And then they struck their heels into their horses, drew together into close order, and trotted gaily up to the level surfaces of the river terraces. Captivated by the appearance of the departing troop I ran after it, and watched the dark column grow smaller at the red spur, where the old shore lines seemed to run together. Singular people! They rise like goblins from the depths of their valleys, they come one knows not whence, they, like us, visit for a few short days the foot of the snowy mountain, and then they vanish again like a whirlwind in the dust of the horses’ hoofs and beyond the mysterious horizon.
We, too, set out, and I left the Dangra-yum-tso to its fate, the dark-blue waters to the blustering storm and the song of the rising waves, and the eternal snowfields to the whisper of the winds. May the changing colours of the seasons, the beauty of atmospheric effects of light and shade, gold, purple, and grey, pass over Padma Sambhava’s lake amidst rain and sunshine, as already for untold thousands of years, and the steps of believing, yearning pilgrims draw a chain around its shores.
Accompanied by Robert and our aged guide, I rode across the river, which carries about 140 cubic feet of water, and up to a spur of Targo-gangri in order to procure a rock specimen. One glacier tongue after another of the long series on the east side of the mountain passes out of sight, and now the gap disappears through which we had seen a corner of the lake, and far away to the north on its other side the outlines of light-blue mountains.
Six hundred sheep were grazing on a slope without shepherds. Now and then a hare was started in the thick tufts of steppe grass. From the screes on our right was heard the pleasant chirp of partridges. When we were far away two shepherds came up out of a gorge and drove the sheep down to the river. At the lower end of the moraine of a glacier stood a solitary tent. I asked our old man what the spot was called, but he swore by three different gods that he had no notion. The most southern outskirt of Targo-gangri hid the rest of the range, but before we reached camp No. 151 it appeared again foreshortened. This camp stood on the left bank of the river.
| 202, 203, 204. Targo-gangri from the South. |
May 1. Spring is come; we have, indeed, had as much as 29 degrees of frost during the preceding nights, but the days are fine and clear, and it is never as trying as in the Chang-tang, even riding against the wind. At camp No. 150 we had been at a height of 15,446 feet; now we go slowly down, following the river at first, but leaving it on the left when we see it emerge from the mountains as through a gate. Over a singularly uniform and continuous plain without fissures or undulations we now approach in a south-westerly direction the threshold which separates the Shuru-tso from the Dangra-yum-tso. On the south-west side of Tangro-gangri appear six glaciers, much smaller than those on the north and east, and rather to be regarded as spurs and corners of the ice mantle which covers the higher regions of the massive. The Shuru-tso is seen as a fine blue line. We approach its shore and find that the lake is completely frozen over. We make a halt to photograph and to draw a panorama. Our old man smokes a pipe, and Robert and Tashi try which can snore loudest. When I am ready we sneak off quietly from the two sleepers. Tashi is the first to awake, understands the joke, and also sneaks off. At last Robert awakes and finds himself alone, but he soon overtakes us on his mule.
Now we have the lake close on our right. To the south rise grand mountains, one of the loftiest chains of the Trans-Himalaya, raven black beneath the sun, but the firn-fields glitter with a metallic lustre. Considerable terraces skirt the bank, and the valleys running down from the east to the lake cut through them, forming hollow ways in which a solitary tent stands here and there guarded by a savage dog. We encamp on the terrace above the Parva valley, our eight black tents contrasting strongly with the yellow soil (15,594 feet). Our old Tibetans from Kyangdam now bid us farewell and receive double payment as a present. In front of us are the congealed waters of the Shuru-tso, longing to be released by the warm spring winds; to the south rises the Do-tsengkan, a mighty elevation clothed in eternal snow; in the south-west the sun sinks behind the huge crest of the mountains and the shadows pass silently across the ice. Soon the evening red lingers only on the peaks of Targo-gangri and Do-tsengkan, and then another night falls over the earth. It is a pity that the Tibetans do not understand the relations of the sun and the planets, for they might regard the solar system as a unique immeasurable prayer-mill revolving in space to the glory of the gods. In the darkness the lofty mountains to the north-west are misty and indistinct, but when the moon rises they and the lake are illuminated alike and seem to be connected. From our terrace we seem to have a bottomless abyss below us.
On May 2 we ride southwards along the shore (Illust. 205). Like the Dangra-yum-tso, the Shuru-tso runs almost north and south, lying in a longitudinal valley which has this direction, so unusual in Tibet. There is open water along the bank, and the waves splash against the edge of the porous ice, on which wild ducks sit, often in long rows. Owing to the swell the water on the bank is black with decayed algæ and rotting water-weeds, in which wild geese cackle and scream. As we come to the regularly curved southern shore of the lake, with its bank of sand, we see the well-known signs of a storm on the plain before us, white dust swirls, stirred up in spirals from the ground by the wind, like the smoke of a shot. After a time we find ourselves in the path of the storm—it will not need many such storms to break up the whole lake and drive its loosened ice-sheets to the eastern bank. We ride across the river Kyangdam-tsangpo, which comes from the Trans-Himalaya, and bivouac on its western terrace (15,548 feet). Here we have the whole lake in front of us to the north, and behind it Targo-gangri, now smaller again.
Here our attendants were changed. The Largep chief, who had been so overbearing at first, was as meek as a lamb at the moment of parting, and gave me a kadakh, a sheep, and four skins of butter. Every morning when the caravan sets out Ishe comes to my tent to fetch my two puppies; Muhamed Isa has the third, which he means to train up to be a wonderful animal, and the fourth has been consigned to Sonam Tsering. They have grown a deal already, and howl and bite each other on the march, when they ride in a basket on the back of a mule. They are graceful and playful, and give me great amusement with their tricks.
From the little pass Dunka-la we had a grand and instructive view over the great Shuru-tso, which is of a somewhat elongated form and is convex to the west. Next day we crossed the pass Ben-la in a south-westerly storm. It raged and blew day and night, but the air remained quite clear. On the 6th we rode up a steep path to the Angden-la. In the rather deep snow and the tiring rubbish the horses can get on only a step at a time, and have often to stop and rest. Tsering rides past us with his yak caravan, and four Ladakis have stayed behind in the valley suffering from acute headache. At the top of the pass (18,514 feet) stands a huge cairn with strings and streamers, their prayers rising to the dwellings of the gods on the wings of the wind (Illusts. 207, 209, 210).