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[Illustration: USMAN SHAH]
AMONG THE TIBETANS
Isabella L. Bird
Illustrated by
Edward Whymper
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
Mineola, New York
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
THE START 7
CHAPTER II
SHERGOL AND LEH 40
CHAPTER III
NUBRA 72
CHAPTER IV
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 101
CHAPTER V
CLIMATE AND NATURAL FEATURES 130
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Usman Shah _Frontispiece_
The Start from Srinagar 13
Camp at Gagangair 18
Sonamarg 21
A hand Prayer-Cylinder 42
Tibetan Girl 45
Gonpo of Spitak 51
Leh 57
A Chod-Ten 66
A Lama 74
Three Gopas 77
Some Instruments of Buddhist Worship 86
Monastic Buildings at Basgu 93
The Yak (_Bos grunniens_) 100
A Chang-pa Woman 102
Chang-pa Chief 110
The Castle of Stok 117
First Village in Kulu 125
A Tibetan Farm-house 133
Lahul Valley 141
Gonpo at Kylang 149
CHAPTER I
THE START
The Vale of Kashmir is too well known to require description. It is the
'happy hunting-ground' of the Anglo-Indian sportsman and tourist, the
resort of artists and invalids, the home of _pashm_ shawls and
exquisitely embroidered fabrics, and the land of Lalla Rookh. Its
inhabitants, chiefly Moslems, infamously governed by Hindus, are a
feeble race, attracting little interest, valuable to travellers as
'coolies' or porters, and repulsive to them from the mingled cunning and
obsequiousness which have been fostered by ages of oppression. But even
for them there is the dawn of hope, for the Church Missionary Society
has a strong medical and educational mission at the capital, a hospital
and dispensary under the charge of a lady M.D. have been opened for
women, and a capable and upright 'settlement officer,' lent by the
Indian Government, is investigating the iniquitous land arrangements
with a view to a just settlement.
I left the Panjāb railroad system at Rawul Pindi, bought my camp
equipage, and travelled through the grand ravines which lead to Kashmir
or the Jhelum Valley by hill-cart, on horseback, and by house-boat,
reaching Srinagar at the end of April, when the velvet lawns were at
their greenest, and the foliage was at its freshest, and the
deodar-skirted mountains which enclose this fairest gem of the Himalayas
still wore their winter mantle of unsullied snow. Making Srinagar my
headquarters, I spent two months in travelling in Kashmir, half the time
in a native house-boat on the Jhelum and Pohru rivers, and the other
half on horseback, camping wherever the scenery was most attractive.
By the middle of June mosquitos were rampant, the grass was tawny, a
brown dust haze hung over the valley, the camp-fires of a multitude
glared through the hot nights and misty moonlight of the Munshibagh,
English tents dotted the landscape, there was no mountain, valley, or
plateau, however remote, free from the clatter of English voices and the
trained servility of Hindu servants, and even Sonamarg, at an altitude
of 8,000 feet and rough of access, had capitulated to lawn-tennis. To a
traveller this Anglo-Indian hubbub was intolerable, and I left Srinagar
and many kind friends on June 20 for the uplifted plateaux of Lesser
Tibet. My party consisted of myself, a thoroughly competent servant and
passable interpreter, Hassan Khan, a Panjābi; a _seis_, of whom the less
that is said the better; and Mando, a Kashmiri lad, a common coolie,
who, under Hassan Khan's training, developed into an efficient
travelling servant, and later into a smart _khītmatgar_.
