IN UNKNOWN COUNTRY
In the middle of the night I was awaked by seven mules, which stood
close to my tent stamping about on its ropes. I went out to drive them
away, but when I saw how piteously cold they were, and how closely they
crowded together, I let them alone. One of them lay dead in the morning
beside my tent, with its belly swollen all out of shape.
Green schists form small ledges and strips on the otherwise soft ground,
so that at a distance the land seems striped with black. Here and there
veins of quartz crop out. Reddish-purple hills appear on the western
horizon, and the country becomes more uneven. After a while we pass the
sheep driven by the men in the wake of the caravan. They travel very
slowly, grazing as they go; we have still 18 left. To-day the water is a
difficulty. Some is found by digging at a depth of a foot, but it is
briny. The day's march is therefore longer than usual, 12 miles, but
then we come to a spring.
On the eve of a day of rest we feel as though it were Saturday evening
and there were no school next day. We intended to spend October 9 in
camp No. 34; I had not given a day's rest for 17 days. All were
delighted, and the Ladakis, in anticipation of the day of rest, arranged
an _al fresco_ feast round a great camp-fire. The refreshments were the
same as usual: tea in wooden bowls, parched meal, and roasted antelope
meat--spirituous liquors of any kind were prohibited in our caravan.
But, nevertheless, the men were in a right jovial mood; they danced
round the fire, and sang a lively song with a chorus culminating in
barbaric, shrill-sounding laughter. They rejoiced that they had
proceeded so far and still possessed sufficient power of resistance to
undergo severe hardships. We have travelled 331 miles from the
Karakorum, and there are 400 more to the Dangra-yum-tso. But we are
nearer the lake than we are to Leh, and so have really more than half
the journey behind us.
After 41 degrees of frost in the night, October 10 dawned with brilliant
weather, sunny and calm. Horse No. 3 was the twenty-sixth martyr of the
caravan; he lay dead on the field. We passed another which was reduced
to a skeleton and never reached the camp. We travelled east-south-east,
and had now to leave the longitudinal valley through which Wellby had
traversed the whole of north Tibet. A small hollow in the ground was
crossed, and the camp was pitched among the hills on its south side. The
brown puppy had behaved so disgracefully that she had to lie outside as
a punishment. She howled and whined piteously, but slept after she had
been covered with a frieze rug. Next day she had to travel with the
mules to her shame. In the night another horse died.
Red and yellowish-grey hills begirt the way, which led up in three hours
to a small flat saddle, whence the view eastwards seemed boundless. Had
it been our intention to proceed farther in this direction we should
have encountered no difficulties in the nature of the ground for many
days to come, but my unalterable goal was the Dangra-yum-tso, and
therefore we must direct our course south-eastwards. There a dark chain
with an irregular, toothed crest soon came into view. Between its
summits were seen deeply-cut saddle-formed gaps; but, to our chagrin,
they were more difficult to surmount than they appeared, and the
slightest rise in the ground was felt by our caravan in its prostrate
condition.
The ground was all honeycombed with the holes of the abominable
field-mice, but the holes were not so treacherous now, for the soil was
frozen, and held firm when we rode over the subterranean catacombs
connected by a network of passages.
Again we mounted a small swell in the ground (17,234 feet). We saw
before us a dark point in the track of the caravan; it was a dead mule,
which slept his last sleep with wide-open eyes beside his pack-saddle.
Behind a hill we surprised a large, handsome fox, which made off in a
great hurry as we drew near. But he could not refrain from frequently
turning round and staring at us; he had probably never seen a human
being before.
At camp No. 36 there was not a drop of water, but we were not able to
travel further. We had with us two goat's leather bottles filled with
ice which sufficed for our tea; but the animals had to go without water.
However, we could not complain; it was the first time since Leh that we
had had no water.
An unusual sight greeted us on the morning of October 12; the whole
country was covered with snow. But scarcely had the sun mounted up, when
the snow melted and the ground was dry. The caravan set out early for
the sake of the thirsty animals. Now we kept on a south-easterly course,
leaving out of the range of our vision the lake discovered by Rawling,
and named "Lake Markham" after the former distinguished President of the
Royal Geographical Society in London.
