TERRIBLE GUN ACCIDENT—WE SEND OUT SCOUTS.
We were still favoured with wonderfully fine weather. About this time
the wind would blow from the east in the morning, and afterwards from
the west, if there were any wind at all.
During our halt, we sent out men to the north and to the south, to
try and find some signs of nomads, while we ourselves sallied forth
in search of game. The total result of all our exertions was _nil_.
The men who went south spoke only of a hilly country with grass and no
water, and the northerners reported that after crossing a broad grassy
valley they came to a range of hills, and that on the other side flowed
our lost river, then consisting of a small stream running south-east
in the centre of a very large sandy nullah; that still further off was
another range of hills but no grass. We could not put much faith in the
assertion of having found our lost river, which must have been still
further north.
There is a place marked as a town in our map, called Barkhalu, which we
intended to try and steer for by keeping as nearly as possible on the
line of its exact latitude. From our present camp we reckoned that it
was about a week's journey off. With such expectations, we endeavoured
to keep up our men's spirits, and to induce them to double their
exertions. It was always a difficult task to get them up of a morning in
time to load the animals for an early start, and upon their doing this
our success greatly depended. In order to make a start at 4.30 A.M., the
camp would have to wake up very soon after three, and unless Malcolm or
I awoke, the camp would go slumbering on till sunrise. But when we knew
it depended upon ourselves, one of us generally managed to wake up in
time. As the men had returned unsuccessful from their search for people
after one day, there was no need to stop two, especially as all were
eager to get on to Barkhalu. At our first halt for grass and digging
operations, the sand-grouse came over in fair numbers and did well for
our breakfast. Ahead of us a range of hills obscured an extensive view,
although they did not appear of a very formidable nature, differing
from those ranges to our north and south. The very feeling of not being
able to see our onward course made us all the more eager to surmount the
obstacle, peep over the other side, and see what lay in store for us.
On the 27th of June, Camp 39, we marched up the hills that hid our view
and camped near the summit, where the water was brackish and purging. We
inspected our men's rations, and found there was only sufficient to last
them twenty-five days more, and as to ourselves, our consumption would
have to be curtailed to one pound a day between the two of us, so as to
last out for the same length of time. We all hoped to reach Barkhalu and
there lay in fresh supplies, and we felt that if we could not find the
place, our difficulties would be hard to overcome. From this summit we
made a very early start at 4 A.M. I went on ahead, as it was my turn,
finding it fairly plain sailing, considering it was not yet light. It
was my intention to reach some point of vantage, whence I could get a
good view as soon as there was sufficient light. Below me was an expanse
of uneven, barren, sandy country, and the haze prevented me from seeing
at all far.
As I was finding a way over these low mounds, I looked back, as was
my wont, to see how far the caravan had come, when I noticed that
Esau, a long way off, was coming towards me all alone, but, thinking
little of it, I went on again to another bit of rising ground. There
was Esau still alone, and on using my glasses I saw that he was first
walking, then running; no doubt he wanted me. I waved my handkerchief
and waited. On he came faster than before, so that when he reached me,
he was so breathless from his exertion and feverish agitation, that it
was some minutes before he could come out with even a single word. His
first utterance was, "Shot—gun." It struck me that something terrible
might have happened; all sorts of things entered my head, and the worst
thought of all—had Malcolm met with an accident? I made Esau sit down,
and as soon as he had grown calmer, he told me that our cook, Lassoo,
had been carrying a shot gun, and that Mahomed Rahim had tried to take
it from him. Whilst they were struggling for the loaded weapon, off
went the trigger, and the contents of the cartridge had blown away the
lower half of the face of one of the muleteers, by name Sulloo, who was
marching only a couple of yards off at the time.
I hurried back as fast as possible, only hoping that Esau, like many
other people, had been carried away by his own imagination, and greatly
exaggerated the truth. I thought it quite possible that the man might
have been wounded, and at first sight that Esau had on the spur of the
moment concluded that half the man's face had been blown away. I soon
met the caravan, still coming along with most of the men, but their long
faces and downcast looks told me too clearly that there had been some
sad mishap. They told me that Malcolm had remained with Sulloo to doctor
him up and give him brandy, and had sent on the caravan, with orders to
halt at the very first spot where water could be got. It seemed to me
that at the place where we met water could be obtained by digging, so
the animals were at once unloaded and set free.