Gyalpo, my horse, must not be forgotten--indeed, he cannot be, for he
left the marks of his heels or teeth on every one. He was a beautiful
creature, Badakshani bred, of Arab blood, a silver-grey, as light as a
greyhound and as strong as a cart-horse. He was higher in the scale of
intellect than any horse of my acquaintance. His cleverness at times
suggested reasoning power, and his mischievousness a sense of humour. He
walked five miles an hour, jumped like a deer, climbed like a _yak_, was
strong and steady in perilous fords, tireless, hardy, hungry, frolicked
along ledges of precipices and over crevassed glaciers, was absolutely
fearless, and his slender legs and the use he made of them were the
marvel of all. He was an enigma to the end. He was quite untamable,
rejected all dainties with indignation, swung his heels into people's
faces when they went near him, ran at them with his teeth, seized unwary
passers-by by their _kamar bands_, and shook them as a dog shakes a rat,
would let no one go near him but Mando, for whom he formed at first
sight a most singular attachment, but kicked and struck with his
forefeet, his eyes all the time dancing with fun, so that one could
never decide whether his ceaseless pranks were play or vice. He was
always tethered in front of my tent with a rope twenty feet long, which
left him practically free; he was as good as a watchdog, and his antics
and enigmatical savagery were the life and terror of the camp. I was
never weary of watching him, the curves of his form were so exquisite,
his movements so lithe and rapid, his small head and restless little
ears so full of life and expression, the variations in his manner so
frequent, one moment savagely attacking some unwary stranger with a
scream of rage, the next laying his lovely head against Mando's cheek
with a soft cooing sound and a childlike gentleness. When he was
attacking anybody or frolicking, his movements and beauty can only be
described by a phrase of the Apostle James, 'the grace of the fashion of
it.' Colonel Durand, of Gilgit celebrity, to whom I am indebted for many
other kindnesses, gave him to me in exchange for a cowardly, heavy
Yarkand horse, and had previously vainly tried to tame him. His wild
eyes were like those of a seagull. He had no kinship with humanity.
In addition, I had as escort an Afghan or Pathan, a soldier of the
Maharajah's irregular force of foreign mercenaries, who had been sent to
meet me when I entered Kashmir. This man, Usman Shah, was a stage
ruffian in appearance. He wore a turban of prodigious height ornamented
with poppies or birds' feathers, loved fantastic colours and ceaseless
change of raiment, walked in front of me carrying a big sword over his
shoulder, plundered and beat the people, terrified the women, and was
eventually recognised at Leh as a murderer, and as great a ruffian in
reality as he was in appearance. An attendant of this kind is a mistake.
The brutality and rapacity he exercises naturally make the people
cowardly or surly, and disinclined to trust a traveller so accompanied.
Finally, I had a Cabul tent, 7 ft. 6 in. by 8 ft. 6 in., weighing, with
poles and iron pins, 75 lbs., a trestle bed and cork mattress, a folding
table and chair, and an Indian _dhurrie_ as a carpet.
My servants had a tent 5 ft. 6 in. square, weighing only 10 lbs., which
served as a shelter tent for me during the noonday halt. A kettle,
copper pot, and frying pan, a few enamelled iron table equipments,
bedding, clothing, working and sketching materials, completed my outfit.
The servants carried wadded quilts for beds and bedding, and their own
cooking utensils, unwillingness to use those belonging to a Christian
being nearly the last rag of religion which they retained. The only
stores I carried were tea, a quantity of Edwards' desiccated soup, and a
little saccharin. The 'house,' furniture, clothing, &c., were a light
load for three mules, engaged at a shilling a day each, including the
muleteer. Sheep, coarse flour, milk, and barley were procurable at very
moderate prices on the road.
[Illustration: THE START FROM SRINAGAR]
Leh, the capital of Ladakh or Lesser Tibet, is nineteen marches from
Srinagar, but I occupied twenty-six days on the journey, and made the
first 'march' by water, taking my house-boat to Ganderbal, a few hours
from Srinagar, _viâ_ the Mar Nullah and Anchar Lake. Never had this
Venice of the Himalayas, with a broad rushing river for its high street
and winding canals for its back streets, looked so entrancingly
beautiful as in the slant sunshine of the late June afternoon. The light
fell brightly on the river at the Residency stairs where I embarked, on
_perindas_ and state barges, with their painted arabesques, gay
canopies, and 'banks' of thirty and forty crimson-clad, blue-turbaned,
paddling men; on the gay façade and gold-domed temple of the Maharajah's
Palace, on the massive deodar bridges which for centuries have defied
decay and the fierce flood of the Jhelum, and on the quaintly
picturesque wooden architecture and carved brown lattice fronts of the
houses along the swirling waterway, and glanced mirthfully through the
dense leafage of the superb planes which overhang the dark-green water.