Again we pass a horse with its throat cut; it is reddish-brown, and
contrasts strongly with the grey, sandy soil. The eyes have already been
picked out by the six ravens which sit like black ghouls round the
fallen beast and hold a wake. A little farther something suspicious
again appears in the track of the caravan--it is the sixth mule. He has
collapsed on the march and has not to be killed; he is still soft and
warm, and his eyes have not lost their brightness, but the ravens will
soon be here, for they follow the caravan like dolphins in the wake of a
vessel. For every animal that falls there is a horse-cloth to spare for
his comrades. They will need it when the severe cold of winter comes.
The two victims to-day have long been released from duty, but they had
to follow on till they died, for there was always a hope that they would
recover--a vain one, indeed.
The trail leads us to the mouth of a valley, where we soon come up with
the caravan--all the animals have their heads in a brook, they have had
to thirst so long. The valley must come down from a pass, so we march up
it. It becomes narrower and narrower, till at length there is a passage
only five yards broad between walls of schists tilted up vertically. By
the brook lay the bleached skull of an Ammon sheep with fine horns
(Illustrations 59, 60). We found shelter from the cutting wind at the
foot of a precipitous wall of rock on the left side of the valley, and
there set up our tent poles. Muhamed Isa climbed a height opposite,
taking the field-glass. "A labyrinth of small mountains," was his
unsatisfactory report. By this time we had lost 29 horses and 6 mules,
and had only 29 horses and 30 mules. "The strongest animals are still
living," was Muhamed Isa's consolation.
October 13. The night with 39 degrees of frost deprived us of another
horse and a mule. Their bones are bleaching in camp No. 37, and are
tokens of our visit. A heavy march over very undulating ground. We had
to cross over three small, trying passes. A good deal of snow still lay
on the ground. To our right extended a red mountain crest, and in a
gorge a waterfall was congealed into a mass of ice. Muhamed Isa had
erected three cairns to show us the way where the track of the caravan
became indistinct on pebbly ground. On the first pass the prospect was
dreary, nothing but pink, purple, and yellow mountains. On the north the
Turkestan mountains still dominated the landscape with their majestic
peaks, a row of imperial crowns far above the rest. Fifty degrees east
of north we fancied we perceived a large lake, but it might equally well
be a plain transfigured by the mirage. Many of the hills and spurs
consist of creeping soil from above, which in consequence of its slow
motion is frozen into concentric rings and other patterns. The third
pass rises in perfectly barren land. Here Tsering gave himself enormous
trouble in setting up a cairn, which was quite unnecessary, for no one
would come after us; but it was an act of homage to the gods of the
mountains, an earnest prayer that they would let us pass safely.
At last we came down into open country, a main valley running
eastwards, where there was a glimpse of yellow grass in the distance.
Tundup Sonam shot two Ammon sheep, and their flesh prolonged the lives
of our 18 sheep. In this cold, windy weather we are never properly warm.
When I sit, sketching the panorama of the mountains or taking a solar
observation, I must have the brazier beside me to warm my numbed hands a
little, so that I can use them. Only Muhamed Isa, Tsering, Sonam
Tsering, and Guffaru are exempt from night duty; all the rest are
obliged to turn out into the cold, dark, wintry night. When darkness
falls I fill up the drawings I have sketched in the day, study maps, or
read light literature, or Supan's _Physische Erdkunde_, and a couple of
books on Buddhism and Lamaism. At nine o'clock Robert takes
meteorological readings, and sets up the hypsometer, which I read off in
my tent. Then we talk awhile and go to sleep. My bed is laid on an
India-rubber sheet and two folded Turkestan frieze blankets. On these is
laid a great square of goatskins sewed together. I lay myself down on
one half of the square and cover myself with the other, and then Tsering
tucks in the edges under the felt blankets, so that the whole is
converted into a sack. Lastly, he spreads two more felt blankets, my
ulster, and my fur coat over me. I have my fur cap on my head and a
_bashlik_; otherwise I undress as usual. In stormy weather the morning
bath is not exactly pleasant; my clothes have become icy cold during the
night. The Ladakis have no notion of cleanliness, and consequently carry
about with them small colonies of vermin, for which I have not the least
use. But those who make my bed, clear up, and wait on me in my tent,
cannot help giving me a most liberal share of their surplus, and
therefore my underclothing has to be frequently washed in boiling water.
