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LIBRARY
EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
By
W. WO opv II.LE ERO CICHILL.
FROM THE SMITH SONIAN REPORT FOR 1892.
WASHINGTON:
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.
1893.


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— 916 —
EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
BY
t s'
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w, woo DVILLE ROCKHILL. ~
F. R O M T H E S M IT IIS ON I A N R E PO l'. T FOR 1892.
WASHINGTON:
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.
1893.
*
TEXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
BY W. WOODVILLE ROCKHILL.
On the 1st of December, 1891, I left Peking for a journey in Mon-
golia and Tibet, proposing, if possible, to traverse the latter country
from north to south and reach British India—Sikkim or Nepal.
I was well provided with scientific apparatus, and very scantily with
money, and so I started out with the anticipation of having to endure
many discomforts, and possibly see my chance of ultimate success lost
for want of a few hundred dollars and my collections poor for lack of
funds and means of transportation. This is the one insurmountable
difficulty a traveller can have to contend with; nearly every obstacle
can be overcome or turned, but how to travel on an empty money bag
(and an empty stomach, as it turned out in my case), in a strange land,
is a more difficult problem for most men than the quadrature of the
circle. tº
I will pass over the first few stages of my journey, which led me
through Chang-chia k'ou to the great emporium of eastern Mongo-
lia, Kuei-hua Ch'eng, where I arrived on the 18th of December.
This town was known in the T'ang period (A. D. 618–907), and how
long before that I can not now say.
Col. Yule” thinks it was Tenduc, the capital of Prester John; but in
this I can not quite agree, as I believe the latter town is to be identified
with the present Tou Ch'eng (in Mongol Togto), at the mouth of the
Hei-ho, which flows by Kuei-hua and empties into the Yellow River
(Huang-ho) at the former place.
Father Gerbillon visited Kuei-hua Ch'eng in 1688, in the suite of the
great Emperor K'ang-hsi. He describes the place as follows: “C'est
une petite Ville qu'on dit avoir €té autrefois fort marchande, et d'un
grand abord, pendant que les Tartares d’Oiiest étoient les maitres de la
Chine: â présent c'est fort peu de chose: les murailles bâties debriques
sont assez entières par dehors; mais il n'y a plus de remparts au dedans:
il n'y a même rien deremarquable dans la Ville, que les Pagodes et les
Lamas.” f -
* See his Book of Ser Marco Polo, 2d edit., I, 277.
# Du Halde, “Description de l'Empirede la Chine,” Iv, 103. The Mongol name of
this town is Koko hutun, or “Blue town.” Chinese histories of the seventh cen-
tury mention it under the name of Tung-shou Chiang.
659
EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
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EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 661
In 1844, Father Huc, when on his way to Lh'asa, stopped for a while
at Kuei-hua Ch'eng. He says of it: “With the exception of the la-
maseries, which rise above the other buildings, one only sees an ag-
glomeration of houses and shops huddled together without order, the
one against the other. The ramparts of the old city still exist in their
entirety, but the overflow of the population has been forced to cross
them. Little by little numerous houses have been built outside.the
walls, vast quarters have been formed; and now the eatra muros has
acquired more importance than the city itself.”*
Fifty years hardly count in the life of an inland city in Asia, and
Ruei-hua to-day is what it was in the days of Huc—an irregular mass
of tumble-down houses built around a small central walled town.
Dirty, muddy, unpaved streets, innumerable small shops, crowded
streets along which loaded camels and mules and clumsy carts are
moving, and where an occasional Mongol, very often much the worse
for liquor, is seen accompanied by his women folk in green satin dresses
and much jewelry of silver and numerous strings of coral beads orna-
menting their hair, neck, and ears. º
The chief industry of the place is, and has been for at least a cen-
tury, the preparation of sheep and goat skins. Tallow is also an im-
portant article of trade, and sheep and camels in vast numbers are
annually sold here to supply the Peking market. The population, ex-
culsively Chinese, of this place is probably between 75,000 and 100,000.
On the 25th of December, having completed arrangements for con-
tinuing my journey to Ning-hsia Fu in Kan-su in commodious carts
like those which had brought me thus far on my way, I left Kuei-hua
and in two days reached the Yellow River at Ho-k'ou, where it makes
a sharp bend Southward.
Crossing the river—here about 400 yards wide—on the ice, we first
travelled over a country with sand dunes intersecting it here and there,
and finally entered the vast alluvial plains which stretch westward to
Alashan and are bounded to the north—on the left bank of the river, by
a range of mountains of an average altitude of some 1,800 feet. This
chain is called on European maps the Inshan (a corruption, I believe,
of Ch'ing shan, a name given to the eastern part of it) and is locally
known by a variety of names—as are all ranges in eastern Asia—Ta
ch'ing shan, Wula shan, Lang shan, etc.;
For thirteen days we travelled through the sandy waste, now and
then passing a small village of Chinese colonists settled in these Mon-
gol lands, where they cultivate the soil after a great expenditure of
labor on vast irrigation ditches, which are necessary to water the
parched soil and which the sands, driven before the nearly incessant
* Huc, “Souvenirs d'un voyage damns la Tartarie et le Thibet,” (12mo, edit.) I,
164.
