OVER THE FRONTIER
CHUMBI,
_January 13._
From Darjeeling to Lhasa is 380 miles. These, as in the dominions of
Namgay Doola's Raja, are mostly on end. The road crosses the Tibetan
frontier at the Jelap la (14,350 feet) eighty miles to the north-east.
From Observatory Hill in Darjeeling one looks over the bleak hog-backed
ranges of Sikkim to the snows. To the north and north-west lie
Kinchenjunga and the tremendous chain of mountains that embraces
Everest. To the north-east stretches a lower line of dazzling rifts and
spires, in which one can see a thin gray wedge, like a slice in a
Christmas cake. That is the Jelap. Beyond it lies Tibet.
There is a good military road from Siliguri, the base station in the
plains to Rungpo, forty-eight miles along the Teesta Valley. By
following the river-bed it avoids the two steep ascents to Kalimpong and
Ari. The new route saves at least a day, and conveys one to Rungli,
nearly seventy miles from the base, without compassing a single tedious
incline. It has also the advantage of being practicable for
bullock-carts and ekkas as far as Rungpo. After that the path is a
6-foot mule-track, at its best a rough, dusty incline, at its worst a
succession of broken rocks and frozen puddles, which give no foothold to
transport animals. From Rungpo the road skirts the stream for sixteen
miles to Rungli, along a fertile valley of some 2,000 feet, through
rice-fields and orange-groves and peaceful villages, now the scene of
military bustle and preparation. From Rungli it follows a winding
mountain torrent, whose banks are sometimes sheer precipitous crags.
Then it strikes up the mountain side, and becomes a ladder of stone
steps over which no animal in the world can make more than a mile and a
half an hour. From the valley to Gnatong is a climb of some 10,000 feet
without a break. The scenery is most magnificent, and I doubt if it is
possible to find anywhere in the same compass the characteristics of the
different zones of vegetation--from tropical to temperate, from
temperate to alpine--so beautifully exhibited.
At ordinary seasons transport is easy, and one can take the road in
comfort; but now every mule and pony in Sikkim and the Terai is employed
on the lines of communication, and one has to pay 300 rupees for an
animal of the most modest pretensions. It is reckoned eight days from
Darjeeling to Chumbi, but, riding all day and most of the night, I
completed the journey in two. Newspaper correspondents are proverbially
in a hurry. To send the first wire from Chumbi I had to leave my kit
behind, and ride with poshteen[8] and sleeping-bag tied to my saddle. I
was racing another correspondent. At Rungpo I found that he was five
hours ahead of me, but he rested on the road, and I had gained three
hours on him before he left the next stage at Rora Thang. Here I learnt
that he intended to camp at Lingtam, twelve miles further on, in a tent
lent him by a transport officer. I made up my mind to wait outside
Lingtam until it was dark, and then to steal a march on him unobserved.
But I believed no one. Wayside reports were probably intended to deceive
me, and no doubt my informant was his unconscious confederate.
[8] Sheepskin.
Outside Rungli, six miles further on, I stopped at a little Bhutia's
hut, where he had been resting. They told me he had gone on only half an
hour before me. I loitered on the road, and passed Lingtam in the dark.
The moon did not rise till three, and riding in the dark was exciting.