My sensitiveness in this respect is a wonderful source of amusement to
the Ladakis; I hear them laughing heartily at my horror of all kinds of
blood-sucking creatures. But I tell them that I feel comfortable only
when I am quite alone in my clothes.
The winter evenings grew longer and longer, and our life passed in
monotonous solitude. The worst was that my light reading was put a stop
to. To occupy the leisure hours I made the Ladakis relate to me
traditions and legends of their own country, and noted some of them
down. I also made each of my servants narrate his own experiences; but
the notes I made of them were not very remarkable, for the men had not
much to tell, and thought it all quite natural and unimportant. You must
question and draw them out, and even then the result is unsatisfactory.
They very seldom know the name of a European whom they have served for
months, and they cannot state their own age. But they know exactly how
many horses there were in a caravan they accompanied years ago, and the
colour of each horse. One Ladaki, who has traversed the inhabited parts
of western Tibet, can tell me the name of every camping-ground, describe
it accurately, and tell me whether the pasture there was good or bad.
They have also a marvellous memory for the character of the ground.
Having regard to the compass of this narrative, I cannot allow myself to
wander into diffuse biographical notices, but I must very briefly
introduce my little party to the reader. We will begin, then, with
Rabsang, who went in search of the horse that was baited by the wolves.
He is a Bod, or Buddhist, strictly speaking a Lamaist; his father is
named Pale, his mother Rdugmo, from the village Chushut-yogma in Ladak.
By occupation he is a _zemindar_ or farmer, grows barley, wheat, and
peas, owns two horses and two yaks, but no sheep, pays 23 rupees (about
31 shillings) in taxes to the Maharaja, but no contributions to the
lamas. Once a year he travels in the service of Afghan merchants to
Yarkand, and receives 50 rupees for the whole journey. The merchants
carry clothing materials, coral, tea, indigo, etc., to Yarkand, where
they put up in the _serai_ of the Hindus, and stay twenty days to sell
their goods and purchase silk, felt rugs, ordinary rugs, etc., which
they get rid of in Peshawar. Rabsang had served chiefly the Hajji Eidar
Khan, a rich merchant of Cabul. Six years ago he had an adventure on the
Suget-davan, where twelve Badakshan men, who owed the Hajji money, met
the caravan. The twelve men had led a wild life in Yarkand, and could
not pay their debts The Afghans, who numbered five, fell upon them and
a violent scuffle ensued, ending in bloodshed. That was Rabsang's worst
adventure. He had served Captain Deasy five months and another
Englishman as long. When he was away himself, his wife and a brother
tilled his land and looked after his affairs.
"Can you depend on your wife's faithfulness for so long a time?"
"No," he answered, "but we do not think much of that in Ladak."
"What happens if she misconducts herself with another man?"
"Then he must give me a sheep as compensation."
After this not a word more could be extracted from Rabsang.
In our caravan he is under Tsering's immediate command, and leads the
four horses which carry my tent, my bed, the four boxes of articles for
daily use, and the kitchen utensils. He is assistant to the head cook,
and has to keep me supplied all the evening with fuel. He brings Tsering
fuel and water for cooking, and is an exceedingly sturdy, useful fellow.
A year later he had a prominent part to play.
[Illustration: 82. PREPARATIONS FOR DINNER AT CAMP 41.]
I have already spoken of the Mohammedan Rehim Ali. He is my right-hand
man on the march. Guffaru is the oldest of the company, and guide of the
horse caravan; consequently the more horses die, the less he has to do.
The Hajji Gulam Razul has been twice in Mecca; he is Muhamed Isa's cook.
Shukkur Ali has made many remarkable journeys, which would fill a whole
chapter themselves; with us he is leader of a section of the horse
caravan, but has now only two charges. Gaffar is a young Mohammedan, who
follows the horses, gathers fuel, and fetches water. Young Tsering has
the same occupations, and Ishe, Tundup, and Adul belong also to this
party; the last, a hard-working, sturdy man, has entered my service in
order to buy himself a house in Leh and to enable him to marry. Islam
Ahun is horse watchman. Bolu belongs to my caravan, and is one of
Tsering's assistants. Galsan, who has travelled much in western
Tibet, serves as a mule-driver. Ishe Tundup is responsible for the
sheep. Lobsang Rigdal, nicknamed the Lama, has to attend to my horses.
