A COLD NIGHT—DEATH OF MULE—A FRESH-WATER LAKE—BAD WEATHER—DEATH
OF THE FAVOURITE WHITE PONY—BY A SALT LAKE—ILLNESS OF TOKHTA—I
SEARCH FOR MISSING ANIMALS.
We left our camping ground at Lanak La on Sunday, the 31st May, and
failing to find the sign of any track running northwards, we tried to
make out by which route Bower had gone, but our only map was drawn
to such a very small scale that we could decide on nothing with any
certainty. Riding ahead on our ponies, we found our easiest way was to
continue up the nullah we were in, which led over an easy pass, from
the summit of which we looked back over the Lanak La.
In spite of our extensive views, we could discover no route running in
any direction whatever, and having come so far, we decided to give up
all searching for routes and to find a way for ourselves, marching due
east as much as possible, and, failing that, north rather than south.
Quite naturally, therefore, we descended the other side of the pass just
the same as any one else would have done, and then we found a range of
mountains north of us, and another range south of us, compelling us to
take to a rather narrow nullah which eventually debouched in the early
afternoon into a broad valley some miles across, running in an easterly
direction, and bounded north and south by ranges of snow-tipped hills.
Thus the actual finding of our way was not such a difficult undertaking
as one might have expected. We could see the valley stretching far
away to the east, and calculated that we had some days of clear sailing
before us.
We trotted on ahead in search of grass and water to halt by. Straight
in front of us, we noticed what we took to be snow in the middle of
the valley, but the nearer we came to it the farther off it appeared
to be, and we were most anxious to reach that snow, for otherwise we
saw no chance of finding any water. We finally concluded that it was
a hopeless job to try and get there; and as the sun was setting, and a
short distance in front of us we saw some antelope, we knew there must
be some grass close by and probably some water too. Such proved to be
the case; there was a small stretch of very short growth with two little
pools of rain-water, as good a camping ground as we could have expected
to find that night.
A strong wind was blowing from the south-west, enough to cut us in two,
and as the skies clouded over pretty quickly, we had no chance of taking
any observations. I really felt inwardly thankful that the clouds had
come up so thick, for it is no joke observing stars with twenty-five
degrees of frost and a keen wind. Unless the clouds absolutely obscure
the view and one slips in between the blankets without attempting
observations, one's conscience feels a prick of guilt.
Our mules and ponies must have suffered from the cold that evening, and
seemed to find but little amusement in nibbling at the short grass.
Throughout the night we heard some of them becoming entangled in the
guy ropes of our tent in their endeavours to find some small amount
of shelter from the blast. And it was a marvellous thing how the tent
managed to stand at all.
Despite these and other divers annoyances, we both fell off to sleep
till daybreak, when all seemed clothed in perfect stillness—the whole
atmosphere was calm. It was difficult at first to collect our thoughts
and to remember where we were and what had befallen us. Why was it we
could hear no sign of man or beast? Something unusual must surely have
happened. In another moment we were up and outside the tent; the wind
had completely died away, and everything and everywhere was covered
with a fresh layer of snow. The men were silent in their tents, some of
our mules lay without moving, others stood with drooping heads, and, on
counting their number, we found that several were missing. It was not
very long before we found one of these latter; there he lay stretched
out close to our own tent, as dead as dead could be. We felt sad for the
poor brute, for little had we thought whilst we had been abusing him
for fiddling with our guy ropes, that he had been actually dying from
cold or from some other painful cause. We turned away from the corpse,
and tried to forget our own selfishness.
At this moment the sun was just appearing and omened a fine and warm
day, arousing us to the fact that the snow would soon melt, and if that
happened, we should have no small difficulty in tracking the animals
that had strayed. We at once turned out our men and sent some of them
off on our stoutest ponies to search for the deserters.
This morning's disastrous work undoubtedly laid the seeds of many more
deaths to come. As to our own riding ponies, which had been ridden by
the muleteers in the search, so much was taken out of them that we were
only able to ride them for a very few more days, and ever afterwards
were solely dependent upon our own feet. The five delinquents were
eventually found about five miles back in the nullah we had come from
the previous day, but they were in so exhausted a condition that one
of them could scarcely drag itself along, let alone take a few pounds'
weight of luggage, in fact, he never reached another camp.
Even at this early stage there was no use blinding ourselves to the
truth that there were a goodish number of the animals that could not
possibly last out many more days. Had we been able to find good grass
and water together, our best plan would have been to halt there for a
few days; then, again, it must be remembered that during that period
the men would be eating their rations all the same, and probably more,
without making any onward progress at all.