But the mercury was 92° in the shade and the sun-blaze terrific, and it
was a relief when the boat swung round a corner, and left the stir of
the broad, rapid Jhelum for a still, narrow, and sharply winding canal,
which intersects a part of Srinagar lying between the Jhelum and the
hill-crowning fort of Hari Parbat. There the shadows were deep, and
chance lights alone fell on the red dresses of the women at the ghats,
and on the shaven, shiny heads of hundreds of amphibious boys who were
swimming and aquatically romping in the canal, which is at once the
sewer and the water supply of the district.
Several hours were spent in a slow and tortuous progress through scenes
of indescribable picturesqueness--a narrow waterway spanned by
sharp-angled stone bridges, some of them with houses on the top, or by
old brown wooden bridges festooned with vines, hemmed in by lofty stone
embankments into which sculptured stones from ancient temples are
wrought, on the top of which are houses of rich men, fancifully built,
with windows of fretwork of wood, or gardens with kiosks, and lower
embankments sustaining many-balconied dwellings, rich in colour and
fantastic in design, their upper fronts projecting over the water and
supported on piles. There were gigantic poplars wreathed with vines,
great mulberry trees hanging their tempting fruit just out of reach,
huge planes overarching the water, their dense leafage scraping the mat
roof of the boat; filthy ghats thronged with white-robed Moslems
performing their scanty religious ablutions; great grain boats heavily
thatched, containing not only families, but their sheep and poultry; and
all the other sights of a crowded Srinagar waterway, the houses being
characteristically distorted and out of repair. This canal gradually
widens into the Anchar Lake, a reedy mere of indefinite boundaries, the
breeding-ground of legions of mosquitos; and after the tawny twilight
darkened into a stifling night we made fast to a reed bed, not reaching
Ganderbal till late the next morning, where my horse and caravan awaited
me under a splendid plane-tree.
[Illustration: CAMP AT GAGANGAIR]
For the next five days we marched up the Sind Valley, one of the most
beautiful in Kashmir from its grandeur and variety. Beginning among
quiet rice-fields and brown agricultural villages at an altitude of
5,000 feet, the track, usually bad and sometimes steep and perilous,
passes through flower-gemmed alpine meadows, along dark gorges above the
booming and rushing Sind, through woods matted with the sweet white
jasmine, the lower hem of the pine and deodar forests which ascend the
mountains to a considerable altitude, past rifts giving glimpses of
dazzling snow-peaks, over grassy slopes dotted with villages, houses,
and shrines embosomed in walnut groves, in sight of the frowning crags
of Haramuk, through wooded lanes and park-like country over which farms
are thinly scattered, over unrailed and shaky bridges, and across
avalanche slopes, till it reaches Gagangair, a dream of lonely beauty,
with a camping-ground of velvety sward under noble plane-trees. Above
this place the valley closes in between walls of precipices and crags,
which rise almost abruptly from the Sind to heights of 8,000 and 10,000
feet. The road in many places is only a series of steep and shelving
ledges above the raging river, natural rock smoothed and polished into
riskiness by the passage for centuries of the trade into Central Asia
from Western India, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. Its precariousness for
animals was emphasised to me by five serious accidents which occurred in
the week of my journey, one of them involving the loss of the money,
clothing, and sporting kit of an English officer bound for Ladakh for
three months. Above this tremendous gorge the mountains open out, and
after crossing to the left bank of the Sind a sharp ascent brought me to
the beautiful alpine meadow of Sonamarg, bright with spring flowers,
gleaming with crystal streams, and fringed on all sides by deciduous and
coniferous trees, above and among which are great glaciers and the snowy
peaks of Tilail. Fashion has deserted Sonamarg, rough of access, for
Gulmarg, a caprice indicated by the ruins of several huts and of a
church. The pure bracing air, magnificent views, the proximity and
accessibility of glaciers, and the presence of a kind friend who was
'hutted' there for the summer, made Sonamarg a very pleasant halt before
entering upon the supposed severities of the journey to Lesser Tibet.
