Part 14 (1/2)
In a few miles the country changes in character completely, and you come out on to the open plain of Phari. Here at 14,000 feet we saw the common cuckoo sitting on a telegraph wire and calling vigorously. This is Tibet proper, and henceforward you may travel for scores of miles and hardly see any plant more than a few inches high. In some places a little trumpet-shaped purple flower (_Incarvillea younghusbandii_) is fairly common, it lies p.r.o.ne on the sand with its leaves usually buried out of sight; and as we went Westward we found a dwarf blue iris (_I.
tenuifolia_). Animals are few and far between: the Kiang, the wild a.s.s of Tibet, is occasionally seen in small parties; they are very conspicuous on the open plains in full daylight, but almost invisible at dusk. The Tibetan gazelle is fairly numerous, and it is not uncommon to see one or two in company with a flock of native sheep and taking no notice of the shepherd, but when a stranger tries to approach they are off like a flash. Another animal of the plains is the Tibetan antelope (_Pantholops_), which is found in large numbers a little to the North of the region we visited, but the only signs of it we saw were the horns used as supporting p.r.o.ngs for the long muzzle-loading guns of the Tibetans. The Tibetan antelope was probably the Unicorn described by the French priest Huc in 1845.
The only mammals that are commonly seen on the plains are the small mouse-hares or pikas (_Ochotona_), which live in colonies on the less stony parts of the plain, where their burrows often caused our ponies to stumble; they scurry off to their holes at your approach, but if you wait a few moments you will see heads peeping out at you from all sides.
These engaging little creatures have been called ”Whistling Hares,” but of the three species which we found none was ever heard to utter a sound of any kind. The Tibetan name for them is Phuse. It is interesting to record that from one specimen I took three fleas of two species, both of them new to science.
Birds are few on these stony wastes, larks, wheatears and snow-finches being the commonest. Elwes' sh.o.r.e-lark was found feeding young birds at the beginning of June, when the ground was not yet free from snow, and the song of the Tibetan skylark, remarkably like that of our own skylark, was heard over every patch of native cultivation.
A small spiny lizard (_Phrynocephalus theobaldi_) is common on the plains and on the lower hills up to 17,000 feet; it lives in shallow burrows on the sand and under stones.
Rising out of the plain North of the Himalayas are ranges of rounded limestone hills, 18,000 to 19,000 feet high, running roughly East and West. The hills between Phari and Khamba Dzong are the home of the big sheep (_Ovis hodgsoni_), which are occasionally seen in small companies.
There are many ranges to the West of Khamba Dzong, apparently well suited to this animal, but it was never seen. On the slopes of these hills are found partridges (_Perdix hodgsoniae_), and in the ravines are seen Alpine choughs, rock-doves (_Columba rupestris_) and crag-martins.
Once or twice at night we heard the shriek of the great eagle-owl, but the bird was not seen.
At rare intervals on these plains one meets with small rivers, tributaries of the Arun River; along their banks is usually more gra.s.s than elsewhere, and here the wandering Tibetan herdsmen bring their yaks to graze. The wild yak is not found anywhere in this region. It might be supposed that so hairy an animal as the yak would become dirty and unkempt. Actually they are among the cleanest of creatures, and they may often be seen sc.r.a.ping holes in soft banks where they roll and kick and comb themselves into silky condition. The usual colour of the domesticated yak is black, more rarely a yellowish brown. A common variety has a white face and white tail. The calves are born in the spring, late April or early May.
Here and there the rivers overflow their banks and form lakes or meres, which in the summer are the haunt of innumerable wild-fowl: bar-headed geese and redshanks nest here, families of ruddy shelducks (the Brahminy duck of India) and garganey teal are seen swimming on the pools.
Overhead fly sand-martins, brown-headed gulls, common terns and white-tailed eagles. Near one of these lakes one day I watched at close distance a red fox stalking a pair of bar-headed geese, a most interesting sight, and had the satisfaction of saving the birds by firing a shot in the air with my small collecting gun just as the fox was about to pounce on his intended victim.
Tinki Dzong is a veritable bird sanctuary. The Dzong itself is a rambling fort covering a dozen or so of acres, and about its walls nest hundreds of birds--ravens, magpies, red-billed choughs, tree-sparrows, hoopoes, Indian redstarts, Hodgson's pied wagtails and rock-doves. In the shallow pool outside the Dzong were swimming bar-headed geese and ruddy shelducks, with families of young birds, all as tame as domestic poultry. A pair of white storks was seen here in June, but they did not appear to be breeding. In the autumn the lakes in this neighbourhood are the resort of large packs of wigeon, gadwall and pochard. The Jongpen explained to us that it was the particular wish of the Dalai Lama that no birds should be molested here, and for several years two lamas lived at Tinki, whose special business it was to protect the birds.
