SHERGOL AND LEH
The chaos of rocks and sand, walled in by vermilion and orange
mountains, on which the village of Shergol stands, offered no facilities
for camping; but somehow the men managed to pitch my tent on a steep
slope, where I had to place my trestle bed astride an irrigation
channel, down which the water bubbled noisily, on its way to keep alive
some miserable patches of barley. At Shergol and elsewhere fodder is so
scarce that the grain is not cut, but pulled up by the roots.
The intensely human interest of the journey began at that point. Not
greater is the contrast between the grassy slopes and deodar-clothed
mountains of Kashmir and the flaming aridity of Lesser Tibet, than
between the tall, dark, handsome natives of the one, with their
statuesque and shrinking women, and the ugly, short, squat,
yellow-skinned, flat-nosed, oblique-eyed, uncouth-looking people of the
other. The Kashmiris are false, cringing, and suspicious; the Tibetans
truthful, independent, and friendly, one of the pleasantest of peoples.
I 'took' to them at once at Shergol, and terribly faulty though their
morals are in some respects, I found no reason to change my good opinion
of them in the succeeding four months.
The headman or _go-pa_ came to see me, introduced me to the objects of
interest, which are a _gonpo_, or monastery, built into the rock, with a
brightly coloured front, and three _chod-tens_, or relic-holders,
painted blue, red, and yellow, and daubed with coarse arabesques and
representations of deities, one having a striking resemblance to Mr.
Gladstone. The houses are of mud, with flat roofs; but, being summer,
many of them were roofless, the poplar rods which support the mud having
been used for fuel. Conical stacks of the dried excreta of animals, the
chief fuel of the country, adorned the roofs, but the general aspect was
ruinous and poor. The people all invited me into their dark and dirty
rooms, inhabited also by goats, offered tea and cheese, and felt my
clothes. They looked the wildest of savages, but they are not. No house
was so poor as not to have its 'family altar,' its shelf of wooden gods,
and table of offerings. A religious atmosphere pervades Tibet, and gives
it a singular sense of novelty. Not only were there _chod-tens_ and a
_gonpo_ in this poor place, and family altars, but prayer-wheels, i.e.
wooden cylinders filled with rolls of paper inscribed with prayers,
revolving on sticks, to be turned by passers-by, inscribed cotton
bannerets on poles planted in cairns, and on the roofs long sticks, to
which strips of cotton bearing the universal prayer, _Aum mani padne
hun_ (O jewel of the lotus-flower), are attached. As these wave in the
wind the occupants of the house gain the merit of repeating this
sentence.
[Illustration: A HAND PRAYER-CYLINDER]
The remaining marches to Leh, the capital of Lesser Tibet, were full of
fascination and novelty. Everywhere the Tibetans were friendly and
cordial. In each village I was invited to the headman's house, and taken
by him to visit the chief inhabitants; every traveller, lay and
clerical, passed by with the cheerful salutation _Tzu_, asked me where I
came from and whither I was going, wished me a good journey, admired
Gyalpo, and when he scaled rock ladders and scrambled gamely through
difficult torrents, cheered him like Englishmen, the general jollity and
cordiality of manners contrasting cheerily with the chilling aloofness
of Moslems.
The irredeemable ugliness of the Tibetans produced a deeper impression
daily. It is grotesque, and is heightened, not modified, by their
costume and ornament. They have high cheekbones, broad flat noses
without visible bridges, small, dark, oblique eyes, with heavy lids and
imperceptible eyebrows, wide mouths, full lips, thick, big, projecting
ears, deformed by great hoops, straight black hair nearly as coarse as
horsehair, and short, square, ungainly figures. The faces of the men are
smooth. The women seldom exceed five feet in height, and a man is tall
at five feet four.
The male costume is a long, loose, woollen coat with a girdle,
trousers, under-garments, woollen leggings, and a cap with a turned-up
point over each ear. The girdle is the depository of many things dear to
a Tibetan--his purse, rude knife, heavy tinder-box, tobacco pouch, pipe,
distaff, and sundry charms and amulets. In the capacious breast of his
coat he carries wool for spinning--for he spins as he walks--balls of
cold barley dough, and much besides. He wears his hair in a pigtail. The
women wear short, big-sleeved jackets, shortish, full-plaited skirts,
tight trousers a yard too long, the superfluous length forming folds
above the ankle, a sheepskin with the fur outside hangs over the back,
and on gala occasions a sort of drapery is worn over the usual dress.