On my way further back to the scene of the disaster I met Malcolm coming
towards me. He explained to me how the poor man had completely lost the
lower half of his face, and how he had done his best for him in the way
of bandaging and doctoring. It was impossible for him to walk or ride,
so the men took back one of our bamboo beds, whereon to bring him into
camp. Whilst they were away on this errand, Malcolm and I set to work
to dig for water, the toughest dig we had had, and as the water could
be only taken out by cupfuls it was a very tedious business before the
animals had had sufficient to drink. The water, too, was very brackish,
and almost undrinkable.
In the meantime Sulloo had been brought in, and we found the most
effective solution in the way of soothing his pain was cyona and water.
The poor fellow was most plucky over it, and implored to be merely left
where he was to die. His only thought was that somebody owed him twenty
rupees, and he wanted this money to go to his brother, and not to the
woman he had married the day before he had set out from Leh! And there
was no one else he cared about. We had certainly fallen into a most
distressing fix. We could not help wishing that it might be so willed
that the unfortunate man should die quietly that same morning. We could
then have buried him, and marched away from the sad calamity to fresh
scenes. As one of our men, Shukr Ali, philosophically remarked, it
would only be his "kismet." Should, on the other hand, the man live, for
all that, it was not in our power to remain where we were, for in that
case the small store of rations would have soon been eaten up, and when
they were gone there was nothing to follow, as far as we could see, but
starvation. "We must shove on and find people" had been our daily axiom
for some time, and to halt more than was absolutely necessary for the
strength of the mules would be entirely fatal. Yet it was our duty, it
we possibly could, to keep the man alive, and we knew it, too. We were
in a most unpleasant situation; whichever course we adopted was equally
hateful to us.
After seriously considering the pros and cons, we decided to remain
where we were, Camp 40, for the day, and on the morrow to strap the man
to a pony, with a muleteer walking on either side to support him. The
idea of carrying him on a stretcher certainly entered our heads, but
its execution was an impossibility.
It was indeed a very gloomy day, most of the time being spent in trying
to get enough water from the holes we had dug. The unhappy Sulloo was
fed through a small opening, by holding back his head and pouring down
brandy and water or mutton broth.
One sad event seldom comes without a second. As we had no meat with us,
and it was imperative that Sulloo should have something in the shape of
beef-tea, for solid food could never be his fare again, we had to slay
our dear old sheep and make the soup from his bones and what flesh there
was. We wondered all the time what possible good we could be doing the
man. He would never be able to eat again, nor even speak, or, as Shukr
Ali put it, "What's the use of troubling about him? _Admi kabhi nahin
banjaega!_ He'll never make a man any more."
Our caravan was very depressed as it moved off the next morning at 4.30,
marching for five miles over a most barren, sandy, and desolate country,
when there was some improvement, and we were able to call a halt, again
managing to get brackish water by digging. Poor Sulloo was brought into
camp later on, and seemed to be doing well, for the bleeding ceased when
he was placed on the ground and rested from the motion of the pony.
He would lie huddled up in a heap on the pony's back, and if the pony
happened to take an uneven pace or make a sudden jolt over an unlevel
piece of ground, the jar to the man must have been almost unbearable.
The second march was accomplished, too, without any casualty to man or
beast.
[Illustration: OUR MULES BEING WATERED.]
The following day we had two stragglers, and Sulloo came in late,
for even the two miles an hour was too fast for him. The land we
marched over was remarkable for its various coloured stones; there
were different shades of blue, red, green, yellow, black, and white,
all perhaps indicating the presence of a multitude of minerals. The
fine range of mountains to the north was still kept in sight, and we
conjectured they must be a part of the Kuen Lun. Towards evening we came
to a sandy nullah at the foot of an easy pass, and as water was good and
plentiful a foot below the surface, and the animals had had none that
day, we halted and made our drinking trough with the waterproof sheet.
The wind blew hard and bitterly cold that evening from the north, and
as we had no meat we tried one of Lazenby's pea-soup squares. These were
excellent, and quite equal to a meal; would that we had brought more of
them. After the strong night wind, we had a perfectly still cloudless
morning as we began the ascent of the pass, whose summit we reached
almost simultaneously with the rising sun.
