BEYOND THE LAST BARRIER TO THE PROMISED HUNTING-GROUNDS
“But the land whither ye go is a land of hills and valleys, and
drinketh water of the rain from heaven.”
—DEUTERONOMY 2:2.
At Aksu we stayed a couple of days, for here we had to change from
arabas back to pack-ponies for our trip through the Tian Shan
mountains. We did not enjoy ourselves, as we were impatient to be
off. It was swelteringly hot in the Amban’s garden where we were
camped. During the day flies swarmed over everything like the
Egyptian plague, and at night the mosquitoes descended on us in
armies. The Amban all but killed us with courtesy, calling about
every two hours. We eventually curtailed his calls by letting loose
our hounds. The bright spots in our stay were some lovely old
embroidered robes and some quaint bits of china that we picked up.
Aksu is a very old town, so far off the beaten road that it has not
been swept clean of its treasures.
On the morning of our departure all was bustle and confusion. The new
pack-ponies had just come in from the range. They were grass-fed,
pot-bellied, and full of spirits. Packing them was difficult. Often
a pony half laden with yakdans and boxes would squeal, plunge and
buck across the courtyard, towing a yelling Turki behind him and
scattering camp utensils in all directions. Girthing up a pack-pony
in this country is a remarkable procedure. A man gets on either side,
the pack is put on, then each man places a foot against the pony’s
side and pulls the pack-ropes with every ounce of strength he has.
Every time I saw it done I expected the animal to be cut in two like
Baron Munchausen’s famous horse.
The train packed, we marched out of town. We were preceded by a
platoon of soldiers with fixed bayonets. Their rifles were nearly
fifty years old, and their uniforms were original, to say the least.
As we pushed through the bazaar we collected an additional escort of
dozens of little boys. Like boys the world over, they gathered thick
as flies around the marching column. They darted in front of the
horses, under their very noses, and I was afraid our collections in
this part of China would start with a Turki boy. Just beyond the town
the Amban was waiting. We said good-by. The soldiers presented arms,
and our escort left us.
In a short distance our road turned up the side of the steep white
clay cliff that bounds the Aksu Valley. Our way lay through a deep
cut, worn by generations of travel. As we plodded up, the day, which
had been overcast, suddenly cleared, and a brilliant sun shone. We
turned a corner and saw at the top of the rise, silhouetted against
the clear blue of the sky, a white-domed mosque with a fretted wall.
It was surrounded by gently waving green poplars, and was set like
a picture by the tall white banks on either side of the road. Every
shadow was diamond-cut by the bright sunlight, every line was clear in
the clean air. It was a fairy scene from the “Arabian Nights.”
On the top of the cliffs a broad flat plateau stretched for miles.
It was dotted in every direction with Moslem tombs. Arches, domes,
squares, and walls of white-baked clay were scattered in a seemingly
endless succession. An occasional tree gave a dash of color. We
looked beyond, and there to the north, hanging like clouds on the
horizon, were the snowy peaks of the Tian Shan mountains—our promised
land.
For three days we journeyed northeast across the plain. It was a
great relief to be riding again after the ceaseless jarring of the
arabas in which we had been driving. During the second day we made
a fruitless attempt to get a gazelle. We saw quite a number, but
the plain was very flat and they were very wary. They generally
saw us before we saw them, so our hunt consisted in the main of
watching them through field-glasses as they disappeared with great
graceful bounds. As we were anxious to reach the Tian Shan as soon as
possible, we had to abandon the hunt for the present.
At Khurgan we struck the foot-hills, and camped for the night. A wind
off the snow blew down the valley. We were cool for the first time in
nearly a month. This place gets its name from the Chinese fort there.
Khurgan is Turki for fort. Like all Chinese forts I have seen, it is
an emblem of authority rather than a military weapon. It consists of
a mud-walled square and a rampart running across the valley from the
river. An active boy could climb up the near-by hill and throw stones
into the fort itself. It was garrisoned by three Chinese customs
officials. One of them was a remarkable old fellow. He was the
father-in-law of the Aksu Amban and could not have been a day under
eighty, but he rode out some three miles to meet us and handled his
horse with dash and decision.
On August 1 we left Khurgan for our trip up the Aksu Valley to the
mountains. Besides our regular train we had with us quite a number
of people. The high ranker among these was Ishmael Bey, an important
Beg from Kizil Bulak, who handled the traffic north from that town.
