NUBRA
In order to visit Lower Nubra and return to Leh we were obliged to cross
the great fords of the Shayok at the most dangerous season of the year.
This transit had been the bugbear of the journey ever since news reached
us of the destruction of the Sati scow. Mr. Redslob questioned every man
we met on the subject, solemn and noisy conclaves were held upon it
round the camp-fires, it was said that the 'European woman' and her
'spider-legged horse' could never get across, and for days before we
reached the stream, the _chupas_, or government water-guides, made
nightly reports to the village headmen of the state of the waters, which
were steadily rising, the final verdict being that they were only just
practicable for strong horses. To delay till the waters fell was
impossible. Mr. Redslob had engagements in Leh, and I was already
somewhat late for the passage of the lofty passes between Tibet and
British India before the winter, so we decided on crossing with every
precaution which experience could suggest.
At Lagshung, the evening before, the Tibetans made prayers and offerings
for a day cloudy enough to keep the water down, but in the morning from
a cloudless sky a scintillating sun blazed down like a magnesium light,
and every glacier and snowfield sent its tribute torrent to the Shayok.
In crossing a stretch of white sand the solar heat was so fierce that
our European skins were blistered through our clothing. We halted at
Lagshung, at the house of a friendly _zemindar_, who pressed upon me the
loan of a big Yarkand horse for the ford, a kindness which nearly proved
fatal; and then by shingle paths through lacerating thickets of the
horrid _Hippophaë rhamnoides_, we reached a _chod-ten_ on the shingly
bank of the river, where the Tibetans renewed their prayers and
offerings, and the final orders for the crossing were issued. We had
twelve horses, carrying only quarter loads each, all led; the servants
were mounted, 'water-guides' with ten-foot poles sounded the river
ahead, one led Mr. Redslob's horse (the rider being bare-legged) in
front of mine with a long rope, and two more led mine, while the _gopas_
of three villages and the _zemindar_ steadied my horse against the
stream. The water-guides only wore girdles, and with elf-locks and
pigtails streaming from their heads, and their uncouth yells and wild
gesticulations, they looked true river-demons.
[Illustration: A LAMA]
The Shayok presented an expanse of eight branches and a main stream,
divided by shallows and shingle banks, the whole a mile and a half in
width. On the brink the _chupas_ made us all drink good draughts of the
turbid river water, 'to prevent giddiness,' they said, and they added
that I must not think them rude if they dashed water at my face
frequently with the same object. Hassan Khan, and Mando, who was livid
with fright, wore dark-green goggles, that they might not see the
rapids. In the second branch the water reached the horses' bodies, and
my animal tottered and swerved. There were bursts of wild laughter, not
merriment but excitement, accompanied by yells as the streams grew
fiercer, a loud chorus of _Kabadar! Sharbaz!_ ('Caution!' 'Well done!')
was yelled to encourage the horses, and the boom and hiss of the Shayok
made a wild accompaniment. Gyalpo, for whose legs of steel I longed,
frolicked as usual, making mirthful lunges at his leader when the pair
halted. Hassan Khan, in the deepest branch, shakily said to me, 'I not
afraid, Mem Sahib.' During the hour spent in crossing the eight
branches, I thought that the risk had been exaggerated, and that
giddiness was the chief peril.
But when we halted, cold and dripping, on the shingle bank of the main
stream I changed my mind. A deep, fierce, swirling rapid, with a calmer
depth below its farther bank, and fully a quarter of a mile wide, was
yet to be crossed. The business was serious. All the _chupas_ went up
and down, sounding, long before they found a possible passage. All loads
were raised higher, the men roped their soaked clothing on their
shoulders, water was dashed repeatedly at our faces, girths were
tightened, and then, with shouts and yells, the whole caravan plunged
into deep water, strong, and almost ice-cold. Half an hour was spent in
that devious ford, without any apparent progress, for in the dizzy swirl
the horses simply seemed treading the water backwards. Louder grew the
yells as the torrent raged more hoarsely, the chorus of _kabadar_ grew
frantic, the water was up to the men's armpits and the seat of my
saddle, my horse tottered and swerved several times, the nearing shore
presented an abrupt bank underscooped by the stream. There was a deeper
plunge, an encouraging shout, and Mr. Redslob's strong horse leapt the
bank. The _gopas_ encouraged mine; he made a desperate effort, but fell
short and rolled over backwards into the Shayok with his rider under
him. A struggle, a moment of suffocation, and I was extricated by strong
arms, to be knocked down again by the rush of the water, to be again
dragged up and hauled and hoisted up the crumbling bank. I escaped with
a broken rib and some severe bruises, but the horse was drowned. Mr.