# Huc's Tchagan Kouren, See op. cit., I, 215.
f Timkowski, “Voy. a Peking,” II, 265,267, says this range is called Khadjar Khosho
(Khajar hosho), or Onghin oola.
662 EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
westerly winds, are continually filling up. We saw but few Mongols:
they live remote from the route, or when they have remained in their
former haunts, now settled by Chinese, have adopted Chinese modes of
dress and of living, and too frequently their vices.
Some antelope, a few hares, and vast flocks of sand grouse (Syrrhaptes
Pallasii) were occasionally seen; but what a sportsman's paradise
these plains must have been in the days of K'ang-hsi, when Father
Gerbillon came here with him to hawk and shoot, and the great Em-
peror never failed to return to camp with scores and scores of hares
and other game killed by his arrows!
Father Hue has so fully and graphically described the Ordos country
that I will not venture to try and improve on what he has said, especially
as one forms a more agreeable opinion of the country from his narrative
than one would from what I might say of it. It has, I fear, changed
for the worse since his time.
Fig. 2.-Baron gomba or Hsi Kung miao Lamaist Temple in the Ordos country.
The only place of any importance we saw was the palace of one of
the Orat Mongol princes, the Hsi Kung or “Duke of the West,” and
near it a small but very handsomely built lamasery, the temple itself of
pure Tibetan style. It is called by the Mongols, Baron gomba, and by
the Chinese, Hsi Kung miao.
On the 9th of January, I reached the large Chinese Christian com-
munity (some three hundred families residing in four villages) of San-tao
ho-tzú, created and managed by the Belgian Catholic foreign mis-

EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 663
sions. Here I remained two days and was most hospitably enter-
tained by the bishop and fathers of the mission. This locality is in
the domains of the Mongol prince of Alashan, colloquially designated
by the Chinese as Hsi Wang or Western Prince. His people, so
Ts'aidam Mongols have told me, inhabited in old times the country
west of Hsi-ning Fu in western Kan-su, and are of the same stock as
the Ts'aidam Mongols. This agrees with what Timskowski tells us,
who says this tribe of the Eleuts came to the country they now inhabit
in 1686.”
Following the course of the Yellow River in a southerly direction,
I passed successively through Shih-tsui (Hotun jeſt in Mongol), the
first town on our route in the Province of Kan-su, Ning-hsia Fu,
Chung-wei Hsien, and finally reached Lan-chou Fu, the capital of the
Province of Kan-Su, on the 31st of January, where I joined the route I
had followed in 1888–89 when on my way to Tibet for the first time.
Ning-hsia Fu was the most important town we traversed before reach-
ing Lan-chou, but it has greatly fallen from its ancient importance,
having suffered terribly during the late Mohammedan rebellion.}
Father Gerbillon, while journeying with the Emperor K’ang-hsi in
1697, visited this city. He says it was then one of the largest and
most famous along the whole length of the Great Wall. It was
densely populated, the houses built so closely together that there was
no room even for court-yards. He also noted that “building timber is
here very cheap, because they go to get it in that chain of mountains
which is to the northwest, some 60 or 70 lys from the city, where it is
so abundant that from the neighboring localities, more than 400 or 500
lys away, they come to buy it at Ning-hia.” $ At the present time not
a forest tree is to be seen, only a few poplars recently planted along the
irrigation ditches.
The father says further on (p. 372): “They presented also to his
majesty several foot rugs, resembling enough our Turkey carpets, but
coarser; they are made here, and the emperor had the curiosity to
have the work done in his presence, as also paper which is made at
Ning-hsia, with hemp beaten and mixed with lime water.”
Now the town is, for half of its area, a desert of brick-bats, but rugs
and paper making are still the chief—or rather the only—industries of
the place.
I arrived at Lan-chou the day after Chinese New Year and on
the fifth of the first moon. I witnessed the ying-ch'un festivities, in
*Op. cit., II, 279. See also Du Halde, op. cit., IV, 375, where we learn that the first
Eleut prince of Alashan had only the rank of Beileh and was named Baturu Ts’o-
nam. A Beileh is a prince of the third order, a Wang the second, and a ch'in Wang
of the first.
+This city is called Irgé hotun by the Mongols, and is the Irghai of Mohammedan
writers and the Egrigaia of Marco Polo.
# This range is called Hsi shan by the Chinese, but on our maps it is usually desig-
nated by the name of Alashan Mountains.
§ Du Halde, op. cit., Iv, 370.