We were sorely in need of meat, and although there was good grass round
and about, yet there was no water visible above the surface, and this
was how we accounted for the remarkable absence of any game. During the
latter part of the day things improved, for an antelope was shot, but as
none of the men were at hand to hallal the beast the entire meat fell to
our share, so we made the most of our opportunity by carrying enough to
last us for five or six days. And if we were lucky enough during that
time to shoot another antelope, we promised the men they should have
the whole of it, provided one of them came up quick enough to hallal it.
During the night of the 2nd July some snow fell, and caused some of
our mules to stray in search of grass and better shelter, and, what
was worse still, forced upon us a late start. We passed through a very
barren, sandy country, so much so that it was no surprise to us at not
finding the remotest trace of any one ever having been there before. We
calculated by our dead reckoning and the plane-table that we had just
crossed the eighty-fourth degree of longitude, and if that were the
case, we knew by the latitudes we had taken that we must be about forty
miles south of the village of Iman Mula, which lies just south of the
Kuen Lun, or it would be more correct to say, the place according to our
map would be there, if in reality such a village existed. At our first
halt there was a hill, quite close, completely covered with loose round
stones of a fossil-like appearance, or the equal halves of them, about
the size of Tangerine oranges, one of which we brought back with us.
There was good water in the black clayey soil that lay just below the
surface, and we were able to satisfy the most thirsty of our animals.
During the day there was thunder and a shower of snow. It seemed as
though there was about to be a breaking up of the grand weather.
The men wanted us to give Sulloo some medicine which would make him
insensible, so that they might then sew up a portion of his face. This
we did not feel inclined to do, as we did not know the proper amount of
laudanum to dose him with, and an attempt at sewing up his face on the
top of this would probably have done for the man. He had, undoubtedly,
gained some strength, for he was able to keep up with the caravan on
his pony.
Another snowstorm coming from the north, that blew through the night,
made the ground in heavy condition, so that we had to make a late march.
We passed through a sandy, stony country, with low ranges of hills on
either hand, and further off another large range running as usual almost
east and west. Our difficulties throughout the day were increased by
the scarcity of water.
On the 4th of July we found ourselves marching down a fine grassy
nullah, with several others running into it from the north and south,
and we could not help thinking that we had struck a nullah of some
importance, that perhaps it would eventually lead to the source of some
river. About a foot below the surface we could always get as much water
as we wanted and of a very fair quality. It was a happy event to have
some means of raising hopes of finding people in the men's minds again.
They were becoming lazier and inclined to be insolent, and any kindness
or consideration we showed them was looked upon as so much weakness
on our part. Our only way of getting any real work out of them was by
behaving towards them with sternness and severity, and showing a pretty
sharp temper, much as we disliked doing it. Towards evening the aspect
of the country underwent a change. Although there were still grassy
valleys, several of them and the intervening country were adorned by
curiously-shaped hills of sandstone.
Far away, some thirty or forty miles, in an east-north-east direction,
we saw a fine snow mountain range and peaks, and decided to steer for
the south side of them. On climbing a hill it was obvious that the
nullah we were in ran straight away towards these mountains. This was
certainly encouraging. There would be no more trouble in having to
find a way, and there would be no anxiety about our water and grass
supply. The chances, too, were that we should pick up a better supply
of wild game droppings for our fires, instead of having to dig up so
much boortsa each day, and on some occasions we had hardly been able
to collect enough to make a fire at all. We argued, with regard to the
range we should come to, that if there were grass, streams from the
snow, and shelter from the hills, why should not there be wandering
inhabitants of the place?