Felt or straw shoes and many heavy ornaments are worn by both sexes.
Great _ears_ of brocade, lined and edged with fur and attached to the
hair, are worn by the women. Their hair is dressed once a month in many
much-greased plaits, fastened together at the back by a long tassel. The
head-dress is a strip of cloth or leather, sewn over with large
turquoises, carbuncles, and silver ornaments. This hangs in a point over
the brow, broadens over the top of the head, and tapers as it reaches
the waist behind. The ambition of every Tibetan girl is centred in this
singular headgear. Hoops in the ears, necklaces, amulets, clasps,
bangles of brass or silver, and various implements stuck in the girdle
and depending from it, complete a costume pre-eminent in ugliness. The
Tibetans are dirty. They wash once a year, and, except for festivals,
seldom change their clothes till they begin to drop off. They are
healthy and hardy, even the women can carry weights of sixty pounds over
the passes; they attain extreme old age; their voices are harsh and
loud, and their laughter is noisy and hearty.
[Illustration: TIBETAN GIRL]
After leaving Shergol the signs of Buddhism were universal and imposing,
and the same may be said of the whole of the inhabited part of Lesser
Tibet. Colossal figures of Shakya Thubba (Buddha) are carved on faces of
rock, or in wood, stone, or gilded copper sit on lotus thrones in
endless calm near villages of votaries. _Chod-tens_ from twenty to a
hundred feet in height, dedicated to 'holy' men, are scattered over
elevated ground, or in imposing avenues line the approaches to hamlets
and _gonpos_. There are also countless _manis_, dykes of stone from six
to sixteen feet in width and from twenty feet to a fourth of a mile in
length, roofed with flattish stones, inscribed by the _lamas_ (monks)
with the phrase _Aum_, &c., and purchased and deposited by those who
wish to obtain any special benefit from the gods, such as a safe
journey. Then there are prayer-mills, sometimes 150 in a row, which
revolve easily by being brushed by the hand of the passer-by, larger
prayer-cylinders which are turned by pulling ropes, and others larger
still by water-power. The finest of the latter was in a temple
overarching a perennial torrent, and was said to contain 20,000
repetitions of the mystic phrase, the fee to the worshipper for each
revolution of the cylinder being from 1_d._ to 1_s._ 4_d._, according to
his means or urgency.
The glory and pride of Ladak and Nubra are the _gonpos_, of which the
illustrations give a slight idea. Their picturesqueness is absolutely
enchanting. They are vast irregular piles of fantastic buildings, almost
invariably crowning lofty isolated rocks or mountain spurs, reached by
steep, rude rock staircases, _chod-tens_ below and battlemented towers
above, with temples, domes, bridges over chasms, spires, and scaffolded
projections gleaming with gold, looking, as at Lamayuru, the outgrowth
of the rock itself. The outer walls are usually whitewashed, and red,
yellow, and brown wooden buildings, broad bands of red and blue on the
whitewash, tridents, prayer-mills, _yaks_' tails, and flags on poles
give colour and movement, while the jangle of cymbals, the ringing of
bells, the incessant beating of big drums and gongs, and the braying at
intervals of six-foot silver horns, attest the ritualistic activities of
the communities within. The _gonpos_ contain from two up to three
hundred _lamas_. These are not cloistered, and their duties take them
freely among the people, with whom they are closely linked, a younger
son in every family being a monk. Every act in trade, agriculture, and
social life needs the sanction of sacerdotalism, whatever exists of
wealth is in the _gonpos_, which also have a monopoly of learning, and
11,000 monks, linked with the people, yet ruling all affairs of life and
death and beyond death, are connected closely by education, tradition,
and authority with Lhassa.