He was a handsome man, tall and powerful, with fine features and a
heavy, grizzled black beard. He wore a fur cap, and a long brown
coat caught in at the waist with a bright-colored silk scarf. He
rode an excellent horse. More important than all this, he had a
stout heart. Time and again he was invaluable in getting the caravan
over difficult places. He would go anywhere any of the men would,
and go first. They told me he was a man of great wealth, and then
in true Biblical fashion enumerated his riches: 5,000 sheep, 3,000
goats, 1,000 donkeys, 300 ponies, and 30 camels—literally “the cattle
on a thousand hills.” He had with him a number of his servants,
dark-skinned, black-bearded men. Two of them carried ancient
flint-lock rifles. The Beg himself had a single-shot Russian army
rifle of the 1876 model. Each of these rifles had a pronged rest near
the muzzle, which was let down when the piece was fired.
There were also a number of other Begs who had come over the pass
to meet us. With one of them were his wife and son. The woman was
dressed in riding-clothes like a man. The conventionalities were
satisfied by a little white curtain fastened to the front of her cap,
which she let down over her face at the halts. On the march she did
not bother about it. She had a jolly brown wrinkled face, much like
a walnut. The boy was about twelve and rather fresh and obnoxious.
He rode well, however, and had plenty of courage. Our party was
completed by two Chinese soldiers attached to us as a guard of honor.
We would have liked to get rid of them, but they stuck to us like
burrs. I am inclined to think that the bukshish we gave them was
about the only pay on which they could count. One of them was almost
white, with gray eyes. I believe he must have been half Russian,
though I could never find out, as he spoke only Chinese. The other
was a picturesque old Oriental. He looked like an elderly serious
monkey, and rarely changed his expression. He was very thin, and his
nondescript uniform hung around him like a flag around a flagpole on
a windless day. He carried a long-stemmed pipe with a little bowl,
and a black horsetail fly-brush, and wore what we used to call when
we were little a “farmer-hayseed hat.”
In the Aksu Valley, for the first time since leaving Kashmir, we
found hills where there was regular rainfall. There were patches of
grass in the nullahs. The northern slopes got most of the rain. On
some of these fir-trees marched “like black priests in a row” to the
hill crest. Along the river-bank there was a fringe of trees with
grass, ferns and flowers beneath. Above all there was that sense of
cleanliness and austerity which only the mountains and great woods
give.
Wild life was plentiful. Hare were constantly loping off in front of
us. There were numbers of small birds, larks, sparrows, and warblers.
Crossing a small meadow we flushed a partridge, the first we had
seen. Once we saw an old mother chukor with her young. She did not
want to leave them, and they were very little, so we were able to
get within a dozen feet of the whole family. The old mother clucked
just like any barnyard hen. The little ones were brownish midgets and
scuttled very actively through the grass.
We were held up at the end of the first day’s march by a bad ford.
Ishmael Bey’s baggage reached it first. Five loads got over and then
the stream rose. When we got there the water was rushing past so
deep and swift that no loaded animal could make it. We tried it with
an unloaded camel, and almost lost him down-stream. These snow-fed
glacier streams rise very suddenly. When the sun shines during the
day the streams are swelled by the melting snow and ice. At night
when the glaciers freeze again, the water drops. The time of day at
which any particular ford is high depends, of course, on how long
it takes for the snow-water to reach it. Where the ford is near the
glacier the water rises early in the morning and falls early in the
evening. Where the ford is far down the river, the rise may not take
place until late in the afternoon, and the fall until early next
morning. The traveller prays for cloudy weather when he has to do
mountain-fording.
[Illustration: PACK-PONIES FORDING THE MUZART RIVER]
[Illustration: A CAMEL NEGOTIATES THE MUZART]
Early next morning we were waked by the raucous squealing of the
camels that we had collected from the near-by country to help us
across the bad fords. The camp was already up. Shortly after light we
started the balance of the Beg’s baggage over the stream. He had been
using donkeys, but now his loads were put on camels. A man got on top
of each loaded camel and held two donkeys by very long lead ropes.
The camels then proceeded to take the ford, towing the donkeys after
them like rowboats after a launch. Following this our baggage
went over in the same fashion. Kermit and I followed on our horses.
We each took a dog on our saddles, for, as the stream was nothing
but rapids, we were afraid they might be drowned. This made riding a
complicated matter, as neither dog wanted to stay where it was. To
make matters worse, in the middle of the river first one and then the
other of the horses stumbled and all but fell. At this point both
dogs decided to get off, and what with trying to hold a squirming
dog, guide the horse and whip it forward at the same time, all of us
very nearly went down the stream.
