National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

the party skirted a large plain of a yellowish colour, said to be drained by the
Upper Indus.»

Several lakes producing salt and borax were passed, and after 9 days to the
S.E. they reached Kinglo, a place on the river Chu-sangpo, which was so large that
it could not be forded during the summer. »This river flows eastward and falls into
the lake called Nala-Ring-cho, or Cho-Sildu, said to be about the same size as the
Mansarowar Lake; it has a small island in the centre. The lake is reported to re-
ceive a large stream from the south, another from the east, and a third from the
north, the latter draining part of the Phaiyu-Pooyu district. The lake is said to have
no exit . . . Then the party went S.W. to the Manasarovar. They followed the course
of the Sangpo-chu (Chu-sangpo) nearly to its source, crossing one very high range
called Nakchail, and another called Riego and finally descending to the Lake Man-
sarowar. The Nakchail and Riego ranges are evidently off-shoots of the Kailas
peak.» ¹

The Pundit heard that south of the lake was a well-known monastery called
Shellifuk, the residence of a great Lama. Still farther south there are some high
snowy peaks and the district Roonjor. North are the districts Gyachun and Girke,
of which the latter was supposed to adjoin Phaiyu-Pooyu.

This passage is both important and interesting. To begin with, it proves
that the Pundits never succeeded in going to Nganglaring-tso and Selipuk-gompa,
and that no traveller had ever reached these places before I visited them in 1908.
The Pundit's Chu-sangpo must be the Aong-tsangpo, in its lower part, and after the
junction with Lavar-tsangpo it keeps the name of the last-mentioned river. The natives
exaggerated when saying the Nganglaring-tso was the same size as the Manasarovar, for
it is considerably smaller. There is not one, but several islands in the lake. The river
reported to enter the lake from the south must be the Sumdang-tsangpo. The way back
to the S.W. cannot have been very far west of mine in 1908; here they followed the
Chu-sangpo and then crossed one very high range and then another range, probably
less high. But it cannot be the same route as mine, for the names they give are
Nakchail and Riego, whereas mine were Ding-la and Surnge-la, which were known
all over this part of Tibet. On my road I never met any native who had heard
the names Nakchail and Riego, which of course does not prove that they do not
exist. Nobody would ever think of calling the two ranges in which Ding-la and
Surnge-la are situated off-shoots of the Kailas peak. And wherever the mountains
crossed by the Pundits are situated, they cannot have anything to do with the Kailas,
which is south of the Transhimalaya.

At the Manasarovar, where the party arrived in safety, the Pundit decided to wait
for a caravan for Ladak, which was known to be on its way. In the meantime the
third Pundit mapped carefully the Manasarovar, during which he made the important