Another very important product of Kashmir is hemp, which grows spontaneously along the banks of the river, forming dense thickets often twelve and fifteen feet in height, and almost impenetrable. It is only used in the manufacture of an intoxicating drink, and for smoking; and the plant is preserved entire, in store-houses, in the town of Kashmir, till required for consumption.
From Kashmir I proceeded towards the plains of the Punjab by the same route by which I had travelled in May. During my absence in Tibet, the second Sikh war had broken out, and as it was then at its height, it was not easy to reach the British territories. I was therefore detained a good while, first in Kashmir, and afterwards at Jamu, and did not reach Lahore till the 16th of December.
CHAPTER XV.
General description of Tibet—Systems of mountains—Trans-Sutlej Himalaya—Cis-Sutlej Himalaya—Kouenlun—Four Passes across Kouenlun—Boundaries of Western Tibet—Height of its mountain ranges and passes—Climate of Tibet—Clouds—Winds—Snow-fall—Glaciers—Their former greater extension—Elevation to which they descend—Snow-level—Geology—Lacustrine clay and alluvium.
The elevated country of Central Asia, situated to the north of the lofty snowy mountains which encircle India from Kashmir to Assam, is familiarly known to Europeans by the name of Thibet or Tubet,—most properly, I believe, Tibet. This name is also commonly employed by the Mohammedan nations to the north and west to designate the same country, but is not, so far as I am aware, known in the language of the Tibetans themselves, among whom different portions of the country are usually known by different names.
BOUNDARIES OF TIBET.
The whole of Tibet (as far as our present very limited knowledge of the south-east portion enables an opinion to be formed) appears to be characterized by great uniformity of climate and productions, and perhaps also of natural features, on which account it appears convenient to retain the name for the whole country, although, as has already been pointed out by Baron Humboldt[28], it is naturally separable into two grand divisions. One of these, the waters of which collect to join the Sanpu, which in India becomes the Brahmaputra, is still scarcely known; the other, drained principally by the Indus and its tributaries, has been repeatedly visited by European travellers. The line of separation between these two portions lies a little to the east of the great lakes[29], from the neighbourhood of which the country must gradually slope in both directions towards the sea.
If the whole of western Tibet formed (as it does, according to the popular opinion on the subject of the countries to the north of the Himalaya) an extensive plain bounded on the south by the great chain of the Himalaya, and on the north by the lofty mountains of Kouenlun, it would be an easy task to define its limits. This is, however, so far from being the case, that the greater part of the surface of the country is traversed in all directions by ranges of mountains in every respect similar to the Himalaya, of which in fact those south of the Indus are ramifications, while those on the north are branches of the snowy chain of Kouenlun.
If, again, the Himalaya formed an uninterrupted chain along the southern border of Tibet, broken only by the passage of the Indus at one extremity and by that of the Brahmaputra at the other, the mountainous nature of the interior would be no obstacle to the existence of a clear and distinct boundary. Unfortunately, however, for simplicity of definition, no such chain exists. A line of high snowy peaks may doubtless be traced in a direction nearly parallel to the plains of India, but these are separated from one another by deep ravines, along which flow large and rapid rivers, and therefore afford no tangible line of demarcation between the two countries.
TRANS-SUTLEJ HIMALAYA.