After we reached the other side our unloaded baggage-animals were
herded in, the men riding behind. The horse ridden by one of the men
slipped in the middle of the stream, made a desperate attempt to
recover itself, and then the horse and man plunged into the rapids.
In no time they were whirling down-stream like a log in a spring
freshet. The man held on to the horse. Over and over they rolled,
sometimes one above, sometimes the other. I made an ineffectual
attempt to reach them by wading out, but they swirled by before I
could get near them. Men on horseback galloped after them down each
bank, for the current was carrying them so fast it was impossible to
keep up by running on foot. Down they sank in the water. For more
than fifty yards I did not see the man at all. At last, more than
300 yards below, they touched one bank. Men were there as soon as
they grounded. The horse was dead, but when they rolled it over and
pulled the man out from underneath, the man was living. Not only was
he alive, but in spite of the time he had been under water, and the
rocks against which he had been battered, he had suffered no real
hurt.
Troubles never come singly, and sure enough at the next ford we all
but lost another man. The caravan was practically over. The Chinese
soldier with the straw hat, pipe, and fly-brush was bringing up
the rear. Suddenly his horse stumbled, floundered, and both were
rolling in the water. Warned by our previous experience, I had taken
a position at a point below the ford, near which I thought any man
carried down by current would drift. I jumped into the water. Luckily
he came close and I grabbed his hand. I was carried off my feet by
the current, but Kermit and Rahima Loon arrived on the run, and
between us we succeeded in pulling him out. Rahima plunged in without
a moment’s hesitation, although he cannot swim a stroke. When we got
the Chinaman on the bank and emptied some of the water out of him, we
found he still had his hat, his fly-brush, and his pipe. Indeed, as
far as we could see, even his expression had not changed. He finished
the day wrapped up in a poshteen made for a man twice his size, which
flapped in the wind, and, combined with his inevitable straw hat,
made him look like a dilapidated scarecrow.
This last ducking finished the fording for the day. There is a song
about a steeplechase course in Maryland which says that to cover the
course successfully “It takes a lean wiry rider on a horse like a
spider.” Kermit and I agreed that this applied also to the fords of
the Muzart River.
Just before the end of the march we saw our first ibex. There were
some twenty of them feeding at the top of a high ravine. Against the
green they looked like tiny, tawny dots. It was our first glimpse of
the game for which we had ridden and walked over the high Himalayas
and through the plains of Turkestan.
The shikaries got out the telescopes and, after studying the ibex
carefully, told us that there were no good males, nothing with horns
measuring over thirty inches. Of course there was no point then
in stalking them. When they saw us, they trotted up the nullah in
single file. They crossed what looked like an impassable precipice,
springing from rock to ledge with apparent ease. The last we saw
of them was a row of black dots against the snow on the top of the
mountain.
That night saw us camped but half a mile from the foot of the Muzart
glacier, at a place called Tango Tash. Like many places, it is merely
a name on the map. The camp site was a barren bit of level ground
backed up against a great cliff. On this rock natives as they passed
had scrawled rude sketches. We recognized ibex, wild sheep, and
the figures of men. They were not nearly so good as the Magdalenian
drawings. The only wild life we saw near the camp were a couple of
very friendly purple finches. They hopped around not ten feet away,
waiting for crumbs while we ate supper.
It was raining next morning when we started. We crossed a steep
neck of land. Ahead through the mist loomed the glacier, its mass
stretched from one side of the valley to the other. As far as the
eye could see there were ridges of dirty snow, rock, and débris. We
reached the top after a fairly stiff climb, and wound our way around
hummocks and boulders for over an hour and a half. The rain now
changed into a driving wet snow. We came to a very steep and high
ice-cliff. The men cut steps in it by which the pack-animals climbed
up. Fully half of the ponies fell at least once. Two or three of
them turned complete somersaults which would have killed any of our
Eastern ponies. At length they reached the top, all unhurt. Scattered
over this glacier and its approaches were the same piles of skeletons
of pack-animals that we had found in the Himalayas. Here at the foot
of the ice-cliff were the remains of a little donkey, its head wedged
in a rock, evidently the victim of a slide.
