In order to visit Lower Nubra and return to Leh we were obliged to
cross the great fords of the Shayok at the most dangerous season of
the year. This transit had been the bugbear of the journey ever
since news reached us of the destruction of the Sati scow. Mr.
Redslob questioned every man we met on the subject, solemn and noisy
conclaves were held upon it round the camp-fires, it was said that
the 'European woman' and her 'spider-legged horse' could never get
across, and for days before we reached the stream, the chupas, or
government water-guides, made nightly reports to the village headmen
of the state of the waters, which were steadily rising, the final
verdict being that they were only just practicable for strong horses.
To delay till the waters fell was impossible. Mr. Redslob had
engagements in Leh, and I was already somewhat late for the passage
of the lofty passes between Tibet and British India before the
winter, so we decided on crossing with every precaution which
experience could suggest.
At Lagshung, the evening before, the Tibetans made prayers and
offerings for a day cloudy enough to keep the water down, but in the
morning from a cloudless sky a scintillating sun blazed down like a
magnesium light, and every glacier and snowfield sent its tribute
torrent to the Shayok. In crossing a stretch of white sand the solar
heat was so fierce that our European skins were blistered through our
clothing. We halted at Lagshung, at the house of a friendly
zemindar, who pressed upon me the loan of a big Yarkand horse for the
ford, a kindness which nearly proved fatal; and then by shingle paths
through lacerating thickets of the horrid Hippophae rhamnoides, we
reached a chod-ten on the shingly bank of the river, where the
Tibetans renewed their prayers and offerings, and the final orders
for the crossing were issued. We had twelve horses, carrying only
quarter loads each, all led; the servants were mounted, 'water-
guides' with ten-foot poles sounded the river ahead, one led Mr.
Redslob's horse (the rider being bare-legged) in front of mine with a
long rope, and two more led mine, while the gopas of three villages
and the zemindar steadied my horse against the stream. The water-
guides only wore girdles, and with elf-locks and pig-tails streaming
from their heads, and their uncouth yells and wild gesticulations,
they looked true river-demons.
The Shayok presented an expanse of eight branches and a main stream,
divided by shallows and shingle banks, the whole a mile and a half in
width. On the brink the chupas made us all drink good draughts of
the turbid river water, 'to prevent giddiness,' they said, and they
added that I must not think them rude if they dashed water at my face
frequently with the same object. Hassan Khan, and Mando, who was
livid with fright, wore dark-green goggles, that they might not see
the rapids. In the second branch the water reached the horses'
bodies, and my animal tottered and swerved. There were bursts of
wild laughter, not merriment but excitement, accompanied by yells as
the streams grew fiercer, a loud chorus of Kabadar! Sharbaz!
('Caution!' 'Well done!') was yelled to encourage the horses, and the
boom and hiss of the Shayok made a wild accompaniment. Gyalpo, for
whose legs of steel I longed, frolicked as usual, making mirthful
lunges at his leader when the pair halted. Hassan Khan, in the
deepest branch, shakily said to me, 'I not afraid, Mem Sahib.'
During the hour spent in crossing the eight branches, I thought that
the risk had been exaggerated, and that giddiness was the chief
peril.
But when we halted, cold and dripping, on the shingle bank of the
main stream I changed my mind. A deep, fierce, swirling rapid, with
a calmer depth below its farther bank, and fully a quarter of a mile
wide, was yet to be crossed. The business was serious. All the
chupas went up and down, sounding, long before they found a possible
passage. All loads were raised higher, the men roped their soaked
clothing on their shoulders, water was dashed repeatedly at our
faces, girths were tightened, and then, with shouts and yells, the
whole caravan plunged into deep water, strong, and almost ice-cold.
Half an hour was spent in that devious ford, without any apparent
progress, for in the dizzy swirl the horses simply seemed treading
the water backwards. Louder grew the yells as the torrent raged more
hoarsely, the chorus of kabadar grew frantic, the water was up to the
men's armpits and the seat of my saddle, my horse tottered and
swerved several times, the nearing shore presented an abrupt bank
underscooped by the stream. There was a deeper plunge, an
encouraging shout, and Mr. Redslob's strong horse leapt the bank.
The gopas encouraged mine; he made a desperate effort, but fell short
and rolled over backwards into the Shayok with his rider under him.
A struggle, a moment of suffocation, and I was extricated by strong
arms, to be knocked down again by the rush of the water, to be again
dragged up and hauled and hoisted up the crumbling bank. I escaped
with a broken rib and some severe bruises, but the horse was drowned.