[Illustration: SONAMARG]
The five days' march, though propitious and full of the charm of
magnificent scenery, had opened my eyes to certain unpleasantnesses. I
found that Usman Shah maltreated the villagers, and not only robbed them
of their best fowls, but requisitioned all manner of things in my
name, though I scrupulously and personally paid for everything, beating
the people with his scabbarded sword if they showed any intention of
standing upon their rights. Then I found that my clever factotum, not
content with the legitimate 'squeeze' of ten per cent., was charging me
double price for everything and paying the sellers only half the actual
price, this legerdemain being perpetrated in my presence. He also by
threats got back from the coolies half their day's wages after I had
paid them, received money for barley for Gyalpo, and never bought it, a
fact brought to light by the growing feebleness of the horse, and
cheated in all sorts of mean and plausible ways, though I paid him
exceptionally high wages, and was prepared to 'wink' at a moderate
amount of dishonesty, so long as it affected only myself. It has a
lowering influence upon one to live in a fog of lies and fraud, and the
attempt to checkmate a fraudulent Asiatic ends in extreme discomfiture.
I left Sonamarg late on a lovely afternoon for a short march through
forest-skirted alpine meadows to Baltal, the last camping-ground in
Kashmir, a grassy valley at the foot of the Zoji La, the first of three
gigantic steps by which the lofty plateaux of Central Asia are attained.
On the road a large affluent of the Sind, which tumbles down a
pine-hung gorge in broad sheets of foam, has to be crossed. My _seis_, a
rogue, was either half-witted or pretended to be so, and, in spite of
orders to the contrary, led Gyalpo upon a bridge at a considerable
height, formed of two poles with flat pieces of stone laid loosely over
them not more than a foot broad. As the horse reached the middle, the
structure gave a sort of turn, there was a vision of hoofs in air and a
gleam of scarlet, and Gyalpo, the hope of the next four months, after
rolling over more than once, vanished among rocks and surges of the
wildest description. He kept his presence of mind, however, recovered
himself, and by a desperate effort got ashore lower down, with legs
scratched and bleeding and one horn of the saddle incurably bent.
Mr. Maconochie of the Panjāb Civil Service, and Dr. E. Neve of the C. M.
S. Medical Mission in Kashmir, accompanied me from Sonamarg over the
pass, and that night Mr. M. talked seriously to Usman Shah on the
subject of his misconduct, and with such singular results that
thereafter I had little cause for complaint. He came to me and said,
'The Commissioner Sahib thinks I give Mem Sahib a great deal of
trouble;' to which I replied in a cold tone, 'Take care you don't give
me any more.' The gist of the Sahib's words was the very pertinent
suggestion that it would eventually be more to his interest to serve me
honestly and faithfully than to cheat me.
Baltal lies at the feet of a precipitous range, the peaks of which
exceed Mont Blanc in height. Two gorges unite there. There is not a hut
within ten miles. Big camp-fires blazed. A few shepherds lay under the
shelter of a mat screen. The silence and solitude were most impressive
under the frosty stars and the great Central Asian barrier. Sunrise the
following morning saw us on the way up a huge gorge with nearly
perpendicular sides, and filled to a great depth with snow. Then came
the Zoji La, which, with the Namika La and the Fotu La, respectively
11,300, 13,000, and 13,500 feet, are the three great steps from Kashmir
to the Tibetan heights. The two latter passes present no difficulties.
