Dangers Ahead.
So the days passed and with these days I came to know more or less of
the different characteristics of my two servants; I found one to be a
rather impatient fellow, but prompt of decision, and the other a quiet
man with some education, of which he was not a little proud. The latter
seemed occasionally to hurt the feelings of the impatient one, and more
than once collisions had already occurred between the two. As for the
old woman pilgrim, she was a good honest soul, and that was all there
was about her, except that she seemed to know all about the two men. I
took pains to be strictly impartial in all my dealings with the three,
though her age entitled the old dame to special consideration on my
part, and she had it in full when I thought fit. It came to pass that,
apparently because of this treatment, the old woman came to think a
great deal of me. I had noticed in her manner something indicating that
she wished to speak to me, but was afraid to do so in the presence of
her two companions; so one morning I caused her to go a considerable
way ahead of us, and I started with my servants afterwards. Burdened
with my luggage as the men were, and riding on a horse as I was, it
was only natural that I should soon leave them lagging far behind, and
overtake the old woman. The good soul turned furtively back, and asked
if the two men were a long distance behind. I told her that they must
be at least five miles behind. Then she made a revelation to me, and it
was not of a very reassuring kind; for according to her I was doomed to
be killed. In short she told me that the impatient fellow was a robber
and murderer, having committed many crimes while at home in Kham, and
that, though the quiet one was not so bad a man, he had yet killed a
fellow-creature in a quarrel. At all events neither would think twice
before taking a man’s life. The old dame thought it certain that they,
or at least the impatient one, would pounce upon me as soon as we
reached the north-west plains of Tibet, and rob me of all my money and
effects, as well as of my life! Thereupon I said: “That could not be;
for they are both men of great honesty and uprightness.” She returned:
“Konjogsum (Holy Trinity)! send to me death, if I tell a lie!” These
are words of adjuration to which Tibetans attach great importance, and
I could not persuade myself to regard my informant’s warning as a mere
string of falsehoods. So another trouble ahead was added to my burdened
mind.
After travelling twelve days more and only making a distance of about
one hundred miles, we reached a Himālayan village called Tukje, where
then lived the local Governor, named Harkaman Suppa. Through Gya Lama’s
introduction I enjoyed the privilege of being received as a guest by
this Governor. Two days after my arrival there the special man whom
Gya Lama through his thoughtful kindness, as already told, had sent to
accompany me so far, took leave of me, apparently well satisfied that
my two servants were and would be all right. But they were far from
being all right, and I felt that I would never be able to accomplish
my journey unless I got rid of them. While I was worrying myself
with these thoughts, I came across information about the route that
lay before me that proved to me another source of discouragement. In
effect, it was that three months before the Tibetan Government had
detailed five soldiers to guard, against all foreigners and any strange
person, the road in my route which lay through the State of Lo; the
same precaution had been taken on all the other bye-ways and pathways
leading into Tibet, however secluded and narrow, even though narrow
enough for just one person to pass. And I had reason to believe that
this information was well founded; so that it became inevitable that I
should give up my idea of entering Tibet by smuggling myself into its
north-western plain. But there is ebb and flow even in troubles.
One evening, while still staying at the Governor’s, my servants, having
regaled themselves with the local drinks even to boisterousness, began
a-quarrelling, which largely consisted of exposing each other. In
brief, each accused the other of a somewhat cheerless intention of
making short work of me when opportunity should arrive, with the upshot
that they both came to me, each with a demand that he would like to be
discharged if the other were to continue in my service. I could not
have had a better opportunity, and I there and then dismissed both of
them, after having paid them off rather liberally. I also gave some
money with some little present in kind to the old woman, and bade her
go with the men. And thus I got rid of an imminent danger to my life.
But there remained the greater problem of what to do next, to retrace
my steps back to Kātmāndu being out of the question, while the route I
had chosen for myself had become unavailable.
It happened that, enjoying the Governor’s hospitality like myself, was
a Mongolian scholar named Serab Gyaltsan, who was acting as a doctor
of medicine, besides giving lessons in religious Texts to the local
priests. I had not been long at Governor Harkaman’s before I became
acquainted with this person, and soon found him to be a man possessed
of profound knowledge of not only Buḍḍhism but also of literary
subjects. Whatever were the reasons on my part, he and I after a while
came to an agreement for the exchange of knowledge, he instructing me
in Tibetan Buḍḍhism and literature and I teaching him Chinese Buḍḍhism.
