Page:Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet (1879).djvu/30

xxx and becomes the Brahmaputra of the plains. Yet there can be no reasonable doubt that the Tsanpu of Great Tibet and the Brahmapnutta of the plains are one and the same river, The question has occupied the attention of geographers for upwards ofa century. In his instructions, dated 1774, Warren Hastings. specially enjoined Mr. Bogle to inform himself respecting the course of the Brahmaputra.’ D’Anville, and afterwards Klaproth, believed that the Tibet river was the upper course of the Irrawaddy. But there never appears to have been any doubt, among English geographers, that Rennell was correct in his — identification of the Tsanpu with the Bralmaputra. -In 1825 — Captains Burlton and Wilcox were sent to explore its course. Burlton followed up the course of the Dihong, until he was stopped by wild tribes, while Wilcox crossed the water parting: towards Burma, and reached the banks of the Irrawaddy.* © From the point reached by Burlton on the Dihong, to the place where Manning crossed the Tsanpu, there is an interval of about 400 miles, and a difference of level of 11,000 feet, which © is entirely unknown.

On the south the Great Tibetan valley of the Tsanpu is bounded by the Central Range of the Himalaya, the culminating peaks of which are covered with eternal snow, while the. sides bear the weight of enormous glaciers. But the snow Ime _ | ‘on the Central Chain is much higher than that on the Southern Himalaya. As the snow is deposited by southerly winds it falls mainly on the culminating ridge which faces the south, and sareens the central ridge behind it. Thus the snow line ts 5000 feet lower down on the Southern Himalaya than on the Central Chain. From this latter Range many lofty saddles branch in several directions, in some places forming inland lakes, im 1 See p. 9. never answered by Klaproth, who died 2 See ‘Asiatic Researches,” xviii, in 1835, Subsequently, both Pemberton p. 314, for the work of Wileox and his and Hodgson received native informa- colleague. In this paper Wilcox re- tion identifying the Brahmaputra and _ plied to Klaproth, and maintained that Dihong with the Tsanpu, oe the Dihong was the Tsanpu. He was