Tibetan Plateau

“ Here in the Astin-tagh the mountains, like those in the Kuruk-tagh,4 are indeed severely weathered, but they always consist, from base to summit, of hard rock, bare and barren, most frequently piled up in eccentric, rugged masses, denticulated, pinnacled crests and peaks. On the Tibetan plateau, on the other hand, most of the ranges are distinguished by their rounded outlines and soft consistency, and their striking poverty in hard rock, which in the best cases only crops out near the summits. There too disintegration has been to a remarkable extent operative. ”

“ Bod-yul, par excellence, is Middle Tibet, namely, the provinces of U and Tsang, with the capital of Lassa and Zhikátsé. Eastern Tibet or Great Tibet is called Kham or Kham-yul, the north-western part towards Ladak is Nári, and the southern part Bhutan; Lhopato or simply Lho, meaning south.
The whole of Tibet is highland, and lies among snowy mountains. In Tibetan books it is called by various poetical names, in allusion to snow, ice, glaciers, cold, and high elevation. The highest plateau is in Nari ”

“ In the north and east the realm was also protected by difficult mountain country. The south lay relatively open, but at that time there were few Chinese living there, but only natives with a relatively low civilization. The kingdom could only be seriously attacked from two corners—through the north-west, where there was a negotiable plateau, between the Ch'in-ling mountains in the north and the Tibetan mountains in the west, a plateau inhabited by fairly highly developed Tibetan tribes; and secondly through the south-east corner, where it would be possible to penetrate up the Yangtze. ”

“ The descent on the Tibetan side is slight and gradual. The character of the scenery undergoes an abrupt change. There are no more trees, and the large shrubs which for a time take their place degenerate into thorny bushes, and then disappear. There were mountains thinly clothed with grass here and there, mountains of bare gravel and red rock, grey crags, stretches of green turf, sunlit peaks with their snows, a deep, snow-filled ravine, eastwards and beyond a long valley filled with a snowfield fringed with pink primulas; and that was Central Asia. ”

“ Later, with the gradual upheaval of the land to a mean altitude of some 14,000 feet above sea-level, the climate deteriorated, and the present somewhat rude and rugged inhabitants of Tibet are to be regarded as the outcome of slow adaptation to their slowly changing surroundings since the occupation of the country by the Indo-Malayan pleistocene precursor. To this precursor Tibet was accessible either from India or from Indo-China, and although few of his implements have yet been reported from the plateau, it is certain that Tibet has passed through the Stone as well as the Metal Ages. ”

“ From our elevated point of vantage we looked down on a sea of heads, a conglomeration of human beings, a mosaic of vivid glaring colours, an exhibition of national costumes, among which the Tibetan dress was certainly the most conspicuous, but where the eye lighted on figures hailing from Bhotan and Sikkim, Nepal and Ladak, while Chinese merchants, or soldiers and pilgrims from the grassy steppes of Mongolia, were easily distinguishable. ”

“ There is a lake there the water of which was completely frozen over. While ascending, I looked down and saw an immense volume of cloud rising from a vast wide plain moving to and fro in a wide forest, and it was indeed beautiful. On the upper part of it, rhododendron flowers in full bloom were to be seen. Walking for a mile over the snow, I reached [654] the summit which forms the real boundary of Tibet and British India; a step on the other side of the mountain, the people are not governed by Tibetan law. ”

“ Tibetan geographers, according to Csoma de Körös, compare Ngari, with its fountains, to a tank, U-Tsang to the irrigating channels, and Kham to the field irrigated. We do not appreciate the aptness of the similitude. More intelligibly, European geographers have likened Tibet in form to a vast cornucopia pouring from its wide eastern mouth vast rivers forth, to fertilise the happier plains of China, Siam, Burma, and Assam. ”

“ Who are entitled to be called pure Tibetans—if such people exist—and who should be regarded as of hybrid or alien race, are therefore questions not very easily determined. All the country west of the Ta Tu river and the Chien-ch'ang valley may rightly enough be designated Tibetan Ssuch'uan or Chinese Tibet, if the name does not mislead us into supposing that the natives of the king of Chala's state, for instance, are of the same type as the inhabitants of Lhasa. But as these tribes are certainly not Chinese, what are we to call them if Tibetan is, strictly speaking, a misnomer? ”

