256. Yanggo-gompa.257. Interior of the Temple, Tugu.
Sketches by the Author.

Somchung is the name of a small compartment no larger than a cabin. On its divan are cushions and pieces of cloth arranged in circles to form two nests, in which two monks sit during the night service. On the altar table before Sakya-muni’s image stand forty bowls filled with water, and on another table some peacock’s feathers in a silver vase, with which the gods are sprinkled with holy water to the cry “Om a hum.”

In former times robbers and footpads harboured here, and had their hiding-places in the caves below the monastery. From these they fell upon the pilgrims and killed many of them. Then the god of Tso-mavang appeared to Jimpa Ngurbu, a noble lama, and ordered him to build the monastery, that it might be a sure stronghold for the protection of pilgrims, and for the honour of the gods. Even now the country is not safe. Last year two scoundrels, who had plundered the nomads, were taken and executed; and we ourselves saw ten Gurkhas, armed with guns, who rode past us in search of a robber band which had stolen their horses and sheep.

The monks said that the lake usually freezes in January; in stormy weather the ice breaks up, but when the weather is calm and the frost is sharp, the whole lake freezes over in a single day, and breaks up again in a single day when it is stormy. Unfortunately the statements made about the level of the water and the discharge are contradictory and untrustworthy. A lama, thirty-five years of age, now staying here, had lived on Tso-mavang as a child. He said that he well remembered the time when the water flowed out of the lake to Rakas-tal in such quantities that a horseman could not cross the channel, which is called Ganga, without danger. But now this channel had ceased to carry water for nine years. I was shown where the shore line ran last autumn, five fathoms farther inland, so that the lake must then have been 22½ inches higher. I was also shown a yellow block of stone, to which the water was said to have reached twelve years ago, and this point lay 101⁄3 feet above the present level of the lake. Such a rate of fall is improbable, though this statement accorded fairly well with the information I had received at Tugu-gompa. The threshold of the one cave lay now 22.57 feet, and that of the other 120.4 feet from the shore, 18.86 feet above the water. I was told that when the monastery was built, one hundred years ago, the lake had reached both these caves, and that only a small path was left along the strand by which the caves could be approached. However, the dates of the Tibetans are exceedingly uncertain, and to arrive at safe conclusions we must resort to the statements of European travellers. I will make a few remarks on them later. When I asked one of the monks what became of all the water poured into Tso-mavang by all the rivers and brooks, he replied:

“However much it rains, and though all the tributaries are full to overflowing, no change is noticeable in the lake, for as much water is evaporated as flows in. In our holy books it is written that if all the tributaries failed, the lake would not sink and disappear, for it is eternal and is the abode of high gods. But now we see with our own eyes that it is always falling, and we do not know what this means.”

The following records may be useful to future explorers: the lower edge of the massive threshold of the main gateway in the façade of Gossul-gompa lay on August 8, 1907, exactly 122.7 feet above the surface of the lake, as I ascertained by the help of a reflecting level.

258. A Dreamer. Lama in Yanggo-gompa on Manasarowar.
Drawn by T. Macfarlane from a Sketch by the Author.

We ascended to the roof of Gossul-gompa. It is flat, as usual, with a chimney, parapet, and streamers. No language on earth contains words forcible enough to describe the view from it over the lake. It was, indeed, much the same as we had seen from various points on the shore, but the light and shade was so enchanting and the colouring so wonderful that I was amazed, and felt my heart beat more strongly than usual as I stepped out of the dark temple halls on to the open platform. Tundup Sonam said in his simple way that the lake with its encircling mountains seemed like the sky with its light clouds. I, too, was the victim of an illusion which almost made me catch at the parapet for support. I wondered whether it was a fit of giddiness. I took, to wit, the border of mountains on the eastern shore for a belt of light clouds, and the surface of the sea for part of the sky. The day was perfectly calm and the lake like a mirror, in which the sky was reflected; both looked exactly the same, and were of the same colour, and the mountains, which in consequence of the distance were all blended into a dark shadow, were like a girdle of clouds. The air was not clear, everything was of a dull subdued tone, there was no colour to speak of, but all was grey—sky, land, and water, with a tinge of blue, a fairy scene of glass, with decorations of white gauze seen through a thin blue veil of incense rising from the altar of the mighty god of the lake.

What has become of the earth, if all is sky and clouds? We are not totally bewitched, for we are standing on the roof of the monastery leaning against the parapet. A dream-picture in the most ethereal transitory tones floats before us. We seem to stand on a promontory jutting out into endless space, which yawns around us and in front. And where is now the holy lake, which yesterday nearly robbed us of life, and on which the storm was so furious that I still seem to feel the ground quaking under my feet? Has the Gossul monastery been changed by some whim of the gods into an air-ship which is bearing us away to another planet? Its streamers hang motionless on their poles, and nothing can be seen of the mountains, country, and ground.

“Oh yes, if you lean a little over the parapet,” says a monk, smiling. True! Then the illusion vanishes, to my great chagrin. I should have liked to remain a while under its enchantment. Just below us runs the narrow margin on the bank, with its black dam of clay and water-weeds, and its elongated lagoons. Through the crystal-clear water we see the yellowish-grey mud on the lake bottom, the dark fringe of weeds, and the dark depths beyond. It is like a huge aquarium covered with plate-glass. Two flocks of geese are swimming on the water, producing diverging ripples. All is so indescribably quiet; so ethereal, transparent, and transitory, so subtile and sensitive, that I scarcely dare breathe. Never has a church service, a wedding march, a hymn of victory, or a funeral made a more powerful impression on me.