Passing along faces of precipices and over waterless plateaux of blazing
red gravel--'waste places,' truly--the journey was cheered by the
meeting of red and yellow _lamas_ in companies, each _lama_ twirling his
prayer-cylinder, abbots, and _skushoks_ (the latter believed to be
incarnations of Buddha) with many retainers, or gay groups of priestly
students, intoning in harsh and high-pitched monotones, _Aum mani padne
hun_. And so past fascinating monastic buildings, through crystal
torrents rushing over red rock, through flaming ravines, on rock ledges
by scaffolded paths, camping in the afternoons near friendly villages on
oases of irrigated alluvium, and down the Wanla water by the steepest
and narrowest cleft ever used for traffic, I reached the Indus, crossed
it by a wooden bridge where its broad, fierce current is narrowed by
rocks to a width of sixty-five feet, and entered Ladak proper. A
picturesque fort guards the bridge, and there travellers inscribe their
names and are reported to Leh. I camped at Khalsi, a mile higher, but
returned to the bridge in the evening to sketch, if I could, the grim
nudity and repulsive horror of the surrounding mountains, attended only
by Usman Shah. A few months earlier, this ruffian was sent down from Leh
with six other soldiers and an officer to guard the fort, where they
became the terror of all who crossed the bridge by their outrageous
levies of blackmail. My swashbuckler quarrelled with the officer over a
disreputable affair, and one night stabbed him mortally, induced his six
comrades to plunge their knives into the body, sewed it up in a blanket,
and threw it into the Indus, which disgorged it a little lower down. The
men were all arrested and marched to Srinagar, where Usman turned
'king's evidence.'
The remaining marches were alongside of the tremendous granite ranges
which divide the Indus from its great tributary, the Shayok. Colossal
scenery, desperate aridity, tremendous solar heat, and an atmosphere
highly rarefied and of nearly intolerable dryness, were the chief
characteristics. At these Tibetan altitudes, where the valleys exceed
11,000 feet, the sun's rays are even more powerful than on the 'burning
plains of India.' The day wind, rising at 9 a.m., and only falling near
sunset, blows with great heat and force. The solar heat at noon was from
120° to 130°, and at night the mercury frequently fell below the
freezing point. I did not suffer from the climate, but in the case of
most Europeans the air passages become irritated, the skin cracks, and
after a time the action of the heart is affected. The hair when released
stands out from the head, leather shrivels and splits, horn combs break
to pieces, food dries up, rapid evaporation renders water-colour
sketching nearly impossible, and tea made with water from fifteen to
twenty below the boiling-point of 212 degrees, is flavourless and flat.
[Illustration: GONPO OF SPITAK]
After a delightful journey of twenty-five days I camped at Spitak, among
the _chod-tens_ and _manis_ which cluster round the base of a lofty and
isolated rock, crowned with one of the most striking monasteries in
Ladak, and very early the next morning, under a sun of terrific
fierceness, rode up a five-mile slope of blazing gravel to the goal of
my long march. Even at a short distance off, the Tibetan capital can
scarcely be distinguished from the bare, ribbed, scored, jagged,
vermilion and rose-red mountains which nearly surround it, were it
not for the palace of the former kings or Gyalpos of Ladak, a huge
building attaining ten storeys in height, with massive walls sloping
inwards, while long balconies and galleries, carved projections of brown
wood, and prominent windows, give it a singular picturesqueness. It can
be seen for many miles, and dwarfs the little Central Asian town which
clusters round its base.
Long lines of _chod-tens_ and _manis_ mark the approach to Leh. Then
come barley fields and poplar and willow plantations, bright streams are
crossed, and a small gateway, within which is a colony of very poor
Baltis, gives access to the city. In consequence of 'the vigilance of
the guard at the bridge of Khalsi,' I was expected, and was met at the
gate by the wazir's _jemadar_, or head of police, in artistic attire,
with _spahis_ in apricot turbans, violet _chogas_, and green leggings,
who cleared the way with spears, Gyalpo frolicking as merrily and as
ready to bite, and the Afghan striding in front as firmly, as though
they had not marched for twenty-five days through the rugged passes of
the Himalayas. In such wise I was escorted to a shady bungalow of three
rooms, in the grounds of H. B. M.'s Joint Commissioner, who lives at
Leh during the four months of the 'caravan season,' to assist in
regulating the traffic and to guard the interests of the numerous
British subjects who pass through Leh with merchandise. For their
benefit also, the Indian Government aids in the support of a small
hospital, open, however, to all, which, with a largely attended
dispensary, is under the charge of a Moravian medical missionary.
