The men, too, were more alive than on the first nocturnal voyage. They had evidently made up their minds to reach their destination before night, and they rowed like galley-slaves with the whip hanging over them; they seemed to run a race with the west wind, and try to get away before the waves rose too madly. The water hissed and foamed round the boat, and bubbled in the wake as when butter is browned in a pan, and beneath us the lake boiled up. It was a fine voyage as we rocked, spinning rapidly over the holy waves.
| 249. Sheep-shearing at Tugu-gompa on Manasarowar. |
Shukkur Ali’s refrain to the strokes of the oars is now “Ya paté, parvardigar Rabel, alehmin” or “Illallah,” while Rehim Ali responds to the cry of his comrade with “Haap”—the p jerked out quickly and loudly like an explosion—and with the refrain “Illallah,” or “Svalallah.” The Arabic words are, as usual in Ladak, much corrupted, but they lighten the work, and after Shukkur Ali had yelled them out thirty-five times in a minute for nine hours as loudly as his vocal cords would let him, he was dreadfully hoarse in the evening.
Then the soundings were 131, 171, 171, 177, 177, 185, 187, and 177. Out beyond the abrasion terrace and its rather steep escarpment, the lake bottom is practically level. Hanging cloud fringes show that rain is pouring down in torrents on most sides, but we escape it. My excellent boatmen row twice as fast as on the first night, but it is impossible to induce them to row in time. If I loose the rudder a moment, my boat falls off to the north or south instead of making east, where camp No. 212 lies. If it is dark before we reach the shore, our men are to light a pile of wood to guide us.
The day draws to an end, the wind sweeps away the clouds, and they seem to gather round the mountains, which form a grand wreath around this pearl of lakes. The wind dies quite away, the sun scorches my weather-beaten face, and it is trying to the eyes when the sparkling gold of the sunbeams falls straight upon them. Their blinding light makes it difficult to distinguish our goal, but I hold the compass in my hand. The waves sink and become more languid, and the sea is again smooth as glass. Now we move more slowly, for the wind no longer pushes behind, but the men are unwearied; their boat-song dies away over the water, awaking no echo. The hills of the eastern shore show no perceptible difference in size between one sounding-point and the next. I sit dreaming, the rhythmical song and the splashing of the oars exercising a soporific effect. I seem to hear the tramp of a horse which bears a rider in silver harness over the granite mountains of the Trans-Himalaya through an unknown land, and in the dream I perceive that the features of the rider are my own. Then I am sad, for the dream is false. I have certainly crossed the Trans-Himalaya by three passes, but the most important part of the exploration has not been accomplished. That I have done my utmost in dealing both with the Tibetans and the Chinese to gain access to the country north of the Tsangpo is no consolation to me. If one can storm the opposing bulwark of Nature, one should be able to overcome the obstinacy of man. Up yonder in the north, behind Kailas, the Trans-Himalaya extends its granite ramparts, and I must go there though it cost me my life. I must go there, if I clothe myself in the rags of a mendicant lama and beg my way from one black tent to another.
But we are still on the holy lake; it is a day of rest and a summer’s day. I feel the skin of my face cracked by the burning of the sun. The hours crawl so slowly over the lake; patience, patience. The clouds display wonderful tone-effects; white and grey, sharply defined, they lie in different stages before the mountains, and behind them dark blue and purple curtains seem to hang down. We might be gliding over the bright floor of a temple hall, its walls richly decorated with flags and standards, which hang down from golden hooks on the ceiling of the sky, and touch the dust of earth with their fringes. The genii of Siva’s paradise seem to hover round us. Now Shukkur Ali has taken to a new cry: “Ya aferin adétt,” to which he adds “Ya, Allah,” as he lifts his oar, and Rehim Ali chimes in with “Shupp.” The depth still remains about 180 feet. To the south-east curious clouds are reflected in the lake, and a mist seems to be creeping over the water. All the tones are so light, airy, and grey that the landscape, which surrounds us like a ring where the water ends, seems hardly real. The twin summits of Pundi on the north-east are dark and solemn, and equally dark and solemn is the mirror of the lake. Silver beads drop from the oars and glitter like diamonds in the sun. I could live and die on this heavenly lake without ever growing weary of the wonderful spectacle always presenting fresh surprises.
