Min River

“ As it emerges from Tibet into China it is known as the Kinsha Kiang or river of Golden Sand, and farther down as the Pai-shui Kiang. In Sze-ch‛uen, after its junction with the large tributary known as the Min, it is for some distance called the Min-kiang, the people being of opinion that the Min branch is in fact the main river. The fall in the upper reaches is very rapid. At the junction of the two main affluents in Upper Tibet, where the river is already a formidable torrent barely fordable at low water, the altitude is estimated at 13,000 ft. ”

“ The Chinese seem generally to regard the River Min, which flows through the city of Chingtu-fu, and joins the Yangtse at that of Siu-chau-fu, as the true river. But there is no question that the river which comes from Tibet is much the longer, and probably little question that it is also much the larger. ”

“ The river varies in width, sometimes a mile across, where it is flowing between plains, sometimes confined between the hills; a hilly [Pg 69] country is about us, with some mountains nearly twice as high as those up which we clambered at Hong-Kong. We pass, after a few miles' sail, the little town and fort of Mingan; we sail among pagodas and temples, near which the priests plant dark spreading fig-trees, terraced hills, yielding earth-nuts and sweet potatoes; we see cultivation carried up some mountain sides beyond two thousand feet, and barren mountains, granite rocks, islands, and villages ”

“ After some stay, we set out with fresh boats and crews, and were five days passing the wild rapids between here and Wieng Chan. The river finds its way among low hills in a narrow, deep channel between clay-slate rocks alternating with sandstones and conglomerates with a general easterly dip. The rapids are of the whirlpool and eddy character, and extend for miles on end; the water is in places confined to a width of 150 feet, and the rushes, boilings, spinnings, and general deafening pandemonium which results is astounding; not one place is like another, nor one whirlpool like the next. ”

“ Flat slabs of schist, branches, and roots have been inserted into cracks and fissures of the precipice 120 feet above the river, and on these planks, poles, and stones are laid forming a gutter a foot broad, without a scrap of railing, where one must even keep one’s tongue in one’s mouth lest one should lose one’s balance. Of course we traverse this stretch of road, called Tigu-tang, on foot, leaning inwards and supporting ourselves by the rock. We breathe freely again when we are safely over, and the great basin lies before us where, at Linga, two important valleys converge. ”

“ Mount Minsi is a graceful peak crowned with dense forest growths, while Tammany is a gigantic rock that rises in broken ledges, almost terraces, from the river, on one of which, two hundred feet above the river, a hotel has been built to accommodate summer tourists. And the scenery is grand enough to lure lovers of the picturesque in nature. ”

“ The snow enveloped us, whirled about us, and piled itself into small drifts on the sheltered side of every stone, grassy hillock, and hollow. The valley slopes gently to the south-east, and its frozen river is called Buser-tsangpo, and is a tributary of the Tagrak-tsangpo, which debouches into the south-western corner of the Ngangtse-tso. We are therefore still in the basin, of which the lake occupies the lowest part, and of which the border on the north-west and east lies close to the lake, but on the south is removed many days’ journey from it. ”

“ On the left side of the valley, where we march, are a couple of walls of green and black schist, but elsewhere old moraines extend on all sides. We cross a stream flowing from the country below Dongdong to join the Kubi-tsangpo. The Tsechung-tso is a small moraine lake. The valley bottom rises slowly, and consists of loose material sparsely covered with grass. Occasionally a small erratic block of grey granite is seen. Rags, dung, and fragments of bone lie on the summer camping-grounds. At length the river becomes as broad as a small lake, enclosed in morainic rubbish and driftsand. ”

“ We draw near to a small projecting height, behind which the road runs to Kangan and Leh. Side branches debouch into the canal, but we make for a lake called Anchar; its water is greyish blue, and comes from the Sind, or Send as they here pronounce the name of the river.
After a while eddies and sandbanks show that we are in the river. The sun has set; the summer evening is quiet and peaceful, only the gnats buzz over the water.
Though the rowers work steadily, putting forth all their strength, we make slow progress, for the current is strong 33 against us. ”

