532 EXPLORERS' JOURNEYS IN IIIGII TIBET.
With regard to Captain Ryder's expedition, let us hope that he has surpassed his predecessor. But let us also at the same time bear in mind that Nain Singh shortly before he set out on his journey had been trained in probably the very best school that any explorer has ever been able to profit from: for two years he had shared in the journeys of the brothers Schlagintweit in Ladak and Kaschmir.
The address which Younghusband gave before the Royal Geographical Society is published in the May (1905) number of the Geographical journal under the title of The Geographical Results of the Tibet Mission. When the leader of that expedition, himself a distinguished explorer, delivers an address with the above title before the most illustrious geographical society in the world, one has every reason to expect to learn something from it, but I must honestly confess that this expectation has in my own case resulted in disappointment: the paper affords abundant evidence throughout of the correctness of the opinions to which I have given utterance. Rawling and Ryder's expedition is the only one that affords any warrant for the concluding words of the paper: »I trust, therefore, you will believe that the Tibet Mission has not been barren in geographical results.»
Captain Ryder in the course of his journey westwards is said to have mapped 40,000 sq. miles of country, including the source-regions of the Brahmaputra, Indus, and Satlej — all in three months! Such a statement can only be received with scepticism, when it is borne in mind that, although the expedition marched beside the Jamdok-tso, it omitted to sound its depth, notwithstanding that it carried boats with it, and the boats of the natives likewise lay beside the shore. Both the war-correspondents and Younghusband speak of the deep blue colour of this lake, which has given occasion to one of its names, the »Turquoise Lake», and wonder whether that colour is due to the purity of the atmosphere or to the depth.
The information about the climate is not exhaustive. It is not sufficient to tell us that the wind blew hard without a break during January, February, and March; we also want to know from what quarter it blew, whether from the west, as throughout the whole of Central and Northern Tibet, or whether other laws govern the winds in the relatively low valley of the Tsangpo. According to Waddell's meteorological tables the prevailing winds in winter and spring blow from the south-west and south. Another discovery is not in accordance with the actual circumstances. Younghusband relates, that when the expedition left Gyantse on the 14th July they were a good deal hindered by heavy rain, and they were speedily disabused of the idea that Tibet is a rainless country. I had already made the same experience three years before in the same month, and in the evidence of this I need only point to a few passages in the account of my ride towards Lhasa. * »The worst of all was the rain; it came clown like a deluge. I have never seen it rain faster ... The rain continued to stream down without intermission; its monotonous patter-patter drowned all other sounds ... It rained as it only rains in Gilan and Mazanderan; in fact, the only place where I have seen rain anything like it was at Asterabad . . . Five minutes after we left Gom-dschima the inevitable rain began again, and we were very soon wet through ... It rained as if — as if the sluice-gates of heaven
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