[Illustration: CROSSING THE MUZART GLACIER]
At the top of the cliff was a family of five Kirghiz who stayed there
all the year round and acted as a rescue post. They lived in a square
stone building perched on an almost naked shoulder of rock at one
side of the glacier. Around it were half a dozen graves. They were
mere piles of stone into which poles with horses’ tails attached had
been stuck. At the base of the poles were heaped the horns of wild
sheep and ibex. I could not find out who lay buried there. All my
questions brought out were, first, the statement that they were “big
men” and, second, the fact that they “died long ago.” It was a wild
and lonely spot for a graveyard.
Beyond through the snow the glacier stretched in a series of weird
shapes. We pushed on past green icy streams that ran down through
channels in the ice. We skirted small lakes and crevasses. Once we
went astray, and after going nearly a mile out of our way, brought
up against a fissure we could not pass. There was nothing to do but
grope our way back through the whirling snow. At last after nearly
six hours’ work, we turned sharp to the west, left the glacier, and
crossed over a low ridge which is the pass proper.
The ridge was covered with green turf and was easy going. The snow
had turned to rain again, but we were all thoroughly cold and
uncomfortable. Five miles farther on we came to a lower valley where
a caravan from Kulja was camped. The pony men were squatted under
a rude shelter made of bales of wool and blankets. With the ready
hospitality of the travellers on lone trails, they gave us hot tea
and bread. Our caravan, which had fallen behind, now joined us and
we marched on down the valley. Soon the grassy slopes gave way to
spruce woods that pushed up the little ravines toward the crests like
an invading army. In the valley were green meadows.
We turned a shoulder and came to our camping-ground. It was a broad
stretch of grass by the river. On it stood three log huts. They were
built much the same as the log cabins of our own West. Their roofs
were covered with earth, on which grass was growing. The rushing
stream, the snowy mountains, the fir-trees, and the log cabins all
made me feel as if I were in the Northern Rockies.
The huts belonged to the Beg with the wife and child. As we
approached them a number of men and women came out to meet us, with
the usual escort of snarling pie-dogs. We were given a warm welcome.
Numdahs were spread and tea, curds, bread, and fresh butter were
served us. We did them full justice, especially the fresh butter. The
women bustled about and prepared the food for us, with no sign of
embarrassment and no attempt to cover their faces.
Shortly after we arrived they started to put up a native tent, or
yourt, for us to use. A yourt is circular and dome-shaped, with a
diameter of about twenty-five feet and a height in the centre of
nearly twelve feet. Considering its size, they built it remarkably
quickly. First they brought out a latticework of wood, fastened
together with leather thongs. It was collapsible, like the gates
on our ferry-boats. They arranged it in a circle. Then a man stood
in the centre, holding on the end of a pole a circular bit of wood,
like the rim of a wheel pierced with holes. Next the women took long
poles, fitted them into the holes in the centrepiece, and lashed
the other ends to the latticework. It looked for all the world like
some complicated May-pole dance. This completed the framework. Over
it they draped great pieces of felt and fastened them with bands of
woven horsehair. A hole was left in the middle of the dome for a
chimney, and a regular door-frame about five feet high was fitted
into a gap in the latticework. The yourt was finished in less than
twenty minutes. The floor was covered with soft numdahs except for
a place left bare for the fire. It made a most comfortable shelter
after our very diminutive tent, or the serais where fleas made the
night one continuous desperate battle.
The whole meadow where we camped was covered with bright-colored
flowers, as if it had rained confetti. Within forty feet of our tent
I picked sixteen different kinds. There were golden poppies like
those of California, there were blue forget-me-nots, daisies of all
colors, and many others which were like none I had seen before. Last,
but not least, there was the good, broad, honest face of the yellow
dandelion. The flowers were not confined to this meadow. They were
under the trees in the woods and high on the mountains as well. We
crossed slopes of shale in the passes where the gray of the rock was
only broken by the brilliancy of mats of pansies and violets. Once
I came out of a stretch of spruce forest and saw before me a glade
literally frosted with snow-white blossoms. I longed for my mother,
who loves flowers, knows them, and from whom I learned the very
little I know about them.
The evening we arrived we were sitting in the yourt. I had already
taken off my wet boots and Kermit was writing letters. Suddenly
Khalil ran in very much excited, exclaiming “illik! illik!” the
local name for Siberian roe. We were outside in an instant. We found
Rahima studying the opposite side of the valley with field-glasses.
