He found a waterfall as well but measured it at only 30 feet. In 1924, British botanist Francis Kingdon-Ward advanced to a point that narrowed the unknown stretch of the river to 3 or 4 miles. He claimed to have found connection between the two rivers but said the only high waterfall was not on the Tsangpo but up a smaller tributary. A local guide named Kintup was later hired to continue into the inner gorge and try to find the sacred place traveling as a Buddhist pilgrim. In 1911, two British explorers were able to locate all but 30 to 40 miles of the river connection. They protected that area pretty fiercely and early British attempts to penetrate were frustrated.' 'The lower gorge area was protected by Abhors and Mishmi, Burmese tribal groups. 'It's tremendously difficult terrain of jungles and insects and tigers,' Storm said. The southern approach up the Brahmaputra posed the most obstacles. Reminiscent of the fabled 'source of the Nile' that English explorers Richard Burton and John Speke raced each other to find in the middle of the 19th Century-both making controversial claims to have found it first-the Tsangpo falls and gorge proved so far beyond explorers' reach they were declared non-existent. two Tibetan hunters a Sherpa guide and eight porters-though Baker, Storm and Harvey were the only ones to make the demanding descent to the gorge and falls.Īmong other things, their discovery proves that two great rivers of Asia-the Tsangpo that runs completely across Tibet and the mighty Brahmaputra that runs through the Indian state of Assam and Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal-are connected. In addition to Storm, a book and game dealer-turned-explorer, and Harvey, a National Geographic photographer, the team included another scholar, Hamid Sardar, of Cambridge, Mass. This was the seventh expedition that Baker, a Tibet scholar living in Katmandu, led into the Himalayas in search of the falls.

1933 novel lost horizon