pictures, and are very artistically drawn. The western has two others beside it, now scarcely traceable, and below them all kinds of ornamentation, tendrils, and designs are hewn in the granite. We encamped just above this spot in a very picturesque and interesting expansion of the valley at the village Lingö.

Part of the inhabitants of Lingö migrate in summer with their herds, six or seven days’ journey northwards, for the soil round Lingö is very poor and the harvest cannot be depended on. The Dok-chu cannot be crossed here in summer except by boat; in the winter it freezes over, but seldom so firmly that the ice will bear. The interesting point about this expansion is that the Dok-chu, or Raga-tsangpo, coming from the west, here unites with our old friend the My-chu, which discharges 534 cubic feet a second. I had the day before calculated 1165 feet as the discharge of the Dok-chu, so the difference of 631 cubic feet is the volume of water brought down by the Raga-tsangpo, and consequently the My-chu is only a tributary. On the other hand the Dok-chu pours through several delta arms with rapids into the My-chu which lies lower and flows more gently, and by this test the My-chu should be the main river; it is all a question of choice.

We had another fine day on April 8, 52.5° in the shade at one o’clock. We were to make a closer acquaintance with the My-chu, a river we had hitherto known only from hearsay, but we had more knowledge of its eastern tributaries which we had crossed on our journey south. As usual we change our baggage horses in almost every village at which we encamp, and Robert pays the hire to the villagers, that the escort may not have an opportunity of putting it into their own purses, at any rate not in our presence. Generally the caravan marches a little in advance, while two villagers come with me and give me information about the country.

183. Lama in Tong.184. Old Tibetan.
Sketches by the Author.

Immediately beyond Lingö we turn into the My-chu valley, riding northwards, and now leave behind the westerly valley of the Raga-tsangpo. Right at the turn we come to a colossal cone of round blocks of granite, among which the path winds up and down in zigzags, sometimes transformed to a staircase, which laden animals cannot possibly pass. We therefore take with us some peasants from the village to help in carrying the baggage. We have the river on our left, deep and sluggish. The fallen boulders of grey granite contrast strongly with the dark-green water in which whole shoals of black-backed fishes swim and rise. On a surface of granite is a Buddhist rock-drawing half obliterated by time. Then follows one mani after another. A smith is housed in a cave with a vaulted roof blackened with soot, and sheltered by a small screen of stones, and offers his services to travellers. High up on a rocky terrace stands Gunda-tammo, a small nunnery, and below a chain bridge between two stunted pyramids spans the river. It is only for foot passengers. The river bed is deeply excavated between its bank terraces, and two strips of clear green ice yet remain. The bed is as regular as a canal. On a rocky wall at the entrance of a side valley a face 6 feet in diameter is painted in black, with eyes, nose, and mouth in red.

The farther we go up the more frequently we are reminded that we are on a hallowed road leading from one temple to another, a sacred way of the monks, a pilgrim route on which “Om mani padme hum” is murmured more repeatedly than on ordinary roads. Sometimes boulders and cliffs are painted red, sometimes cairns are heaped beside the way, now we see chimney-like monuments with bundles of rods decked with streamers, then again long mani mounds, one of them nearly 400 feet long. Two blocks lying on the road are covered all over with raised characters—a formidable piece of work. We are also in a great commercial artery, more frequented than the bank of the Tsangpo. We constantly meet caravans of yaks and mules, mounted men and foot-passengers, monks, peasants, and beggars. They salute me politely, scratching their heads with their right hands, while they hold their caps in their left, and putting their tongues far out of their mouths, and they call out to me: “A good journey, Bombo!”