APPENDIX. 4 6 3 



A party of Bhotiya and Lliassa merchants, one of whom had travelled from Lassa 

 to Pekin, assured Mr. Scott at Darang, in Asam, (in 1826), that the Brahmaputra, 

 on the banks of which they then stood, is the Tsanpo, or large river of Thibet. From 

 Nipal, we understand, that the Thibetians always assert the same thing, and referring to 

 Turner for the opinions he derived from them at Teshoo Lomboo, we find a degree of 

 accuracy in their idea of the river, which was not to be expected. 



" It passes Lassa, and penetrates the frontier mountains that divide Thibet from 

 Asam. In this latter region it receives a copious supply from the sacred fountains of 

 the Brahmakoond,* before it rushes to the notice of Europeans below Rungamuttg." 



The evidence derived indirectly from the Thibetans at the sources of the Brahma- 

 putra, has already been recorded, p. 410 of this Memoir, and this, as I have there observed, 

 deserves consideration more particularly, since those people must be perfectly aware whe- 

 ther or not they are divided from the rest of Thibet by a large river. However, they not 

 only deny the existence of such river, but inform us positively that the Lliassa river is 

 the same as the Dihong. 



I shall proceed to examine how far M. Klaproth derives advantage by supporting 

 his view with arguments from Physical Geography. 



j 



He concludes that the great periodical rise of the lrawadi, and its rapidity of current, 

 can only be accounted for by assigning it a distant source in the snows of Thibet.f 



* We had not at that time any notice of the Kimd. 



■f He refers us to " Two years in Ava, p. 233." The Author of that clever little work hazards the opinion that 

 the sudden " risings of the river are attributable to the melting of the snow, in the mountains of Thibet: for 

 although the lrawadi derives a vast supply of water from the numerous streams which flow from the Yomadoung and 

 other mountains, yet it is impossible they could be so rapidly swollen by the rain as to create this sudden increase 

 of water." Surely a sudden increase is more likely to proceed from rain than from the gradual melting of snow. 

 This Author further inform us, that the periodical risings are generally three in number in one season, and that 

 the last is the forerunner of the river's ebbing to its lowest state. Buchanan says, that it began to fall on the 

 17tli September. Then the last sadden rise occurs at a period when we know that the snows suffer very little 

 further diminution. After the rapid thaws of May and June, there remains no great portion of the mass of snow 

 which is situated within reach of the sun's influence. 



