REACHING LHASSA: SUPPLIES: MESSING: THE LHASSA BAZAAR
The mode of our arrival in the environs of Lhassa was something of an
anti-climax. We had marched four hundred miles, fought a few fights, and
provided ourselves throughout our journey with the necessaries of life,
much against the will of the enemy, and here we were at Lhassa, where an
exciting climax to our march, such as a good fight in the Lhassa plain,
would have been highly artistic. Here stood the Debun monastery, and
there further on the Sara monastery, full of monks who at that time
hated us. A few good shells in those monasteries would have set the
monks buzzing in consternation like swarming bees disturbed. There
glistened in the sun the gilded roof of the chief astrologer's house,
that would have made grand loot and have looked so well in the British
Museum. There ahead of us rose majestically on its conical hill the
Pota-La, that _piece de resistance_ which would have really taxed our
efforts, and by its side on a similar hill the Medical College,
challenging us by its proud eminence to seize it. But such wild schemes
were not to be realised. These ways were not our ways. We marched
quietly into a swampy camp, sat down, and began to negotiate. Those that
negotiated were busy men, for the amount of talking that the
representatives of the Tibetan Government got through, and that needed
listening to, before anything was settled, must have been immense. The
rest of us were not often very busy. 'Those also serve who only stand
and wait' was our motto.
There was reluctance at first on the part of the monasteries to sell us
supplies, but this was shortly overcome. We had for one day to feed the
natives of the force on peas soaked overnight in water as a substitute
for tsampa, while waiting for supplies to come in; but from the time
when the latter began to do so till we left Lhassa we felt no pinch. The
large monasteries were our chief purveyors, but besides these the
Chinese community of Lhassa comprised certain considerable merchants who
at the instigation of the Amban placed their wares at our disposal from
the very first. A Chinese market was a great boon to us, for the
Chinaman, especially if at all influenced by other civilisations, has
ideas on dietetics more nearly approximating to both those of the
British and of the native of India than do the Tibetan's ideas. To the
ordinary Tibetan the sucking of mouthfuls of tsampa at irregular
intervals from a dirty leather bag which he hangs from his neck
represents an adequate idea of diet. The monks and richer laymen of
course do themselves better; but such dainties as they indulge in did
not appeal to our palates, nor to those of Indian natives. Their butter,
for instance, which at times both British and native had to make use of,
had always a special flavour of its own--a flavour which in an
indefinable way suggests Tibet and its many associations, being allied
to a blend of such smells as that of Tibetan fuel, of joss-stick
incense, and of temple floors smeared with grease. Few Europeans and
fewer natives could eat Tibetan butter with relish. The Chinaman, on the
other hand, provided us with flour sufficiently fine to bake with, with
white and brown sugar, with that solidified form of molasses called
'goor,' and with dried fruits. Latterly we had often had to mix tsampa
with flour to eke out our stock of the latter when baking bread for
British troops. The result, though not unwholesome, was of a deep brown
colour, and hardly palatable. If once cut into overnight, a tsampa loaf
would have subsided into something very stodgy by morning, though, if
all consumed at a sitting, it would not be found so heavy.
During the latter part of our march we had run out of most of such
delicacies as a supply column usually carries, and, as I have already
mentioned, no arrangement could be made to bring up the loads and loads
of parcels which were now accumulating at Gyantse for most individuals
and messes belonging to the column. In those days, in our attitude
towards food, we reverted very much to the proverbial school-boy. We
were frankly greedy in thought, word, and deed. The most favourite of
interesting conversations was to discuss the ideal menu at a first-rate
London restaurant. But sometimes these imaginings grew too painful. I
remember well a case of two officers at noon on a comparatively hot day,
sitting by the wayside at a halt.
'Ah,' said one, 'what I should really like now would be a large
tumblerful of good iced hock-cup.'
These idle words touched a tender spot in the other officer, to whom
hock-cup happened to be the beau-ideal of drinks.
'Shut up!' the latter answered angrily, a fierce light in his eye; 'if
you mention hock-cup again, I'll break your head!'
