Page:Narratives of the mission of George Bogle to Tibet.djvu/34

Rh m INTB.] VALLEY OF LHASA. XXIX wards down a valley for 50 miles into the Brahmaputra. In this valley of the Shiang-ehu is situated the town and monastery of Chamnamring^ (Namling), 12,220 feet above the sea, the small palace of Desheripgay, and other religious establishments. The only Englishman who has ever visited this valley is Mr. Bogle. He was followed, at an interval of nearly a century, by Colonel Montgomerie's explorer of 1872. From the mouth of the Shiang-chu to the point where the road to Lhasa crosses the river, a distance of 85 miles, the course of the Brahmaputra is entirely unknown, except from the Lama Survey ; ^ but at that point it has been crossed by Mr. Manning, by the Pundit of 1866, and the explorer of 1872. The river of Lhasa, called the Ki-chu^ by the explorer of 1872, falls into the Brahmaputra, in longitude 90° 30' E., 2 miles to the eastward of Chusul-jong, where the river is 11,334 feet above the sea. The city of Lhasa, the capital of the U province, and the residence of the Dalai Lama and of the Chinese political agents, is in the valley of the Ki-chu, and about 25 miles from its junction with the Brahmaputra, in latitude 29° 39' 17" N., and 11,700 feet above the sea. Lhasa stands in a level plain, surrounded by mountains, and dotted over with populous monas- teries. This upper valley of the Brahmaputra, though 11,000 to 15,000 feet above the sea, yields harvests of barley and millet, has abundant pastures, and there are clumps of trees, and even gardens, round the towns and monasteries. Beyond the point where the Lhasa route crosses the river, in longitude 90° 40' E., the course of the Brahmaputra within the mountains is entirely unknown (except from the Lama Survey)* for a distance of about 400 miles, when, under the name of Bihong, the mighty stream emerges into the valley of Assam ' Chamnamrim of D' Anville. » Kaltiou of D' Anville; and Gald- jao-mouren (" la riviferc furibonde ") of Klaproth, who gives a long account of the Lhasa river. (' Magasin Asiatique,' ii. p. 263, Paris, 1826.) pears to extend only to the Central Range, the latitudes being carried much too far south.
 * See p. Ixi.
 * See p. Ixi. The Lama Survey ap-