664 EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
which the local magistrates go outside the east gate of the city to
“welcome spring” (ying-ch'un). A huge cow made of wicker-work
and coated over with mud was dragged along by scores of men, and fol-
lowing it was the image of the god T’ai-sui. A man disguised as a
woman led the procession on foot and following him was another, in
like disguise, riding a donkey. This one impersonated, I was told, the
princess who introduced into China the practice of compressing women's
feet. The cow was painted of a reddish brown color, a portent that con-
FIG. 3.-Kokonor Tibetan pony (Konsa stock). Tibetan mastiff (Panaka stock).
flagrations would take place in the year now beginning, for the colors
used on this occasion are symbolical,—yellow means plentiful crops;
white, floods; black, sickness; and blue, war. In like manner, if the
image of T'ai-sui is bare-headed it is symbolical of heat; with his cap
on, of cold; if he wears shoes it portends much rain and if he is bare-
footed, dry weather.”
*see G. Carter stent, “Chinese and English vocabulary," p. 714.

EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 665
Theatricals, a banquet at the magistrate's office, and merry-making
followed. On the morrow the cow was broken to pieces and farmers
began to till their fields. This feast is observed over most of China.
Having engaged mules to carry me and my luggage to the lamasery of
Kumbum, or rather the contiguous village of Lusar, some 20 miles
South of Hsi-ning, I left Lan-chou on the 5th of February and follow-
ing up the Yellow River and the Hsi-ho, a route I had taken previously
in 1889,” I reached my destination on the 11th, and took up my quar-
ters in an inn in the lower part of the village and at once began prep-
arations for the journey into Tibet.
I secured the services of the men who had accompanied me on my
first journey, bought six stout ponies and a supply of provisions—
parched barley-meal (tsamba), rice, flour, vermicelli, tea, etc.—enough
to last, if used with economy, for about five months. While my head
man, Yeh Chi-ch'eng, was buying pack-mules, fitting the saddles to
their backs, and purchasing all the thousand and one little things re-
quired on a long journey in a country devoid of every necessary of
life save a few varieties of very coarse food, I went for a tour through
the portion of country along the Yellow River due south of Lusar, a
region of great ethnological interest, inhabited by tribes of Tibetan,
Mongol, and Turkish descent; those of the latter called Salars or
Salaris, being particularly interesting, as they have retained their
original type and language though residing on Chinese soil for the last
four hundred years and surrounded by Chinese and Tibetan peoples.f
They number some 40,000 souls and are the most fanatical Mohammedans
in western China. The Salar priests (ahoms) began the late Mohamme-
dan rebellion in or near the little town of Bayanrong. Fortunately for
the Imperial Government, dissensions arose among the Mohammedans
and they were soon fighting among themselves. It was this way: One
said smoking was permissible (he was a Ho-chou teacher), another said
it was forbidden, and so they came to blows. At the town of Tankar,
30 miles west of Hsi-ning, these two factions fought so savagely that
the authorities made use of this quarrel to rid the place of them. All
the male Mohammedans were invited to the mosque to talk over the
matter in the presence of the colonel commanding the town. When all
had assembled in the court-yard, there came men who called them out
one by one, and as they issued out of the gate they were beheaded, and
in this way 3,500 were made away with. Their wives and daughters
* See “The land of the lamas,” p. 41–58.
# The principal branch of this people forms now one of the Turkoman tribes un-
der Russian rule residing around Old Sarakhs. It numbers about 5,000 families.
“The three nations of the Salars are named Yalawach, Githara, and Karawan. They
have an evil reputation even among Turkomans, and are said to be generally hated.”
See Lieut. A. C. Yate, Travels with the Afghan boundary commission, p. 301-302.
See also on the Chinese Salar, Rob. B. Shaw, Journ. Roy. A8. Soc., new ser, X, p. 305-316
and Deniker, Bull. Soc. d’Anth. de Paris, 3e Serie, X, 206–210.
666 EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
were sold or otherwise disposed of when good-looking, and Tankar,
with a remaining population of a few thousands or so, enjoyed quiet
Once Inore. -
At Hsi-ning, for several years after the rebellion had been suppressed,
no Mohammedan was allowed to enter the city (none of them could live
in it) without having a stamp impressed on his cheek by the guard at
the gate; and even now, after twenty years of peace, none of them may
have a knife, even the usual small one which is carried by all travelling
Chinese in a little case with their chop-sticks.”
On the 29th of February, I was back in Lusar, but though I used all
diligence and expended a vast amount of energy, it was the 14th of
March when we made our final start for the Kokonor country, the first
stage of our journey to Tibet.
FuG. 4.—Chinese composing Mr. Rockhill's party.
My party, as finally organized, comprised four Chinese, three of
them frontiersmen from near Lusar, and one, a cook, engaged at Kuei-
hua Ch'eng, and a native of Tung-chou, near Peking. We had two
small blue cotton tents, and our saddle blankets formed the bulk of
our bedding, for the very heavy sheep-skin garments we wore were
enough covering for the coldest weather.
