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| Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.4 |
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Citation Information
ROCKHILL'S JOURNEY ACROSS TIBET.
465
rapidly in a number of channels, and it took us two hours to lead the horses across, a man walking on either side of each pack-animal holding up the load. Several fell in the stream, or sunk in the quicksands and had to be unloaded in the river. Just as we made camp, about a mile south of the last channel of the river a violent storm of hail and rain swept down and drenched every article of clothing which we had so far kept dry.
July 7th. It had rained again in the night. We rode in a southerly direction towards a col we could see in the range of hills before us. We kept on towards the hills and camped near some pools of water at the mouth of a valley and about a mile away from some small black tents, around which flocks of sheep were grazing.
July 8th. We pushed on up the valley and soon reached the top of the range. On its southern side was another broad valley ten or twelve miles in length and three from north to south, and beyond was yet another range of hills. To our left some six miles away, appeared a lake, probably two or three miles from north to south and eight miles from east to west; this I was told later in the day was the Namru ts'o. In the valley before us were six or eight tents, each with a little flock of sheep and some yaks grazing round it. We stopped near one about two miles below the summit to ask the road, and found that there were Lh'asa traders
in it.
~
At this point Rockhill was stopped and prevented from carrying out his purpose of trying to penetrate further in the direction of Lhasa. I may now add one or two extracts dealing with the stretch of country between Namru-tso and the road from Si-ning to Lhasa.
»July 14th. We crossed the river this morning during a violent thunderstorm, at the ford used by the Namru ; the Tsacha flows here in two branches, and the water is about four feet deep. We turned our faces northward and struck out over an undulating plain on which was here and there a pool of brackish water, and after a short ride camped at the foot of the hills, by the river bank, at a point where the river, which comes from the east-north-east, takes a bend southward.
July 15th. We rode all day upon the right bank of the Tsacha ch'u in an east-north-easterly direction, crossing occasionally some little affluent coming down from the hills. Though we passed many old camps, we only saw one tent and that on the left bank of the river and in the Amdo ts'o-nak district ... We camped for the night on a muddy and marshy plain near a good-sized river which, coming from the west, empties into the Tsacha tsangbo ch'u a few miles to the east of us . . . The constant heavy rains at this season of the year make travelling in these parts slow, wearisome, and difficult, for, to add to the fatigues of the journey, fuel is very scarce, as nearly all is soaked by the rain. The soil is everywhere gravel and clay, and one sinks into it knee deep. Riding is out of the question, the horses have as much as they can do to pull themselves through the mud . . .
July 16th. Crossing the stream near which we had camped, we followed up the course of the Tsacha tsangbo through a broad grass-covered valley. It would be more correct to say that we followed up the course of the northern branch of the Tsacha, for a few miles east-south-east of our camp of last night a stream,
He d i n, Tourney in Central Asia. IV. 59
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