Want of fuel--Cooking under difficulty--Mansing lost and
found--Saved from summary justice--Tibetan visitors--We purchase
sheep--The snow-line--Cold streams--The petrified _chapati_ and
human hand.
ONE of the main drawbacks of travelling at these great altitudes was the
want of vegetable fuel. There was not a tree, not a shrub to be seen near
our camp. Nature wore her most desolate and barren look. Failing wood, my
men dispersed to collect and bring in the dry dung of yak, pony and sheep
to serve as fuel. Kindling this was no easy matter, box after box of
matches was quickly used, and our collective lung power severely drawn
upon in fanning the unwilling sparks into a flame only a few inches high.
Upon this meagre fire we attempted to cook our food and boil our water (a
trying process at such an altitude), keeping our own circulation fairly
normal by constantly required efforts. The cuisine that night was not of
the usual excellence, and did but little credit to the cook. We had to
eat everything half-cooked, or, to be accurate, almost altogether
uncooked. The night was a bitterly cold one, with a heavy fall of snow.
When we rose in the morning it lay quite two feet deep around us, and the
glare was painful to the eyes. I mustered my men. Mansing was missing. He
had not arrived the previous night, and there was no sign of the man I
had sent in search of him. I was anxious not only from my personal
interest in his load (the fellow carried a load of flour, salt, pepper,
and five pounds of butter), but I was afraid that the poor leper might
himself have been washed away in one of the dangerous streams. Even if
this fear were groundless, he must, I felt, have suffered terribly from
the cold with no shelter and no fire. Bijesing, who had gone in search of
him, had eaten some food before starting, and had taken blankets with
him in case he could not return to camp during the night.
It was long after sunrise when, with the aid of my telescope, I
discovered the two men coming towards us. They arrived an hour or so
later. Mansing had been found sound asleep, several miles back, lying by
the side of the empty butter-pot, the contents of which he had devoured.
The discovery of this misdeed caused the greatest indignation in camp,
for fatty matter and butter were much cherished by the natives, as being
warmth-producing, when going over these cold passes. He was nearly the
victim of summary justice at the hands of my angry men, and it was only
with trouble that I rescued him from their clutches. To prevent a
recurrence of the offence, I ordered the culprit to carry in future a
heavy load of photographic plates and instruments, which I thought would
not prove quite so appetising.
Before starting I took my usual bath in the cold stream and rubbed myself
all over with snow. I found this very invigorating, and when the reaction
came I experienced a delightful glow of warmth, notwithstanding the thin
clothes I was wearing.
[Illustration: CAMPING IN SNOW]
While we were camping, a flock of some six hundred sheep appeared, and
with them some Tibetans. As I had put up my Tibetan tent, they had made
for it, expecting to find some of their own countrymen, and their
embarrassment was amusing when they found themselves face to face with
Dr. Wilson and myself. Hurriedly removing their fur caps, they laid them
upon the ground and made a comical jerky curtsey, as if their heads and
knees moved by means of a spring. They put out their tongues full length
and kept them so until I made signs that they could draw them back, as I
wanted them to answer some questions. This unexpected meeting with us
frightened them greatly; they were trembling all over with fear, and
after getting as much information out of them as they seemed to possess,
I took advantage of the opportunity to buy some of their fattest sheep.
When the money was paid there was a further display of furred tongues,
and more grand salaams ere they departed, while all hands on our side
were busy trying to prevent our newly purchased animals from rejoining
the flock moving away from us. On our next march these animals proved a
great trouble, and we had to drag them the greater part of the way.
Kachi, who had been entrusted with a very recalcitrant and strong beast,
which I had specially promised my men for their dinner if they made a
long march that day, found himself discomfited when he saw that the sheep
had freed its head from the cord with which he was dragging it, and was
cantering away full speed in the opposite direction. Now, it is well
known that at considerable altitudes running is a very painful operation
for human beings, the rarified air making the effect of such exertion
almost suffocating. Yet Kachi, having overcome his first surprise, was
soon chasing the escaped beast, and, urged by the cheers and shouts of my
other men, who seemed much concerned over this new calamity, he
succeeded, after an exciting chase, in capturing it by its tail, a feat
easier to describe than to accomplish, for Tibetan sheep have very short
stumpy tails. Kachi fell to the ground exhausted, but he held fast with
both hands to his capture, and eventually the animal was secured with
ropes. This was the sort of minor trouble with which we had to contend at
almost every turn during our journey, and although it may appear trivial,
it was exasperating enough at the time.
On fairly undulating ground we gradually rose to a pass 15,580 feet high;
then traversing a wide flat land, we followed the Kuti River with its
high snowy mountains to the West and East. The snow-line was at 16,000
feet; the snow below this level melts daily, except in a few shaded
places. Red and white flowers were still to be seen, though not in such
quantities as lower down, and I saw enamoured couples of small black and
white butterflies.[12]
After a while there was yet another bitterly cold stream to ford; two
small lakes to skirt; three more deep rivers to wade, with cold water
from the snows up to our chests, and then we had to make the best way we
could through a large field of rocks and stones showing strong
indications of iron, my compasses being at once affected, and becoming
for a time quite unreliable owing to the deviation. A curious flat
circular stone, resting on the top of others, was pointed out to me as a
wonder; the accepted legend of the Shokas being that, centuries ago, one
of their countrymen halted by the side of this rock, and having baked a
_chapati_, laid it upon the rock, proceeding to make others, when to his
great astonishment, on raising his hand to take his first _chapati_, he
found it had turned into solid stone, and had furthermore assumed
gigantic proportions. A few feet farther on I was pointed out another
wonder, a great human hand (as the Tibetans and Shokas call it), which is
supposed to have belonged to the maker of the _chapati_. Not being
satisfied with his first experience, he laid his hand on the rock, and
there it remained, petrified, and in this case also, increasing tenfold
in size. I could see, with some stretch of the imagination, a certain
resemblance to an enormous human hand, but the thing required more faith
than observation.
Mile after mile we marched over sharp stones, wading through a second
troublesome delta of eight arms fully a mile in width, across a flat
basin of pointed pebbles and stones, until at last, to our great delight,
we came to smooth grass land, a soothing comfort to one's torn feet.
[Illustration: THE SNOW-LINE AT 16,000 FEET]
Here the Kuti River ran through a large basin, not dissimilar to the one
near which we had camped the night before, having also the appearance of
lake formation with high perpendicular rocks on the left, which gave one
the impression of a vast wall--a rugged and forbidding barrier.
Proceeding N.W. the basin became wider and the Kuti River turned to the
N.W., while the Mangshan River, descending from the East, joined the
first stream in the centre of the basin. In crossing the numerous
branches of the two rivers we again experienced, with almost accentuated
discomfort, the trials and weariness of the preceding day. The water was
colder than ever, our feet were by this time in a dreadful condition, cut
and bleeding, because it was constantly necessary to walk bare-footed.
Aching and benumbed we stumbled on, in and out of water, always, it
seemed, encountering sharp small stones. For us there could be no turning
back however; the pain had to be borne before the march was finished,
and we won our camping-ground at last under the lee of the high chain of
mountains to the North of us, and on the northern bank of the Mangshan
River. Directly in front stood the final obstacle, the stupendous
backbone of the Himahlyas; once past this I should be on that high
Tibetan plateau so accurately and picturesquely called "the roof of the
world."
[12] N.B.--This same kind of butterfly I found at even greater elevations
in Tibet.