He showed us where there were two roes feeding just above a grove of
trees. They could be seen quite plainly through the glasses. One was
a doe, but the other was a nice buck. It was clearly a case where
only one man could shoot, so we flipped a coin. I won and hastily put
on my wet boots again. Meanwhile the horses were saddled. Khalil, a
local man and I cantered off down the stream to the ford. We splashed
through the water and rode up the other side as far as we could
through the woods. At last it became so thick that we left the horses
and went ahead on foot. Both Khalil and the local man went through
the underbrush and up the hill like deer. I panted after, calling
to them in a hoarse whisper to go more slowly or when we got there
I would be too much out of breath to shoot. At last Khalil put his
head cautiously over a clump of bushes and beckoned to me. I crept
up, and there about seventy yards away, just vanishing into a grove
of trees, were the two deer. There was no time to lose, so I shot as
quickly as possible at the buck. By the time I got my rifle up, all I
could see of him was his rump. He went down but was up again and off
in an instant. We ran over to where he had been, and found a heavy
blood-trail. We followed it in the failing light for 200 yards until
it got too dark to see and we had to give up for the day. I mounted
my horse and rode back to camp very disconsolately, for I hate
leaving a wounded animal. It was nearly nine o’clock when I reached
the yourt.
The local men said there were good ibex near by, so we decided to lie
over a day. Next morning Kermit went with Rahima to look for ibex,
and I went back over the river to try to find the wounded buck. We
were able to pick up the trail, but after following it for 400 yards
through the thickest kind of jungle we lost it. We quartered through
the brush for a couple of hours but could not find it.
Later in the morning we had a roe drive, mainly to please Ishmael
Bey, the “Big Beg.” Personally, I would rather still-hunt my game
wherever it is conceivably possible. Four men went whooping over the
hillside, while the Beg and I sat solemnly near a rock where there
was an open glade. All that went by was one doe, which I would not
shoot, much to the grief of the Beg. Of course we intended to collect
a doe for each group for the museum, but it seemed to us more fitting
that in this case it should be “gentlemen first,” and that ladies
should follow only in the interests of science.
At noon Kermit and Rahima came back. They had seen nothing worth
shooting, although they had found a number of ibex. There was a
herd of thirty feeding on the mountain, just across the river from
camp, but no good head. They had, however, come on a fairly fresh
bear-track, which surprised us, as we had understood bears were very
scarce.
The local shikaries were an interesting lot. Our men called them the
“jungli wallahs,” literally, “men of the woods,” but a term generally
used for a wild rough fellow. They were a little bit of everything—a
native of Bokhara, a Kalmuk, and a Kazak. Perhaps the most unusual
among them was the Bokharan. He was a tall, good-looking fellow, well
built, and active. As far as we could gather he had come from Bokhara
about eight years before, driven out as the result of some turn of
the war. After wandering over much of central Asia, he had worked his
way to these mountains and stopped. He had married a Kirghiz woman
and was raising a hybrid family. Our means of communication were so
limited that this was all we could gather. He recited a number of
names to us, such as Baku, Samarkand, and Tashkent, evidently to show
he was a travelled man of the world. He wore a wadded coat and long
voluminous trousers. My shorts amused him. At the halts he would
sometimes pat my bare knees, shake his head, and smile. The Kalmuk
was thick-set, dark, and wore a pigtail. He was indefatigable. The
Kazak was chunky, short, and rather light-colored. He was a jovial
little fellow, always grinning. He looked like a jolly goblin.
They were all tough as nails. They could climb all day over the
mountains, and come in at night to all intents and purposes as fresh
as when they went out. As far as mountain work was concerned, they
were hardier than the men we had brought from Kashmir. They also
had eyes which were crosses between a telescope and a microscope.
They would pick up game when it was difficult for me to see it even
with field-glasses. Their real fault was that they knew nothing of
stalking, and tended to feel that the way to approach game was to
charge it.
In the afternoon I went out again with Khalil and the Kazak. We went
down the stream, crossed a ford, and lay down in the grass on top of
a high shoulder. From there we watched the woods and hills on either
hand. We had been there about an hour when the Kazak saw some roe
browsing up a little valley. We started toward them, but the wind
had shifted, and when we reached a ridge and looked down we saw
that they had scented us. There were five does and a buck. The buck
was disappearing over a ridge out of range. The does scattered and
went off in all directions. There was no use trying to follow, so we
threaded our way quietly through the woods. We found many more does.
Once we saw seven with one little buck. We also heard a buck calling.
