Suna--Wilson and the Political Peshkar across the frontier--A
messenger--Our progress stopped--Diverting us over the Lumpiya
Pass--Condemned to certain death--We attack our guard--Lapsang
and the Jong Pen's private secretary--A document--Nearing
Kardam--Retracing our steps--Dogmar.
[Illustration: TEA CHURN (OPEN)]
WHEN we had been marching for several hours, our guard halted to have
their tea. A man named Suna, and his brother and son, whom I had met in
Garbyang, halted near us, and from them I heard that news had arrived in
India that I and my two men had been beheaded, and that thereupon Doctor
Wilson and the Political Peshkar Karak Sing had crossed over the frontier
to ascertain the facts, and to attempt to recover my baggage, &c. My joy
was intense when I heard that they were still at Taklakot. I persuaded
Suna to return as fast as he could, and to inform Wilson that I was a
prisoner, and tell him my whereabouts. I had barely given Suna this
message when our guard seized the man and his brother and roughly
dismissed them, preventing them from having any further communication
with us. As soon as we were on the march again, a horseman rode up to us
with strict orders from the Jong Pen of Taklakot not to let us proceed
any farther towards the frontier by the Lippu Pass, which we could now
have reached in two days, but to take us round by the distant Lumpiya
Pass. At this time of the year the Lumpiya would be impassable; and we
should have to make a further journey of at least fifteen or sixteen
days, most of it over snow and ice, during which we, in our starved and
weakened state, would inevitably succumb. We asked to be taken into
Taklakot, but our guard refused, and in the meantime the Jong Pen of
Taklakot had sent other messengers and soldiers to ensure the fulfilment
of his orders, and to prevent our further progress.
Our guard, now strengthened by the Taklakot men, compelled us to leave
the Taklakot track, and we began our journey towards the cold Lumpiya.
This was murder, and the Tibetans, well knowing it, calculated on telling
the Indian authorities that we had died a natural death on the snows.
[Illustration: A BEARER OF BAD NEWS]
We were informed that we should be left at the point where the snows
began, that the Tibetans would give us no food, no clothes and no
blankets, and that we should be abandoned to our own devices. This,
needless to say, meant certain death.
We determined to stand no more, and to play our last card. After
travelling some two and a half miles westward of the Taklakot track, we
declined to proceed any more in that direction. We said that, if they
attempted to force us on, we were prepared to fight our guard, as whether
we died by their swords and matchlocks, or frozen to death on the
Lumpiya, was quite immaterial to us.
The guard, in perplexity, decided to let us halt there for the night, so
as to have time to send a messenger to Taklakot to inform the Jong Pen,
and ask for further instructions.
[Illustration: A SHOKA-TIBETAN HALF-CASTE]
During the night the order came that we must proceed, so the next morning
our guard prepared to start us again towards the Lumpiya. Then we three
semi-corpses collected what little strength remained in us, and suddenly
made an attack on them with stones; whereupon, incredible as it may seem,
our cowardly guard turned tail and bolted! We went on in the direction of
Taklakot, followed at a distance by these ruffians, who were entreating
us to make no further resistance and to go with them where they wanted us
to go. If we did not, they said, they would all have their heads cut off.
We refused to listen to them, and kept them away by throwing stones at
them.
[Illustration: SHEEP LOADS FOR BORAX AND GRAIN]
We had gone but a few miles when we met with a large force of soldiers
and Lamas, despatched by the Jong Pen to prepare for our death. Unarmed,
wounded, starved and exhausted as we were, it was useless attempting to
fight against such odds. As it was, when they saw we were at liberty,
they made ready to fire on us.
The Jong Pen's Chief Minister, a man called Lapsang, and the Jong Pen's
Private Secretary, were at the head of this party. I went to shake hands
with them and held a long and stormy palaver, but they kept firm and
insisted on our turning away from the frontier, now that we were almost
within a stone's-throw of it, and we must perforce proceed by the high
Lumpiya Pass. Those were the Jong Pen's orders, and they, as well as I,
must obey them. They would not give us or sell us either animals or
clothes which even the small sum of money I had on me would have been
sufficient to buy; and they would not provide us with an ounce of food.
We emphatically protested, and said we preferred to die where we were. We
asked them to kill us then and there, for we would not budge an inch
westwards.
Lapsang and the Jong Pen's Private Secretary now cunningly suggested that
I should give them in writing the names of the Shokas who had
accompanied me to Tibet, probably with the object of confiscating their
land and goods. As I said I could not write Tibetan or Hindustani, they
requested me to do it in English. This I did, but substituting for the
names of my men and my signature sarcastic remarks, which must have
caused the Tibetans some surprise when they had the document translated.
As, however, they refused to kill us there and then, and as Lapsang
showed us great politeness and asked us to go by the Lumpiya Pass as a
personal favour to him, I reluctantly decided to accept their terms
rather than waste any more time, now that we were so near British soil.
[Illustration: A JUMLI SHED]
Escorted by this large force of men, we had nearly reached Kardam when,
in the nick of time, a horseman came up at full gallop and hailed our
party. We stopped, and the man overtook us and handed Lapsang a letter.
It contained an order to bring us immediately into Taklakot.
We retraced our steps along the undulating plateau above the Gakkon
River, and late at night we reached the village of Dogmar, a peculiar
settlement in a valley between two high cliffs of clay, the natives of
which live in holes pierced in the cliff.
[Illustration: WE ATTACKED OUR GUARD WITH STONES]
Lapsang, the Jong Pen's Private Secretary, and the greater portion of
their soldiers, having changed their ponies, went on to Taklakot; but we
were made to halt here, when yet another letter came from the Jong Pen
saying he had changed his mind and we must, after all, go by the Lumpiya
Pass!
[Illustration: LAPSANG AND THE JONG PEN'S PRIVATE SECRETARY]