Southern Tibet : vol.2 / 183 ページ（カラー画像）

0183	Southern Tibet : vol.2
南チベット : vol.2

(p. 228): »One of the earliest was also one of the best, for it opened up to us a
new era in Trans-Himalayan knowledge. It revealed for the first time something of
the nature of that central watershed which separates the rivers of the north, the upper
Indus, and the upper Brahmaputra, from each other, or rather from the intervening
lake land which gives birth to the Sutlej.»

Thus in one case the source of the Satlej is situated on the southern slopes
of the Kailas, in another near the Rakas-tal, and in a third in the lake land between
the upper Indus and upper Brahmaputra. All this may, of course, be said to be
correct, except the first mentioned case, for even if the whole of Kailas belongs to
the Satlej, the source of the river cannot be placed on the southern slopes of this
mountain, from which the Indus also is said to take its rise. If this were true the
Kailas would be a very important watershed, which is not the case. The right view
is embodied in the third case, where it is said that the intervening lake land gives
birth to the Satlej. In 1904 nothing else could be said, as the principal original
feeder and the genetic source of the Satlej were still unknown.

Many travellers and geographers have slightly touched upon the periodicity
of the channel,¹ but none has, so far as I know, in a scientific way proved that
the periodicity is a phenomenon depending on meteorological factors. Thus Colonel
Holdich says:² »Moorcroft failed to note the connection between the two lakes, the
existence of which was subsequently established by the two Stracheys.». As shown
above the channel was not in function in 1812.³

In his last book published immediately after his death, the Rev. Graham Sand-
berg gives some new information about the lakes. He had never undertaken any
journeys in Tibet himself, but he had been stationed near the Tibetan frontier and
had, as he says in his preface, for many years studied matters Tibetan. He directly
refers to the periodicity in the following passage:⁴ »The earliest source of the Sutlej
is undoubtedly Ts'o Lagran; but the outflow is intermittent, during some periods
ceasing altogether, the main feeders of the river being streams from mountains to
the north and south of its early course.» It is true that his authority loses some-

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