I was surprised at this, for I did not realize their calling season
began so early. Finally, “over the last ridge,” the Kazak pointed to
a brown spot on the other side of the valley and said it was a good
buck. It was too late to stalk, so I decided to try a long shot. Luck
was with me. Over he tumbled and rolled down the slope. We scrambled
down and found he was a nice six-pointer with fourteen and a half
inch horns. After we tied him behind the saddle on the Kazak’s horse,
we rode back to camp, well satisfied by the afternoon’s work.
Next day we had broken camp and the caravan was ready to march,
when Rahima came up to say he had just seen a herd of ibex in which
there were a number of really good heads. There was no question of
what to do. We ordered the caravan to unload and started at once
for the place where he had seen the game. We went as far as we
could on horseback, and that was much farther than we could have
gone on any plains-bred ponies. Finally it got too steep even for
our mountain-ponies. By this time the ibex had crossed a ridge and
lain down to rest through the heat of the day. We took the second
nullah down-wind from them, and crawled up it. When we got on a level
with the animals, we crossed into the nullah next to them, and very
carefully climbed up the rocks to where we could look into the next
ravine. There they were, about 150 to 200 yards away, lying strung
out like a row of brown stones down a stream-bed. Some were resting
their heads on the grass, more were looking around. There were
sixteen animals, and four of them, according to Rahima, had horns
better than fifty inches in length. Kermit had won the first shot by
our old-established method of flipping a coin. He selected an old
black male and fired. I followed suit at another. In an instant they
were up and away, but not before we had had a chance for more shots.
We had shot badly, for none of the animals fell. We were confident,
however, that we had not missed, and we followed to the point where
they had crossed the first ridge. There two blood-trails up the
mountain showed where two of them had gone. Here we separated, Kermit
and Rahima going to the left in the direction taken by the first
animal at which Kermit had shot. Khalil, the “jungli wallah,” and I
followed the blood-trails. They led straight up the mountain, and
when I say straight I am not speaking metaphorically, but literally.
The climb seemed all but perpendicular. After an hour’s hard work
Khalil suggested, ostensibly in my interest, that we give my gun to
the “jungli-wallah,” and tell him to get the wounded animals while
we went to camp ourselves. My pride would not permit this except
as a last resort, so on we went. Shortly the two trails split. We
held to the clearest and climbed on. If I had been told beforehand
that I could have crossed some of the places I did, I would not have
believed it. Soon it was “every man for himself and the devil take
the hindmost.” Khalil and the “jungli wallah” treated me as if I were
one of themselves, and paid no attention to me at all. We climbed
along the edges of precipices “with a drop into nothing below us as
straight as a beggar can spit.” We climbed up shoulders where every
other rock was rotten and crumbled under our weight. Across gullies
where rivers of slide rock lay we ran in order that we might not be
caught in the avalanches we knew we would start. Once I very nearly
was. I got out by going with the avalanche and working to one side
where a firm rock jutted out, upon which I jumped. We got above the
snow-line and plodded across drift after drift. High on the mountain
we found the ram-chukor, birds something like the capercaillie. They
had a very musical whistle and seemed quite tame. I suppose they had
never seen people before. Three times that blood-trail crossed the
top of the mountain. For five hours we followed it. Then it began
to grow fainter and fainter, and finally pinched out. We were sure
the animal was close, so we quartered around, but without success.
By this time it had begun to snow and was getting late, so there
was nothing for it but to start to make our way back. Climbing up a
bad place may be difficult, but, as all mountain-climbers will bear
me witness, it is nothing to climbing down that same place. We had
good hard work getting down, and finally ended up on a glacier. We
scrambled to the foot and were more than glad to see the horses below
us. The telescopic eyes of the man who led them had served us well.
He had seen us and had brought them around some five miles to meet
us. It was now nearly seven and we were famished. With the exception
of a cake of chocolate which I had had, and which I had divided among
the three of us, we had eaten nothing since a six-thirty breakfast.
The pony man had brought some cold mutton and bread, which we wolfed
down. While we were doing it the “jungli-wallah” spotted some roe and
immediately suggested that we go after them. He then proceeded to map
out a plan of campaign for us which gave him two fords of the river
and two hills to climb. While he was talking the deer vanished in the
dusk. It showed, though, what a tough man he was to want to take on
such work in a sleet-storm at dusk, after the day we had had.
We got back to camp in the pitch-dark. I found that Kermit and Rahima
had not come in, so I sent out men with lanterns to help them.