He is come with me to earn money to give to his father and elder
brother, because they have always taken good care of him. He is the
jester of the caravan, and has a very comical appearance. Tashi, who
accompanies the horses, is one of our best men. Tundup Sonam keeps up
the sporting reputation of the caravan and provides us all with fresh
meat. He scarcely ever misses, and is as quiet and composed as a pan of
clotted milk. He had served under me before, in the winter of 1902, when
I travelled from Leh to Yarkand. Gartyung belongs to the mule caravan,
and entered my service to restore order in his financial affairs. A
small, short, black-bearded fellow, fifty years of age, answers to the
name of Tashi Tsering; formerly he was called Islam Ahun, he says, so he
has changed his religion, though it seldom happens that a Mohammedan
goes over to Lamaism. He also leads a troop of horses. Rub Das is a
Gurkha from Sitang, and does all sorts of work; he is silent and works
like a slave, without needing the slightest reminder. Tundup Geltsan is
the reciter of tales, whose voice is heard when all the day's work is
over; he is also chief cook in the black tent of the Ladakis. Namgyal is
a mule-driver, and one of our best; Sonam Tsering is overseer of the
mules, Kurban nothing but Guffaru's son, and Tsering is my head cook.
Herewith the list closes. Each of these men had his duty to perform; all
were willing and good tempered, and quarrels and disputes were never
heard. But Robert and Muhamed Isa knew excellently well how to maintain
discipline. Every man had a warm sheepskin, and they made themselves
bedding of the skins of the slaughtered sheep or the wild animals that
were shot; as the winter cold abated they used empty provision sacks as
blankets. As they all travelled on foot they soon wore out their soft
Ladak boots, and they had to re-sole them repeatedly; for that purpose
they utilized pieces of skin with the wool turned inwards.
On October 14 we passed a series of large river-beds which intersect
the ridge to the south along flattish valleys. Kulans and antelopes were
grazing in large numbers. At the camp, situated between reddish hills,
the grass was good. Our direction was east-south-east. In the night a
horse died. The country preserves henceforth the same character: it
consists of a number of small ridges extending from east to west, and
much time is lost in crossing them; between them lie longitudinal
valleys. Not infrequently we can count southwards three or four such
ridges, and we have to pass over them all. We have lost ourselves in a
sea of rigid undulations; we are like a ship that has lost its rudder
and is on the point of sinking: no islands of refuge, no ships coming to
meet us, boundless sea on all sides. We should like to pour oil on this
rough sea; we long for calm waterways, but as long as a plank remains we
will cling fast to it. At camp No. 40 there was good grazing, and water
we could obtain from ice.
The men have sewed up a felt coat for the brown puppy, which they put on
her when it is cold at night. She looks very ridiculous in her new
night-dress when she runs about, steps on a corner, and then rolls over.
The white puppy sits at first quite disconcerted and gazes at her, but
then finds the sight so alluring that she cannot refrain from making fun
of her comrade, dancing about her and biting her cloak. The brown one,
on the other hand, sits resolutely quiet and lets the white one sport
about her.
We penetrate further into the forbidden land. On October 16, the
anniversary of my departure from Stockholm, we had still 380 miles to
travel to Dangra-yum-tso, but now were seldom able to march more than 7½
miles a day. In Camp No. 41 (Illustration 65) some articles that we
could spare were left behind, to lighten the loads, among them several
books that I had read and Bower's narrative, which had now served their
turn in my travelling library. The tents were set up in a sheltered
valley at the foot of a rock. Tundup Sonam had gone in advance, and had
surprised a four-year-old yak which was lying on a slope in the sun.