The Zoji La is a thoroughly severe pass, the worst, with the exception
perhaps of the Sasir, on the Yarkand caravan route. The track, cut,
broken, and worn on the side of a wall of rock nearly 2,000 feet in
abrupt elevation, is a series of rough narrow zigzags, rarely, if ever,
wide enough for laden animals to pass each other, composed of broken
ledges often nearly breast high, and shelving surfaces of abraded rock,
up which animals have to leap and scramble as best they may.
Trees and trailers drooped over the path, ferns and lilies bloomed in
moist recesses, and among myriads of flowers a large blue and cream
columbine was conspicuous by its beauty and exquisite odour. The charm
of the detail tempted one to linger at every turn, and all the more so
because I knew that I should see nothing more of the grace and
bounteousness of Nature till my projected descent into Kulu in the late
autumn. The snow-filled gorge on whose abrupt side the path hangs, the
Zoji La (Pass), is geographically remarkable as being the lowest
depression in the great Himalayan range for 300 miles; and by it, in
spite of infamous bits of road on the Sind and Suru rivers, and
consequent losses of goods and animals, all the traffic of Kashmir,
Afghanistan, and the Western Panjāb finds its way into Central Asia. It
was too early in the season, however, for more than a few enterprising
caravans to be on the road.
The last look upon Kashmir was a lingering one. Below, in shadow, lay
the Baltal camping-ground, a lonely deodar-belted flowery meadow, noisy
with the dash of icy torrents tumbling down from the snowfields and
glaciers upborne by the gigantic mountain range into which we had
penetrated by the Zoji Pass. The valley, lying in shadow at their base,
was a dream of beauty, green as an English lawn, starred with white
lilies, and dotted with clumps of trees which were festooned with red
and white roses, clematis, and white jasmine. Above the hardier
deciduous trees appeared the _Pinus excelsa_, the silver fir, and the
spruce; higher yet the stately grace of the deodar clothed the
hillsides; and above the forests rose the snow mountains of Tilail, pink
in the sunrise. High above the Zoji, itself 11,500 feet in altitude, a
mass of grey and red mountains, snow-slashed and snow-capped, rose in
the dewy rose-flushed atmosphere in peaks, walls, pinnacles, and jagged
ridges, above which towered yet loftier summits, bearing into the
heavenly blue sky fields of unsullied snow alone. The descent on the
Tibetan side is slight and gradual. The character of the scenery
undergoes an abrupt change. There are no more trees, and the large
shrubs which for a time take their place degenerate into thorny bushes,
and then disappear. There were mountains thinly clothed with grass here
and there, mountains of bare gravel and red rock, grey crags, stretches
of green turf, sunlit peaks with their snows, a deep, snow-filled
ravine, eastwards and beyond a long valley filled with a snowfield
fringed with pink primulas; and that was CENTRAL ASIA.
We halted for breakfast, iced our cold tea in the snow, Mr. M. gave a
final charge to the Afghan, who swore by his Prophet to be faithful,
and I parted from my kind escorts with much reluctance, and started on
my Tibetan journey, with but a slender stock of Hindustani, and two men
who spoke not a word of English. On that day's march of fourteen miles
there is not a single hut. The snowfield extended for five miles, from
ten to seventy feet deep, much crevassed, and encumbered with
avalanches. In it the Dras, truly 'snow-born,' appeared, issuing from a
chasm under a blue arch of ice and snow, afterwards to rage down the
valley, to be forded many times or crossed on snow bridges. After
walking for some time, and getting a bad fall down an avalanche slope, I
mounted Gyalpo, and the clever, plucky fellow frolicked over the snow,
smelt and leapt crevasses which were too wide to be stepped over, put
his forelegs together and slid down slopes like a Swiss mule, and,
though carried off his feet in a ford by the fierce surges of the Dras,
struggled gamely to shore. Steep grassy hills, and peaks with gorges
cleft by the thundering Dras, and stretches of rolling grass succeeded
each other. Then came a wide valley mostly covered with stones brought
down by torrents, a few plots of miserable barley grown by irrigation,
and among them two buildings of round stones and mud, about six feet
high, with flat mud roofs, one of which might be called the village,
and the other the caravanserai. On the village roof were stacks of twigs
and of the dried dung of animals, which is used for fuel, and the whole
female population, adult and juvenile, engaged in picking wool. The
people of this village of Matayan are Kashmiris. As I had an hour to
wait for my tent, the women descended and sat in a circle round me with
a concentrated stare. They asked if I were dumb, and why I wore no
earrings or necklace, their own persons being loaded with heavy
ornaments. They brought children afflicted with skin-diseases, and asked
for ointment, and on hearing that I was hurt by a fall, seized on my
limbs and shampooed them energetically but not undexterously. I prefer
their sociability to the usual chilling aloofness of the people of
Kashmir.
