It is not for me to decide how far I have achieved my aim, but when I passed over the Trans-Himalaya for the eighth time at the Surnge-la, I had at least the satisfaction of seeing all the old hypotheses fall down like a house of cards, and a new ground-plan laid down on the map of Asia, where before the blank patch yawned with its alluring “Unexplored.”
| 383. The Author in Tibetan Costume at the Mission Station in Poo. Photograph by the Rev. Mr. Marx. |
I have no space here for a complete monograph of the Trans-Himalaya, or, indeed, the material for it, until the bearings and heights of the peaks have been worked out, the rock specimens identified, and a detailed map constructed from the sheets I drew. It will take a couple of years to work up the material. I will here only communicate some general facts, and will begin by citing the passes of first rank as watersheds, appending the names of the travellers who have crossed some of them:
It has, then, been my lot to cross eight Trans-Himalayan passes, while seven have been crossed by other travellers. Seven of my passes were unknown before. Of the others I have seen the Dicha-la and Men-la, while of the remainder I have only gathered oral information. The Jukti-la is the watershed between the two headwaters of the Indus, the Tseti-lachen-la between the Sutlej and the Indus, the Surnge-la between the Sutlej and the Nganglaring-tso. Shiar-gang-la and Shang-shung-la lie on the watershed between the Salwin and the Brahmaputra. All the others lie on the great continental watershed between the ocean and the isolated drainage of the plateau. It appears from the list that all the passes crossed before by Europeans and pundits belong to the eastern and western parts of the system. Between the Khalamba-la and the Surnge-la the Trans-Himalaya had not been crossed in a single line, and it was exactly between these two passes that the great white space was situated. All that was known of it was the peaks fixed by Ryder and Wood, and some summits seen by Nain Sing from the north. If the Pundit’s journey between Manasarowar and Ruldap-tso be disregarded, of which I have no information, the interval between the Khalamba-la and the Jukti-la measures 590 miles, or about as far as from Linköping to Haparanda, or from London to Dornoch Firth. And between these limits lie all the passes by crossing which I was able to trace the course of the Trans-Himalaya, and prove that its known eastern and western sections are connected and belong to the same mountain system, and that this system is one of the loftiest and mightiest in the world, only to be compared with the Himalayas, the Karakorum, Arka-tag, and Kuen-lun. Between the Shiar-gang-la and Yasin, not far from the sharp bend of the Indus, its length amounts to 1400 miles, but if it can be shown that the Trans-Himalaya merges into the Hindu-Kush and continues along the Salwin, its length extends to 2500 miles. On the north and south its boundaries are sharp and clearly defined; the northern is formed by the central lakes discovered by Nain Sing and myself, and the southern by the unheard-of Indus-tsangpo valley. In breadth it is inferior to the Himalayas, and its peaks are lower, but the heights of the Trans-Himalayan passes are considerably greater than those of the Himalayas. The average height of the five following Himalayan passes—Shar-khalep-la, Man-da-la, She-ru-la, No-la and Kore- or Photu-la—is 16,736 feet, while the average height of my first five Trans-Himalayan passes is 18,400 feet. It may be said generally that the dividing passes in the Trans-Himalaya of the first rank are 1600 feet higher than in the Himalayas. But the highest peak of the Himalayas, Mount Everest, with its 29,000, is 5100 feet higher than the Nien-chen-tang-la, the culminating point, as far as we know. Herewith are connected the different forms of relief predominating in the two systems; the crests of the Trans-Himalaya are flatter, its valleys shallower and broader, while the crests of the Himalayas are sharp and pointed, its valleys deep and much eroded. The former system is more compact and massive than the latter, as we may expect if we remember that the Himalayas are deluged by the precipitation of the south-west monsoon, and that its waters have for untold thousands of years degraded its valleys, while the Trans-Himalaya on the dry plateau country receives a comparatively insignificant share of the monsoon rain. Were it possible to compare the volumes of the two systems, we should no doubt find that the northern is much more massive than the southern, for such a comparison must proceed from sea-level, and though the Trans-Himalaya is the narrower of the two, its ascent begins from heights of 10,000 to 16,000 feet, from the Tsangpo valley, while the Himalayas