Mr. Redslob, who had thought that my life could not be saved, and the
Tibetans were so distressed by the accident that I made very light of
it, and only took one day of rest. The following morning some men
and animals were carried away, and afterwards the ford was impassable
for a fortnight. Such risks are among the amenities of the great
trade route from India into Central Asia!
The Lower Nubra valley is wilder and narrower than the Upper, its
apricot orchards more luxuriant, its wolf-haunted hippophae and
tamarisk thickets more dense. Its villages are always close to
ravines, the mouths of which are filled with chod-tens, manis,
prayer-wheels, and religious buildings. Access to them is usually up
the stony beds of streams over-arched by apricots. The camping-
grounds are apricot orchards. The apricot foliage is rich, and the
fruit small but delicious. The largest fruit tree I saw measured
nine feet six inches in girth six feet from the ground. Strangers
are welcome to eat as much of the fruit as they please, provided that
they return the stones to the proprietor. It is true that Nubra
exports dried apricots, and the women were splitting and drying the
fruit on every house roof, but the special raison d'etre of the tree
is the clear, white, fragrant, and highly illuminating oil made from
the kernels by the simple process of crushing them between two
stones. In every gonpo temple a silver bowl holding from four to six
gallons is replenished annually with this almond-scented oil for the
ever-burning light before the shrine of Buddha. It is used for
lamps, and very largely in cookery. Children, instead of being
washed, are rubbed daily with it, and on being weaned at the age of
four or five, are fed for some time, or rather crammed, with balls of
barley-meal made into a paste with it.
At Hundar, a superbly situated village, which we visited twice, we
were received at the house of Gergan the monk, who had accompanied us
throughout. He is a zemindar, and the large house in which he made
us welcome stands in his own patrimony. Everything was prepared for
us. The mud floors were swept, cotton quilts were laid down on the
balconies, blue cornflowers and marigolds, cultivated for religious
ornament, were in all the rooms, and the women were in gala dress and
loaded with coarse jewellery. Right hearty was the welcome. Mr.
Redslob loved, and therefore was loved. The Tibetans to him were not
'natives,' but brothers. He drew the best out of them. Their
superstitions and beliefs were not to him 'rubbish,' but subjects for
minute investigation and study. His courtesy to all was frank and
dignified. In his dealings he was scrupulously just. He was
intensely interested in their interests. His Tibetan scholarship and
knowledge of Tibetan sacred literature gave him almost the standing
of an abbot among them, and his medical skill and knowledge, joyfully
used for their benefit on former occasions, had won their regard. So
at Hundar, as everywhere else, the elders came out to meet us and cut
the apricot branches away on our road, and the silver horns of the
gonpo above brayed a dissonant welcome. Along the Indus valley the
servants of Englishmen beat the Tibetans, in the Shayok and Nubra
valleys the Yarkand traders beat and cheat them, and the women are
shy with strangers, but at Hundar they were frank and friendly with
me, saying, as many others had said, 'We will trust any one who comes
with the missionary.'
Gergan's home was typical of the dwellings of the richer cultivators
and landholders. It was a large, rambling, three-storeyed house, the
lower part of stone, the upper of huge sun-dried bricks. It was
adorned with projecting windows and brown wooden balconies. Fuel--
the dried exereta of animals--is too scarce to be used for any but
cooking purposes, and on these balconies in the severe cold of winter
the people sit to imbibe the warm sunshine. The rooms were large,
ceiled with peeled poplar rods, and floored with split white pebbles
set in clay. There was a temple on the roof, and in it, on a
platform, were life-size images of Buddha, seated in eternal calm,
with his downcast eyes and mild Hindu face, the thousand-armed Chan-
ra-zigs (the great Mercy), Jam-pal-yangs (the Wisdom), and Chag-na-
dorje (the Justice). In front on a table or altar were seven small
lamps, burning apricot oil, and twenty small brass cups, containing
minute offerings of rice and other things, changed daily. There were
prayer-wheels, cymbals, horns and drums, and a prayer-cylinder six
feet high, which it took the strength of two men to turn. On a shelf
immediately below the idols were the brazen sceptre, bell, and
thunderbolt, a brass lotus blossom, and the spouted brass flagon
decorated with peacocks' feathers, which is used at baptisms, and for
pouring holy water upon the hands at festivals. In houses in which
there is not a roof temple the best room is set apart for religious
use and for these divinities, which are always surrounded with
musical instruments and symbols of power, and receive worship and
offerings daily, Tibetan Buddhism being a religion of the family and
household. In his family temple Gergan offered gifts and thanks for
the deliverances of the journey. He had been assisting Mr. Redslob
for two years in the translation of the New Testament, and had wept
over the love and sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. He had even
desired that his son should receive baptism and be brought up as a
Christian, but for himself he 'could not break with custom and his
ancestral creed.'