“ As the travellers advanced the river grew narrower, and, with a width of three hundred yards and a depth of twenty-five fathoms, flowed through a wild and wooded valley, uninhabited except by the animals of the forest. They passed the mouth of the Nam Thon; after which they came upon a dangerous series of rapids, where the foaming waters, hurled and driven from side to side, and swung round projecting rocks, and driven against the foot of precipitous banks, rushed downwards tumultuously, with all the clang and clash of billows breaking against a reef. ”

“ Over a broad, zigzagging, roughly-paved road, said to have no less than ninety-eight curves from bottom to top, we ascend for thirty li, and then descend for the remainder of the journey through a narrow defile along the northern bank of the river, the opposite side being a vertical sheet of rock rising to at least a thousand feet sheer up, very similar to the gorges of the Mekong at the western end of the province, which I crossed in due course. ”

“ When we gained the top of the great spur the morning after our arrival at the cave, we [103] were delighted at the immense panorama which lay at our feet as we looked back. Looking away south-west we beheld the coast-line from the mouth of what our guides said was the Tampassuk river right down to Gaya Bay and Pulo Tiga, which was distinctly visible, the many-mouthed Menkabong river glistening like a silver net quite close to the coast-line. ”

“ But in the Nam Oo the shallowness of the water is the danger, and there is often, as in Keng Luang two days up, a fall straight over a dioritic ledge of 3 feet. This class of rock it is which forms the rapids, and when the limestone hills retire from the river edge, and low-lying, round-topped hills less densely jungled, come in, one may look out for a rapid and change of formation. ”

“ The scenery of this river is very fine, as all the way from Muang Ngoi, to which we went, it winds through abrupt limestone peaks and ranges, covered with dense forest, and often overhanging the deep quiet river below. But the rapids scattered along its course are furious, and, owing to the shallow water and innumerable sunken rocks, are very dangerous, while quite a high sea runs in them. They differ from most of the big Mekong rapids in that they are caused by rough sloping bottoms of rock ridges, over which the water tears its way. ”

“ The Mississippi River alone is used for navigation; the Minnesota and the Red River are reported ‘navigable,’ but are little used. The direction of the rivers, as well as the position and formation of the innumerable lakes dotting the surface of the State, have been determined by glacial action. In the north the lakes are usually cut out of the old rock and display bold tortuous shores. In the south the lakes are often broad and shallow. ”

“ The State of Minnesota is said to contain fully ten thousand lakes of all sizes, the largest being Red Lake in the northern wilderness, having an area of three hundred and forty square miles. The surface of the State rises into what is known as the Itascan plateau in the northern central part at generally about seventeen hundred and fifty feet elevation. From this plateau four rivers flow out in various directions—the one on the Western Minnesota boundary, the Red River of the North, draining the western slope towards Lake Winnipeg and finally to Hudson Bay ”

“ The Monass, by far the largest river in this part of the world, with two main branches of which the Lobrak or Kuru-chhu rises in Tibet, its main source being in glaciers on the northern slopes of the Kulu-Kangri and its adjacent snows, while the second, the Dongma-chhu, rises in the snowy range to the east of Tawang. Other tributaries are the Madu-chhu, running past Tongsa and the Pumthang, draining the Bya-gha Valley. ”

“ The former town of Meñggatal was situated about three miles up it, and only at flood tide would it float a frigate’s barge. Near the town the banks were grassy, and many cocoa-nuts were grown in the neighbourhood. The Mengkabong, also, can scarcely be called a river; it is rather a large salt-water lake with numerous islands, some containing hills of several hundred feet in height; it is very shallow, many portions of it being dry at low tides, while others have but a few inches of water. ”