rise from sea-level or a few hundred feet above it. As a watershed the Trans-Himalaya occupies a higher and more important place than the Himalayas. In the west the Himalayas parts the waters between the Indus and some of its tributaries, and in the east the system is a divide between the Brahmaputra and the Ganges. But every drop of water which falls on the Himalayas goes down to the Indian Ocean. On the other hand, all the central Trans-Himalaya is a watershed between the Indian Ocean on the south and the enclosed drainage area of the plateau depression on the north. Only in its western section is the Trans-Himalaya also a watershed between the Indus and some of its right-hand tributaries, and in its eastern between the Salwin and Brahmaputra. Within the boundaries of Tibet there is only one river which takes its rise from the northern flank of the Trans-Himalaya and breaks through the system by a transverse valley; but this river is a lion, and is called by the Tibetans the Lion river, the Singi-kamba or Indus. The Salwin also springs from the northern flank of the system, but finds its way to the ocean without passing through the mountains. All the other rivers rising on the northern slopes, of which the Buptsang-tsangpo and the Soma-tsangpo are the largest, flow into the undrained salt lakes on the north. Only in the central parts of the Trans-Himalaya, stretching, however, over a distance of nearly 600 miles, does the continental watershed coincide with the main axis of the system, for to the west the watershed runs northwards from the source of the Indus, and then westwards, so as to leave the Panggong-tso within the isolated drainage basin of Tibet, and in the east runs northwards from the region between the source streams of the Salwin and Tengri-nor.
I have called this book Trans-Himalaya, because the incidents and adventures described in these two volumes occurred in this huge mountain system lying to the north of the Tsangpo and in the country to the north and south of it. When I first crossed the dividing range at the Sela-la I thought of retaining the name Hodgson had assigned to it, that is, Nien-chen-tang-la, and I did not change my mind after crossing the Chang-la-Pod-la and Angden-la, for these three passes lie on one and the same range, which on the southern shore of Tengri-nor is called Nien-chen-tang-la. After crossing the Tseti-lachen-la and the Jukti-la I supposed that these passes lay on the western prolongation of the Nien-chen-tang-la, and that the conception of Hodgson, Saunders, Atkinson, Burrard, and Ryder was correct. But after the second journey right through Tibet, and after I had crossed Bongba in several directions and found that there was no question of a single continuous range, but that a whole collection of ranges quite independent of one another existed, I perceived that the name Nien-chen-tang-la, which only denotes one of all these ranges, could not be given to the whole system. Equally inappropriate would be the names Lunpo-gangri, Kamchung-gangri, Targo-gangri, or any other local name. Saunders’ “Gangri Mountains” I consider still more unsuitable, for every mountain in Tibet clothed with eternal snow is called a gangri, and the name in this connection would have a meaningless sound. Neither could I accept Burrard’s “The Kailas Range.” A name must be found suited to the whole of this intimately connected association of mountain ranges, a geographical conception which would leave no room for misunderstanding, and I decided to call the whole system, the connection and continuity of which I had succeeded in proving, the Trans-Himalaya.
Among English geographers many have approved of this name and an equal number have disapproved. To the latter category belongs Colonel Burrard, who points out that for some years back all the regions lying beyond the Himalayas have been called Trans-Himalayan. And in a letter he has lately written to me he says:
Pupils of Montgomerie naturally ask why an old word should be given a new meaning when it is possible to invent any number of new names for newly discovered mountains. I do not see that it is necessary to give an important name to newly discovered mountains. A new name will become important because of the mountains to which it is attached, and your mountains would have rendered any new name important.
| 384. The Last Members of the Last Expedition in Poo. |
I cannot share Colonel Burrard’s view, for I answer that just because of the circumstance that Montgomerie’s pupils, officials of the Survey of India and pundits, have for fifty years and more called the country north of the Himalayas “The Trans-Himalayan regions,” it was incumbent on me not to reject this name for the mountain system which can be nothing else but the Trans-Himalaya par excellence.