e surveyors.[17]

[17] The only expedition sanctioned is that which is now exploring
the little-known trade route between Gyantse and Gartok, where a
mart has been opened to us by the recent Tibetan treaty. The
party consists of Captain Ryder, R.E., in command, Captain Wood,
R.E., Lieutenant Bailey, of the 32nd Pioneers, and six picked men
of the 8th Gurkhas. They follow the main feeder of the Tsangpo
nearly 500 miles, then strike into the high lacustrine tableland
of Western Tibet, passing the great Mansarowar Lake to Gartok;
thence over the Indus watershed, and down the Sutlej Valley to
Simla, where they are expected about the end of January. The
party will be able to collect useful information about the trade
resources of the country; but the route has already been mapped
by Nain Singh, the Indian surveyor, and the geographical results
of the expedition will be small compared with what would have
been derived from the projected Tengri Nor and Brahmaputra trips.

An expedition to the mountains bordering the Tengri Nor, only nine days
north of Lhasa, would have linked all the unknown country north of the
Tsang po with the tracts explored by Sven Hedin, and left the map
without a hiatus in four degrees of longitude from Cape Comorin to the
Arctic Ocean. But military considerations were paramount.

For myself, the abandonment of the expedition was a great
disappointment. I had counted on it as early as February, and had made
all preparations to join it.

CHAPTER XIII

LHASA AND ITS VANISHED DEITY

The passage of the river was difficult and dangerous. If we had had to
depend on the four Berthon boats we took with us, the crossing might
have taken weeks. But the good fortune that attended the expedition
throughout did not fail us. At Chaksam we found the Tibetans had left
behind their two great ferry-boats, quaint old barges with horses' heads
at the prow, capacious enough to hold a hundred men. The Tibetan
ferrymen worked for us cheerfully. A number of hide boats were also
discovered. The transport mules were swum over, and the whole force was
across in less than a week.

But the river took its toll most tragically. The current is swift and
boisterous; the eddies and whirlpools are dangerously uncertain. Two
Berthon boats, bound together into a raft, capsized, and Major
Bretherton, chief supply and transport officer, and