The Serai consisted of several dark and dirty cells, built round a
blazing piece of sloping dust, the only camping-ground, and under the
entrance two platforms of animated earth, on which my servants cooked
and slept. The next day was Sunday, sacred to a halt; but there was no
fodder for the animals, and we were obliged to march to Dras, following,
where possible, the course of the river of that name, which passes among
highly-coloured and snow-slashed mountains, except in places where it
suddenly finds itself pent between walls of flame-coloured or black
rock, not ten feet apart, through which it boils and rages, forming
gigantic pot-holes. With every mile the surroundings became more
markedly of the Central Asian type. All day long a white, scintillating
sun blazes out of a deep blue, rainless, cloudless sky. The air is
exhilarating. The traveller is conscious of daily-increasing energy and
vitality. There are no trees, and deep crimson roses along torrent beds
are the only shrubs. But for a brief fortnight in June, which chanced to
occur during my journey, the valleys and lower slope present a wonderful
aspect of beauty and joyousness. Rose and pale pink primulas fringe the
margin of the snow, the dainty _Pedicularis tubiflora_ covers moist
spots with its mantle of gold; great yellow and white, and small purple
and white anemones, pink and white dianthus, a very large myosotis,
bringing the intense blue of heaven down to earth, purple orchids by the
water, borage staining whole tracts deep blue, martagon lilies, pale
green lilies veined and spotted with brown, yellow, orange, and purple
vetches, painter's brush, dwarf dandelions, white clover, filling the
air with fragrance, pink and cream asters, chrysanthemums, lychnis,
irises, gentian, artemisia, and a hundred others, form the undergrowth
of millions of tall Umbelliferae and Compositae, many of them
peach-scented and mostly yellow. The wind is always strong, and the
millions of bright corollas, drinking in the sun-blaze which perfects
all too soon their brief but passionate existence, rippled in broad
waves of colour with an almost kaleidoscopic effect. About the eleventh
march from Srinagar, at Kargil, a change for the worse occurs, and the
remaining marches to the capital of Ladakh are over blazing gravel or
surfaces of denuded rock, the singular _Caprifolia horrida_, with its
dark-green mass of wavy ovate leaves on trailing stems, and its fair,
white, anemone-like blossom, and the graceful _Clematis orientalis_, the
only vegetation.
Crossing a raging affluent of the Dras by a bridge which swayed and
shivered, the top of a steep hill offered a view of a great valley with
branches sloping up into the ravines of a complexity of mountain ranges,
from 18,000 to 21,000 feet in altitude, with glaciers at times
descending as low as 11,000 feet in their hollows. In consequence of
such possibilities of irrigation, the valley is green with irrigated
grass and barley, and villages with flat roofs scattered among the
crops, or perched on the spurs of flame-coloured mountains, give it a
wild cheerfulness. These Dras villages are inhabited by hardy Dards and
Baltis, short, jolly-looking, darker, and far less handsome than the
Kashmiris; but, unlike them, they showed so much friendliness, as well
as interest and curiosity, that I remained with them for two days,
visiting their villages and seeing the 'sights' they had to show me,
chiefly a great Sikh fort, a _yak_ bull, the _zho_, a hybrid, the
interiors of their houses, a magnificent view from a hilltop, and a Dard
dance to the music of Dard reed pipes. In return I sketched them
individually and collectively as far as time allowed, presenting them
with the results, truthful and ugly. I bought a sheep for 2_s._ 3_d._,
and regaled the camp upon it, the three which were brought for my
inspection being ridden by boys astride.
