205. The Shuru-tso, with Targo-gangri in the Background.

No words can describe the panorama around us. We stand above a sea of mountains with here and there a predominant peak. To the south we see the Himalayas clearer and sharper than before, and can perceive where the valley of the Brahmaputra runs on this side of the white ridge. To the north the Shuru-tso is much foreshortened, and the Dangra-yum-tso is hidden by Targo-gangri, which is sharply defined, though we are six days’ journey from it. Nay, even the contours of the mighty mountains on the north-east shore of the lake, which we saw in winter from the north, are distinguishable, and they lie fully ten days’ journey from here. I sit at the fire, drawing and making observations, as on all the passes. I am again on the Trans-Himalaya, 53 miles from the Chang-la-Pod-la, and now cross it for the third time. Northwards the water drains to the Shuru-tso, southwards to the Raga-tsangpo. My feet stand on the oceanic watershed, my eyes roam over this huge system, which I love as my own possession. For the part where I now stand was unknown and waited millions of years for my coming, lashed by innumerable storms, washed by autumn rains, and wrapped in snow in winter. With every new pass on the watershed of the gigantic rivers of India which I have the good fortune to cross, my desire and hope become ever greater to follow its winding line westwards to regions already known, and to fill up on the map the great white blank north of the Tsangpo. I know very well that generations of explorers will be necessary to examine this mighty intricate mountain land, but my ambition will be satisfied if I succeed in making the first reconnaissance.

We leave the cairn and the fire, its smoke covering the summit of the pass as with a torn veil, and follow the brook, of which the water will some day reach the warm sea after a thousand experiences. I turn a page and begin a new chapter in my life as an explorer; the desolate Chang-tang remains behind me, and Targo-gangri sinks below the horizon—shall I ever see its majestic peaks again?

We descend rapidly with the wind in our faces. Large blocks of ice fill the valley bottom between walls of black schists and porphyry. Several large side valleys open into ours, and deserted hearths are signs of the visits of nomads in summer. Our valley unites with the large Kyam-chu valley, which is 6 miles broad and descends from the Sha-la, the pass of the Trans-Himalaya over which our Tibetans had wished to guide us. The land round the nomad tents of Kyam is flat and open.

On May 7 we march on in a terrible wind with the blue mirror of the Amchok-tso on the south. The ground is flat and hard. A hare runs like the wind, as if his life were in danger, over this flat, where he cannot find the slightest cover. Eight sprightly antelopes show us their graceful profiles as they spring lightly along, rising from the horizon against a background of sky. Robert has drawn his fur over his head, and sits in the saddle like a lady, with both his legs dangling on the sheltered side, while Tashi leads his mule. But as the wind still blows through him, he lays himself on his stomach across the saddle. My horse sways when the wind catches the broad breast of its rider. The wind howls and moans in my ears, it whines and whistles as it used to do in the Chang-tang, a whole host of indignant spirits of the air seem to complain of all the misery they have seen in the world.

The plain is called Amchok-tang, and we march over it, following the main stream. Amchok-yung is a village of five tents, where are some fine manis bedecked with yak skulls, antelope horns, and slabs of sandstone, one of them, of a regular rectangular form, measuring 40 inches. The inhabitants of the village disappeared as if by magic; only an old man gave us his company as we inspected two of the tents. But when we had ridden on, the people crept out again from behind dung heaps, hillocks, and grass tufts, where they had hidden themselves.

The wind bores thick yellow sand out of the ground into a spout, which is so dense that it looks black on the shady side. It winds up in cyclonic spirals like the smoke of a tremendous explosion and, like a strange ghost, dances across the plain, and does not fall to pieces till it reaches the foot of the eastern mountains.

206. On the Upper Raga-tsangpo.
207. Angden-la.208. Chomo-uchong from the East.