The Rouna Falls of Papua

Abstract

boats. We ourselves crossed in leather boats; the crossing took one and a half hours. When nearing the south bank we had to work our way through many sandy islands, which delayed us. In winter these islands are part of a wide stretch of sand, and the crossing is much shorter. We made a delightful camp on mrf under willows at the village at To, or Chi-te Sho. The people had never seen a European, and were very curious to see what we were like. Our ponies were crossing in a wooden boat, which had to go for a long way down and be pulled up past the islands to the end of the Nong La spur, which was the only place where they could be landed. They did not reach there till the next day. On August 22 we marched 20 miles up the south bank to Gongkar Dzong. From a spur of the Nong La, 400 feet above the river, we had splendid views of the broad valley both up and down stream. We descended and continued up the flat valley. There were numbers of Bar-headed geese on the river-bank, which were so tame that I was able to get some photographs of them. The next day I visited the Dzongpen of Gongkar. In 1904 he had been one of the Garpons, the officials at the Gartok trade mart in Western Tibet. We had met when I went there with the late General Rawling, Colonel Ryder, and Colonel Wood of the Survey of India. Six miles from Gongkar we crossed the Yab La, a spur about 500 feet above the river. At the end of this spur is the ferry of Chaksam, where the expedition under Sir Francis Younghusband crossed the Tsangpo in 1904. We were now on well-known ground. We camped the night at Singma Kangchung, whence we telephoned to His Holiness the Dalai Lama to tell him we had rejoined the main road. When in Lhasa the Tsarong Shape had asked me about the possibility of using motor boats on the Tsangpo, and at his request I measured the velocity as well a? I could in some of the more rapid places and found it to be between 5 and 6 miles an hour. We returned to Gyantse by the usual road vid Nangartse, the Karo La, and Ralung.