"We have had an exciting day.... The strategy one must sometimes
employ in traveling through a hostile country is based upon the
principle of deception.... It was the work of Maria too, who had
evidently been reading up on certain occult works of the Eastern
magicians and brought them into play at a moment when we were
surrounded by a band of marauders in the company of my 'Hindu'
friend.... To explain: There is a certain kind of little animal held
sacred among these strolling outlaws.... The possession of one of
these animals is supposed to be a guarantee of future happiness as
well as a protection against all danger.... They are very hard to
entrap and the Ladakian Islamites will spend a month endeavoring to
ensnare one.... We were quite a distance from the convent at Saspoula,
where the road runs around among the rocks and turns back upon itself
like a horseshoe in the wooded hills.... At one of these bends the
pursuers had encamped ready to dash down upon us as we turned the bend
and make away with the girls in the direction of their camp in the
secluded mountain passes.... Maria had secured a number of those
little animals, and, twisting a fine hairpin around one of their hind
legs, she let one by one escape.... The animals clambered toward
the higher elevations where the banditti lay in waiting.... Their
movements being impeded by the hair pins on their legs they offered
an apparently easy PRIZE to the superstitious Islamites.... Abandoning
their present enterprise against our party they dashed after the
deceptive animals and disappeared over the hills in a mad scamper for
GOOD LUCK.... This little ruse cleared our pathway and permitted us to
reach Saspoula before the sun had set.... Here we passed a number
of shrines besides the French and Thibetan convents.... Avoiding the
convent with the tri-color floating from its mast we approached the
other.... Here again were the dusty idols, banners and flags thrown
into one corner, the floors littered with ugly masks and prayer wheels
and books and rolls upon rolls of sacred papers mutely breathing their
delegated prayers.
"... As we had been informed, the lamas here were ready to receive us,
with meal and beds prepared and our own apartments all in order.... The
Lama who greeted us was about five feet tall, low flat forehead, flat
nose, full thick lips, rather round small head and with a sweep of
black whiskers falling from his chin.... In fact, NONE of these lamas
are GRAY,--the only thing that suggests AGE is their stooped and
slender bodies and bent and bony fingers.... AND THEY ALLOW THE
PRACTICE OF POLYANDRY in their diocese!... One woman has a dozen
husbands ... and every THIRD man we meet with is a lama.
"... Still the women we see here are more attractive than those we
encountered in Cashmere.
"... Before leaving the convent we were again cautioned against
holding conversation with STRANGERS we might encounter in the numerous
caravans along the road to LEH.... We punctiliously obeyed these
instructions during the rest of our journey until we reached the
PETAK convent, which stands upon an isolated rock beside an abandoned
garrison or fort, with its two towers looking like ant hills beside
the majestic mountain that rises ten thousand feet above our resting
place.... This mountain is the sentinel that protects our entrance
into Thibet.... Six miles away is LEH, elevated eleven thousand
feet above the lowlands and around whose shadowy convents rise those
immense granite pinnacles to an elevation of eighteen thousand feet,
where their frosty crests are enshrouded in the fezzes of eternal
snows!...
"... Leh, with its circlet of stubby aspen trees, its succession of
terraces, its old fort and the palace of its forgotten Moguls, has its
arms outstretched for us.... The mystic word has been passed along our
route and BEHOLD we are encamped in a well-furnished three-story white
bungalow with odors oozing from the kitchen that promise a night of
security and content!..."
48. The next entry gives a glimpse of the country through which our
party passed:
"Traveling toward the east we have passed through a number of villages
of neat two-story houses in these narrow walled-in valleys.... The
inhabitants are, clearly, of a Mongolian race,--the homeliest I have
ever seen!... They cultivate but little patches of the land, sit
around all day and gain their hollow cheeks and shrunken chests and
wrinkled foreheads by squinting at the sun.... Even the women are tiny
things with a perpetual smile that pushes up their high cheek bones
into a horn-like prominence and apparently belies their apparent
gaiety.... The belts of these men are perfect arsenals of
curious-looking things.... With their cloth caps with ear flaps
hanging down, their knee breeches and their linen shirts hung with a
dozen prayer wheels, they characterize this country well....
"... If it were not apparently made compulsory by law these fellows
would not wash their faces once a year.... They seem never to have
changed their clothing until it is beginning to fall off their
indolent frames.... They are so lazy that their hair falls off their
heads.... And I have not yet seen a coat that does not carry the smear
of their dirty hair.... That characterizes the MEN.... The WOMEN are
altogether different.... They are perfect water rats and like to bathe
many times a day.... Their gowns are red, worn like a shirt-waist
over well-rounded shoulders, and tucked into green pantaloons at their
waist line, over which is thrown an elaborately plaited skirt that
reaches to their red embroidered shoes.... A lambskin is thrown
over the back ... the hair dressed in Italian fashion ... the veil
festooned with beads and coins and trinkets of all description ... an
oriental pelisse touched with its fringe of gold.... That's the
type of woman of these silent places we are traversing.... MARIA
HAS DISCOVERED THE ORIGIN OF THE BOLSHEVIKI TENET OF FREE LOVE AND
MARRIAGE.... Today she explained to her father that the idea was
imported into Russia from this country together with the mercenary
hordes from a region east of here.... 'These women,' she said, 'do
not understand what one means by love.... They think it is too great
a luxury to be tolerated among self-respecting people.... They believe
NO MAN is good enough to monopolize a whole woman to himself.... That
sort of MONOPOLY is contrary to the ethics of a first-class Communism
everywhere and it must not be tolerated in this blessed Bolsheviki
world!'... 'Tut-tut!' said her father. 'Please discontinue comments on
subjects that no longer interest us.'... Manifestly my 'prisoner' is
becoming bored by this unending and dreary pilgrimage along the camel
route in the direction of the rising sun.... However, his gallantry to
Alice is inexaustible, unflagging and unfailing. If she stubs her
toe he wants to kiss the bruise.... _Maria's comment has apparently
aroused the hostility of certain personages in this camp_.... If I
were not positive that the thing could not be possible I'd swear the
TALL square-shouldered lama is well known in Constantinople...."