“ From here the ascent over a second range of mountains is made by tortuous paths that wind along the sides of the hills high above the stream below, and at other times along the river-bed. The river is followed in a steep ascent, a sort of climbing terrace, from which the water leaps in delightful cascades and waterfalls. A four-hour climb brings one, after terrific labor, to the mouth of the picturesque pass of Ya-ko-t'ang at 7,500 feet. In the quiet of the mountains I took my midday meal ”

“ Above this place the valley closes in between walls of precipices and crags, which rise almost abruptly from the Sind to heights of 8,000 and 10,000 feet. The road in many places is only a series of steep and shelving ledges above the raging river, natural rock smoothed and polished into riskiness by the passage for centuries of the trade into Central Asia from Western India, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. ”

“ Then we rode westwards, up and down hills, and enjoyed a new view of the holy lake with Gurla Mandatta in the background. The Pachung river carried 83.3 cubic feet of water. When our work was done we rode south-westwards. Wild asses were on the meadows; they are nearly tame, for no one puts an end to life on the shores of the holy lake. ”

“ Its waters, hitherto majestic and tranquil, which had peacefully unfolded silver coil after coil over the vast plateau of central Laos, now accelerated their course, and tumbled and eddied among the rocks, ever restless and ever noisy. The noble river, which had previously measured its breadth by thousands of yards, now shut up within two barriers of constantly-increasing elevation, was [69] now contained in a channel which rarely attained to five or six hundred yards in width, and from which it was no more to escape. ”

“ The cultivated lands, which are very extensive, lie on the top of a thick platform of alluvium, through which the river has excavated a deep broad channel. The lands of the village slope gradually from the base of the mountain to the edge of the cliff overhanging the river, and the fields are made into level terraces by walls of stones from three to six feet in height. Numerous streams of water are conducted through the fields for irrigation, upon which cultivation in Tibet entirely depends. ”

“ Two thousand feet below, between these two ranges, flowed, in a wide barren valley, a river called the Darma Yankti. This river is the principal source of that great river which afterward takes the name of Sutlej. I was glad to be the first white man to visit the place where it has its birth. In the distance a flat plateau, rising some eight hundred feet above the river and resembling a gigantic railway embankment, could be seen for many miles. Far away to the north stood a chain of high blue mountains capped with snow—undoubtedly the Gangri chain with the Kelas peaks. ”

“ In describing the river between Kiang Khong and Luang Prabang he says: “The river is a mile wide in places, and where the channel is narrowed it rushes along with frightful rapidity. Mountains rise from either bank to the height of three or four thousand feet. The river fills the bottom of a long winding valley, and as we glided swiftly down it there seemed to move by us the panorama of two half-erect, ever-changing landscapes of woodland verdure and blossom. ”

“ All the large rivers run towards the south; and in such a country as Tibet, where there is no good means of transportation, it is natural to leave even such splendid and exhaustless forests just as they are. In this forest of about four miles in circumference, there is level ground and a river flowing from a peak of the Phari in Tibet. ”

“ It affords a typical instance of that cutting-back process by which a river-head may erode a channel through a watershed into the plateau behind, there being no steep fall towards the Indus on the northern side of the range. From the Zoji La the road continues by easy gradients, following the line of the Dras drainage, to the Indus, when it turns up the valley to Leh. From Leh there are many routes into Tibet, the best known being that from the Indus valley to the Tibetan plateau, by the Chang La, to Lake Pangkong and Rudok (14,000 ft.) ”

“ From Chakoong to Choongtam the route lay northwards, following the course of the river, or crossing steep spurs of vertical strata of mica-schist, that dip into the valley, and leave no space between their perpendicular sides and the furious torrent. Immense landslips seamed the steep mountain flanks ”

“ Only an insignificant fraction of these forests has ever been visited by human beings, the Malays and even the aboriginal tribe having their homes on the banks of the rivers, and never, even when travelling from one part of the country to another, leaving the banks of a stream except for a short time when passing from one river-system to another. The bulk of the jungle, therefore, which lies between stream and stream, has never been trodden by the foot of man. The principal rivers on the west coast are the Perak, the Bernam and the Muar. ”