130 NAIN SING's JOURNEY, 1865-66, ALONG THE SOUTHERN FRONT OF TRANSHIMALAYA.
Those who have travelled in the Tsangpo valley, — and they are very few, will understand why the Pundit could not tell much of the general aspect of the country from his road. For hundreds of miles we find the valley, sometimes deep and narrow, sometimes broad and open, and there are more or less steep mountain-shoulders on both sides. They will understand that nothing very high could be seen to the north of the road from the Manasarovar to Tradum, although here are even passes crossed by roads, with a height of 5 885 m. (I 9 303 feet), as Ding-la. For the next 7o miles, or to beyond Saka-dsong the mountains were still lower, although here clue north are situated the mighty rocky peaks Lunpo-gangri and Kanchunggangri, not to mention the Lunkar and Lapchung still farther north. Farther east, and north of Raga-tsangpo, a very high snowy range was visible to the north. I have only seen its western part, the Kanchung-gangri. Curious enough Montgomerie has only entered on the map a small section of its eastern part. So much is at any rate sure that, from Nain Sing's route, absolutely nothing is visible of the principal range of Transhimalaya, the range in which Angden-la, Sha-la and Chang-laPod-la are situated. South of this range I have, on my preliminary map, entered two parallel ranges, which are only conjectural. Between my two routes in this region, the country south of Sha-la is still unknown. Discoveries to be made here in future may show that there is only one range, or that the intermediate space is perhaps filled up simply by ramifications from the principal range. From Ryder's map it seems, however, likely that there are really two ranges, the southernmost very near to and parallel with the Raga-tsangpo. On this Ryder and Wood have a peak of 20 00o feet. This, no doubt, belongs to the range mentioned by Nain Sing.
The capital view Nain Sing got from Kamba-la is surprising. If it was a
»capital view» and a »clear view» the weather must have been clear. And still to the north he saw only comparatively low mountains in no way remarkable. And this is the very place where della Penna and Beligatti saw »a certain new series of high snowy mountains to the north». The contradiction can be explained only supposing the northern horison was cloudy on the occasion of the Pundit's visit, for otherwise he would have seen the Nien-chen-tang-la.
Montgomerie was an experienced and very clever surveyor in the field. He
knew the laws of perspective sufficiently intimately to understand that the Pundit from his road in the valley could not possibly see anything but the nearest mountains. Therefore he concludes: »As a rule, the Pundit's view from the road does not seem to have been very extensive, for although the mountains on either side were comparatively low, they generally hid the distant ranges.» I This is indeed the case. At the distance of some 400 miles from Shigatse to Maryum-la, on the map of Nain Sing, only 85 miles are occupied by ranges north of the Tsangpo. A journey in the valleys of the Tsangpo and Raga-tsangpo gives a very unsufficient
idea of the mountains to the north. One has to cross them in order to understand I Journal, 1. c., p. i 5 z .
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