ENOUGH OF LHASSA: A TRIP DOWN COUNTRY: LIFE IN A POST: TRUE HOSPITALITY:
A BHUTYA PONY
Since I reached India, I have been told that every moment I spent in the
romantic environs of Lhassa must have been intensely interesting, and
that to have been to Lhassa is the envy of the world. I suppose, like
the brute one is, one got _blase_ and indifferent to one's good fortune,
but it is certain that those 'crowded hours of glorious life' began to
pall. We did the best we could to while away the time. An energetic race
committee provided gymkhanas and a 'sky meeting' (just, says the
intelligent foreigner, what a British army _would_ indulge in, on
arrival at such a place). A football tournament followed. Football at
thirteen thousand feet is like playing the game at an ordinary
level--with an eighty-pound load on your back. Less strain on the lungs
was a rifle meeting. To escort our military or political betters to the
city on a state visit was another mild form of entertainment. The
Chinese Amban often received such visits. The ordinary officer who
formed part of the escort did not take part in the actual visit. He
stayed outside on the doorsteps. Sometimes he was known to go into the
Amban's kitchen, where an elderly matron gave him a cup of tea.
Luckily, though it rained generally once in the twenty-four hours, it
did so mostly at night, so that we were seldom confined to our tents in
the daytime. Even so, we felt rather like prisoners. Going out beyond
the vicinity of the camp meant going out armed, and proceeding to any
distance meant being accompanied by an escort, such precautions having
been specially indicated by the attack made on two officers by a
certain fanatical lama.
It is not surprising that the life we led left many gaps which it was
hard to fill. I was glad when one day I got orders to go on a ten days'
trip down the line as far as Pete-jong and back.
These ten days initiated me into the life of those portions of the force
who had been left to man posts on the line of communications.
The native soldier soon makes himself very much at home in his post. He
has deeply regretted not going to the front, but with a useful belief in
'kismet' makes the best of things. The relief from marching and the
ample leisure to cook food are redeeming features. The post-commandant,
if the only British officer on the spot, feels his circumstances more
acutely. Not only does he grieve at being left behind, but since in
ordinary times no life is more social than that of a British officer, he
at first feels his loneliness greatly. He may love his men, he may
be--in the wording of that common Hindustani metaphor--veritably their
'father and mother,' but still he cannot go to them for company. He can
exchange few ideas with them, and as regards social intercourse, he is
almost as much alone as if he were on a desert island. If, however, by
any chance there are two officers together in one post, they should
enjoy themselves. For though ordinary regimental life is, as I said
above, the most social in the world, it yet also suffers from the
disabilities of its own sociability. In a regimental mess you know
twenty men well, and may go on knowing them so for twenty years, but
perhaps you will never know any one of them really intimately. To share
a post on the line of communications with one other officer for a few
months should result in an intimacy. That is almost a new military
experience.
If a post-commandant had shooting or fishing within reach of his post,
he usually, even though alone, soon found life bearable. Sometimes
foraging to collect a reserve of rations for the march down was his only
recreation, and this soon palled. He was not necessarily always alone,
for the traffic up and down the line was sometimes brisk, and he would
perhaps once or twice in a week be invaded by some officer who was
travelling up or down with the post or with a convoy.
It was my lot to be often such an invader, and for sheer genuine
hospitality commend me to the officers in charge of the posts on the
Sikkim-Tibet line of communications. It shames me to think of the way
they have entertained me, and of my utter inability to return their
hospitality. May I have a chance some time!
I had to go down to Chaksam with the mounted infantry postal escort
which travelled the whole distance in one day, going as light as
possible, my syce on one mule, my bedding on a second, and a mule driver
on a third, and without either cook or orderly. It was a case of
'sponging' wherever I went, for I knew those kind hosts down the line
would forbid me to live off bully-beef and biscuits. Looking over my
belongings before I left, I found a tinned oxtongue, which by an
oversight had remained unregarded and uneaten somewhere at the bottom of
a kit bag for many months. A convoy too had just come in, and from it I
seized one of a few pots of jam. Thus armed I visited Chaksam and
Pete-jong. These two articles were all that I could proffer in return
for hospitality, but both under present conditions were dainty rarities,
and, my hosts assured me, quite paid for my keep. At Chaksam, where the
tongue was left, and where there was a doctor as well as a
post-commandant, I was afterwards informed that the doctor, as soon as I
was gone, promptly found the post-commandant suffering from acute
enteritis, so put him on to milk diet and wolfed all the tongue himself!