Jam, as we marched to Lhassa, though not a necessity, was our primary
desideratum. With long days in the open air and also with considerable
fatigue to undergo, you craved for the sustenance of sweet things. Till
sugar also began to run short, we used to make treacle from it. Like the
school-boy, we, as a rule, thought little of alcohol. Just as water at
that altitude boils at a low temperature, so did it need only a little
fiery spirit to give the desired tingle to the blood. Most messes had
soon run out of whiskey, and rum in small quantities from the supply
column took its place.
I am inclined to think that, delightful as messing in a large mess is,
something is lost by having no personal share in your own catering. A
mess president, of course, especially on service, has a vast weight upon
his shoulders. He has to foresee the wants of many hungry mouths months
ahead, and fit them in to a scanty allowance of transport. But his
function is of a special kind. The ordinary member of a mess simply eats
what is put before him, notes whether it is good, bad, or indifferent,
and thinks no more about it. On the other hand, if, with the aid of a
purely experimental cook, you run your own messing, quite a new vista of
energy is at once opened out to you. It becomes intensely interesting.
You become very greedy, of course, and a good dinner becomes the mark of
a successful day, and a bad dinner that of an unsuccessful one; but even
so the arts of catering and of the supervision of cooking, when
practised in difficulties, are not in themselves sordid, but demand
skill and forethought of a high order. One wants company of course. I
messed on the method of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Spratt with another officer.
He was of the lean, I the fat kind. He breakfasted at eleven, or (if on
the march) when he reached camp. I ate a huge breakfast the moment I was
out of bed, and ran to a lunch later, which my messmate scorned. So,
after all, we only met at dinner, but then that is the only meal at
which company is a necessity. He dined usually on curry and rice, which
I have always disliked, while I had roast meat served up to me in chunks
on a dish, much as my dog gets it at home. Thus we got all the mutual
advantages of each other's company when that was desirable, without the
effort of subscribing to each other's tastes. We found it a most
workmanlike arrangement. When, on reaching Lhassa, we had ample leisure,
we began to grow fastidious, and to insist upon our cooks enlarging the
culinary horizon. A little harsh treatment soon taught the youth who fed
me to turn out a passable omelette, and a little more coercion resulted
in quite eatable rissoles. In the end, when he came to take orders for
dinner, he would rattle off a string of high-sounding dishes with French
names, which would have really made a fine feast, if served otherwise
than on enamelled iron plates, set upon a table cloth of advertisement
sheets from a stale newspaper. Once I had a comrade to lunch on a sunny
day, and, thinking to do him well, produced somewhere from the bottom of
my kit a long disused but spotless bed sheet, and made use of this as a
table cloth. My friend asked for its removal before the second course,
complaining of incipient snow-blindness. When I got to India and to
polite society, and began wiping my mouth with a table napkin, I
discovered that on the first few occasions the napkin used to come away
in my pocket. Of course, on making use of it, one thought subconsciously
that it was one's handkerchief, and so tucked it away as such.
Tobacco, without a parcels post to bring it to us, became very scarce.
The Sahib missed his pipe or cheroot, and the native his
'hubble-bubble,' and both alike took to the 'Pedro' cigarette, the
produce of an enterprising firm whose custom extended to Lhassa. Vendors
of Pedros had followed us on the march, and, apart from this, the Lhassa
bazaar abounded in the article, getting it, I suppose, through China or
by the trade route that lies through Nepal. By a rough estimate it would
appear that for two months at least four thousand souls smoked an
average of ten Pedros daily. The rate grew very much enhanced with the
constant demand, and I know of one needy officer who, in view of the
fortune thus doubtless made by the firm, has announced his intention of
going head-down for home and offering his hand and heart to Miss Pedro,
if he finds such a person existing.
Shopping in the camp bazaar was the ladylike way in which we often spent
our mornings. We had only been in camp at Lhassa for twenty-four hours,
when a bazaar was formed just outside camp by Tibetan, Chinese, and
Nepali traders. It needed a little supervision to prevent disputes and
disorder, but the provost-marshal quickly had it in hand. An attempt to
fix rates for various more necessary articles was not wholly successful,
human nature on the buyer's part crying out for the article at all cost,
and human nature on the seller's seizing an easy chance of profit. There
were vegetables in that bazaar and sticks of wild rhubarb. There was
'ata,' in small quantities, which the sepoy would buy greedily as a
change from his tsampa. There were packets of white loaf sugar fetching
exorbitant prices, and thick Chinese candles with bits of stick for
wicks. Later on, when we had moved from our first camp to that which we
occupied for the greater part of the time, the bazaar developed. The
vendors by that time had discovered our childish mania for curios, and
brought with them each morning such trinkets as would attract our fancy.