Finally, about nine I got worried, fearing that something had gone
wrong with Kermit’s bad knee, and was about to start out to look
myself when I heard them coming down the trail. They had had much the
same day as I, with the notable exception that they had found their
wounded animal, a fine fifty-two-inch head. They also saw another of
the ibex just at dusk. On the way back Kermit had shot a fine buck
roe. They had carried the ibex skin and horns for a long way, and
were both glad of camp and hot food.
Our hard work on the trail of my wounded ibex was not waste effort,
however. The “jungli-wallah,” who had been with me, found him
stone-dead a short distance from where we lost the trail. He was
a splendid big fellow, his horns measuring fifty-five and a half
inches. The other wounded animal was also found dead, close to the
same place. He was not so large, but still was a good head, the horns
measuring forty-seven inches.
[Illustration: ISMAIL BEY WITH K. R.’S SIBERIAN ROE DEER]
[Illustration: RAHIMA WITH AN IBEX SHOT BY K. R. NEAR KHAN AYALIK]
On August 4 we resumed our march down the valley. The stream scolded
over the rocks at our feet. The hills on either side were wooded,
save where they thrust great rocky shoulders like buttresses through
the forests. For one long stretch the trees on the left bank had been
killed by fire. Their tall, bare skeletons, black and disconsolate,
gave a sombre note to the landscape. In the late afternoon we came
to a place where the stream bent sharply to the right, and almost
without warning the Tekkes Valley lay before us. Behind us and on
either hand lay the tree-clad hills set off by the snow-capped
mountains. In front lay the plain, an unbroken stretch of shimmering
grass. Beyond it again were the mountains.
A few miles more brought us to Shutta. The town consists of a few
rather well-built log cabins and some barracks where a detachment of
Chinese troops are stationed. We had the usual yourt waiting for us.
After we were settled, the General called on us. He is a “general,”
although I suppose his total command does not exceed twenty men. The
poor fellow had a bad wound in his back. It looked like a stab from a
knife, but as he did not volunteer any information, we felt that good
manners would not permit any questions. We looked him over and did
what we could for him, but I am afraid another winter will see him
gazetted to another world.
Even though he was in real pain, he was as curious as a child,
and, sitting beside me on the rug, he would lean over and feel
the hobnails in my boots, or gaze with rapt attention at my
tobacco-pouch when I filled my pipe. Curiosity is one of the
principal characteristics of the people in this part of the world.
The traveller soon gets used to rows of solemn faces gazing at him
with as absorbed interest as if he were an animal in the zoo.
We spent but one night at Shutta. Across the Tekkes plain our guard
consisted of four mounted soldiers. They were the first real “soldier
men” we had seen. They were better mounted and better equipped than
those of the plains of Turkestan. Above all, they had the swagger
that is so indispensable to a good soldier. These soldiers were a
mixed lot racially. Some were Chinese, some evidently Kalmuks, and
some of racial blends it was impossible to guess. One in particular,
a captain at Shutta, was lean and tall with an aquiline nose, high
cheek-bones, and straight black hair that hung half-way to his
shoulders. If he had been in the United States, he would have been
classed unhesitatingly as an Indian.
The population of the Tekkes Valley is scant. It can be divided
roughly into four groups—Kalmuks, Kirghiz, Kazaks, and strays and
mixtures. The Kalmuks are not very numerous. There is only one small
settlement at a town called Azak-Karaul. We were told they did not
number more than a few hundred. Their dress is much the same as the
others—fur cap, long coat caught in at the waist with a scarf, and
high boots—but they wear pigtails, and no other natives do. They are
Buddhists, but, contrary to the tenets of their religion, are great
hunters and real fighting men. The day after we left Shutta we were
accompanied by one little Kalmuk not more than fifteen years old, who
rode like a centaur. At the town where we stopped that night we did
not get a very friendly reception. The Kirghiz headman, not wishing
to be held to account, tried to escape to the woods. The little
Kalmuk galloped after him and brought him back like a diminutive
David leading in a Goliath.
The Kirghiz and Kazaks are more numerous and scattered over the
valley. They tend to be less nomadic than the Kalmuks. In their
villages there are frequent log cabins. They cultivate small patches
of ground on the plain. Both are Mohammedans. They are, on the whole,
rather timid.
As for the last group, it consists of a few Chinese in or attached
to the army, men like the Bokharan and cross-breeds of all kinds.