* In the narrative of the journey of Benedict Goës (1603–1607) it is said that the
Mohammedans at Su Chou (northwest Kan-su) were shut up every night within the
walls of their own city, which was distinct from that inhabited by the Chinese.
See H. Yule's Cathay and the Way Thither, p. 582.

EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 667
In order to keep the pack-mules in good condition for as long a time as
possible, I had the greater part of their loads carried by donkies from
Lusar to the Muri-Wahon country, east of the Ts'aidam. Thence to
Shang, yaks relieved them, and in the Ts'aidam, camels did their work
to a great extent, so that when we started into the wilds north of Tibet
my mules were still in fairly good condition—though very little fed—
and stood well the terrible fatigues of the journey, but they finally gave
out from foot-Soreness and none reached the journey’s end.
I began a survey of the road at Kalgan, north of Peking, and car.
ried it on about 2,400 miles, to Bat'ang, in eastern Tibet, where my
route joined that surveyed in 1877 by Capt. William Gill.” The method
I followed in my work was to run the traverse by prismatic compass
and aneroid, taking the distance between consecutive points by my watch
and controlling frequently the distances thus obtained by pacing them
Off.
Every day the altitude of one point at least was determined by the
temperature of boiling water, and all adjacent points, where aneroid
readings were taken, were corrected by this and the one taken the day
before. Sextant observations were made whenever possible for posi-
tion, and thus the inevitable errors on my survey could not accumulate,
but were divided over the whole length of the line.
Besides the work of surveying I had to take photographs, note the
general characteristics of the country, keep an eye on the packs to see
that they were not awry, and attend to innumerable details connected
with the everyday life of the party. The animals gave me less trouble
than the men (this is usually the case in this world, and how true is
the saying, “Plus je vois les hommes, plus j'aime les bêtes”)!
In 1889, I had, when going to the Ts'aidam, taken from Lusar the
route leading along the north side of lake Kokonor. This time I de-
cided to follow a new trail leading through an unexplored country (that
of the Panaka living south of the Kokonor), and thence directly by the
mountains to Shang, in the southeast corner of the Ts'aidam. I was
most anxious to re-visit this place so as to be able to go once more to
the Tosu nor (lake) and determine by actual observations its position
and altitude. -
The nature of the country to the south of the Kokonor lake is more
mountainous than that to the north, but the climatic conditions are
the same—violent westerly winds, great dryness, usually a clear sky,
and though the nights are invariably cold, the temperature rises very
high during the day. These peculiar conditions result from the high
altitude of this region, which is over 11,000 feet above the sea level.
The route we took was as follows: Leaving the province of Kan-su
at Sharakuto, on the southern main feeder of the headwaters of the
Hsi-ho (which flows by Hsi-ning Fu), we traversed in a general west-
* See his River of Golden Sand: “The narrative of a journey through China and
-eastern Tibet to Burmah,” 2 vols. 8vo., 1880.
668 EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
southwest direction the country of the Panaka or Panakasum, as the
Tibetan tribes inhabiting these regions are called. These tribes, which
were in past centuries located principally south of the Yellow River
all the way from the Chinese frontier to its sources at Karmat'ang,
have within the last hundred years pushed northward and dispossessed
the Mongol owners of these rich pasture lands, driving them either
into the foothills around the swampy Ts'aidam or nearer to the Chi-
nese borders. The Tibetan tribes which first came to the Kokonor were
eight in number and all bore the word Na in their names, hence the
Frg, 5.-Panaka Tibetan camp in mountains near Shang.
mixed Chinese-Tibetan name of Panaka by which they are now known
and which they use in speaking of themselves.”
The Panaka may number in all a hundred to a hundred and twenty-
five thousand souls. I have described elsewhere the dress and mode
of living of these tribes, so will not dwell on these questions here, and
* Panaka (i.e., Pa, Chinese “eight,” Na, patronymic, and k'a or chia (Chinese)
“family” or “clan”). They also call themselves Panakasum; the last word, mean-
ing in Thibetan “three,” is added on account of three great divisions of these clans
at the present time. The Arik (about 10,000 families), the Konsa (2,000 families),
the Bumtok (2,000 families), are the largest of these tribes living north and west of
the lake; the principal tribes of the Panaka south of the lake are the Chamri, the
Tubchia, and the Wutushiu.
*See “Land of the Lamas,” p. 73, et passim.
*

EXPLOBATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 669
the illustrations will enable the reader to form a better idea of their
camps and general appearance than could a long description.
Crossing a high and very difficult pass in the southwest corner of the
Panakasum's country, we entered the basin of the Tsahan ossu, an
important river of the Ts'aidam, the existence of which was not here.
tofore suspected; and on the 4th of April I reached the Mongol village
of Shang (or Shang-chia), on the upper Bayan gol (or Yogoré gol), the
main river of the Ts'aidam, which has its source in two lakes called
Tosu-nor and Alang nor.
FIG. 6.-Foot of Wahon Jamkar Pass leading into the basin of the Tsahan ossu.