At first the white dusty road showed clearly enough a few yards ahead,
but after passing Lingtam it became a narrow path cut out of a
thickly-wooded cliff above a torrent, a wall of rock on one side, a
precipice on the other. Here the darkness was intense. A white stone a
few yards ahead looked like the branch of a tree overhead. A dim
shapeless object to the left might be a house, a rock, a
bear--anything. Uphill and downhill could only be distinguished by the
angle of the saddle. Every now and then a firefly lit up the white
precipice an arm's-length to the right. Once when my pony stopped
panting with exhaustion I struck a match and found that we had come to a
sharp zigzag. Part of the revetment had fallen; there was a yard of
broken path covered with fern and bracken, then a drop of some hundred
feet to the torrent below. After that I led my beast for a mile until we
came to a charcoal-burner's hut. Two or three Bhutias were sitting round
a log fire, and I persuaded one to go in front of me with a lighted
brand. So we came to Sedongchen, where I left my beast dead beat, rested
a few hours, bought a good mule, and pressed on in the early morning by
moonlight. The road to Gnatong lies through a magnificent forest of oak
and chestnut. For five miles it is nothing but the ascent of stone steps
I have described. Then the rhododendron zone is reached, and one passes
through a forest of gnarled and twisted trunks, writhing and contorted
as if they had been thrust there for some penance. The place suggested a
scene from Dante's 'Inferno.' As I reached the saddle of Lingtu the moon
was paling, and the eastern sky-line became a faint violet screen. In a
few minutes Kinchenjunga and Kabru on the north-west caught the first
rays of the sun, and were suffused with the delicate rosy glow of dawn.
I reached Gnatong in time to breakfast with the 8th Gurkhas. The camp
lies in a little cleft in the hills at an elevation of 12,200 feet. When
I last visited the place I thought it one of the most desolate spots I
had seen. My first impressions were a wilderness of gray stones and
gray, uninhabited houses, felled tree-trunks denuded of bark, white and
spectral on the hillside. There was no life, no children's voices or
chattering women, no bazaar apparently, no dogs barking, not even a
pariah to greet you. If there was a sound of life it was the bray of
some discontented mule searching for stray blades of grass among the
stones. There were some fifty houses nearly all smokeless and vacant.
Some had been barracks at the time of the last Sikkim War, and of the
soldiers who inhabited them fifteen still lay in Gnatong in a little
gray cemetery, which was the first indication of the nearness of human
life. The inscriptions over the graves were all dated 1888, 1889, or
1890, and though but fourteen years had passed, many of them were barely
decipherable. The houses were scattered about promiscuously, with no
thought of neighbourliness or convenience, as though the people were
living there under protest, which was very probably the case. But the
place had its picturesque feature. You might mistake some of the houses
for tumbledown Swiss châlets of the poorer sort were it not for the
miniature fir-trees planted on the roofs, with their burdens of prayers
hanging from the branches like parcels on a Christmas-tree.
These were my impressions a year or two ago, but now Gnatong is all life
and bustle. In the bazaar a convoy of 300 mules was being loaded. The
place was crowded with Nepalese coolies and Tibetan drivers, picturesque
in their woollen knee-boots of red and green patterns, with a white star
at the foot, long russet cloaks bound tightly at the waist and bulging
out with cooking-utensils and changes of dress, embroidered caps of
every variety and description, as often as not tied to the head by a
wisp of hair. In Rotten Row--the inscription of 1889 still remains--I
met a subaltern with a pair of skates. He showed me to the mess-room,
where I enjoyed a warm breakfast and a good deal of chaff about
correspondents who 'were in such a devil of a hurry to get to a
God-forsaken hole where there wasn't going to be the ghost of a show.'
I left Gnatong early on a borrowed pony. A mile and a half from the camp
the road crosses the Tuko Pass, and one descends again for another two
miles to Kapup, a temporary transport stage. The path lies to the west
of the Bidang Tso, a beautiful lake with a moraine at the north-west
side. The mountains were strangely silent, and the only sound of wild
life was the whistling of the red-billed choughs, the commonest of the
_Corvidæ_ at these heights. They were flying round and round the lake in
an unsettled manner, whistling querulously, as though in complaint at
the intrusion of their solitude.
I reached the Jelap soon after noon. No snow had fallen. The approach
was over broken rock and shale. At the summit was a row of cairns, from
which fluttered praying-flags and tattered bits of votive raiment.