It was almost noon before we were off, and by that time all the snow,
excepting on the tops of the hills, had completely thawed, for the day
was warm and pleasant. Again we fortunately had easy marching down the
valley, and we went towards the patch of snow we had been so anxious to
reach the previous day, but we never seemed to get there; the illusion
was caused by vapour or steam rising up from the salt ground and hanging
over it like a white sheet, and when we conjectured we were on the very
spot, we could see nothing at all.
After fourteen miles we came to a fresh-water lake completely frozen
over, having been seven hours over the march. Knowing how deceptive
the distance is across such lakes at this great height, namely, just
over 16,000 feet, we decided to halt where we were; besides, there was
fairly good grass, and a bright moon for observations, but no water
for the mules. The man, too, whom we had left behind to bring in the
exhausted pony, had not turned up, and despite our discharging our guns
pretty frequently, he never reached camp that night at all. In addition
to all this, my own pony, which had made the march riderless, had some
difficulty in struggling in. We here gave our beasts three bags of
bhoussa, leaving us only thirteen more, and allowed them to graze till
8 o'clock the following morning. At that hour the sun had begun to thaw
the lake, and on reaching the further side, after a most slippery walk,
we found a small stream had just commenced to trickle, a great boon for
our beasts.
That same evening, after marching over a stretch of undulating ground,
with a certain amount of grass in some of the nullahs, frequented, too,
by antelope and kyang, we came to a large salt-water lake. There was
but poor grass around, but a stream of good fresh water. Ahead of us,
on all sides of the lake, the land appeared absolutely barren and arid,
possibly on the southern side there might have been a little hidden
grass; but then, again, had we marched south, we did not know that we
might not meet with another show of opposition, so stuck to our original
plan of steering north when in doubt. We began at this early stage to
recognise the superiority of the mules over the ponies, for three of
the latter could only just crawl into camp at a late hour in a very weak
condition.
Another snowstorm prevented us from making a fresh start before 11
o'clock, and as the snow had put a stop to the grazing, poor as it was,
we prepared some bhoussa for our remaining thirty-five animals, yet only
thirty-four came hurrying up for this much appreciated food. There stood
the thirty-fifth, a few hundred yards off, gazing at the remainder,
who had their noses hidden deep into the chopped straw. Poor brute! he
could not reach the spot, his condition was so weak and impoverished;
there he stood, resembling mostly a bag of bones, a grievous sight for
us: for this was the very white pony who had been such a great friend of
the black mule, and he had struggled hard for some days to keep up with
the caravan. After he had been shot, we were glad to leave the spot to
try and forget the sad event.
By reason of the late snowstorm, the going along the edge of the lake
was heavy in the extreme, so much so that we lost a small black mule
from exhaustion, the only advantage gained by this disaster being
that fewer animals were left to eat up the grain. The land was barren
and useless to a degree, with no chance of finding any fresh water or
grass; the former difficulty was overcome by collecting some snow, and
the latter by being extravagant with our bhoussa. The ground fell in
terraces from the hills that rose up some distance from the lake, and
was split up by several deep, narrow and harsh nullahs running into
it; nor was there any sign of life, with the exception of an occasional
startled hare.
Although there were twenty-four degrees of frost that night, yet at 6
o'clock in the morning we were eating our breakfast with comfort in the
open, by the edge of the salt lake. There was not a single ripple on the
dark blue water, whose colour was only rivalled by the magnificent sky,
nor was there a sound excepting the murmurs that came from our own camp.
Although enjoying this peaceful scene for a few minutes, we were all the
time getting most anxious about our inability to find grass, as another
few days of this kind of marching would have been most disastrous. As
far as we could see, a barren salt land extended due east, and we were
therefore very likely following a regular zone of salt country, and, to
get clear of this belt, it was advisable to strike north.
At the eastern extremity of the lake, we found a nullah running in that
direction. This we followed, a gradual ascent between two ranges to the
top of an easy pass, where we found a very small stream and fairly good
grass. It was freezing hard by the time our animals reached this spot,
defeating us in our hopes of being able to water them properly. Three
ponies and a mule failed to reach camp, and we grew more anxious than
ever to hit off a suitable place for a day's halt.