Skins of all kinds would be brought for sale; the skins of very young
lambs, almost as curly as real Astrakan, which, made up together in
winter linings for lamas' robes, seemed equally adaptable to the opera
cloaks of our sisters and cousins and aunts at home; skins too of the
lynx, the marmot, the wolf, and the snow fox. And women would come
wearing heavy earrings set with turquoises and 'charm boxes' similarly
set, which they wore as lockets at the neck. They would take these off
to sell to you and haggle, like the veritable Eastern traders that they
were, with you for the price.
Besides the Tibetan or Chinese candle, we also found imported candles of
European manufacture. But most imports for household use appeared to be
Japanese, as, for instance, soap and matches; neither of these were of
good quality, and Japan does not seem to take pains to appear at her
best in the Lhassa market. But to get a new cake of soap, even if it did
crumble away quickly, was a luxury, and the return to a land of matches
was a great relief. I remember an officer who on the march had latterly
possessed himself of a Tibetan flint and steel and learnt to light a
cigarette with them.
There are just about half a dozen prime necessities of no great bulk
which always seem to run out sooner than expected on field service. A
reserve in a supply column of the following would always come in useful:
of matches, three mule loads; of wax candles, seven mule loads; of soap,
ten mule loads; of some strong forbidding kind of tobacco that in times
of privation would go a very long way, ten mule loads; of chocolate
creams and barley sugar, thirty mule loads. Sixty such mules laid out
per brigade would be much blessed.
When relations with the Tibetans had become less strained, we used to go
in organised parties to visit the bazaar in Lhassa city itself. These
parties reminded one of a Sunday-school treat. The part of curate would
be played by some field-officer who would collect his school children
outside camp. These would consist of those officers, soldiers, sepoys,
and followers whose turn it was to go. He would conduct us with careful
supervision from the camp to the city, and there let us loose for two
hours to play in the bazaar. The bazaar was one circular street,
surrounding the cathedral which, though once or twice entered by
favoured individuals, was out of bounds for us.
In the city the same kinds of things were for sale as were brought to
the camp bazaar, but there was a larger variety of imported goods. How
some of those things ever got to Lhassa was a mystery. In one shop I saw
a whole row of small looking-glasses 'made in Austria,' and beside them
a score or so of penknives 'made in Germany.' The British tradesman's
pictorial almanac will, I suppose, be found hanging on the gates of the
new Jerusalem; it had certainly penetrated Lhassa, usually in the form
of a royal family group. One coronation group on the wall of a Kashmiri
shop was especially fine. Strangest of all to find was a bicycle of the
Rover pattern--quite out of gear, but doubtless interesting to the
Tibetan as a Western curio. He may have thought it was a species of
Christian prayer-wheel.
I was short of dinner plates, and bought one. It was of tin, and had
stamped on it a comprehensive lesson in both political and physical
geography. All round the rim faces of clocks were stamped. Each face was
encircled with a scroll containing the name and the number of the
population of some large city of the world, while the clock in the
centre showed what the time was in that city when the clock in London
stood at twelve noon. The population of London as stamped on the plate
stood at quite a low figure, but London was selected as the honoured
city whose clock should stand at the precise hour of noon, and the whole
geography lesson was in English. One would therefore come to the
conclusion that the plate was a British product, dating back to the
period of some not very recent census. To have traced that plate from
Birmingham to Lhassa would have been interesting.
Beggars swarmed in the bazaar. One man earned an obviously ample
livelihood by carrying his grandfather on his back through the streets.
The grandfather was certainly the quintessence of decrepitude, and as
such would appeal to the benevolent, who apparently never thought of
suggesting to the young man that it would be better to leave grandfather
at home in bed, and go out unencumbered to earn an honest living.
Malefactors in chains are also seen crawling about, a peripatetic prison
being apparently less felt by the Lhassa exchequer than one of bricks
and mortar.