[Ill.u.s.tration: JUNIPERS IN THE KAMA VALLEY.]
Crossing over a pa.s.s of about 17,000 feet (Tinki La), the slopes gay with a little purple and white daphne (_Stellera_), said by the natives to be poisonous to animals, we came to a plain of a different character, miles of blown sand heaped here and there into enormous dunes, on which grows a yellow-flowering gorse. Here, near Chushar, we first met with rose-finches (Severtzoff's and Przjewalsk's) and the brown ground-chough (_Podoces humilis_): the last-named is a remarkable-looking bird, which progresses by a series of apparently top-heavy bounds, at the end of which it turns round to steady itself; in the middle of June it was feeding its young in nests at the bottom of deep holes in sand or old mud walls.
Following up the valley of the Bhong-chu we crossed the river by a stone bridge near Shekar Dzong. Here we found a colony of white-rumped swifts nesting high up in cliffs and ruddy shelducks nesting in holes among the loose boulders below. Occasionally we saw a pair of black-necked cranes, which are said by the natives to breed near lakes a little to the North, but we had no opportunity of visiting them. The slopes of the hills facing South were covered with a very pretty shrub (_Sophora_) with blue and white flowers and delicate silvery grey leaves, and among the loose stones a small clematis (_C. orientalis_) was just beginning to appear.
Groups of small trees, like a sea buckthorn, growing 15 to 20 feet high, indicate a gradual change in the climate as you go Westwards. Here also for the first time we began to find a few b.u.t.terflies, of the genera _Lycaena_ and _Colias_.
At Tingri we found ourselves in a large plain about 20 miles long by 12 wide; a large part of the plain is saturated with soda and is almost uninhabited by bird or beast. In our three weeks' stay at Tingri we collected several mammals, including a new subspecies of hamster (_Cricetulus alticola tibeta.n.u.s_) and a number of birds. This was the only place where we ever received any natural history specimen from a Tibetan. A woman came into our camp one day and, after making certain that she was not observed by any of the villagers, produced from a sack a well-worn domestic cat's skin stuffed with gra.s.s and a freshly killed stoat (_Mustela longstaffi_). The skin of the stoat is highly prized by the Tibetans, who say that it has the property of restoring faded turquoises to their former beauty. About the houses of the village were nesting tree-sparrows, hoopoes, rock-doves and ravens, the latter so tame that they hardly troubled to get out of the way of pa.s.sers-by. In a tower of the old fort lived a pair of the Eastern little owl (_Athene bactriana_), which appeared to live princ.i.p.ally on voles. On the plain the commonest birds were the long-billed calandra lark, Brook's short-toed lark, the Tibetan skylark, and Elwes' sh.o.r.e-lark, all of which were found with eggs, probably the second brood of the season, at the beginning of July. The nest of the yellow-headed wagtail, rare at Tingri, was found with eggs, and Blanford's snow-finch was found feeding its young more than 2 feet down the burrow of a pika (_Ochotona curzoniae_). The common tern and the greater sand-plover nested on the s.h.i.+ngly islands in the river.
Plants at Tingri were few and inconspicuous: a small yellow cistus, the dwarf blue iris, a small aster and a curious hairy, claret-coloured flower (_Thermopsis_) were the most noticeable. Along the rivers which traverse the plain is very good grazing for the large flocks of sheep and goats of the Tibetans; the sheep are small and are grown entirely for wool. By a simple system of irrigation a large area of land near Tingri has been brought into cultivation. The princ.i.p.al crop here is barley, which const.i.tutes the chief food of the people; they also grow a large radish or small turnip, the young leaves of which are excellent food. The animals usually used for ploughing are a cross between the yak and ordinary domestic cattle, called by the Tibetans ”zoh”; they are more powerful than the yak and are excellent transport animals. We found barley grown in many districts up to 15,000 feet--it does not always ripen--and in the valley of the Dzakar Chu near its junction with the Arun River is a small area where wheat is grown at an alt.i.tude of about 12,800 feet. Peas are grown in the Arun Valley near Kharta, where they ripen in September and are pounded into meal for winter food of cattle as well as of the Tibetans themselves. Mustard is grown in the lower valleys below 14,000 feet. It is to be regretted that we did not bring back specimens of these hardy cereals.