Just outside the Commissioner's grounds are two very humble whitewashed
dwellings, with small gardens brilliant with European flowers; and in
these the two Moravian missionaries, the only permanent European
residents in Leh, were living, Mr. Redslob and Dr. Karl Marx, with their
wives. Dr. Marx was at his gate to welcome me.
To these two men, especially the former, I owe a debt of gratitude which
in no shape, not even by the hearty acknowledgment of it, can ever be
repaid, for they died within a few days of each other, of an epidemic,
last year, Dr. Marx and a new-born son being buried in one grave. For
twenty-five years Mr. Redslob, a man of noble physique and intellect, a
scholar and linguist, an expert botanist and an admirable artist,
devoted himself to the welfare of the Tibetans, and though his great aim
was to Christianize them, he gained their confidence so thoroughly by
his virtues, kindness, profound Tibetan scholarship, and manliness, that
he was loved and welcomed everywhere, and is now mourned for as the best
and truest friend the people ever had.
I had scarcely finished breakfast when he called; a man of great height
and strong voice, with a cheery manner, a face beaming with kindness,
and speaking excellent English. Leh was the goal of my journey, but Mr.
Redslob came with a proposal to escort me over the great passes to the
northward for a three weeks' journey to Nubra, a district formed of the
combined valleys of the Shayok and Nubra rivers, tributaries of the
Indus, and abounding in interest. Of course I at once accepted an offer
so full of advantages, and the performance was better even than the
promise.
Two days were occupied in making preparations, but afterwards I spent a
fortnight in my tent at Leh, a city by no means to be passed over
without remark, for, though it and the region of which it is the capital
are very remote from the thoughts of most readers, it is one of the
centres of Central Asian commerce. There all traders from India,
Kashmir, and Afghanistan must halt for animals and supplies on their way
to Yarkand and Khotan, and there also merchants from the mysterious city
of Lhassa do a great business in brick tea and in Lhassa wares, chiefly
ecclesiastical.
[Illustration: LEH]
The situation of Leh is a grand one, the great Kailas range, with its
glaciers and snowfields, rising just behind it to the north, its passes
alone reaching an altitude of nearly 18,000 feet; while to the south,
across a gravelly descent and the Indus Valley, rise great red ranges
dominated by snow-peaks exceeding 21,000 feet in altitude. The centre of
Leh is a wide bazaar, where much polo is played in the afternoons; and
above this the irregular, flat-roofed, many-balconied houses of the town
cluster round the palace and a gigantic _chod-ten_ alongside it. The
rugged crest of the rock on a spur of which the palace stands is crowned
by the fantastic buildings of an ancient _gonpo_. Beyond the crops and
plantations which surround the town lies a flaming desert of gravel or
rock. The architectural features of Leh, except of the palace, are mean.
A new mosque glaring with vulgar colour, a treasury and court of
justice, the wazir's bungalow, a Moslem cemetery, and Buddhist cremation
grounds, in which each family has its separate burning place, are all
that is noteworthy. The narrow alleys, which would be abominably dirty
if dirt were possible in a climate of such intense dryness, house a very
mixed population, in which the Moslem element is always increasing,
partly owing to the renewal of that proselytising energy which is making
itself felt throughout Asia, and partly to the marriages of Moslem
traders with Ladaki women, who embrace the faith of their husbands and
bring up their families in the same.
On my arrival few of the shops in the great _place_, or bazaar, were
open, and there was no business; but a few weeks later the little desert
capital nearly doubled its population, and during August the din and
stir of trade and amusements ceased not by day or night, and the
shifting scenes were as gay in colouring and as full of variety as could
be desired.