Redslob, who had thought that my life could not be saved, and the
Tibetans were so distressed by the accident that I made very light of
it, and only took one day of rest. The following morning some men and
animals were carried away, and afterwards the ford was impassable for a
fortnight. Such risks are among the amenities of the great trade route
from India into Central Asia!
[Illustration: THREE GOPAS]
The Lower Nubra valley is wilder and narrower than the Upper, its
apricot orchards more luxuriant, its wolf-haunted _hippophaë_ and
tamarisk thickets more dense. Its villages are always close to ravines,
the mouths of which are filled with _chod-tens_, _manis_, prayer-wheels,
and religious buildings. Access to them is usually up the stony beds of
streams over-arched by apricots. The camping-grounds are apricot
orchards. The apricot foliage is rich, and the fruit small but
delicious. The largest fruit tree I saw measured nine feet six inches in
girth six feet from the ground. Strangers are welcome to eat as much of
the fruit as they please, provided that they return the stones to the
proprietor. It is true that Nubra exports dried apricots, and the women
were splitting and drying the fruit on every house roof, but the special
_raison d'être_ of the tree is the clear, white, fragrant, and highly
illuminating oil made from the kernels by the simple process of crushing
them between two stones. In every _gonpo_ temple a silver bowl holding
from four to six gallons is replenished annually with this
almond-scented oil for the ever-burning light before the shrine of
Buddha. It is used for lamps, and very largely in cookery. Children,
instead of being washed, are rubbed daily with it, and on being weaned
at the age of four or five, are fed for some time, or rather crammed,
with balls of barley-meal made into a paste with it.
At Hundar, a superbly situated village, which we visited twice, we were
received at the house of Gergan the monk, who had accompanied us
throughout. He is a _zemindar_, and the large house in which he made us
welcome stands in his own patrimony. Everything was prepared for us. The
mud floors were swept, cotton quilts were laid down on the balconies,
blue cornflowers and marigolds, cultivated for religious ornament, were
in all the rooms, and the women were in gala dress and loaded with
coarse jewellery. Right hearty was the welcome. Mr. Redslob loved, and
therefore was loved. The Tibetans to him were not 'natives,' but
brothers. He drew the best out of them. Their superstitions and beliefs
were not to him 'rubbish,' but subjects for minute investigation and
study. His courtesy to all was frank and dignified. In his dealings he
was scrupulously just. He was intensely interested in their interests.
His Tibetan scholarship and knowledge of Tibetan sacred literature gave
him almost the standing of an abbot among them, and his medical skill
and knowledge, joyfully used for their benefit on former occasions, had
won their regard. So at Hundar, as everywhere else, the elders came out
to meet us and cut the apricot branches away on our road, and the silver
horns of the _gonpo_ above brayed a dissonant welcome. Along the Indus
valley the servants of Englishmen beat the Tibetans, in the Shayok and
Nubra valleys the Yarkand traders beat and cheat them, and the women are
shy with strangers, but at Hundar they were frank and friendly with me,
saying, as many others had said, 'We will trust any one who comes with
the missionary.'