In the usual living-room of the family a platform, raised only a few
inches, ran partly round the wall. In the middle of the floor there
was a clay fireplace, with a prayer-wheel and some clay and brass
cooking pots upon it. A few shelves, fire-bars for roasting barley,
a wooden churn, and some spinning arrangements were the furniture. A
number of small dark rooms used for sleeping and storage opened from
this, and above were the balconies and reception rooms. Wooden posts
supported the roofs, and these were wreathed with lucerne, the
firstfruits of the field. Narrow, steep staircases in all Tibetan
houses lead to the family rooms. In winter the people live below,
alongside of the animals and fodder. In summer they sleep in loosely
built booths of poplar branches on the roof. Gergan's roof was
covered, like others at the time, to the depth of two feet, with hay,
i.e. grass and lucerne, which are wound into long ropes, experience
having taught the Tibetans that their scarce fodder is best preserved
thus from breakage and waste. I bought hay by the yard for Gyalpo.
Our food in this hospitable house was simple: apricots, fresh, or
dried and stewed with honey; zho's milk, curds and cheese, sour
cream, peas, beans, balls of barley dough, barley porridge, and
'broth of abominable things.' Chang, a dirty-looking beer made from
barley, was offered with each meal, and tea frequently, but I took my
own 'on the sly.' I have mentioned a churn as part of the
'plenishings' of the living-room. In Tibet the churn is used for
making tea! I give the recipe. 'For six persons. Boil a teacupful
of tea in three pints of water for ten minutes with a heaped dessert-
spoonful of soda. Put the infusion into the churn with one pound of
butter and a small tablespoonful of salt. Churn until as thick as
cream.' Tea made after this fashion holds the second place to chang
in Tibetan affections. The butter according to our thinking is
always rancid, the mode of making it is uncleanly, and it always has
a rank flavour from the goatskin in which it was kept. Its value is
enhanced by age. I saw skins of it forty, fifty, and even sixty
years old, which were very highly prized, and would only be opened at
some special family festival or funeral.
During the three days of our visits to Hundar both men and women wore
their festival dresses, and apparently abandoned most of their
ordinary occupations in our honour. The men were very anxious that I
should be 'amused,' and made many grotesque suggestions on the
subject. 'Why is the European woman always writing or sewing?' they
asked. 'Is she very poor, or has she made a vow?' Visits to some of
the neighbouring monasteries were eventually proposed, and turned out
most interesting.
The monastery of Deskyid, to which we made a three days' expedition,
is from its size and picturesque situation the most imposing in
Nubra. Built on a majestic spur of rock rising on one side 2,000
feet perpendicularly from a torrent, the spur itself having an
altitude of 11,000 feet, with red peaks, snow-capped, rising to a
height of over 20,000 feet behind the vast irregular pile of red,
white, and yellow temples, towers, storehouses, cloisters, galleries,
and balconies, rising for 300 feet one above another, hanging over
chasms, built out on wooden buttresses, and surmounted with flags,
tridents, and yaks' tails, a central tower or keep dominating the
whole, it is perhaps the most picturesque object I have ever seen,
well worth the crossing of the Shayok fords, my painful accident, and
much besides. It looks inaccessible, but in fact can be attained by
rude zigzags of a thousand steps of rock, some natural, others
roughly hewn, getting worse and worse as they rise higher, till the
later zigzags suggest the difficulties of the ascent of the Great
Pyramid. The day was fearfully hot, 99 degrees in the shade, and the
naked, shining surfaces of purple rock with a metallic lustre
radiated heat. My 'gallant grey' took me up half-way--a great feat--
and the Tibetans cheered and shouted 'Sharbaz!' ('Well done!') as he
pluckily leapt up the great slippery rock ledges. After I
dismounted, any number of willing hands hauled and helped me up the
remaining horrible ascent, the rugged rudeness of which is quite
indescribable. The inner entrance is a gateway decorated with a
yak's head and many Buddhist emblems. High above, on a rude gallery,
fifty monks were gathered with their musical instruments. As soon as
the Kan-po or abbot, Punt-sog-sogman (the most perfect Merit),
received us at the gate, the monkish orchestra broke forth in a
tornado of sound of a most tremendous and thrilling quality, which
was all but overwhelming, as the mountain echoes took up and
prolonged the sound of fearful blasts on six-foot silver horns, the
bellowing thunder of six-foot drums, the clash of cymbals, and the
dissonance of a number of monster gongs. It was not music, but it
was sublime. The blasts on the horns are to welcome a great
personage, and such to the monks who despised his teaching was the
devout and learned German missionary. Mr. Redslob explained that I
had seen much of Buddhism in Ceylon and Japan, and wished to see
their temples. So with our train of gopas, zemindar, peasants, and
muleteers, we mounted to a corridor full of lamas in ragged red
dresses, yellow girdles and yellow caps, where we were presented with
plates of apricots, and the door of the lowest of the seven temples
heavily grated backwards.