Great caravans _en route_ for Khotan, Yarkand, and even Chinese Tibet
arrived daily from Kashmir, the Panjāb, and Afghanistan, and stacked
their bales of goods in the _place_; the Lhassa traders opened shops in
which the specialties were brick tea and instruments of worship;
merchants from Amritsar, Cabul, Bokhara, and Yarkand, stately in costume
and gait, thronged the bazaar and opened bales of costly goods in
tantalising fashion; mules, asses, horses, and _yaks_ kicked, squealed,
and bellowed; the dissonance of bargaining tongues rose high; there were
mendicant monks, Indian fakirs, Moslem dervishes, Mecca pilgrims,
itinerant musicians, and Buddhist ballad howlers; bold-faced women with
creels on their backs brought in lucerne; Ladakis, Baltis, and Lahulis
tended the beasts, and the wazir's _jemadar_ and gay _spahis_ moved
about among the throngs. In the midst of this picturesque confusion, the
short, square-built, Lhassa traders, who face the blazing sun in heavy
winter clothing, exchange their expensive tea for Nubra and Baltistan
dried apricots, Kashmir saffron, and rich stuffs from India; and
merchants from Yarkand on big Turkestan horses offer hemp, which is
smoked as opium, and Russian trifles and dress goods, under cloudless
skies. With the huge Kailas range as a background, this great rendezvous
of Central Asian traffic has a great fascination, even though moral
shadows of the darkest kind abound.
On the second morning, while I was taking the sketch of Usman Shah which
appears as the frontispiece, he was recognised both by the Joint
Commissioner and the chief of police as a mutineer and murderer, and was
marched out of Leh. I was asked to look over my baggage, but did not. I
had trusted him, he had been faithful in his way, and later I found that
nothing was missing. He was a brutal ruffian, one of a band of
irregulars sent by the Maharajah of Kashmir to garrison the fort at Leh.
From it they used to descend on the town, plunder the bazaar, insult the
women, take all they wanted without payment, and when one of their
number was being tried for some offence, they dragged the judge out of
court and beat him! After holding Leh in terror for some time the
British Commissioner obtained their removal. It was, however, at the
fort at the Indus bridge, as related before, that the crime of murder
was committed. Still there was something almost grand in the defiant
attitude of the fantastic swashbuckler, as, standing outside the
bungalow, he faced the British Commissioner, to him the embodiment of
all earthly power, and the chief of police, and defied them. Not an inch
would he stir till the wazir gave him a coolie to carry his baggage. He
had been acquitted of the murder, he said, 'and though I killed the man,
it was according to the custom of my country--he gave me an insult which
could only be wiped out in blood!' The guard dared not touch him, and he
went to the wazir, demanded a coolie, and got one!
Our party left Leh early on a glorious morning, travelling light, Mr.
Redslob, a very learned Lhassa monk, named Gergan, Mr. R.'s servant, my
three, and four baggage horses, with two drivers engaged for the
journey. The great Kailas range was to be crossed, and the first day's
march up long, barren, stony valleys, without interest, took us to a
piece of level ground, with a small semi-subterranean refuge on which
there was barely room for two tents, at the altitude of the summit of
Mont Blanc. For two hours before we reached it the men and animals
showed great distress. Gyalpo stopped every few yards, gasping, with
blood trickling from his nostrils, and turned his head so as to look at
me, with the question in his eyes, What does this mean? Hassan Khan was
reeling from vertigo, but would not give in; the _seis_, a creature
without pluck, was carried in a blanket slung on my tent poles, and even
the Tibetans suffered. I felt no inconvenience, but as I unsaddled
Gyalpo I was glad that there was no more work to do! This
'mountain-sickness,' called by the natives _ladug_, or 'pass-poison,' is
supposed by them to be the result of the odour or pollen of certain
plants which grow on the passes. Horses and mules are unable to carry
their loads, and men suffer from vertigo, vomiting, violent headache and
bleeding from the nose, mouth, and ears, as well as prostration of
strength, sometimes complete, and occasionally ending fatally.
After a bitterly cold night I was awakened at dawn by novel sounds,
gruntings, and low, resonant bellowing round my tent, and the grey light
revealed several _yaks_ (the _Bos grunniens_, the Tibetan ox), the pride
of the Tibetan highlands. This magnificent animal, though not exceeding
an English shorthorn cow in height, looks gigantic, with his thick
curved horns, his wild eyes glaring from under a mass of curls, his long
thick hair hanging to his fetlocks, and his huge bushy tail. He is
usually black or tawny, but the tail is often white, and is the length
of his long hair. The nose is fine and has a look of breeding as well as
power. He only flourishes at altitudes exceeding 12,000 feet. Even after
generations of semi-domestication he is very wild, and can only be
managed by being led with a rope attached to a ring in the nostrils. He
disdains the plough, but condescends to carry burdens, and numbers of
the Ladak and Nubra people get their living by carrying goods for the
traders on his broad back over the great passes. His legs are very
short, and he has a sensible way of measuring distance with his eyes and
planting his feet, which enables him to carry loads where it might be
supposed that only a goat could climb. He picks up a living anyhow, in
that respect resembling the camel.
