国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

RYI)ER'S DESCRIPTION OF THE LAKES.   131

be frozen all over so early as the end of November. The Tibetans told me the lake freezes all over, suddenly, in the middle of December, a fortnight later than Langak-tso. I

Then Ryder says : 2

Skirting the lake we rode across the low hills, which close in on the western side, to look for the outlet ... We struck the channel a mile below the outlet. a small stream only partly frozen over; this we followed up, and found that it did not flow from the lake, but from a hot spring ... We then followed up the dry nullah to the lake, and proved that Strachey was, as was to be expected, quite correct. No water was flowing at this time of the year, but the local Tibetans all agreed that for some months in each year there was a flow during the rainy season and the melting of the snows, i e. about from June to September.3 As a rise of about 2 feet in the level of the lake would cause water to flow down the channel, this appears quite worthy of belief. The length of the channel between the two lakes is about 3 miles. That day, December 2, we reached a Tibetan stagehouse, and next day had a long day's ride to try and discover an outlet for the second lake, the Rakas Tal, or Tibetan Lagang Tso. This lake is very dissimilar to the Manasarowar in shape, and was entirely frozen over. The latter is about the same width, 12 miles north and south, as it is east and west, with an area of Ito square miles; the former is a long narrow lake running north and south, some 16 miles long by 3 or 4 miles wide, with an area of about 55 square miles ... We found an old stream-bed issuing from the Rakas Tal. but every Tibetan we asked told the same story — that no water ever flowed along it now, but that in days gone by, one man saying before the Sikh war,4 water did flow out of the lake and down this channel. We followed it down for some 6 miles along the plain, and could find none of the ordinary signs that water flowed down it until we reached some low hills; here evidently, from the lie of the sand, water flowed at some time of the year, and away from the lake. The lakes being now entirely disconnected at all times of the year from the Sutlej river, the sources of that river must lie in the hills on either side of the valley and west of the lake region.»

Thus Ryder had proved that Henry and Richard Strachey were right after all, and in spite of all that had been written against them. He makes the channel too short, for it is nearly 6 miles long. He found the level of the lake at only 2 feet below the highest point of the channel-bed, which makes it very likely that the lake had overflowed in the preceding autumn. This becomes almost certain as all Tibetans he asked agreed that each year there was a flow during the rainy season. If there had been no flow in the autumn of 1904 they would not have given such a statement.

The Satlej bed from Rakas-tal he found dry and was told no water had been flowing out of the lake since 1845. Only 6 miles west of the lake he found from the lie of the sand that water at some time of the year flowed westwards. At 81/2 miles from the lake, in the same bed, I found, three years later, some small fresh-

I Vide: Grans-Himalaya', Vol. II, p. r80.

2 Loc. cit. p. 388.

3 The middle or end of July to September would be more correct, as the S.W. monsoon will

hardly get any force in these parts so early as in June.

4 'l'he first Sikh war took place in 1845 —46, the second in 1848-49. Thus the Satlej should

have flowed out of the lake some time before 1845.