Behind us and on both sides was a thin mist, but in front my eyes
explored a deep narrow valley bathed in sunshine. Here, then, was Tibet,
the forbidden, the mysterious. In the distance all the land was that
yellow and brick-dust colour I had often seen in pictures and thought
exaggerated and unreal. Far to the north-east Chumulari (23,930 feet),
with its magnificent white spire rising from the roof-like mass behind,
looked like an immense cathedral of snow. Far below on a yellow hillside
hung the Kanjut Lamasery above Rinchengong. In the valley beneath lay
Chumbi and the road to Lhasa.
There is a descent of over 4,000 feet in six miles from the summit of
the Jelap. The valley is perfectly straight, without a bend, so that one
can look down from the pass upon the Kanjut monastery on the hillside
immediately above Yatung. The pass would afford an impregnable military
position to a people with the rudiments of science and martial spirit. A
few riflemen on the cliffs that command it might annihilate a column
with perfect safety, and escape into Bhutan before any flanking movement
could be made. Yet miles of straggling convoy are allowed to pass daily
with the supplies that are necessary for the existence of the force
ahead. The road to Phari Jong passes through two military walls. The
first at Yatung, six miles below the pass, is a senseless obstruction,
and any able-bodied Tommy with hobnailed boots might very easily kick it
down. It has no block-houses, and would be useless against a flank
attack. Before our advance to Chumbi the wall was inhabited by three
Chinese officials, a dingpon, or Tibetan sergeant, and twenty Tibetan
soldiers. It served as a barrier beyond which no British subject was
allowed to pass. The second wall lies across the valley at Gob-sorg,
four miles beyond our camp at Chumbi. It is roofed and loop-holed like
the Yatung barrier, and is defended by block-houses. This fortification
and every mile of valley between the Jelap and Gautsa might be held by a
single company against an invading force. Yet there are not half a dozen
Chinese or Tibetan soldiers in the valley. No opposition is expected
this side of the Tang la, but nondescript troops armed with matchlocks
and bows hover round the mission on the open plateau beyond. Our
evacuation of Khamba Jong and occupation of Chumbi were so rapid and
unexpected that it is thought the Tibetans had no time to bring troops
into the valley; but to anyone who knows their strategical incompetence,
no explanation is necessary.
Yatung is reached by one of the worst sections of road on the march; one
comes across a dead transport mule at almost every zigzag of the
descent. For ten years the village has enjoyed the distinction of being
the only place in Southern Tibet accessible to Europeans. Not that many
Europeans avail themselves of its accessibility, for it is a dreary
enough place to live in, shrouded as it is in cloud more than half the
year round, and embedded in a valley so deep and narrow that in
winter-time the sun has hardly risen above one cliff when it sinks
behind another. The privilege of access to Yatung was the result of the
agreement between Great Britain and China with regard to trade
communications between India and Tibet drawn up in Darjeeling in 1893,
subsequently to the Sikkim Convention. It was then stipulated that there
should be a trade mart at Yatung to which British subjects should have
free access, and that there should be special trade facilities between
Sikkim and Tibet. It is reported that the Chinese Amban took good care
that Great Britain should not benefit by these new regulations, for
after signing the agreement which was to give the Indian tea-merchants a
market in Tibet, he introduced new regulations the other side of the
frontier, which prohibited the purchase of Indian tea. Whether the story
is true or not, it is certainly characteristic of the evasion and
duplicity which have brought about the present armed mission into Tibet.
To-day, as one rides through the cobbled street of Yatung, the only
visible effects of the Convention are the Chinese Customs House with its
single European officer, and the residence of a lady missionary, or
trader, as the exigencies of international diplomacy oblige her to term
herself. The Customs House, which was opened on May 1, 1894, was first
established with the object of estimating the trade between India and
Tibet--traffic is not permitted by any other route than the Jelap--and
with a view to taxation when the trade should make it worth while. It
was stipulated that no duties should be levied for the period of five
years. Up to the present no tariff has been imposed, and the only
apparent use the Customs House serves is to collect statistics, and
perhaps to remind Tibet of the shadowy suzerainty of China. The natives
have boycotted the place, and refuse to trade there, and no European or
native of India has thought it worth while to open a market. Phari is
the real trade mart on the frontier, and Kalimpong, in British Bhutan,
is the foreign trade mart. But the whole trade between India and Tibet
is on such a small scale that it might be in the hands of a single
merchant.