He has an uncertain temper, and is not favourably disposed towards his
rider. Indeed, my experience was that just as one was about to mount him
he usually made a lunge at one with his horns. Some of my _yak_ steeds
shied, plunged, kicked, executed fantastic movements on the ledges of
precipices, knocked down their leaders, bellowed defiance, and rushed
madly down mountain sides, leaping from boulder to boulder, till they
landed me among their fellows. The rush of a herd of bellowing _yaks_ at
a wild gallop, waving their huge tails, is a grand sight.
My first _yak_ was fairly quiet, and looked a noble steed, with my
Mexican saddle and gay blanket among rather than upon his thick black
locks. His back seemed as broad as that of an elephant, and with his
slow, sure, resolute step, he was like a mountain in motion. We took
five hours for the ascent of the Digar Pass, our loads and some of us on
_yaks_, some walking, and those who suffered most from the 'pass-poison'
and could not sit on _yaks_ were carried. A number of Tibetans went up
with us. It was a new thing for a European lady to travel in Nubra, and
they took a friendly interest in my getting through all right. The
dreary stretches of the ascent, though at first white with _edelweiss_,
of which the people make their tinder, are surmounted for the most part
by steep, short zigzags of broken stone. The heavens were dark with
snow-showers, the wind was high and the cold severe, and gasping horses,
and men prostrate on their faces unable to move, suggested a
considerable amount of suffering; but all safely reached the summit,
17,930 feet, where in a snowstorm the guides huzzaed, praised their
gods, and tucked rag streamers into a cairn. The loads were replaced on
the horses, and over wastes of ice, across snowfields margined by broad
splashes of rose-red primulas, down desert valleys and along irrigated
hillsides, we descended 3,700 feet to the village of Digar in Nubra,
where under a cloudless sky the mercury stood at 90°!
[Illustration: A CHOD-TEN]
Upper and Lower Nubra consist of the valleys of the Nubra and Shayok
rivers. These are deep, fierce, variable streams, which have buried the
lower levels under great stretches of shingle, patched with jungles of
_hippophaë_ and tamarisk, affording cover for innumerable wolves. Great
lateral torrents descend to these rivers, and on alluvial ridges formed
at the junctions are the villages with their pleasant surroundings of
barley, lucerne, wheat, with poplar and fruit trees, and their
picturesque _gonpos_ crowning spurs of rock above them. The first view
of Nubra is not beautiful. Yellow, absolutely barren mountains, cleft by
yellow gorges, and apparently formed of yellow gravel, the huge rifts in
their sides alone showing their substructure of rock, look as if they
had never been finished, or had been finished so long that they had
returned to chaos. These hem in a valley of grey sand and shingle,
threaded by a greyish stream. From the second view point mountains are
seen descending on a pleasanter part of the Shayok valley in grey,
yellow, or vermilion masses of naked rock, 7,000 and 8,000 feet in
height, above which rise snow-capped peaks sending out fantastic spurs
and buttresses, while the colossal walls of rock are cleft by rifts as
colossal. The central ridge between the Nubra and Upper Shayok valleys
is 20,000 feet in altitude, and on this are superimposed five peaks of
rock, ascertained by survey to be from 24,000 to 25,000 feet in height,
while at one point the eye takes in a nearly vertical height of 14,000
feet from the level of the Shayok River! The Shayok and Nubra valleys
are only five and four miles in width respectively at their widest
parts. The early winter traffic chiefly follows along river beds, then
nearly dry, while summer caravans have to labour along difficult tracks
at great heights, where mud and snow avalanches are common, to climb
dangerous rock ladders, and to cross glaciers and the risky fords of the
Shayok. Nubra is similar in character to Ladak, but it is hotter and
more fertile, the mountains are loftier, the _gonpos_ are more numerous,
and the people are simpler, more religious, and more purely Tibetan. Mr.
Redslob loved Nubra, and as love begets love he received a hearty
welcome at Digar and everywhere else.