The first view, and indeed the whole view of this temple of Wrath or
Justice, was suggestive of a frightful Inferno, with its rows of
demon gods, hideous beyond Western conception, engaged in torturing
writhing and bleeding specimens of humanity. Demon masks of ancient
lacquer hung from the pillars, naked swords gleamed in motionless
hands, and in a deep recess whose 'darkness' was rendered 'visible'
by one lamp, was that indescribable horror the executioner of the
Lord of Hell, his many brandished arms holding instruments of
torture, and before him the bell, the thunderbolt and sceptre, the
holy water, and the baptismal flagon. Our joss-sticks fumed on the
still air, monks waved censers, and blasts of dissonant music woke
the semi-subterranean echoes. In this temple of Justice the younger
lamas spend some hours daily in the supposed contemplation of the
torments reserved for the unholy. In the highest temple, that of
Peace, the summer sunshine fell on Shakya Thubba and the Buddhist
triad seated in endless serenity. The walls were covered with
frescoes of great lamas, and a series of alcoves, each with an image
representing an incarnation of Buddha, ran round the temple. In a
chapel full of monstrous images and piles of medallions made of the
ashes of 'holy' men, the sub-abbot was discoursing to the acolytes on
the religious classics. In the chapel of meditations, among lighted
incense sticks, monks seated before images were telling their beads
with the object of working themselves into a state of ecstatic
contemplation (somewhat resembling a certain hypnotic trance), for
there are undoubtedly devout lamas, though the majority are idle and
unholy. It must be understood that all Tibetan literature is
'sacred,' though some of the volumes of exquisite calligraphy on
parchment, which for our benefit were divested of their silken and
brocaded wrappings, contain nothing better than fairy tales and
stories of doubtful morality, which are recited by the lamas to the
accompaniment of incessant cups of chang, as a religious duty when
they visit their 'flocks' in the winter.
The Deskyid gonpo contains 150 lamas, all of whom have been educated
at Lhassa. A younger son in every household becomes a monk, and
occasionally enters upon his vocation as an acolyte pupil as soon as
weaned. At the age of thirteen these acolytes are sent to study at
Lhassa for five or seven years, their departure being made the
occasion of a great village feast, with several days of religious
observances. The close connection with Lhassa, especially in the
case of the yellow lamas, gives Nubra Buddhism a singular interest.
All the larger gonpos have their prototype in Lhassa, all ceremonial
has originated in Lhassa, every instrument of worship has been
consecrated in Lhassa, and every lama is educated in the learning
only to be obtained at Lhassa. Buddhism is indeed the most salient
feature of Nubra. There are gonpos everywhere, the roads are lined
by miles of chod-tens, manis, and prayer-mills, and flags inscribed
with sacred words in Sanskrit flutter from every roof. There are
processions of red and yellow lamas; every act in trade, agriculture,
and social life needs the sanction of sacerdotalism; whatever exists
of wealth is in the gonpos, which also have a monopoly of learning,
and 11,000 monks closely linked with the laity, yet ruling all
affairs of life and death and beyond death, are all connected by
education, tradition, and authority with Lhassa.
We remained long on the blazing roof of the highest tower of the
gonpo, while good Mr. Redslob disputed with the abbot 'concerning the
things pertaining to the kingdom of God.' The monks standing round
laughed sneeringly. They had shown a little interest, Mr. R. said,
on his earlier visits. The abbot accepted a copy of the Gospel of
St. John. 'St. Matthew,' he observed, 'is very laughable reading.'