Sending the bulk of my baggage to the camp of a former acquaint-
ance, the chief or Dzassak of Baron Ts'aidam, I went with two
men and a Mongol guide to explore the Tosu-nor, reaching that
large sheet of water (about 13,500 feet above sea level) on the 12th of
April. - -
Dowé, the Mongol guide, the same who had led me in 1889, by
the sources of the Yellow River to Jyākundo, told me one even-
ing while we gossiping over the camp fire, that he had heard at Sa-
chou of wild men (gèrésun kun). Two had been captured by some
Mohammedan Sifan (or Huang fan), but one soon died and the other
made his escape. These savages live between Sa-chou and the -

670 EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
Lobnor,” make their dwellings of reeds and feed on wild grapes, which
they dry. From this description I have no doubt these people are the
half-wild inhabitants of Turki origin seen by Prjevalsky and other
travellers in the marshes and canebrakes of Lob-nor. -
On the 14th of April, I started back for Shang. Crossing the Yogoré
my pony broke through the ice and was drowned, I nearly sharing the
same fate. The next day my saddle was recovered, also my notes and
papers in my saddle-bags. On the 18th I joined my other men with
the pack animals in the valley of Oim, where the Dzassak of Baron was
FIG. 7.-Scene in Mongol village of Shang (S. E. Ts'aidam).
*See “Land of the Lamas,” p. 159. Douglas Forsyth, Journal Roy. Geo. Soc., XLVII,
p. 6, says: “There are numbers of encampments and settlements on the banks of the
marshy lakes and their connecting channels; perhaps there are as many as a thou-
sand houses or camps. These are inhabited by families who emigrated there about
one hundred and sixty years ago. They are looked upon with contempt by true
believers as only half Musselmans. The aborigines are described as very wild
people—black men with long, matted hair, who shun the society of mankind and
wear clothes made of the bark of a tree. The stuff is called “luff,” and is the fiber
of a plant called “toka chigha,” which grows plentifully all over the sandy wastes
bordering on the marshes of Lop.” Wild men are said to live on the lower Tsangpo,
in Tibet. The Mongol Lama Sherab jyats'o says that in Pemakoichhen (north of
Mira Pedam) the Lh'opa “kill the mother of the bride in performing their marriage
ceremony when they do not find any wild men, and eat her flesh.” See Report on the
Explorations in Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibet, from 1856 to 1886, p. 7; also pp. 50 and 52.
º
º

EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 671
Y
º
lowed, but the wool—nothing could be
camped. Here I was detained for eleven days trying to make arrange.
ments with the chief to supply me with pack animals and a guide to go
to Shigatsé, in Ulterior Tibet. After a vast and reckless expenditure
of my limited store of patience, I failed to get more than four camels
and a guide as far as Tengélik, a Mongol encampment in the marshes
of the Ts'aidam, not a hundred miles away.
On the second day out from Oim we left the village of Baron (or
Baron kuré) and travelling through sand and mud and brush for four
days came to the pools of Tengélik. Life
in camp in this horrible Ts'aidam is miser-
able indeed, and though I was used to the
dirt and misery of such an existence, I had
daily to use all my persuasive powers to
keep myself in the belief that I would be
able to stand it for six months more. The
Mongols of the Ts'aidam have a saying that
a Mongol eats 3 pounds of wool with his
food yearly, a Tibetan 3 pounds of gravel,
and a Chinese 3 quarts of dirt. Living in
a Sinico-Mongolo-Tibetan style, I swal-
lowed with my miserable food the dirt, the
wool, and the grit, portioned by a harsh
destiny to these peoples, and I verily be-
lieve that I found enough wool in my tea,
my tsamba, my meat, and my bread while
in Mongolia and Tibet to stuff a pillow.
The dirt and the sand could be easily swal-
done with it, no amount of mastication
could dispose of it.
Leaving Tengélik on the 7th of May
with four pack ponies, three oxen and a
camel, the latter loaded with leather jars
filled with water, we reached the Naichi
gol in five days, travelling all the time
through sand or SWamp. Fig. 8-Prayer-wheel turned by windº
On the Naichi gol I stopped for a few Erected over Mongol and Tibetan
days to engage a famous guide of whom I dwellings.
had heard tell in Shang, and also to replenish my store of provisions
as far as possible in this poverty stricken country. We got a supply
of fairly good tsamba, but the butter we here bought, made of sheep's
milk, was the strongest smelling and the vilest I ever tasted in my life,
but such as it was I had to eat it and be thankful till I reached the in-
habited parts of Tibet in July.
Leaving this place we turned south and following up the Naichi
River, entered the mountains which all along the south side of the
Ts'aidam mark the northern edge of the great tableland dividing this

672 EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
country from Tibet, and is some 200 to 400 miles wide. Usually this re-
gion is called Northern Tibet, and though physically it belongs to that
country, from a political point it is a no-man's land, a desert waste over
which at rare intervals wander some robber bands that prey on pass-
ing caravans.