Taking advantage of inequalities in the ground, the sportsman had crept
up quite close to it. The first ball had entered the pelvis. The yak,
thus unpleasantly aroused from his meditation, sprang up and received a
second bullet in his hough. Then he rushed down the slope, turned a
somersault on to the bottom of the valley, and lay dead as a mouse; and
here, therefore, the tents were pitched. He was already skinned and cut
up when we arrived, and the dark-red flesh with a purplish tint at the
legs lay in the sun. The stomach was immense, and full of grass, lichen,
and moss--no wonder that the animal needed rest after such
gourmandizing. The head was set up as a decoration at the foot of a
mountain spur, and the hunter was photographed beside this trophy. The
Ladakis were ordered to eat their fill of the meat, for we could not
burden ourselves with any extra weight. All the fat, however, was taken
with us, and the marrow was reserved for me. When we left the place,
there was not much left of the yak, and I have my suspicion that the
Ladakis carried some fine pieces with them in their private bags.
The ravens, in company with an eagle, sat feasting round the bloody
skeleton. Now there are eleven of them, and their wings shine in the sun
like blue steel. They feel, alas! quite at home in the caravan and are
half tame. The dogs take no notice of them, and are treated by the
ravens with sarcastic contempt.
October 17 was a trying day; there was a strong wind from the west, and
the temperature did not rise above 23° at noon. We were approaching a
pass, but we encamped before reaching the summit. At nine o'clock the
thermometer marked 9.3°, and I could make it rise in the tent only to
24.5°, for the little warmth radiating from the brazier was at once
driven out by the wind. The minimum thermometer stood at -18.8°, the
lowest temperature that we had hitherto recorded. A white mule, which
had carried no load for the past ten days, was frozen to death. Now I
had 27 mules, 27 horses, and 27 servants in the caravan. We had not seen
a man for 57 days. Should we all remain together till we fell in with
the first nomads?
Antelopes and yaks were grazing on the slopes of the pass, the height of
which is 17,575 feet. A labyrinth of mountains spreads itself out in the
direction of our march, and therefore we turn aside to the north-east
and encamp in the mouth of a valley. The white puppy, which faithfully
follows Robert and myself, is always soundly thrashed by her brown
sister when we arrive in camp. She has no hope of defending herself, so
she lies quietly on her back as if she were made of papier maché, and
does not dare to utter a sound. Now they are both bloated from
over-indulgence in yak flesh; but however bad the brown puppy may feel,
her little sister must get her licking as soon as she appears.
In the night of October 19 two more of our horses were frozen to death,
and a sheep. Of the latter we had now only 16; puffed up with gas the
three dead animals lay on the slope and stared at us with dark
blood-stained eye-cavities; the ravens had already been at them. The
ground was very difficult, constantly sloping upwards and then down
again. We saw the caravan struggle up to a pass, but beyond appeared
another still higher, with patches of snow. The crests of the mountains
in this country run in general to the east-north-east. In the south lies
a lake at a distance of about 20 miles, but it is far to the right of
our route.
When we reached camp No. 44, at a height of 17,539 feet, in the midst of
terrible mountains, it was announced that Muhamed Isa was ill. He had
suffered for some days with severe headache, and had been well dosed
with quinine. As he could not reconnoitre as usual, Robert asked
permission to climb the high pass which barred the way to the east, and
to look around. He did not come back till dark, and then informed us
that we should soon emerge from these troublesome mountains if we turned
to the south-east. Muhamed Isa therefore received instructions for the
following day in accordance with this information.
What a difference from the previous evening when the stars twinkled down
from a blue-black sky and the fires blazed bright and red! Now heavy
masses of cloud lie over mountain and valley, so low that they seem
almost within reach of the hand. It snows unusually thickly; the ground
is white, and the inequalities and tufts of moss throw long shadows
about the fires. A pale light rises out of the provision fortress, now
reduced to small dimensions, and casts a feeble glow on the black tent
of the Ladakis. Tsering sits with his men round the kitchen fire,
wrapped in furs, and delivers a lecture more than two hours long,
without pausing a second. His tongue is like a windmill in a breeze.
They have all known one another for years. What on earth can he have to
tell them that they have not heard already twenty times over? But
Rabsang, Rehim Ali, and a couple of other men listen attentively, and
express their satisfaction from time to time. I join them for a while.
They rise to greet me, and lay a fresh armful of dry dung cakes on the
fire. The flickering flames throw a glaring light over the snow, which
crunches under the feet of the men. But the brightness does not extend
far, and, beyond, the darkness of night yawns on all sides. The grazing
animals can neither be seen nor heard, but the snow hisses as it falls
continuously into the blaze of the yak-dung fire.