The descent to the Shayok River gave us a most severe day of twelve
hours. The river had covered the usual track, and we had to take to
torrent beds and precipice ledges, I on one _yak_, and my tent on
another. In years of travel I have never seen such difficulties.
Eventually at dusk Mr. Redslob, Gergan, the servants, and I descended
on a broad shingle bed by the rushing Shayok; but it was not till dawn
on the following day that, by means of our two _yaks_ and the muleteers,
our baggage and food arrived, the baggage horses being brought down
unloaded, with men holding the head and tail of each. Our saddle horses,
which we led with us, were much cut by falls. Gyalpo fell fully twenty
feet, and got his side laid open. The baggage horses, according to their
owners, had all gone over one precipice, which delayed them five hours.
Below us lay two leaky scows, and eight men from Sati, on the other side
of the Shayok, are pledged to the Government to ferry travellers; but no
amount of shouting and yelling, or burning of brushwood, or even firing,
brought them to the rescue, though their pleasant lights were only a
mile off. Snow fell, the wind was strong and keen, and our tent-pegs
were only kept down by heavy stones. Blankets in abundance were laid
down, yet failed to soften the 'paving stones' on which I slept that
night! We had tea and rice, but our men, whose baggage was astray on the
mountains, were without food for twenty-two hours, positively refusing
to eat our food or cook fresh rice in our cooking pots! To such an
extent has Hindu caste-feeling infected Moslems! The disasters of that
day's march, besides various breakages, were, two servants helpless from
'pass-poison' and bruises; a Ladaki, who had rolled over a precipice,
with a broken arm, and Gergan bleeding from an ugly scalp wound, also
from a fall.
By eight o'clock the next morning the sun was high and brilliant, the
snows of the ravines under its fierce heat were melting fast, and the
river, roaring hoarsely, was a mad rush of grey rapids and grey foam;
but three weeks later in the season, lower down, its many branches are
only two feet deep. This Shayok, which cannot in any way be
circumvented, is the great obstacle on this Yarkand trade route.
Travellers and their goods make the perilous passage in the scow, but
their animals swim, and are often paralysed by the ice-cold water and
drowned. My Moslem servants, white-lipped and trembling, committed
themselves to Allah on the river bank, and the Buddhists worshipped
their sleeve idols. The _gopa_, or headman of Sati, a splendid fellow,
who accompanied us through Nubra, and eight wild-looking, half-naked
satellites, were the Charons of that Styx. They poled and paddled with
yells of excitement; the rapids seized the scow, and carried her
broadside down into hissing and raging surges; then there was a plash, a
leap of maddened water half filling the boat, a struggle, a whirl,
violent efforts, and a united yell, and far down the torrent we were in
smooth water on the opposite shore. The ferrymen recrossed, pulled our
saddle horses by ropes into the river, the _gopa_ held them; again the
scow and her frantic crew, poling, paddling, and yelling, were hurried
broadside down, and as they swept past there were glimpses above and
among the foam-crested surges of the wild-looking heads and drifting
forelocks of two grey horses swimming desperately for their lives,--a
splendid sight. They landed safely, but of the baggage animals one was
sucked under the boat and drowned, and as the others refused to face the
rapids, we had to obtain other transport. A few days later the scow,
which was brought up in pieces from Kashmir on coolies' backs at a cost
of four hundred rupees, was dashed to pieces!
A halt for Sunday in an apricot grove in the pleasant village of Sati
refreshed us all for the long marches which followed, by which we
crossed the Sasir Pass, full of difficulties from snow and glaciers,
which extend for many miles, to the Dipsang Plain, the bleakest and
dreariest of Central Asian wastes, from which the gentle ascent of the
Karakorum Pass rises, and returned, varying our route slightly, to the
pleasant villages of the Nubra valley. Everywhere Mr. Redslob's Tibetan
scholarship, his old-world courtesy, his kindness and adaptability, and
his medical skill, ensured us a welcome the heartiness of which I cannot
describe. The headmen and elders of the villages came to meet us when we
arrived, and escorted us when we left; the monasteries and houses with
the best they contained were thrown open to us; the men sat round our
camp-fires at night, telling stories and local gossip, and asking
questions, everything being translated to me by my kind guide, and so we
actually lived 'among the Tibetans.'