During the course of an excursion of about three weeks in July to the West and South of Tingri we covered a large tract of unexplored country, much of which is more Nepalese than Tibetan in character. Going over the Thung La we found numerous b.u.t.terflies of the genus _Parna.s.sus_, and near the top of the pa.s.s (18,000 feet) we found for the first time the beautiful little blue _Gentiana am[oe]na_; it is not easy to see until you are right over it, when it looks like a little square blue china cup; some of the flowers are as much as an inch in diameter. Here also was just beginning to flower the dwarf blue poppy (_Meconopsis horridula_), which grows in a small compact clump, 6 to 8 inches high, with as many as sixteen flowers and buds on one plant; the flowers are nearly 2 inches across and of a heavenly blue. In this region, too, we met for the first time marmots, which live in large colonies at about 16,000 feet; the Himalayan is larger than the Alpine marmot, and it has a longish tail which it whisks sharply from side to side when it is alarmed; it has a twittering cry, curiously like that of a bird of prey.
Continuing down the valley of the Po Chu to Nyenyam, we found several birds that we had not met hitherto, notably the brown accentor, Himalayan tree-pipit, Adams's snowfinch, the Himalayan greenfinch and Tickell's willow-warbler. At about 12,500 feet we first found the white-backed dove (_Columba leuconota_), which inhabits the deep gorges of the Himalayas but does not extend out on to the Tibetan plain. Beside the big torrent that flows South from Gosainthan we saw a pair of that curious curlew-like bird, the ibis-bill (_Ibidorhynchus struthersi_); it was evident that they had eggs or young on an island in the torrent, at about 13,800 feet, but unfortunately it was impossible to reach it.
The most conspicuous flowers in this region were a little bushy cistus with golden flowers the size of a half-crown, a dwarf rhododendron (_R.
lanatum_) with hairy leaves, a white potentilla with red centre, which carpeted the drier hillsides, a white gentian (_G. robusta_), and a very remarkable louse-wort (_Pedicularis megalantha_) with two quite distinct forms--one purple, the other yellow.
Crossing a pa.s.s to the East of Nyenyam, we camped on a level spot covered densely with white primulas (_P. Buryana_) six to eight inches high; an inch or two of snow fell during the night, and so white are these flowers that it was difficult to see them against the snow. Near the top of another pa.s.s we found at about the same alt.i.tude, 15,000 feet, another primula (_P. Wollastonii_) with three to six bells on each stem, the size of a small thimble, of a deep blue colour, and lined inside with frosted silver. In the moister valleys hereabouts a pretty pink-flowered polygonum (_P. vacciniifolium_) rambled everywhere over the rocks and boulders. The Rongshar Valley in July was chiefly notable for the large gooseberry bushes, 10 to 12 feet high, and for the profusion of red and white roses. A wall-creeper, the only one we saw in Tibet, was seen creeping about the temple at Lapche, a few miles to the West of Rongshar.
From the beginning of August our headquarters were at Kharta in the Arun Valley, about 20 miles East of Mount Everest, and from there we made excursions South to the Kama Valley, and West up the Kharta Valley in the direction of Everest. Kharta itself is curiously situated as regards climate: the wide dry valley of the Arun narrows abruptly and the river pa.s.ses into a deep gorge, where it falls rapidly at a rate of about 200 feet to the mile on its way to Nepal. The heavy monsoon clouds roll up the gorge to its mouth, where they are cut off sharply, so that within a mile you may pa.s.s from the dry climate of Tibet to the moist, steamy air of a Nepalese character, with its luxuriant vegetation.
In the immediate neighbourhood of Kharta were several birds we had not met elsewhere, notably Prince Henry's laughing thrush (_Trochalopterum henrici_), which is very much venerated as a sacred bird by the Tibetans, the Central Asian blackbird, almost indistinguishable from our blackbird except by its voice, the solitary thrush, Indian brown turtledove, and a meadow-bunting (_Emberiza G.o.dlewskii_), probably a migrant from the North.
Several species of small gentians and two very fragrant onosmas were flowering in August, and in this place _Clematis orientalis_ attains its best growth, clambering over the trees and the houses of the natives; the flower of this clematis has a very wide range of colour from an apricot yellow to almost black. About the houses are often planted junipers and poplars, and it was about 10 miles from Kharta that we saw a poplar nearly 40 feet in girth, which we were informed was five hundred years old.
A few miles to the south of Kharta is a valley filled with a dozen or so of small lakes or tarns, inhabited apparently only by tadpoles (_Rana pleskei_); no fish could be seen. Not far from here was discovered an interesting toad of a new species (_Cophophryne alticola_).