It would take me too long to describe this part of my journey, in
which we crossed four chains of mountains of an average altitude of
about 16,000 feet. Between each of these, in broad valleys running
from west to east, flow shallow rivers over beds of soft sand or gravel
in which we were forever getting bogged, we, our horses, and mules.
Though we were in May and lovely June we had snow-storms and
hailstorms daily, the nights were bitterly cold, and in the middle of
the day the thermometer rose to the nineties.
With no fuel but the droppings of wild yaks, with hardly any grass
for our animals, to which we had daily to feed balls of our parched
barley meal, it was no wonder we made slow progress, or that before we
had neared the inhabited regions of Tibet our supplies gave out and
we had to subsist for five days on tea alone. On the 7th of July we
saw for the first time black tents and I learned, on sending two of my
men to one of them, that we were among the Namru in Namru dé, a
dependency of Lh'asa at the northwest corner of the great Tengri nor
(or, as the natives call it, Dolma. Nam-ts'o). My plan had been to go
around this lake to the west, and had our provisions held out a fort-
night longer I have no doubt we would have succeeded, so sparce is the
population of this region, and reached our goal, Shigatsé, the capital
of Ulterior Tibet. To accomplish my plan it was necessary to make
detours around every camp we sighted, for I knew of the stringent
orders issued by the Lh'asa government against admitting foreigners
onto their soil, and I entertained no hopes of seeing them modified in
my favor. Unfortunately our supplies did not hold out and so, when
we made these first Namru tents and asked for food we got only a
few handfuls of tsamba and a little cheese. The news rapidly spread
that a small, but very suspicious looking party, had arrived from the
northern desert. The next day, after making some 12 miles more
in a southerly direction and reaching a broad valley dotted all over
with tents, we were stopped by the local headman and ordered to re-
main camped where we were until the officers of the Lh'asa govern-
ment, who resided about a day's ride away, could come and cross-
Question us. e
This was on the 8th of July. By the 13th it had been decided that
I was to go under escort of a detachment of soldiers, not the way I had
planned, but by a circuitous route (of considerable geographical interest
however), to the high-road leading to Lh'asa from Hsi-ning, joining it a
little to the north of the first Tibetan station, Nagch'u or Nagch'u-k'a,
where there was a high official, a warden of the borders, who would
settle about my further movements. .
For ten days my escort took me in a general easterly direction over
EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 673
º
the foothills of the great Dang la chain, which we frequently saw to
the north, its peaks covered with eternal snows reaching far down
their flanks (the snow line in this country being at about 17,500 feet
above sea level). We crossed a number of streams, all flowing in a
southeasterly direction and probably forming the head waters of the
Jyama-nu ch'u, the upper Salween, it is believed. The rain fell daily
in torrents, the spongy, tussocky ground was soaked, and dry fuel no-
where to be found, so that finally we had to burn our pack saddles to
FIG. 9.-Tibetan boys from Jyadé.
boil our kettle. In an utterly exhausted condition, we reached, on the
22d of July, the highroad to Lhasa in the Dang ch'u valley, a day and
a half's ride north of Nagch'uk'a.
Here the Namru men left me, but I was soon espied by some of the
guards stationed along this road for the very purpose of arresting for-
eigners, and requested to remain where I was till the officer in command
at Nag ch'u could come and see me.
Before this I had been obliged to give up all idea of carrying out my
original plan of getting to India, and I had now solely in view reaching
China by some heretofore unexplored route which would keep me in
H. Mis. 114—43

674 EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
the inhabited parts of Thibet, so that my ethnological researches could
be successfully carried on.
While waiting here on the Dang ch'u for the arrival of the Nag ch'u
officials, I was visited by some natives from the left bank of the river,
and I learned from them that they and the tribes to the east of them
were not subject to Lh'asa, and that by traversing their country (called
Jyadé or “Chinese Province”) I could reach the important town of
Ch'amdo, on the highroad to China, whence I would be able to continue
my journey commodiously to Tachien-lu in SSü-ch'uan.
I at once made up my mind to follow this route, only waiting to see
the Nag ch'u officials to satisfy my curiosity, and possibly pick up some
interesting details concerning them, their country, and its customs.
On the 27th of July, I crossed the Dang ch'u and was kindly received
by the chief of the Péré band, who, on the following day, introduced
me to one of the big chiefs or Débas of the country, Norjyal-tsan by
name, who was about to start for his home, a fortnight's ride to the
east and on the road to Ch'amdo. i
It was arranged, after a short consultation and the presentation to
him of some presents (50 ounces of silver, some knives, red lacquer
rice bowls, etc.), that he would take me with him, and see to all my
wants on the way. On reaching his home he would further supply me
with a guide as far as Mér djong, the first locality on Ch'amdo terri-
tory, beyond which neither he nor his people ever went; and he gave,
among other reasons, for this that, while the Ch'amdo people professed
lamaism, he and the people of Jyadé foliowed the Bönbo religion, the
modern and corrupt form of the old pre-Buddhistic shamanism, which
has, at one time or the other, prevailed over all Asia.
