Bailey Collection: Dibang Survey and Exploration Expedition. Photographer(s): Bailey,...

Blue half-leather bound album measuring 305x416mm, uniform with parts 479-80. Spine piece missing, but generally in reasonably sound condition. Prints are mounted three or four to a page, with captions written in ink over original pencilled titles. The photographs in the album have been renumbered 1-188. Bailey's original numbering of this album continues from the preceding volume in the series, ie, starting at print 45 and continuing up to print 132. Prints from this point on (new numbers 88-188) are unnumbered and this (in addition to the fact that this material is printed on different paper) possibly indicates that the photographs were taken by another member of the party. There are some duplicate from the series at Mss Eur F157/488. After his abortive connection with the Abor Expedition of 1911 (see Mss Eur F157/479) Bailey was selected to head a larger mission into the Chulikatta Mishmi country on the Assam-Tibet border. Bailey, fearing that he would become bogged down in administrative work if he headed the expedition, used his influence with Sir Henry McMahon to be appointed Intelligence Officer instead. This position gave freer rein to his exploring and scientific activities, with part of his orders stating that 'it is the desire of the Government of India that he should be allowed as much scope as possible for the exercise of his talents as regards exploration.' Command of the expedition was given to Captain G.A. Nevill (see portrait at print 5) and two survey parties were formed, one of which would survey the courses of the Siyom and Simong rivers and the second would explore the main range as far as possible east of the Dibang River. The first major base of the expedition was at Mipi, about 100 miles north of Sadiya, and here the party encountered a Tibetan community who had left their own country some years previously in search of a 'Promised Land' known as 'Pemakö'. This encounter greatly excited Bailey, for 'the moment I had heard of the existence of the Tibetan settlement, the realisation flashed through my mind that here was my chance of getting through to Tibet from the Assamese side' (Bailey, No Passport to Tibet, p. 38). Here he befriended Gyamtso, the headman of Mipi, and eventually told him of his curiosity about the supposed falls of the Tsangpo, which he had unsuccessfully attempted to trace in his 1911 expedition. Bailey then proposed to remain at Mipi when the main expedition departed and with guides and porters provided by Gyamtso, cross the mountains to Chimdro. Realising that the value of such exploration would be limited without an experienced surveyor, Bailey recruited Captain Henry Morshead RE to accompany him. Their journey took them north to Chimdro, Showa and Tremo and then down to the falls and rapids near Pemakochung. Bailey discovered that contrary to popular belief (itself based on a misunderstanding of the report by the earlier traveller Kintup) there was no great waterfall here, but a small fall and a long series of rapids. Their return journey took them westwards along the course of the Tsangpo and then south along the Nyamjang Chu into Assam. The album cover the period from around May to 16 July 1913 and records topographical views, camp scenes, surveying activities and ethnographical portraits. Among the locations are : the Mishmi cane bridge over the Dibang at Aprunyi, Dri-Dibang confluence, camp at Echindon, Dri-Matun confluence, Ihili, Ilupu, Tsahuden, Andra and Anzong valleys, Mipi, Chimdro, Tapoden, Kapu, Inere, Makti, Tambu, Meto, Rinchenpung, Pangshing, Lagung, Sü La, Pablung Valley, Showa, Yigrong Valley and Yigrong Tso (lake), Dre, Lunang, Pe, Trilung Glacier. The record of the journey is continued in Mss Eur F157/482 (1-36), which contains a number of views of the falls and rapids at Pemakochung. For a detailed account of the journey, illustrated with good route maps, see Bailey's 'No Passport to Tibet' (London, 1957). The journey is also described in Arthur Swinson's biography of Bailey, 'Beyond the Frontiers' (London, 1971).

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