The postal service from Gyantse to Lhassa was performed by mounted
infantry, each garrison _en route_ containing a detachment of mounted
infantrymen, who took the post from stage to stage. The stages were
pretty far apart. The first was from Gyantse to Ralung, over thirty
miles; the second over the Karo-La to Nagartse, a distance of nearly
thirty; the third from Nagartse to Pete-jong, eighteen miles; the fourth
from Pete-jong to Chaksam, thirty-two; and the fifth and last from
Chaksam to Lhassa, about forty-five. The work thus done by the mounted
infantry between Lhassa and Gyantse was considerable. A fairly hefty
sepoy, carrying rifle and accoutrements and a few mail bags, is no mean
weight to put on the back of a thirteen-hand pony, even for a short
distance, and it is surprising how well the ponies, some of them
ordinary country-breds from the plains of India, stood those long
marches. Keeping them shod was a considerable difficulty, for the
combination of damp weather and stony roads knocked the shoes off very
quickly, and the stock of the latter was limited.
Having done my work at Chaksam and Pete-jong, I returned to the former
place with the post, prepared to proceed to Lhassa the next day; but it
had been raining in torrents for some days past, and, though mail bags
and the like could be taken across the river in skin boats, there was no
chance of taking my pony and mules across till the flood subsided. After
three days it was found possible to take the animals over at Parte (the
crossing which the column subsequently used on the march down), ten
miles up the river, and the following day I was able to reach Lhassa
with the upward post.
I shall not easily forget that day. It has been made memorable to me by
the vagaries of a certain Bhutya pony ridden by an officer who was
accompanying me. To get one's kit and oneself over forty-five miles of
indifferent roadway in one day, especially when you have no change of
mount, involves early rising. We got up at four o'clock, after sleeping
in the domestic temple of a Tibetan farm-house on a sacred but not very
clean floor. We sent our kit on ahead, and also my syce, who was mounted
on a mule, in charge of part of the mounted infantry postmen. The
remainder of the latter accompanied our two selves a little later. My
companion had not ridden his pony for some time, and the latter,
disliking the process of being mounted, began by suddenly sidling away
when his master was only half on his back, with the result that his
master came off and tumbled to the ground, still keeping hold of the
reins. The pony, anxious to be free, danced a jig on his master's
stomach. Luckily, being of a hard-footed hill-breed, his feet were not
shod, so that no serious injury resulted, as would have been the case if
the trampling had been done in iron shoes. At length the pony broke away
from the reins and scampered off, leaving his rider to recover the
breath that had been squeezed out of his body and to pick himself up.
This was an awkward beginning to the day's march, but, finding no bones
broken, and the pony having, for the occasion, allowed himself to be
caught, my friend mounted, successfully this time, and we proceeded on
our way. After some miles we overtook and passed the other party, and
pushed on till, finding we had gone twenty miles from Chaksam, were in a
pleasant spot suitable for resting in, and were uncommonly hungry, we
dismounted, took our ponies' bridles off, tied the animals up, gave them
their grain, and set to work upon our own sandwiches.
We rested an hour, and, thinking our surroundings too pleasant to leave
abruptly, we decided on another half-hour's rest. Just as we had done
so, and were looking forward to a spell of peaceful contemplation of
romantic scenery, as seen through the beautifying haze of
tobacco-smoke, one of us noticed that the Bhutya was fidgeting with his
head rope. He was on the edge of a field of green peas that were
tickling his fancy. As we looked, by some device known only, I should
think, to Bhutya ponies, he slipped the neck rope over one ear. Before
we could get at him he had slipped it over the other and was free. The
only man who had ever been known to catch the pony when he was free was
his own syce, whom his master had left at Chaksam. Here we were twenty
miles from Chaksam and twenty-five from Lhassa, and my friend with many
bruises on his body already contracted that morning, and a sore hip
that, though not preventing him riding, yet hurt him every time that he
tried to walk.