Since leaving the Ts'aidam in May, I had continually travelled over
country with an average altitude of about 15,800 feet above sea level,
frequently crossing ridges and plains considerably higher. On leaving
the Dang ch'u we very gradually descended till we reached near
the Rama-ch'u, the timber line on the 12th of August, something
over 13,000 feet above sea level. At this altitude cultivation also be.
gan, barley and turnips being the only crops. These are eked out by
the use of seeds of several kinds of plants found growing in profusion
on the hillsides. Above this altitude the people subsist entirely on
what their flocks and herds of yaks can supply them, the neces-
sary tsamba and tea, being procured by them at Lh'asa or from traders,
who annually visit these regions. The principal article of trade of the
Namru and other adjacent tribes is salt, procured by evaporation from
some of the large lakes to the west of the Dang la and brought thence
on the backs of sheep, each one carrying about 25 pounds. All the salt
I have seen in these parts is of a brick-red color and very impure.
On the 20th of August, we reached Mer djong gomba on Ch'amdo
territory, having traversed the whole of Jyadé without any mishaps,
and having met everywhere with the greatest courtesy and kindness
from the chiefs and people. The country round Mer djong is, where.
EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 675
5
ever possible, well cultivated, barley and wheat are the principal crops,
and near each of the houses is a little garden-patch, where we saw with
delight cabbages, onions, peas and turnips, but we noticed no domestic
fowls, these are found only in the Chinesiſted portions of the country.
From Mer djong, we went to Riwoché (a dependency of Lhasa) on
the Ts6 ch'u, passing through some beautiful alpine country (along the
Ké ch'u), the mountain sides covered with fine forest growth and the
valley bottom a mass of flowers of every hue. Frequently we saw large
bunches of silver pheasants (Crassoptilon tibetanum, in Tibetan Saga),
moving rapidly about in the thickets of rhododendrons and laurel-like
plants, calling their young with a cry peculiarly like that of the guinea
fowl. Very few varieties of birds were noticed however here, or, in
fact, anywhere along the route, singing birds being especially rare.
Fig. 10. Half-breed yaks with loads.
Riwoché is a place of some importance commercially, but from a pic-
turesque point of view it is especially noteworthy for its peculiar temple,
with walls of white and red, and gold spires rising from its green-tiled
roofs. Around the temple are the dwellings of some three hundred
lamas, near which are the houses of perhaps a hundred families of lay-
men. The village is at the base of steep, forest-clad mountains, and
before it flows the swift river. This place is one of the few in Tibet
which can boast of a wall around it; it was built by the Chinese, in all
probability, about 1717.
Two stages down the Zé ch'u valley brought us to Nyulda, a Chinese
post station on the highroad to Lhasa, where the soldiers supplied us
with the first eggs and vegetables we had had for many a long month.

676 EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET.
We were now about two and a half days journey from the town of
Ch'amdo, which I was not however destined to see, for when I had
advanced towards it another day’s ride, I was stopped by the lamas of
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FIG. 11.-Tibetan prayer mill, turned by water. A, Section of water-wheel and cylinder.
that place, and requested to take a cross road leading around the town
at some distance and joining again the highway to China near a place
called Pung-dé.
I refused to follow this road and finally obtained permission to take
































EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 677
another trail over the mountains to the south, which brought us out,
after four days of travel through the most beautiful scenery I know of
anywhere in Tibet, at the post station of Pung-dé, the Pao-tun of the
Chinese.
The worst part of my long journey was now over, for from this point
I travelled in comparative comfort, with an escort of Chinese soldiers,
relays of pack and saddle horses, and houses every night to put up in;
though I still frequently preferred my tent, where I could enjoy some
privacy and escape the attack of the fleas which swarm in all Tibetan
dwellings, to say nothing of rats and other vermin.
The first town of any importance we came to after leaving Rivoché
was Draya, or Chamdun Draya as it is also called, the capital of an
ecclesiastical, semi-independent state, on an affluent of the Om ch'u,
which flows by Ch'amdo.
The town is prettily situated on a gentle slope, the lamasery, as
usual, occupying the higher part of it, with a little plain in front,
beyond which flows the Ombo ch'u, here met by two other streams
of considerable size. The crops were ripening and fields of barley
and wheat covered every little patch of ground susceptible of culti-
vation. On high frames, with which every country house is provided,
grass twisted in cables was drying for the winter's forage, and in
some places, where the high precipitous mountains did not over-
shadow the fields too much and the crops were early, barley, wheat,
and turnips, were already hanging on these frames, which are used
everywhere in Tibet for this purpose.