In this group come some very interesting people whom we met our
first night out from Shutta at a village called Agyas. They were
Russians. We noticed them first when we saw, in the group that
gathered when we got to the village, a man as blond as a Swede. There
were four men, three women, and their families. They came from just
north of the Black Sea. As far as we could gather, for we spoke no
common language, they were driven out during the war. They had put
up neat little houses and were a part of the community. They were
not slipping into the shiftless ways of the local tribesmen, but
were adapting the wilderness to their needs like a “Swiss Family
Robinson.” They gave us the best bread we had had since we left
the Residency in Srinagar. They were weaving cloth. They had a
milk-separator. They had a sled, the first we had seen. Above all,
they had a numerous family of delightful children, blue-eyed and
fat as butter-balls. It made us very homesick for our own children,
particularly as one very beguiling baby was just about the age of
Kermit’s youngest. We wanted to help them, but we had little or
nothing to give until we found that they were anxious for medicine,
when we gladly shared our rather scant store with them. It would be
very interesting to be able to look ahead three generations and see
what effect they have on the community. Perhaps they are the pioneers
of an immigration, for the Tekkes is “white man’s country.” Perhaps
they will be absorbed like a few drops of rain on a parched desert,
and all that will remain will be some blue-eyed Kalmuks.
We made good time over the Tekkes plain, for we travelled at the
cowboy jog, which “eats up the long miles like fire.” The plain
itself, during the first couple of days’ travel, was not unlike many
of our Western prairies over which I have ridden. It was covered with
grass which would have supported great numbers of cattle. It seemed
about ten or fifteen miles broad where we started and gradually
spread out as we travelled down the valley. By the time we reached
the Kooksu, it had changed to rolling ridges, which in turn gave
place to steeper hills near the Kargaitash. Through its length it was
cut by streams running north to the Tekkes River. Especially toward
the Kargaitash these had worn picturesque and rugged canyons down
which the water poured with a musical tumult. In the canyons were
fir-trees which were not visible until the edge was reached. They
formed such a sharp contrast with the treeless prairie that we felt
as if a small bit of another country had been cut out and planted
there. The main river looped and twined down the centre of the valley.
On the plain there were not many different species of birds, but
certain types were plentiful. There were quite a number of larks and
sparrows and a great many hawks. The hawks were of three kinds: a
large bird, a medium bird, and a small bird, like the three bears of
the story. They varied in frequency in inverse ratio to their size.
The small hawks followed our marching column every day, like gulls in
the wake of a ship, waiting for the larks and sparrows we flushed.
The small birds seemed to know exactly what was going on, for they
lay close and flew only a short distance before diving into the grass
again. Some would lie so close that the horses nearly stepped on
them. One little brown fellow refused to fly at all, and Kermit had
to rein up his horse to let him scamper out of the way. The hawks
were very graceful. They swept in great curves over the caravan. When
they stooped they did so swifter than thought but with no apparent
effort. Their swing was not interrupted when they struck their prey.
There would be a few feathers floating in the air, and the hawk
sailing many yards away with the little bird in its talons. Along
the line of march we flushed coveys of partridges which whirred up
and away. Occasionally we found quail. Once a female pheasant rose
ponderously and rumbled off.
As we crossed one stream, a very little one, we saw lots of small
fish darting about. We stopped and fished in the oldest and most
primitive fashion. Where the stream split, we dammed one channel at
both ends. When the water had largely run out, we splashed among
the stones and caught the fish in our hands. The largest was about
four inches long. We got a couple of pounds. There were two kinds.
One was like our catfish, with a rather broad mouth and barbels, but
much thinner and longer in proportion. The other was also a slender
fish, silver-sided with black dots, but with a fleshy, underhung,
bottom-feeding mouth. They came in very handy, for that evening the
pack-animals took the wrong trail and did not get in until nearly
midnight. Those little fish were our supper, and very good they were
too.
All across the valley we saw tumuli. They were low grass-covered
mounds often arranged in a row. In a couple of places spring freshets
had torn some to pieces and laid bare the rough stones of which they
were built. They were evidently very old, for no one we met knew
what they were or who had made them. For all we knew they might have
looked on the armies of Ghenghiz Khan swirling down from the north
to conquer the Eastern world.
On August 12 we reached Chin Ballak. It was a lovely evening. During
the day it had rained, but as we made camp it cleared. The sun set
banked in clouds of delicate pink and pearly gray. The mist-mantles
gradually rolled up the mountains, leaving bare the rocky snow-ribbed
peaks. The sky changed to a dull green, the light faded. Kermit and I
sat in our roorkee chairs and smoked. We were content, for we had at
last reached the heart of the hunting country of the Tian Shan.