Blasts of wild music and the braying of colossal horns honoured our
departure, and our difficult descent to the apricot groves of
Deskyid. On our return to Hundar the grain was ripe on Gergan's
fields. The first ripe ears were cut off, offered to the family
divinity, and were then bound to the pillars of the house. In the
comparatively fertile Nubra valley the wheat and barley are cut, not
rooted up. While they cut the grain the men chant, 'May it increase,
We will give to the poor, we will give to the lamas,' with every
stroke. They believe that it can be made to multiply both under the
sickle and in the threshing, and perform many religious rites for its
increase while it is in sheaves. After eight days the corn is
trodden out by oxen on a threshing-floor renewed every year. After
winnowing with wooden forks, they make the grain into a pyramid,
insert a sacred symbol, and pile upon it the threshing instruments
and sacks, erecting an axe on the apex with its blade turned to the
west, as that is the quarter from which demons are supposed to come.
In the afternoon they feast round it, always giving a portion to the
axe, saying, 'It is yours, it belongs not to me.' At dusk they pour
it into the sacks again, chanting, 'May it increase.' But these are
not removed to the granary until late at night, at an hour when the
hands of the demons are too much benumbed by the nightly frost to
diminish the store. At the beginning of every one of these
operations the presence of lamas is essential, to announce the
auspicious moment, and conduct religious ceremonies. They receive
fees, and are regaled with abundant chang and the fat of the land.
In Hundar, as elsewhere, we were made very welcome in all the houses.
I have described the dwelling of Gergan. The poorer peasants occupy
similar houses, but roughly built, and only two-storeyed, and the
floors are merely clay. In them also the very numerous lower rooms
are used for cattle and fodder only, while the upper part consists of
an inner or winter room, an outer or supper room, a verandah room,
and a family temple. Among their rude plenishings are large stone
corn chests like sarcophagi, stone bowls from Baltistan, cauldrons,
cooking pots, a tripod, wooden bowls, spoons, and dishes, earthen
pots, and yaks' and sheep's packsaddles. The garments of the
household are kept in long wooden boxes.
Family life presents some curious features. In the disposal in
marriage of a girl, her eldest brother has more 'say' than the
parents. The eldest son brings home the bride to his father's house,
but at a given age the old people are 'shelved,' i.e. they retire to
a small house, which may be termed a 'jointure house,' and the eldest
son assumes the patrimony and the rule of affairs. I have not met
with a similar custom anywhere in the East. It is difficult to speak
of Tibetan life, with all its affection and jollity, as 'family
life,' for Buddhism, which enjoins monastic life, and usually
celibacy along with it, on eleven thousand out of a total population
of a hundred and twenty thousand, farther restrains the increase of
population within the limits of sustenance by inculcating and rigidly
upholding the system of polyandry, permitting marriage only to the
eldest son, the heir of the land, while the bride accepts all his
brothers as inferior or subordinate husbands, thus attaching the
whole family to the soil and family roof-tree, the children being
regarded legally as the property of the eldest son, who is addressed
by them as 'Big Father,' his brothers receiving the title of 'Little
Father.' The resolute determination, on economic as well as
religious grounds, not to abandon this ancient custom, is the most
formidable obstacle in the way of the reception of Christianity by
the Tibetans. The women cling to it. They say, 'We have three or
four men to help us instead of one,' and sneer at the dulness and
monotony of European monogamous life! A woman said to me, 'If I had
only one husband, and he died, I should be a widow; if I have two or
three I am never a widow!' The word 'widow' is with them a term of
reproach, and is applied abusively to animals and men. Children are
brought up to be very obedient to fathers and mother, and to take
great care of little ones and cattle. Parental affection is strong.
Husbands and wives beat each other, but separation usually follows a
violent outbreak of this kind. It is the custom for the men and
women of a village to assemble when a bride enters the house of her
husbands, each of them presenting her with three rupees. The Tibetan
wife, far from spending these gifts on personal adornment, looks
ahead, contemplating possible contingencies, and immediately hires a
field, the produce of which is her own, and which accumulates year
after year in a separate granary, so that she may not be portionless
in case she leaves her husband!
It was impossible not to become attached to the Nubra people, we
lived so completely among them, and met with such unbounded goodwill.