This understanding arrived at, we took leave of Tukje and set out for
Tsarang in the province of Lo, where the Mongolian scholar had his
home. On our way thither, we visited the famous Chumik Gyatsa. Chumik
Gyatsa means a hundred fountains, and is the Mukuṭināṭh of Samskṛṭ,
which Hinḍūs as well as Buḍḍhists regard as a place of great sanctity.
The place apparently obtained the name it bears from the numberless
springs abounding thereabout, and a spot of particular fame there was
called Sala Mebar, Chula Mebar, Dola Mebar, which means burning in
earth, burning in water, burning in rock. On seeing the spot I found
this mystery to be nothing more than the fancy of the ignorant natives,
who saw a burning jet of natural gas escaping from a crevice in a slab
of rock, that formed a lid, so to say, over and close to the surface of
a beautiful crystal-like fountain, which was about one by two feet in
size, so that its prolonged flame looked, at the first glance, as if it
were crawling over the water. I noticed, however, that the mountains
round about bore ample evidences of old volcanic eruptions, at one time
or another, an extinct crater now changed to a pond, lava-rocks, and so
on, being all present. We passed a night encamped on the bank of the
river Kālīgaṅgā, that flows at the foot of the mountain which we had
just descended, after leaving the ‘hundred fountains’ behind us. The
following morning we had a disastrous time for three hours in trying to
cross a stream. In the first place I made a blunder in attempting to
wade across the stream on my horse, which, with my weight on his back
and treacherous mud-beds under his feet, found himself in a perilous
condition as soon as he had walked a few steps into the stream. I,
of course, got off him at once and climbed upon the bank behind me.
I then set about throwing into the river, near where the horse was,
stones, rocks, and broken branches of trees that I found lying about,
in order to improvise there a passable footway for myself as well as
for the Mongolian scholar and his animal. Stones flying and muddy water
splashing around him scared my horse, and, with a wild effort, he
struggled out and landed himself on the opposite bank; but my friend’s
pony remained immovable till we had managed to build a way across for
ourselves and pulled him after us. That day we stopped in a village
called Samar (red clay). On the next we again climbed half-way up a
mountain, and proceeded due north along a path that lay midway between
the top and bottom of its slope, that is to say, toward the north of
Dhavalagiri.
[Illustration: A HORSE IN DIFFICULTIES.]
In the mountains below Tukje I found common pines and cedars growing in
fair abundance, but now these became very rare, the obtusa species of
pine taking their place, and even these attaining a height of not more
than twenty feet at the most, the ground being otherwise covered with
shrubby growths. Riding on the snow, which was still on the mountain,
we had made a distance of about fifteen miles before we reached a
hamlet named Kirung, where I found willow trees growing luxuriantly.
The inhabitants hereabout were all Tibetans, and I saw fluttering on
every house-top a white flag with certain religious texts printed on
it. These flags are to be seen everywhere in the interior of Tibet,
as I afterwards found, and that even where the people are living in
tents. Leaving the village, we rode on northwards, over snow, through
an obtusa-pine forest, till the night fell and the moon rose, when I
again heard a cuckoo. Then I had an _uta_:
While marching onwards now the night o’ertakes
The pilgrim bold, the snowy floor his bed;
The moon-lit sky his canopy will be,
His lullaby, the cuckoo’s notes.
That night we put up in an inn in a hamlet called Kimiyi (fountain
of fortune), that nestles in the snow-covered mountains. Ten miles
on the following day brought us within sight of Tsarang, which, on
reaching, I found to be a little town built on a plain which was about
eleven miles from east to west, and three miles or more from north to
south, enclosed by walls of snow-covered mountains. More accurately,
the plain has to its west a snow-capped mountain, whence it extends
in a very slow incline towards the east, until it breaks off into a
valley. From Tsarang to the north-west plain of Tibet is a day’s trip,
and the physical features of these regions are practically of the
same character, devoid of large trees and desolate in the extreme. It
was in the middle of May that I arrived in Tsarang, and I was told
that the farmers had just finished sowing wheat. Skirting the town of
Tsarang runs a stream, which has its rise in the mountain that forms
the western wall of the plain, and on an elevated part of the town
stands a castled palace, in which lives the King of the Lo State.
Before the Gūrkha tribe had subjugated Nepāl, Lo was an independent
State. At a little distance, opposite to the royal castle, is a temple
of considerable size, belonging to the Kargyu-pa sect of the old school
of Tibetan Buḍḍhism. The temple is a square structure of Tibetan style,
built of stone and painted red, and adjoining it is a stone building
painted white, which forms a dormitory for the priests of the temple.
On a piece of level land to the west of the palace and the temple a
group of about sixty large and small houses constitutes the town of
Tsarang.