Meanwhile a light south-easterly breeze disturbs again all the reflexions. The valleys Pachen and Pachung open their doors wider and wider, and allow us to see deeper into the recesses of the mountain. We recognize the hills above camp No. 212, but the tents are not visible. But we see a white spot on the northern shore which we take for a gompa. The depth is somewhat over 197 feet; “Ya bismillah hum!” is Shukkur Ali’s exclamation. At the sixteenth point the depth has again decreased, the south-easterly breeze has ceased, and the lake is again a sheet of glass. Now the tents can be seen as tiny specks, and we hope to complete this line also without a storm. A long, low, smooth swell of closely following waves, like the wake of a distant steamer, comes to meet us. How has it been produced, since the lake is quite peaceful? Perhaps by a slight convulsion of the earth’s crust, which has disturbed the shore. The undulations on this round lake are very peculiar. At point No. 20 the depth is only 128 feet, and now we have not far to go.
Crack! Shukkur Ali’s oar broke off in the middle with a bang, and the boat drew rapidly away from the blade end, which had to be picked up. The good man was so dumbfoundered and bewildered that he stammered, “That does not matter,” and went on rowing with the shaft in the air. Now, when the tents were so near, he had developed too much strength. “It is well that the old man does not burst himself,” I thought. We tied the parts together with a piece of string. There was a stir on the shore when we landed. The waiting men showed by word and gesture how glad they were to have us back again after giving way to all kinds of dismal forebodings about our sad fate. Just as they caught sight of the boat out on the lake, Robert was about to send out patrols up and down the shore. All was well in the camp, except that the Tibetans were troubled because their provisions were at an end. I gave them money to buy tsamba at the monastery. In the evening I discussed with Robert a plan of rowing southwards to investigate the lake bit by bit. We bought a plank and two staves in Serolung, and on the first leisure day Shukkur Ali cut out with an axe two excellent oars, after a pattern I had cut for him from the lid of a cigarette box.
On the next day, the anniversary of my arrival in Leh, a new month began. Every time I write in my diary “the first,” I wonder what the new month holds in its lap—new discoveries or new disappointments? But I hope always, and believe that all will come right at last. Rabsang and Tundup Sonam rowed, and Robert steered along the three-feet line about 55 yards from the land, while I sat in the bow, compass in hand, and drew a map of the shore-line, the hills and valleys, and all the details that are characteristic of a lake. Charles A. Sherring states in his book on western Tibet that Mr. Drummond, Commissioner of Bareilly, sailed in 1855 in a boat on Manasarowar, but no result has come to my knowledge; on the contrary, I find that the very latest map of the lake needs a thorough correction. Soundings had never been taken before, and the object of my boating expeditions was to collect material for a detailed isobathic map. When we left behind us the basin of the Brahmaputra at the pass Tamlung, I had already suspected that Manasarowar was a member of the hydrographic system of the Sutlej, and I wished to try if I could not make a contribution towards the solution of this problem. I knew that my investigations could only be inadequate, but they yielded a number of facts hitherto unknown. Among these are the systematic sounding of the bed, by means of which conclusions may be drawn as to the origin and formation of the lake. I soon convinced myself that the lake depression had been excavated by old glaciers from the southern mountains, as I at first conjectured, and was not dammed up by moraine walls across the broad valley. But want of space forbids me to enter fully into a discussion of this interesting question.
We glide in a flat curve to the south-west, and have to increase our distance from the shore that we may not run aground on the sandy bottom. The water at this season of the year has a fairly constant temperature of about 50°. Then we approach the mouth of the Tage-tsangpo. For about two-thirds of a mile the river flows parallel to the shore of the lake, being separated from it by an embankment 13 feet high, which has been cast up by the waves and the pressure of the ice. Here we encamped among driftsand and bushes, and measured the Tage-tsangpo. Its breadth was 56.8 feet, its maximum depth 3.4 feet, and its discharge 397.6 cubic feet a second, or 106 cubic feet more than where we last gauged it above the Na-marden affluent. I have already related how we first came in contact with this river at the pass Tam-lung-la; its source stream, the Gang-lung-chu or “water of the ice valley,” comes from the Gang-lung mountain in the south, and so there is a glacier or “ice valley” in this mountain which is the origin of the Tage-tsangpo. It is seen from the Tam-lung-la, and is the glacier which I venture to call the Sutlej’s genetic source or the real original source. We shall return to this attractive problem.