400 



GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



fall between Gya-la Sindong and the junction of 

 the Dihong with the Brahmapootra, a distance 

 of 160 miles, must be 7,000 feet. This is equaled 

 by the fall of other rivers of the Himalayas ; 

 yet such a descent in a river of such magnitude 

 must present scenes of imposing grandeur. 

 The conjecture that the Sanpoo was the upper 

 course of the Subansiri was based on the sup- 

 position that the volume of the Subansiri was 

 greater than that of the Brahmapootra, and on 

 the difficulty of accounting for the size of the 

 Subansiri with the area of drainage to which 

 it seemed confined if it were not identified with 

 the Sanpoo. Harman has proved that the 

 volume of the Dihong is really two or three 

 times as great as that of the Subansiri. The 

 discovery of a considerable area within the 

 great bend of the Sanpoo greatly increases the 

 probable drainage area of the Subansiri. 



The English advance into Afghanistan has 

 been productive of valuable geographical re- 

 sults. The route of Colonel Prendergast to 

 Candahar, through the Sulimani Mountains and 

 the Chacar Pass and across the Vatakri Plain 

 (the same route by which General Biddulph 

 returned), was over new ground. Lake Ab-is- 

 tada, which was supposed to have no outlet, is 

 found to overflow into the northern branch 

 of the Arghasan River, a tributary of the Hel- 

 mund. 



The directors of the trans-Himalayan oper- 

 ations of the Indian Trigonometrical Survey 

 Ryall, who surveyed the regions about the 

 sources of the Sutlej, and Kinney, whose field 

 was the neighboring region from which the 

 western feeders of the Ganges spring have 

 given some interesting information upon the 

 character and customs of the people of this 

 part of Chinese Thibet, as well as regarding 

 the hydrography and orography of the coun- 

 try. The western district of Thibet, which 

 borders upon British India and is drained part- 

 ly by the upper Sutlej and Karnali Rivers, is 

 called Nari-Khorsam, or sometimes Hundes. 

 The snow-line, Ryall supposes, is rarely below 

 20,000 feet in any part of Hundes. He laid 

 down 38 different peaks covering an extent of 

 country 100 miles in length. The most re- 

 markable of these, besides Leo Pargial, de- 

 scribed by Andrew "Wilson, were Gurla Man- 

 dhata (25,300 feet) and Kailas, which lie on op- 

 posite sides of the lakes of Manasarowar, Cho 

 Mapang and Lang Cho. Kailas, although in- 

 ferior in altitude to Gurla Mandhata, presents 

 probably the most magnificent aspect of any 

 part of the Himalayas excepting Nanga Parbat. 

 It resembles in form a Pandoo temple with the 

 tip of its conical summit broken off, and is 

 therefore invested with a sacred character by 

 the Hindoos of Northern India. Its extr^aor- 

 dinarily huge mass overtops by several thou- 

 sand feet all the other summits for forty miles 

 around. The Hundes Valley, viewed from an 

 elevated position, presented the appearance of 

 a wide plain interrupted at intervals by low 

 ridges in its eastern portion to the west of the 



Manasarowar lakes. The plateaus and moun- 

 tains of this sterile country, which produces no 

 trees except poplars on the borders of streams, 

 are composed of clay, slate, and fossiliferous 

 limestone. Kinney ascended from Nilang to 

 the main watershed of the Himalayas, and 

 sketched the district of Tsaparang, one of the 

 three districts of Hundes, the others being 

 named Daba and Purang. The entrance to 

 the Nilang Valley from Bhairongati is through 

 a terrific gorge, inclosed between snowy peaks 

 over 20,000 feet in height, which seem to di- 

 rectly overhang the river-bed. The Bhotias of 

 Kumaon and Gurhwal are the traders between 

 Thibet and India. The principal exports from 

 Hundes are borax and shawl-wool ; trade in the 

 former has suffered much from a fall in price 

 of 70 per cent., and that in the wool, which is 

 called pashm, has also greatly fallen off in late 

 years, and numbers of the shawl-goats are sold 

 in India for sacrificial purposes. The shawl- 

 wool is sold at Gartok to Cashmere merchants, 

 who take it to the manufactories of Cashmere 

 and to Amritsar and other markets in the Pun- 

 jaub. The finest pashm is grown in the neigh- 

 borhood of the Manasarowar lakes. Gold is 

 found in the gold-fields at Thok Jalung and on 

 the shores of the lakes, but it is not brought in 

 any quantity into India. The wild and tame 

 varieties of the yak furnish a useful kind of 

 soft wool. The inhabitants of the higher pla- 

 teaus of Hundes are nomads, and those on the 

 arable lands along the Sutlej and its tributaries 

 are partly nomadic in their habits. Their 

 herds are composed of goats, sheep, and yaks, 

 The people of Hundes are of purely Tartar origin, 

 and are very strongly marked with the physi- 

 cal characteristics of that race. They are hide- 

 ously wrinkled, even the young having furrowed 

 faces. The Hunias, as they are called, are un- 

 cleanly in their habits, fond of tea, which they 

 mix with butter, and much addicted to a beer 

 brewed from rye without any bitter ingredient, 

 which is called cJiang. The brick-tea which 

 they use is the monopoly of the Lhassa Gov- 

 ernment, and is dealt out to the provincial gov- 

 ernors at a fixed price, who force the people to 

 take it in quantities regulated by the wealth 

 and standing of each family, at the rate of 

 about one rupee per pound. Salt and borax 

 can be dug up in any quantity near the Thok 

 Jalung gold mines. The inhabitants of the 

 Bhotia Mehals of Kumaon and Gurhwal are of 

 mixed race, the Tartar blood predominating. 

 The Bhotias are enterprising and intelligent, 

 and not infrequently good-looking. The in- 

 habitants of the Nilang Valley differ in no way 

 from the Hunias. The Bashahris of Indepen- 

 dent Gurhwal are said to be the only foreign 

 traders allowed to travel without hindrance all 

 over Thibet. 



The present state and future prospects of 

 trade between Bengal and Thibet were the 

 subject of a paper read by Lieutenant-Colonel 

 Lewin before the British Association. The 

 present difficulties which are thrown in the 



