Appendix E. POSITION OF WATERSHED AND AXIS OF HIMALAYA. 397 



The Himalaya, north of Nepal, and thence eastward to the bend 

 of the Yarn-Tsampn (or Tibetan Burrampooter) has for its 

 geographical limits the plains of India to the south, and the bed of 

 the Yarn to the north. All between these limits is a mountain 

 mass, to which Tibet (though so often erroneously called a 

 plain)* forms no exception. The waters from the north side of this 

 chain flow into the Tsampu, and those from the south side into the 

 Burrampooter of Assam, and the Ganges. The line, however 

 tortuous, dividing the heads of these waters, is the watershed, and 

 the only guide we have to the axis of the Himalaya. This has never 

 been crossed by Europeans, except by Captain Turner's embassy 

 in 1798, and Captain Bogle's in 1779, both of which reached the 

 Yarn river. In the account published by Captain Turner, the 

 summit of the watershed is not rigorously denned, and the boundary 

 of Tibet and Bhotan is sometimes erroneously taken for it ; the 

 boundary being at that point a southern spur of Chumulari.t 

 Eastwards from the sources of the Tsampu, the watershed of the 

 Himalaya seems to follow a very winding course, and to be every- 

 where to the north of the snowy peaks seen from the plains of India. 

 It is by a line through these snowy peaks that the axis of the Hima- 

 laya is represented in all our maps ; because they seem from the plains 

 to be situated on an east and west ridge, instead of being placed on 

 subsidiary meridional ridges, as explained above. It is also across or 

 along the subsidiary ridges that the boundary line between the 

 Tibetan provinces and those of Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhotan, is usually 

 drawn ; because the enormous accumulations of snow form a more 



The only true account of the general features of eastern Tibet is to be found 

 in MM. Hue and Gabet's travels. Their description agrees with Dr. Thomson's 

 account of western Tibet, and with my experience of the parts to the north of 

 Sikkim, and the information I everywhere obtained. The so-called plains are the 

 flat floors of the valleys, and the terraces on the margins of the rivers, which all 

 flow between stupendous mountains. The term " maidan," so often applied to 

 Tibet by the natives, implies, not a plain like that of India, but simply an open, 

 dry, treeless country, in contrast to the densely wooded wet regions of the 

 snowy Himalaya, south of Tibet. 



f Between Donkia and Chumulari lies a portion of Tibet (including the 

 upper part of the course of the Machoo river) bounded on the east by Bhotan, 

 and on the west by Sikkim (see p. 110). Turner, when crossing the Simonang 

 Pass, descended westwards into the valley of the Machoo, and was still on the 

 Indian watershed. 