The party that we had overtaken now came up, and, after sending on most
of the escort so as not to detain His Majesty's mails, we proceeded to
try all the dodges known to us of catching a refractory pony. I suppose,
if we had been cowboys trained to use the lasso, we should have had no
trouble. As it was, we experienced much.
A feeding-bag full of grain held out coaxingly at arm's length made the
pony laugh. I tried him with a bit of commissariat biscuit, at which--as
is often the way of people--he snorted. I tried stalking him from behind
my own pony, and got fairly near him, only to find his two heels
perilously near our two heads. We laid a grand snare, in the shape of
two mule loading ropes joined together, and stretched across a tempting
patch of the green-pea field, where not a trace of the rope could be
seen, while the men at each end of the rope lounged peacefully and
innocently with reassuring looks upon their faces which we thought would
not prevent the pony being quietly urged into the space between them.
This ruse nearly succeeded. The pony stalked along, grazing as he went,
till his feet were against the rope, at which the men holding it, after
raising it a little, tried to run to the rear and so encircle the pony.
But before they had gone far he was kicking and tugging with his chest
against the rope, and in a moment had wrenched it out of the hands of
one of the men, and the next minute, after a series of derisive
buckjumps, was in the next field munching young wheat.
After fifty minutes of fruitless manoeuvring we decided on a new plan.
Half a mile further on, the road left the open space where we now were,
and, running close to the side of the river, was flanked on the other
side by almost precipitous rocks. The road here, therefore, formed a
perfect defile, and we decided to proceed on our way, ignoring the
Bhutya and trusting to his gregarious instinct and a little wholesome
neglect on our part to induce him to follow us of his own initiative. We
moved off in a body--mules, ponies, and men. The Bhutya, tired of green
peas and young wheat, looked after us and followed us at a gentle trot.
We left my syce in ambush just outside the defile, but this proved
unnecessary; for the pony, now quite anxious about being left behind,
pushed his way in ahead of the last mounted infantryman, so that at last
we had him in a trap. But to catch hold of him, now that he was in the
trap, still taxed our efforts. A mounted infantryman grabbed him once by
the forelock, and nearly got wrenched off his own pony by doing so,
while the Bhutya leapt away, leaving in the man's hand enough of his own
forelock to stuff a good pincushion. My syce had now come up. He was an
elderly man, more intelligent in these matters than any of those
present. He tempted the pony with bits of a tsampa chapatti that he drew
from his pocket. The pony, forgetful of wheat and green peas, took to
these. The syce in an instant had the reins of the bridle round the
pony's neck, and would have held him fast had not he been lifted off his
feet by the latter's rearing up. The pony was now free again and very
indignant. Rampaging about, he tried to find an exit through a batch of
mules in one direction and a batch of mounted infantry in the other, but
found himself baffled in both. He looked up the rocks and found them
impossible to climb, looked at the river beneath him and seemed to
contemplate taking a header, but thought better of it, and at last stood
sullenly at bay. My syce's next proffer of his own wayside ration
brought the pony to terms. A rope-twitch was round his lip in an
instant, and a moment later he stood bridled and in his right mind.
So on we hastened to Lhassa at last, glad to have secured the pony, but
now somewhat belated. At Trelung bridge, eight miles out of Lhassa, was
a small garrison, guarding the bridge. The officer in command fed us
with a sumptuous tea. Much refreshed, we sped on our way, getting within
sight of camp just as it was turning pitch dark, and having cause to
realise the efficacy of our own camp defences by the way we floundered
among ditches and abattis when barely twenty yards from the camp
perimeter.
There was a 'Tommies' gaff' that night, outside the camp, around a
roughly erected stage lit up with Chinese candles and decked out with
green brushwood that had previously been used to make the jumps at the
last gymkhana. We assembled to hear the familiar types of songs that
form the programme of a soldiers' sing-song--some witty, some rather
vulgar, some modified with topical variations by local poets, and all
full of good cheer.