“ The remaining marches were alongside of the tremendous granite ranges which divide the Indus from its great tributary, the Shayok. Colossal scenery, desperate aridity, tremendous solar heat, and an atmosphere highly rarefied and of nearly intolerable dryness, were the chief characteristics. At these Tibetan altitudes, where the valleys exceed 11,000 feet, the sun's rays are even more powerful than on the 'burning plains of India.' The day wind, rising at 9 a.m., and only falling near sunset, blows with great heat and force. ”

“ The valley enclosed between these two parallel ranges is the most thickly populated valley in Tibet. Grass is abundant, and fuel easily obtainable, and therefore thousands of yaks, sheep, and goats can be seen grazing near the many Tibetan camps along the Brahmaputra and its principal tributaries. The trade route taken by the caravans from Ladak to Lhassa follows this valley; and, as I came to Tibet to see and study the Tibetans, I thought that, although I might run greater risks, I could in no part of the country accomplish my object better than by going along this thickly populated track. ”

“ The more north-westerly part of Tibet is Belti-yul—Baltistan or little Tibet—divided among several chiefs. In the mountain defiles on the south live the predatory people known as the Dardús; they are barbarians of Afghan or Hindu origin. [178] The inhabitants for the most part are Shiah Mohammedans. Their language is a dialect of the Tibetan, but what literature there is, is Persian. The climate is warm; in the lower part snow never falls.
Lakes in Tibet are few. The principal one is Ma-pham-yu-tsho (Mansarovara) , in Nari ”

“ Himalayan and crystalline, a distinction which is clearly displayed in the topography resulting from the underlying geological structure, for to the North we have the somewhat tame and lumpy mountains of Tibet contrasting with the higher, steeper and more rugged Himalayas on the South.
The Tibetan zone consists of an intensely folded succession of shales and limestones, with subordinate sandstone quartzites, the folds striking East-West and mainly lying over towards the South, showing that the movements which produced them came from the North. ”

“ Northern Tibet is an arid waste, subject to intense heat in summer and intense cold in winter. In March snow still lies deep in the Tsaidam passes, while Wellby found the heat oppressive in June at 16,000 ft. elevation on the plateau south of the Kuen-lun, and a temperate climate prevailing about the sources of the Dre chu (Yangtsze) in August.
All travellers testify to the perpetual wind currents from the west, which sweep across the salt bogs of Tsaidam (9500 ft.) and through the higher valleys of eastern Tibet. ”

“ The sources of the Indus, Sutlej, Gogra, and Brahmaputra are in Nári. Tibetan writers, in describing the situation of Tibet, have likened Nari to a water-pond, the provinces U and Tsang to four canals, and Kham-yul to a field of crops.
On the north, Tibet is bounded by the countries of the Turks and Mongols, called by Tibetans Hor and Sok. [177]
On the east by China (Gyanak) ; on the south by India (Gyagar) ; and on the west by India, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and Turkestan.
The neighbouring hill people are called by Tibetans “Mon,” their country Mon-yul ”

“ Does the Nien-chen-tang-la run right through Tibet in a westerly and north-westerly direction to the north of the Tsangpo and the upper Indus? No European and no pundit had hitherto ventured on this problem; but Hodgson, Saunders, and Atkinson had many years before laid down a hypothetical range on their maps of Tibet. Did it actually exist? Or was a labyrinth of ranges hidden under the white space, or a comparatively flat plateau, on which foundation isolated snowy peaks and chains were based? Hypotheses are absolutely worthless compared to proved facts. ”

“ We merely sought to have one single place recognized where Indian and Tibetan traders could meet to do business with each other. And the place we sought to get so recognized was not in the centre of Tibet, or even in Tibet proper at all. It did not lie on the far side of the Himalayan watershed. It was Phari, at the head of the Chumbi Valley, on the southern side of the main Himalayan range. Yet to even this the Chinese and Tibetans would not agree, and eventually Yatung, at the extreme southern end of the Chumbi Valley and immediately on our border, was agreed upon. ”