Some time back a muleteer, Ghulam Russul, had taken the post of headman
in place of Tokhta, degraded for incapacity. Ghulam Russul had been
on a previous trip with the Littledales, and knew the likely sort of
country where nomads love to dwell in. We had been warned against this
man by the Wazir of Leh, but then we considered him the most suitable,
out of a poor lot of men, for the post of head muleteer. The sight of
this range added to Ghulam Russul's opinion that people might be living
there, and the knowledge that we must be somewhere near Barkhalu, if
there were such a place, induced us to make the following plan. We
arranged to send Esau and Mahomed Rahim south, and Ghulam Russul with
Shukr Ali north, each man with enough rations to last for two days; this
we were able to do, for fortunately an antelope had just lately been
shot. We furnished them with the simple instructions to find people, get
assistance in the shape of some baggage animals, and return again into
camp a little lower down, but in the same nullah we were in. We agreed
that we might just as well not lose an opportunity of making a few
more miles, by marching the first day without these four men. Before,
therefore, these two exploring parties sallied forth, they helped to
load up. We thought we could manage to drive them by ourselves for one
day, seeing that the way was clear, although our numbers would be very
small. Of a truth, when these four men went off, there only remained,
besides Malcolm and myself, Lassoo and another man, called Usman, to
look after the caravan. This is really not enough, for one man must
lead the way in front; whenever, too, a load during the march falls over
to one side, the mule must at once be reloaded, to prevent any chafing
from a badly-balanced burden. While this is occupying the attention of
two or three men, the rest of the mules will stray in any direction,
unless there are some more men present to keep them together. Sulloo, as
usual, would come along behind, with one Juma to look after him, whose
special employment was as cook for the rest of the men. Shahzad Mir,
of course, would have to attend to his plane-table work. Usman was a
tall, black, powerful fellow, but not fond of work; when Shahzad Mir's
pony died he was generally told off to carry the plane-table. This duty
suited him admirably, for he could put in many a snooze throughout the
day on the top of various hills. He used to say he had travelled before,
with a Russian through Turkistan. As for Tokhta, who had swollen to a
tremendous size, resembling a large, over-ripe gooseberry, or rotten
apple, he had been sent out in the very early morning to look after
the ponies, for he was equal to no other greater exertion, but when
it came to the hour of starting there was no Tokhta present, nor could
we discover what on earth had become of him. In the end, we moved off
without him, knowing that when he awoke, for he was probably slumbering
peacefully in a sheltered nook, he would find it no hard job to track
us down the nullah we were going along; besides, we intended halting all
that afternoon and the whole of the following day. Tokhta was a regular
drain upon us, for, although he had made up his mind that he was unfit
to do any more work, still he had to have his share of the rations, much
to the disgust of his brother muleteers, who under such circumstances
soon lost all affection for one another, and had no scruples about
letting a man starve as long as it suited their own ends. Having loaded
the animals, we all started off together, the men who had been selected
to the north and south, and we ourselves down the nullah.
About 9 o'clock we decided to halt, as already one of the mules had
collapsed half a mile back. After unloading, we first of all dug a
number of water holes, so as to have an abundant supply for all. We next
found out that some of the animals required re-shoeing. We had leisure
to see to all things. Our little camp table had come to ruin, or rather
its legs had, but their place was taken by a couple of yakdans, which
served us equally well. Our two camp chairs were still holding out;
the most durable one that can be had in India is from the Government
workshops at Roorkee. Most other chairs generally last for two or three
weeks, when they require nailing and binding up, only to give way again
shortly afterwards. Even at this early stage of our journey, when we
were buoyed up with the empty hopes of our men finding signs of people
and of Barkhalu, and of bringing in yak, ponies, and provisions, we
began to anticipate the pleasures of our voyage across a portion of
China, down the Yellow River from Lancheo to Pao T'eo. With so many
men, we argued that this would be quite the best way of getting through
China, as well as an inexpensive way, for we could pack the whole of
them on one boat, and ourselves on another; or, better still, perhaps
one boat would hold both the men and ourselves. Leisure and a clear
night enabled us to take latitudes again from north and south stars,
showing us to be about 35 degrees, 20 minutes.
During the afternoon of the following day Ghulam Russul and Shukr
Ali turned up, without any news whatever of people. They told us how,
after climbing a range of hills, they had been able to see an immense
distance, but that there was nothing more than a continuation of grassy
plains without any water; this, too, with the help of field-glasses we
had provided them with. As Esau and Mahomed Rahim had not turned up by
sunset, we began to entertain hopes that they had really found people,
and that their delay was caused by bargaining and persuading them to
come to us. Tokhta, too, had not turned up, and must have been having
a splendid sleep. It was blowing hard with sleet the next morning, and
this, combined with Esau's absence, kept us imprisoned in our tent.