The World of Snow.
According to the stock of information I had gathered, I was always to
head north until I came to Lake Mānasarovara, and the point I had now
to decide was how I might make the shortest cut to that body of fresh
water. There was nothing to guide me but my compass and a survey I took
of the vast expanse of snow to a great distance before me. The best I
could do was guess-work. Following the impulses of instinct more than
anything else, except the general direction indicated by the compass,
I decided on taking a north-westerly course in making the descent. So
I restarted, with the luggage on my back.
So far my route had lain principally on the sunny side of the mountains
and the snow, at the most, had not been more than five or six inches
deep; but from now onward I had to proceed along the reverse side,
covered over with an abundance of the crystal layers, the unguessable
thickness of which furnished me with a constant source of anxiety. In
some places my feet sank fourteen or fifteen inches in the snow, and
in others they did not go down more than seven or eight inches. This
wading in the snow was more fatiguing than I had imagined at first, and
the staff again rendered me great service; once or twice I found it a
difficult job to extricate myself, when my foot, after stamping through
the layers of snow, wedged itself tightly between two large pieces of
hard stone. This sort of trudging lasted for nearly three miles down a
gradual descent, at the end of which I emerged on a snowless beach of
loose pebbles and stones of different sizes. By that time my Tibetan
boots had become so far worn out, that at places my feet came into
direct contact with the hard gravel, which tore the skin and caused
blood to flow, leaving the crimson marks of my footsteps behind. During
the descent I felt little of my luggage, but now it began to tell on
me, as the foot-hold under me consisted of loose round pebbles, when
it was not sharp angular slabs of broken rock. Five miles onward, I
came upon a pair of ponds formed of melting snow, and respectively
about five miles and two and a half miles in circumference. Both the
ponds were thick with immense flocks of wild ducks of different sizes,
brownish or reddish in color, or spotted black on a white ground.
Otherwise the waters of the ponds were as clear as could be, and the
scenery around was picturesque in the extreme, so much so that, though
with lacerated feet and stark-stiff about my waist with rheumatic
pains, I almost forgot all that discomfort as I stood gazing around.
The prestige of the ponds, if they had any, was of little matter to
me then, but, as I happened to chance upon them all by myself, I was
destined to introduce them to the world; and I christened the larger
pond, which was rectangular in shape, ‘Ekai,’ after my own name,
and the smaller, which described nearly a perfect circle, ‘Jinkow,’
a name which I sometimes use for myself. A little conceit you may
call it if you like, but it was only for memory’s sake that I did
these things; and when a little way down I came upon a gourd-shaped
pond, about a mile and a quarter in circumference, I gave it the name
of ‘Hisago Ike’--calabash pond. Still holding to my north-westerly
direction, after having gone some distance I saw, to the north-west of
a snow-clad mountain that rose far in front of me, two or three tents
pitched on the ground. The sight aroused in me a sense of intense
curiosity mingled with anxiety. Suppose I went to them; what would
their occupants think of a stranger, suddenly emerging upon them from
pathless wilds? Once their suspicion was roused, I might in vain
hope to allay it; what was I to do then? I espied a declivity below
me, which extended north-west in a gradual descent, far out of sight
of the tents, and I saw that unless I took it, I should either come
on those tents or have my progress barred by a succession of high
mountains. With nothing else to help me to arrive at a decision, I
then entered on what is termed ‘Danjikwan sanmai’ in Japanese-Buḍḍhist
terminology, a meditative process of making up one’s mind, when neither
logic nor accurate knowledge is present to draw upon for arriving at
a conclusion. The process is, in short, one of abnegating self and
then forming a judgment, a method which borders on divination, or an
assertion of instinctive powers. The result was that I decided to take
the route that lay toward the tents, and by nightfall I came within
hailing distance of them, when a pack of five or six ferocious-looking
dogs caught sight of me and began barking furiously. They were
formidable animals with long shaggy fur and very cruel looks. I had
before then been told that when attacked by dogs of this kind I must
not strike them, but that I should only ward them off, quietly waving
a stick in front of their muzzles, and on this occasion I religiously
followed that instruction, and found to my entire satisfaction that the
dogs did not try to snap at me. Proceeding thus, and coming outside one
of the tents, I called out to its occupants.
[Illustration: TO A TENT OF NOMAD TIBETANS.]