Feasts were given in our honour, every gonpo was open to us, monkish
blasts on colossal horns brayed out welcomes, and while nothing could
exceed the helpfulness and alacrity of kindness shown by all, there
was not a thought or suggestion of backsheesh. The men of the
villages always sat by our camp-fires at night, friendly and jolly,
but never obtrusive, telling stories, discussing local news and the
oppressions exercised by the Kashmiri officials, the designs of
Russia, the advance of the Central Asian Railway, and what they
consider as the weakness of the Indian Government in not annexing the
provinces of the northern frontier. Many of their ideas and feelings
are akin to ours, and a mutual understanding is not only possible,
but inevitable. {1}
Industry in Nubra is the condition of existence, and both sexes work
hard enough to give a great zest to the holidays on religious
festival days. Whether in the house or journeying the men are never
seen without the distaff. They weave also, and make the clothes of
the women and children! The people are all cultivators, and make
money also by undertaking the transit of the goods of the Yarkand
traders over the lofty passes. The men plough with the zho, or
hybrid yak, and the women break the clods and share in all other
agricultural operations. The soil, destitute of manure, which is
dried and hoarded for fuel, rarely produces more than tenfold. The
'three acres and a cow' is with them four acres of alluvial soil to a
family on an average, with 'runs' for yaks and sheep on the
mountains. The farms, planted with apricot and other fruit trees, a
prolific loose-grained barley, wheat, peas, and lucerne, are oases in
the surrounding deserts. The people export apricot oil, dried
apricots, sheep's wool, heavy undyed woollens, a coarse cloth made
from yaks' hair, and pashm, the under fleece of the shawl goat. They
complained, and I think with good reason, of the merciless exactions
of the Kashmiri officials, but there were no evidences of severe
poverty, and not one beggar was seen.
It was not an easy matter to get back to Leh. The rise of the Shayok
made it impossible to reach and return by the Digar Pass, and the
alternative route over the Kharzong glacier continued for some time
impracticable--that is, it was perfectly smooth ice. At length the
news came that a fall of snow had roughened its surface. A number of
men worked for two days at scaffolding a path, and with great
difficulty, and the loss of one yak from a falling rock, a fruitful
source of fatalities in Tibet, we reached Khalsar, where with great
regret we parted with Tse-ring-don-drub (Life's purpose fulfilled),
the gopa of Sati, whose friendship had been a real pleasure, and to
whose courage and promptitude, in Mr. Redslob's opinion, I owed my
rescue from drowning. Two days of very severe marching and long and
steep ascents brought us to the wretched hamlet of Kharzong Lar-sa,
in a snowstorm, at an altitude higher than the summit of Mont Blanc.
The servants were all ill of 'pass-poison,' and crept into a cave
along with a number of big Tibetan mastiffs, where they enjoyed the
comfort of semi-suffocation till the next morning, Mr. R. and I, with
some willing Tibetan helpers, pitching our own tents. The wind was
strong and keen, and with the mercury down at 15 degrees Fahrenheit
it was impossible to do anything but to go to bed in the early
afternoon, and stay there till the next day. Mr. Redslob took a
severe chill, which produced an alarming attack of pleurisy, from the
effects of which he never fully recovered.
We started on a grim snowy morning, with six yaks carrying our
baggage or ridden by ourselves, four led horses, and a number of
Tibetans, several more having been sent on in advance to cut steps in
the glacier and roughen them with gravel. Within certain limits the
ground grows greener as one ascends, and we passed upwards among
primulas, asters, a large blue myosotis, gentians, potentillas, and
great sheets of edelweiss. At the glacier foot we skirted a deep
green lake on snow with a glorious view of the Kharzong glacier and
the pass, a nearly perpendicular wall of rock, bearing up a steep
glacier and a snowfield of great width and depth, above which tower
pinnacles of naked rock. It presented to all appearance an
impassable barrier rising 2,500 feet above the lake, grand and awful
in the dazzling whiteness of the new-fallen snow. Thanks to the ice
steps our yaks took us over in four hours without a false step, and
from the summit, a sharp ridge 17,500 feet in altitude, we looked our
last on grimness, blackness, and snow, and southward for many a weary
mile to the Indus valley lying in sunshine and summer. Fully two
dozen caresses of horses newly dead lay in cavities of the glacier.
Our animals were ill of 'pass-poison,' and nearly blind, and I was
obliged to ride my yak into Leh, a severe march of thirteen hours,
down miles of crumbling zigzags, and then among villages of irrigated
terraces, till the grand view of the Gyalpo's palace, with its air-
hung gonpo and clustering chod-tens, and of the desert city itself,
burst suddenly upon us, and our benumbed and stiffened limbs thawed
in the hot sunshine. I pitched my tent in a poplar grove for a
fortnight, near the Moravian compounds and close to the travellers'
bungalow, in which is a British Postal Agency, with a Tibetan
postmaster who speaks English, a Christian, much trusted and
respected, named Joldan, in whose intelligence, kindness, and
friendship I found both interest and pleasure.