“ The Tibetan portion of this wild region, known as Kham, is inhabited by a rough race, of warlike and independent character, retaining many primitive superstitions beneath the engrafted Lamanism, and treating with little respect the Chinese pretensions to sovereignty. Through this region the missionaries Huc and Gabet were escorted back to China—the first Europeans, there can be little doubt, who ever trod those wilds. The plundering excursions of the Kham-pa extend all across the breadth of Tibet, and the fear of them haunts even the pilgrims to Kylass and the Manusaráwur Lake. ”

“ A people that tolerates either or both hardly deserves to be regarded as civilised.
The Chinese call Tibet the "roof of the world," and most of it is as barren as the roof of a house. Still the roof, though producing nothing, collects water to irrigate a garden. Tibet is the mother of great rivers, and she feeds them from her eternal snows. On her highlands is a lake or cluster of lakes which the Chinese describe as Sing Su Hai, the "sea of stars." From this the Yellow River takes its rise and perhaps the Yang-tse Kiang. ”

“ The students of Tibetan have been most rare, if they existed at all. Isolated among inaccessible mountains, the convents of Tibet have remained unregarded and almost unvisited by the scholar and traveller; nor was it until within these few years conjectured, that in the undisturbed shelter of this region, in a climate proof against decay and the destructive influences of the tropical plains, were to be found, in complete preservation the volumes of the Buddhist faith in their original Sanskrit, as well as in faithful translations, which might be sought for in vain on the continent of India. ”

“ Great Tibet is broadly divisible into a western region, in which there is a considerable preponderance of tableland over hill and mountain and of lake basins over river basins, and an eastern region, in which the reverse holds good and the surface of the ground is so greatly corrugated that the natives call it rong-rtsub, " a rough country full of ravines." ”

“ Twelve hours after leaving Peking, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans caught a glimpse of the Great Wall in the neighborhood of Chen-Si. Then, avoiding the Lung Mountains, they passed over the valley of the Hoangho and crossed the Chinese border on the Tibet side.
Tibet consists of high table-lands without vegetation, with here and there snowy peaks and barren ravines, torrents fed by glaciers, depressions with glittering beds of salt, lakes surrounded by luxurious forests, with icy winds sweeping over all. ”

“ Probably the great cause which keeps the Tibetan from being absorbed is the cold, inhospitable nature of his country. There is little to tempt the Chinese to emigrate into Tibet and consequently they never are there in sufficient numbers to influence the Tibetans around them. A similar cause has preserved some of the low-lying Shan states from absorption, the heat in this case being the reason that the Chinese do not settle there. ”

“ Those species which are distinctive of the eastern border ridges are found to reach the plateau, but do not spread westwards, so that a botanic separation or distinction is found to exist between the true plateau of Tibet in the west and the alpine tracts of the east. ”

“ The Tibetan is a born nomad, and shifts his dwelling with the seasons, wherever he can find grazing for his yaks and sheep. He knows how to make himself comfortable. For instance, in the centre of his tent he makes himself a goling, or fireplace of mud and stone, some three feet high, four or five feet long by one and a half wide, with two, three, or more side ventilators and draught-holes. By this ingenious contrivance he manages to increase the combustion of the dried dung, the most trying fuel from which to get a flame. ”

“ Tibet may be likened to a fortress surrounded by mighty ramparts. To the south the ramparts are double, the Himalayas and the Trans-Himalaya, and between the two is a moat partly filled with water—the Upper Indus and the Upper Brahmaputra. And Tibet is really a fortress and a defence in the rear of China. It is easily conceivable that a country surrounded by such huge mountain ranges must be very difficult of access, and the number of Europeans who have crossed Tibet is very small. ”

“ I find it extremely difficult to describe in an adequate manner the extreme desolation of the most barren parts of Tibet, where no luxuriant forest or bright green herbage softens the nakedness of the mountains, but everywhere the same precipices, heaps of rocks, and barren monotonous deserts meet the eye. ”