The Customs House, the missionary house, and the houses of the clerks
and servants of the Customs and of the headman, form a little block.
Beyond it there is a quarter of a mile of barren stony ground, and then
the wall with military pretensions. I rode through the gate
unchallenged.
At Rinchengong, a mile beyond the barrier, the Yatung stream flows into
the Ammo Chu. The road follows the eastern bank of the river, passing
through Cheuma and Old Chumbi, where it crosses the stream. After
crossing the bridge, a mile of almost level ground takes one into Chumbi
camp. I reached Chumbi on the evening of January 12, and was able to
send the _Daily Mail_ the first cable from Tibet, having completed the
journey from Darjeeling in two days' hard riding.
The camp lies in a shallow basin in the hills, and is flanked by brown
fir-clad hills which rise some 1,500 feet above the river-bed, and
preclude a view of the mountains on all sides. The situation is by no
means the best from the view of comfort, but strategic reasons make it
necessary, for if the camp were pitched half a mile further up the
valley, the gorge of the stream which debouches into the Ammo River to
the north of Chumbi would give the Tibetans an opportunity of attacking
us in the rear. Despite the protection of almost Arctic clothing, one
shivers until the sun rises over the eastern hill at ten o'clock, and
shivers again when it sinks behind the opposite one at three. Icy winds
sweep the valley, and hurricanes of dust invade one's tent. Against this
cold one clothes one's self in flannel vest and shirt, sweater,
flannel-lined coat, poshteen or Cashmere sheepskin, wool-lined Gilgit
boots, and fur or woollen cap with flaps meeting under the chin. The
general effect is barbaric and picturesque. In after-days the trimness
of a military club may recall the scene--officers clad in
gold-embroidered poshteen, yellow boots, and fur caps, bearded like
wild Kerghizes, and huddling round the camp fire in this black
cauldron-like valley under the stars.
Officers are settling down in Chumbi as comfortably as possible for
winter quarters. Primitive dens have been dug out of the ground, walled
up with boulders, and roofed in with green fir-branches. In some cases a
natural rock affords a whole wall. The den where I am now writing is
warmed by a cheerful pinewood blaze, a luxury after the _angeiti_ in
one's tent. I write at an operating-table after a dinner of minal
(pheasant) and yak's heart. A gramophone is dinning in my ears. It is
destined, I hope, to resound in the palace of Potala, where the Dalai
Lama and his suite may wonder what heathen ritual is accompanied by 'A
jovial monk am I,' and 'Her golden hair was hanging down her back.'
Both at home and in India one hears the Tibet Mission spoken of
enviously as a picnic. There is an idea of an encampment in a smiling
valley, and easy marches towards the mysterious city. In reality, there
is plenty of hard and uninteresting work. The expedition is attended
with all the discomforts of a campaign, and very little of the
excitement. Colonel Younghusband is now at Tuna, a desolate hamlet on
the Tibetan plateau, exposed to the coldest winds of Asia, where the
thermometer falls to 25° below zero. Detachments of the escort are
scattered along the line of communications in places of varying cold
and discomfort, where they must wait until the necessary supplies have
been carried through to Phari. It is not likely that Colonel
Younghusband will be able to proceed to Gyantse before March. In the
meanwhile, imagine the Pioneers and Gurkhas, too cold to wash or shave,
shivering in a dirty Tibetan fort, half suffocated with smoke from a
yak-dung fire. Then there is the transport officer shut up in some
narrow valley of Sikkim, trying to make half a dozen out of three with
his camp of sick beasts and sheaf of urgent telegrams calling for
supplies. He hopes there will be 'a show,' and that he may be in it.
Certainly if anyone deserves to go to Lhasa and get a medal for it, it
is the supply and transport man. But he will be left behind.