Southern Tibet : vol.3 / Page 446 (Color Image)

0446	Southern Tibet : vol.3

sacred mountain. The panoramas I have sketched and the photographs I have
taken will, however, give an idea of the latter.
As regards the climate during the month of April in the region just described,
it will be best understood from my meteorological journal.¹ Characteristic of the
southern part of the road are the clear and warm mornings and the heavy clouds
without precipitation which set in at noon. At 4 120 m the rivers still have icebands
along their banks at protected places. On April 10 the mountains round Ghe were
covered with some fresh snow; at the same place the first rain was expected about
the middle of June and the Mü-chu was at its greatest in the beginning of August.
Near Töngbuk there was, on April 11, some wintersnow still left in protected places
at the bottom of the main valley. The higher up, the broader became the ice-bands;
the Lenjo, for instance, had a good deal of ice in its mouth. On April 14 there
was a heavy snowfall at 4 302 m, although most of such late snow disappears before
noon. Above Linga the amount of snow on the higher mountain slopes increases,
but is still very scanty. Above Langmar the banks of the Mü-chu were frozen the
whole way. At Govo, the regular rainy season is said to begin in the middle or at
the end of July, although the rain is seldom heavy and only occasionally continues for
two days at a time. Even here the river then becomes so swollen, that it cannot
be crossed. At the end of October it is low again. During the winter it remains
frozen; in December and January the ice is very thick. In January it snows in the
region of Govo; the snow is seldom so much as two feet deep, but sheep and goats
are sometimes lost in the snow. Above Leblung the whole river was ice-covered (April
20); such was, of course, also the case with all the tributaries; but water was streaming
under the ice in most of them. In this tract the weather was very gloomy, strong
S.W. winds, heavy clouds, occasional snow-falls and snow-hail. On both sides of
Chang-la-Pod-la everything was hard frozen on April 21. The valleys are full of ice,
for the springs continue to run and their water freezes in layers and sheets, soon
covering the whole bottom of the valley. When this ice begins to melt in the
spring, all the rivers and brooks have a high-water period, after which they
slowly decrease until the great high-water period comes with the rainy season. The
Chang-la-Pod-la is also a climatic boundary: north of the pass there is always less
precipitation than south of it; the weather is as a rule clearer; in April there was
less snow and running water to be seen. The winter, February, is more pleasant
at Ye, than the late spring in Largäp. The climatic boundary is, however, not
sharp; on the Targo-tsangpo the early rains begin at the end of June or the beginning
of July and go on for two or three months. The precipitation is very variable
from year to year. Some years there is hardly any rain at all; other years it may
go on raining for two or several days at a time. The Targo-tsangpo then becomes
greatly swollen.

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

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

Citation Information

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