The evenings in the Dras valley were exquisite. As soon as the sun went
behind the higher mountains, peak above peak, red and snow-slashed,
flamed against a lemon sky, the strong wind moderated into a pure stiff
breeze, bringing up to camp the thunder of the Dras, and the musical
tinkle of streams sparkling in absolute purity. There was no more need
for boiling and filtering. Icy water could be drunk in safety from every
crystal torrent.
Leaving behind the Dras villages and their fertility, the narrow road
passes through a flaming valley above the Dras, walled in by bare,
riven, snow-patched peaks, with steep declivities of stones, huge
boulders, decaying avalanches, walls and spires of rock, some vermilion,
others pink, a few intense orange, some black, and many plum-coloured,
with a vitrified look, only to be represented by purple madder. Huge red
chasms with glacier-fed torrents, occasional snowfields, intense solar
heat radiating from dry and verdureless rock, a ravine so steep and
narrow that for miles together there is not space to pitch a five-foot
tent, the deafening roar of a river gathering volume and fury as it
goes, rare openings, where willows are planted with lucerne in their
irrigated shade, among which the traveller camps at night, and over all
a sky of pure, intense blue purpling into starry night, were the
features of the next three marches, noteworthy chiefly for the exchange
of the thundering Dras for the thundering Suru, and for some bad bridges
and infamous bits of road before reaching Kargil, where the mountains
swing apart, giving space to several villages. Miles of alluvium are
under irrigation there, poplars, willows, and apricots abound, and on
some damp sward under their shade at a great height I halted for two
days to enjoy the magnificence of the scenery and the refreshment of
the greenery. These Kargil villages are the capital of the small State
of Purik, under the Governorship of Baltistan or Little Tibet, and are
chiefly inhabited by Ladakhis who have become converts to Islam. Racial
characteristics, dress, and manners are everywhere effaced or toned down
by Mohammedanism, and the chilling aloofness and haughty bearing of
Islam were very pronounced among these converts.
The daily routine of the journey was as follows: By six a.m. I sent on a
coolie carrying the small tent and lunch basket to await me half-way.
Before seven I started myself, with Usman Shah in front of me, leaving
the servants to follow with the caravan. On reaching the shelter tent I
halted for two hours, or till the caravan had got a good start after
passing me. At the end of the march I usually found the tent pitched on
irrigated ground, near a hamlet, the headman of which provided milk,
fuel, fodder, and other necessaries at fixed prices. 'Afternoon tea' was
speedily prepared, and dinner, consisting of roast meat and boiled rice,
was ready two hours later. After dinner I usually conversed with the
headman on local interests, and was in bed soon after eight. The
servants and muleteers fed and talked till nine, when the sound of their
'hubble-bubbles' indicated that they were going to sleep, like most
Orientals, with their heads closely covered with their wadded quilts.
Before starting each morning the account was made out, and I paid the
headman personally.
The vagaries of the Afghan soldier, when they were not a cause of
annoyance, were a constant amusement, though his ceaseless changes of
finery and the daily growth of his baggage awakened grave suspicions.
The swashbuckler marched four miles an hour in front of me with a
swinging military stride, a large scimitar in a heavily ornamented
scabbard over his shoulder. Tanned socks and sandals, black or white
leggings wound round from ankle to knee with broad bands of orange or
scarlet serge, white cambric knickerbockers, a white cambric shirt, with
a short white muslin frock with hanging sleeves and a leather girdle
over it, a red-peaked cap with a dark-blue _pagri_ wound round it, with
one end hanging over his back, earrings, a necklace, bracelets, and a
profusion of rings, were his ordinary costume; and in his girdle he wore
a dirk and a revolver, and suspended from it a long tobacco pouch made
of the furry skin of some animal, a large leather purse, and etceteras.
