The Tsangpo 



33 



height of nearly 15,000 feet. Receiving 

 the drainage of the slopes of the Hima- 

 layas and of a little-known Tibetan 

 range running parallel with these moun- 

 tains, it soon becomes a stream wide 

 and deep enough to be navigable. 

 There is a considerable boat traffic upon 

 it, at an elevation but Httle below the 

 summit of Mt. Blanc. It flows due east 

 for some eight hundred miles, receiving 

 numerous large tributaries from both 

 south and north, and when near Lhasa 

 it is, at low water, nearly a third of a 

 mile wide and twenty feet deep ; in flood, 

 two miles wide and of unknown depth. 

 In longitude 94° E. it makes a sharp 

 bend to the south, and passes through 

 the Himalayas in a course known only 

 to the savages who dwell upon its pre- 

 cipitous banks. 



When last seen by an explorer it is 

 at a height of from eight to eleven thou- 

 sand feet, but when it emerges in Assam 

 it is only four hundred feet above sea- 

 level. From this point it pursues its 

 sluggish way for another eight hundred 

 miles as the Brahmaputra to the Ganges 

 and the Bay of Bengal. There has been 

 a long controversy, into the details of 

 which it is not necessary to enter, as to 

 whether the Irawadi or the Brahma- 

 putra is the continuation of the Tsangpo. 

 Though there has been as yet no direct 

 evidence — the last expedient of throw- 

 ing in marked logs in Tibet having 

 failed — the general consensus of scien- 

 tific opinion is in favor of the Brahma- 

 putra, and the latest English gazetteer 

 describes it under this name. 



It is hardly to be expected that pure 

 science will be much benefited by the 

 lifting of the veil which hangs over this 

 part of the river's course. But there 

 can be little doubt that it hides scenes 

 of magnificent beauty and grandeur 

 which will thrill the expectant world, 

 and give it new and nobler conceptions 

 of the sublimity of nature. 



The imagination fails to grasp the 

 reality, as there is no other instance on 

 earth of a large river dropping eight 



thousand feet in one hundred and fifty 

 miles, plunging with the mad rush of a 

 mountain-brook hemmed in by ranges 

 whose peaks are from thirteen to twenty- 

 two thousand feet in height. The native 

 testimony is conclusive as to the exist- 

 ence of at least one awe-inspiring fall 

 before Tibetan territory is left. A sci- 

 entific journal* published, a few years 

 ago, a copy of a picture of them by 

 a native Tibetan artist who lived in 

 their vicinity. It shows them enveloped 

 in clouds of mist and spray, and the 

 clififs are covered by sub-tropical vegeta- 

 tion. The local lamas relate to the awe- 

 struck pilgrim that amid the thundering 

 water stands a king-devil, placed there 

 under a spell by the lamas, and, when the 

 river is low, the faithful can see his 

 figure looming dimly through the fall- 

 ing waters. 



It has not been from the lack of the 

 spirit of adventure, or because of the 

 natural difficulties presented by the 

 region — great though they doubtless are 

 — that no white man has solved the 

 mystery of this part of the river's course. 

 Its' attempted ascent from the plains of 

 Assam has been absolutely prohibited 

 hitherto by the Indian Government on 

 the entirely reasonable ground that 

 there is almost a certainty that the ex- 

 plorer would be killed by the savage 

 Mishmis, who are intolerably jealous of 

 the presence of a stranger in their coun- 

 try. This would necessitate a punitive 

 expedition costly in treasure and in life 

 — an evil by no means commensurate 

 with the gain of having satisfied what is, 

 after all, pure curiosity. The Tibetan 

 officials also, while preventing so far as 

 they are able any white men from enter- 

 ing Tibet, for some unknown reason 

 forbid Tibetans even to attempt to de- 

 scend the river beyond their own 

 frontier. 



The Tsangpo has been explored, how- 

 ever, with the exception of this one 

 hundred and fifty miles, notwithstand- 



* Geographical Journal, vol. 5, p. 258. 



