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

294

THE TSANGPO FROM KARU TO SHIGATSE.

At the southern side of the valley are high, imposing mountains, and at their foot the village Rokdso with a ferry. Above Karu is the little valley of Karu-pu with a small brook in a broad gravelly bed. A short distance beyond Karu the road touches the first promontory of living rock on the river, Nanka-song, decorated

with an idol, and consisting of gray granite, which continues eastwards, sometimes interrupted by turmaline quartzite. The ground has been arid for a bit, but now again some grass and steppe plants appear. From the southern mountains enters a rather large tributary, Soo, with a two days' road to Selung; beyond a pass further south are said to be the villages of Laku-lungu, Sa, and Valung, and further on the road continues to Nepal.

East of Karu the road has been cut down by traffic through the loess-beds to

4 m. depth; this curious passage is at many places crossed by ravines, and through the openings to the south one sees, as through a gallery, the mountains on the right side of the river; at some places rain and wind have formed out pyramids and pillars in the soft deposits. Finally the corridor gets shallow and disappears altogether. Here the road really, gives the impression of a considerable traffic, though now only peasants with horses, yaks and donkeys were met, and pilgrims seen on their way to the new year's festivals in Tashi-lunpo.

A little further on the road passes an open alluvial plain, now dry, but in-

undated during the high-water season. The sand brought down and deposited here by the high-water gets dry when the river subsides, and then 2 m. high dunes are formed. The next high-water sweeps them away, and a new set of dunes is formed the next autumn, winter and spring. In the summer the entire bottom of the valley is filled with water, and the road has to run along the mountain side, where Yakpochedung is a solitary hut with a ruin on a rock above it.

The river here flows in one single channel, the water was nearly clear, blue-

green, and there was hardly any ice at all along the banks, only some floating pieces. The current is slow; there are no rapids at all the whole way down to Shigatse, and only seldom does one hear the murmur of the running water. Hide-boats loaded with hay and corn are occasionally seen drifting down to Shigatse. Along the right side of the valley two erosion terraces have been carved out in the mountain-foot; at the left side the terraces of gravel and shingle are more interrupted. Some of the gorges at the southern side were filled with ice, but there was no sign of snow anywhere in the valley, and seldom on the mountains at its sides, of which, however, only the nearest shoulders and ridges and ramifications are visible from the bottom of the deep and comparatively narrow valley. The view to the south, and especially north is therefore very limited; to the east one has a charming and magnificent perspective of the valley passage with the mountain culisses sloping clown from both sides, and appearing in lighter colours as the distance increases.

The river, like the valley, is fairly straight; the bends which exist are slow and moderate.