As the days went on he blossomed into blue and white muslin with a
scarlet sash, wore a gold embroidered peak and a huge white muslin
turban, with much change of ornaments, and appeared frequently with a
great bunch of poppies or a cluster of crimson roses surmounting all.
His headgear was colossal. It and the head together must have been fully
a third of his total height. He was a most fantastic object, and very
observant and skilful in his attentions to me; but if I had known what I
afterwards knew, I should have hesitated about taking these long lonely
marches with him for my sole attendant. Between Hassan Khan and this
Afghan violent hatred and jealousy existed.
I have mentioned roads, and my road as the great caravan route from
Western India into Central Asia. This is a fitting time for an
explanation. The traveller who aspires to reach the highlands of Tibet
from Kashmir cannot be borne along in a carriage or hill-cart. For much
of the way he is limited to a foot pace, and if he has regard to his
horse he walks down all rugged and steep descents, which are many, and
dismounts at most bridges. By 'roads' must be understood bridle-paths,
worn by traffic alone across the gravelly valleys, but elsewhere
constructed with great toil and expense, as Nature compels the
road-maker to follow her lead, and carry his track along the narrow
valleys, ravines, gorges, and chasms which she has marked out for him.
For miles at a time this road has been blasted out of precipices from
1,000 feet to 3,000 feet in depth, and is merely a ledge above a raging
torrent, the worst parts, chiefly those round rocky projections, being
'scaffolded,' i.e. poles are lodged horizontally among the crevices of
the cliff, and the roadway of slabs, planks, and brushwood, or branches
and sods, is laid loosely upon them. This track is always amply wide
enough for a loaded beast, but in many places, when two caravans meet,
the animals of one must give way and scramble up the mountain-side,
where foothold is often perilous, and always difficult. In passing a
caravan near Kargil my servant's horse was pushed over the precipice by
a loaded mule and drowned in the Suru, and at another time my Afghan
caused the loss of a baggage mule of a Leh caravan by driving it off the
track. To scatter a caravan so as to allow me to pass in solitary
dignity he regarded as one of his functions, and on one occasion, on a
very dangerous part of the road, as he was driving heavily laden mules
up the steep rocks above, to their imminent peril and the distraction of
their drivers, I was obliged to strike up his sword with my alpenstock
to emphasise my abhorrence of his violence. The bridges are unrailed,
and many of them are made by placing two or more logs across the stream,
laying twigs across, and covering these with sods, but often so scantily
that the wild rush of the water is seen below. Primitive as these
bridges are, they involve great expense and difficulty in the bringing
of long poplar logs for great distances along narrow mountain tracks by
coolie labour, fifty men being required for the average log. The Ladakhi
roads are admirable as compared with those of Kashmir, and are being
constantly improved under the supervision of H. B. M.'s Joint
Commissioner in Leh.
Up to Kargil the scenery, though growing more Tibetan with every march,
had exhibited at intervals some traces of natural verdure; but beyond,
after leaving the Suru, there is not a green thing, and on the next
march the road crosses a lofty, sandy plateau, on which the heat was
terrible--blazing gravel and a blazing heaven, then fiery cliffs and
scorched hillsides, then a deep ravine and the large village of Paskim
(dominated by a fort-crowned rock), and some planted and irrigated
acres; then a narrow ravine and magnificent scenery flaming with colour,
which opens out after some miles on a burning chaos of rocks and sand,
mountain-girdled, and on some remarkable dwellings on a steep slope,
with religious buildings singularly painted. This is Shergol, the first
village of Buddhists, and there I was 'among the Tibetans.'