It was a grand, hot morning as we commenced the descent of this pass,
so much so that we were somewhat puzzled to know really what amount
of clothes we ought to put on to suit the extraordinary variety in the
temperature. As soon as we had come down a few hundred feet, we came to
a more hospitable-looking country. Grass grew in some of the valleys,
and water, too, was to be had, while a herd of antelope close by gave
us an easy chance of knocking some of them over. Early in the afternoon
we came to a stretch of fairly good grazing, and in the sandy nullah
close at hand, a foot or so beneath the surface, flowed unlimited water.
Antelope were plentiful and tame around this spot, and having fallen
into such clover, we agreed to remain there over the following day.
During this necessary halt our time was by no means wasted. Men and
animals had to be doctored up, the shoeing had to be seen to; there
was mending, repairing, washing, sketching, mapping, and writing to
be done; above all things, we began to overhaul our impedimenta to see
if there were not a few articles we might dispense with. As it was, we
had only been making some nine or ten miles a day, and even with this
care we feared to think of or to count our losses. At this spot we left
a yakdan, with some horse-shoes and a book or two inside. Whoever may
happen to come this way will find something worth having. One of our
muleteers, too, named Tokhta, was so ill that he could do no work; he
had swollen to an abnormal size, more resembling a balloon than a human
being.
Looking ahead of us, it seemed as though a range of mountains barred our
road, and our only chance was to follow the sandy nullah from whence we
had obtained the water. It was now covered with snow and ice owing to
another storm during the night. On our left hand were some very heavy
craggy-looking rocks, and through them was a very narrow gorge, only a
few yards across, sorely tempting us to follow it through and see what
would be disclosed on the further side. It almost invited one to enter
and explore, but we feared marching too far north, and followed instead
the nullah we were in, which eventually led to the summit of a pass.
The way was steep and rocky, and the sun so powerful that we slung our
coats across our arms and loitered on the top for the breeze and the
caravan. Snow lay there in heaps, a welcome quencher to our thirst. This
was a stiff climb for our caravan, the height of the pass being nearly
17,000 feet. Having waited till they were nearly at the top, we began
to descend again the other side.
Quite suddenly we seemed to be transplanted into a new zone, for a
cutting snowstorm blew straight in our faces. We were almost frozen,
and any portion of the head we exposed suffered severely. We looked for
some overhanging rock that would serve for a shelter, but there the cold
became so intense that we preferred to fight the elements and keep in
motion. As soon as we had completed the descent we found a broad valley
stretching east and west, apparently to eternity. We walked along this,
for our ponies had become too weak for us ever to think of riding them
again, and sought grass and water for making a halt by. Having found a
fairly suitable spot, and waited for a considerable length of time, we
were perplexed to hear no sign of the caravan. They would have to come
thus far, for until they did they would find no fit place to camp in.
Darkness and cold came upon us, and we kept up an intermittent fusillade
till eight o'clock, when a distant shout in reply revealed to us that
they were at length coming. But alas! although some of the mules walked
in fit and strong, others came in wretchedly weak, and, worst of all,
six animals and three complete loads had been abandoned altogether.
This was a crushing bit of news, coming as it did just after our day's
halt, when we had expected to make such good headway. The men, too,
declared that these six animals had all died; but we suspected, from
their demeanour and the way they spoke and behaved, that very likely
some of them had been left behind in good condition for a reason,
namely, that should any of the men take it into their heads to turn
back, they would have the assistance of one or two stout animals to
carry what they wanted. We knew they had been taking but little care of
the transport, even in the proper adjustment of their loads.
In order to satisfy our suspicions, we arranged that Malcolm should
remain in camp, or, better still, shift the camp a mile or so further
on to a better spot, while I should take a man and go back in search
of the mules and ponies that had been left behind. After a five-mile
tramp, we came to a dead black pony, and another mile further on found
a single mule grazing, to whom we gave some of the grain we had brought
with us. In another nullah close by was a second dead pony and another
mule, which must have very shortly died had we not hastened on his end
with a revolver. The fifth, a grey mule, we found grazing, apparently
enjoying himself. The sixth, a dun-coloured pony, we could discover
nowhere. He was a useful pony, and had probably wandered a long way
in search of good grass. We returned triumphant to camp with the grey
and black mules, the latter especially doing good work afterwards for
some weeks to come. Had one of us not gone back we must have lost the
services of two strong mules, which would have been due solely to the
men's laziness, and we could not help thinking that they, the dun pony,
and the three loads of food, had been temporarily abandoned with the
intention of helping some of the men on a return journey to Ladakh. My
satisfaction was, however, marred on return to camp by the news that my
own riding pony had succumbed in the night.