Though I was very roughly received at Draya—in fact, in lieu of
fire-crackers I had a volley of stones let off at me as I entered the
town—I remained here for two days and gathered a good deal of inter-
esting information bearing on both the country and the people, which
it is not possible to convey here, and for which I must refer the reader
to my complete report now in preparation.
On the 6th of September, I left Draya, and after an interesting jour-
ney of five days, up hill and down dale, reached the important town of
Gartok, or Chiangka as it is called by the Chinese, the chief town of
the province of Merkam belonging to Lh'asa. It is curious in this con-
nection to note that vassal states, governed by officials sent by Lh'asa,
are found scattered all over Tibet; the Nyarong or “arable lowlands of
the Nya River,” the Tsarong, Riwoché, and innumerable localities in
southern and southeastern Tibet belong to this class.
These districts have frequently given in their allegiance to Lh'asa (or
“tied their head,” go-ta-wa, as they say) on account of similarity of re-
ligious beliefs. Sometimes, however, Lh'asa has got possession of them
through intrigues or open aggression.
Gartok is an important center for the musk trade, which of late years
has taken considerable extension. It has a native population of about
Seven hundred, besides some two hundred or three hundred lamas.
678 EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET,
From a hundred to a hundred and thirty Chinese also reside here, all,
or nearly all, of them having native wives.
Wheat, oats (wild?), and barley are grown here extensively, and the
gardens supplied us with cabbages, turnips, and several other kinds
of vegetables, one, called in Chinese o sung, I found especially pala-
table. Cats, pigs, and fowls were seen in every house, and I was pre-
sented by the Chinese officer in command of the little garrison here
with grapes, peaches, and apricots (wild varieties, I believe), brought
here from the Rongmi, or “terres chaudes,” as the French missionaries
call them, some two days' distance down the River of Golden Sands
(Chin-sha ho or Chin chiang ho).
For the first time in Tibet I saw house sparrows (cheuba, in Tibetan)
at Gartok.
Leaving Gartok on the 12th of September, we reached Batſang on the
15th, and here the geographical portion of my work was at an end. The
people between Gartok and Batſang are Chinesified to a considerable ex-
tent, and have also a few customs introduced among them from inter-
course with the tribes living south of them, Lissus, Mosso, and others.
Among other things borrowed from these tribes is a peculiar jew’s-harp,
carried by every woman of this region, and consisting of three different
toned harps of bamboo; two or three women often play together, and
to this accompaniment they dance a slow, shuffling step in which grace
and beauty are conspicuously absent.
I remained at Batſang four days, and then proceeded to Litſang,
which I reached on the 24th, and finally arrived at Ta-chien-lu, on the
Chinese frontier, on the 2d of October. From this locality to Shanghai,
where I arrived on the 1st of November, I followed the route taken by
me in 1889, and for a description of which I must again refer the reader
to the published account of my first journey.
Before closing this brief account of my journey Imust mention that in
July, when on the Dang ch'u (and even earlier, when in Namru), Iheard
that some foreigners had passed through the country some six months
previous, coming, it was supposed, from the west. In August I again
heard vaguely of these travellers, and on the 18th of that month, while
camped near the Zé ch'u at Lah'a in Nar peihu, I was shown by a native
a note he had received from a foreigner commanding an expedition which
had passed through here several months before. It was signed Capt.
Henry Bower, of the Seventeenth Bengal Cavalry, and he had come, I
learned later, from Ladak by way of the deserts to the northwest of Tibet
Since then I have had the pleasure of meeting Capt. Bower in Lon-
don, and we have been able to compare notes. From this compari-
son it results that after the 10th of August (I had then reached the
I ch'u Valley), our routes were very nearly parallel till we arrived near
Ch'amdo, after which point they were identical. -
Finally, I would like to call attention to the rich fields of research
China and its dependencies afford the explorer, be he geographer, bota-
mist, geologist, or ethnologist. Though volumes enough to fill a goodly
º
EXPLORATIONS IN MONGOLIA AND TIBET. 6.79
º
*
ſ
library have been written about the Chinese Empire, a great deal re-
mains to be done. Our geographical knowledge of China is still based
on the surveys of the Jesuits, executed in the seventeenth century, to
which a few itineraries have since been added. Pumpelly, Richthofen
and a few others have only studied the geology of a part of this vast re-
gion; its botany is less well known perhaps than that of any other part of
FIG. 12.-a, b. Tibetan jews's-harp (K'a-pi); Bamboo, c, Bamboo case of same.
the globe. Its ethnology, though it has been more or less studied by hun-
dreds of writers, has never, as far as I know, been systematically treated,
and the scientific study of the languages of China is only just begun.
Of the scientific results of my journey I will here say nothing; they
will be submitted in the report which I am at present preparing, to-
gether with a route map on a scale of 16 miles to an inch, reduced from
my original survey. The illustrations accompanying this paper are
from photographs taken by me on the journey, and of which I secured
some two hundred fairly good ones.



UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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