Gergan's home was typical of the dwellings of the richer cultivators and
landholders. It was a large, rambling, three-storeyed house, the lower
part of stone, the upper of huge sun-dried bricks. It was adorned with
projecting windows and brown wooden balconies. Fuel--the dried excreta
of animals--is too scarce to be used for any but cooking purposes, and
on these balconies in the severe cold of winter the people sit to imbibe
the warm sunshine. The rooms were large, ceiled with peeled poplar rods,
and floored with split white pebbles set in clay. There was a temple on
the roof, and in it, on a platform, were life-size images of Buddha,
seated in eternal calm, with his downcast eyes and mild Hindu face, the
thousand-armed Chan-ra-zigs (the great Mercy), Jam-pal-yangs (the
Wisdom), and Chag-na-dorje (the Justice). In front on a table or altar
were seven small lamps, burning apricot oil, and twenty small brass
cups, containing minute offerings of rice and other things, changed
daily. There were prayer-wheels, cymbals, horns and drums, and a
prayer-cylinder six feet high, which it took the strength of two men to
turn. On a shelf immediately below the idols were the brazen sceptre,
bell, and thunderbolt, a brass lotus blossom, and the spouted brass
flagon decorated with peacocks' feathers, which is used at baptisms, and
for pouring holy water upon the hands at festivals. In houses in which
there is not a roof temple the best room is set apart for religious use
and for these divinities, which are always surrounded with musical
instruments and symbols of power, and receive worship and offerings
daily, Tibetan Buddhism being a religion of the family and household. In
his family temple Gergan offered gifts and thanks for the deliverances
of the journey. He had been assisting Mr. Redslob for two years in the
translation of the New Testament, and had wept over the love and
sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. He had even desired that his son
should receive baptism and be brought up as a Christian, but for
himself he 'could not break with custom and his ancestral creed.'
In the usual living-room of the family a platform, raised only a few
inches, ran partly round the wall. In the middle of the floor there was
a clay fireplace, with a prayer-wheel and some clay and brass cooking
pots upon it. A few shelves, fire-bars for roasting barley, a wooden
churn, and some spinning arrangements were the furniture. A number of
small dark rooms used for sleeping and storage opened from this, and
above were the balconies and reception rooms. Wooden posts supported the
roofs, and these were wreathed with lucerne, the first fruits of the
field. Narrow, steep staircases in all Tibetan houses lead to the family
rooms. In winter the people live below, alongside of the animals and
fodder. In summer they sleep in loosely built booths of poplar branches
on the roof. Gergan's roof was covered, like others at the time, to the
depth of two feet, with hay, i.e. grass and lucerne, which are wound
into long ropes, experience having taught the Tibetans that their scarce
fodder is best preserved thus from breakage and waste. I bought hay by
the yard for Gyalpo.
Our food in this hospitable house was simple--apricots, fresh, or dried
and stewed with honey; _zho's_ milk, curds and cheese, sour cream, peas,
beans, balls of barley dough, barley porridge, and 'broth of abominable
things.' _Chang_, a dirty-looking beer made from barley, was offered
with each meal, and tea frequently, but I took my own 'on the sly.' I
have mentioned a churn as part of the 'plenishings' of the living-room.
In Tibet the churn is used for making tea! I give the recipe. 'For six
persons. Boil a teacupful of tea in three pints of water for ten minutes
with a heaped dessert-spoonful of soda. Put the infusion into the chum
with one pound of butter and a small tablespoonful of salt. Churn until
as thick as cream.' Tea made after this fashion holds the second place
to _chang_ in Tibetan affections. The butter according to our thinking
is always rancid, the mode of making it is uncleanly, and it always has
a rank flavour from the goatskin in which it was kept. Its value is
enhanced by age. I saw skins of it forty, fifty, and even sixty years
old, which were very highly prized, and would only be opened at some
special family festival or funeral.
During the three days of our visits to Hundar both men and women wore
their festival dresses, and apparently abandoned most of their ordinary
occupations in our honour. The men were very anxious that I should be
'amused,' and made many grotesque suggestions on the subject. 'Why is
the European woman always writing or sewing?' they asked. 'Is she very
poor, or has she made a vow?' Visits to some of the neighbouring
monasteries were eventually proposed, and turned out most interesting.
The monastery of Deskyid, to which we made a three days' expedition, is
from its size and picturesque situation the most imposing in Nubra.
Built on a majestic spur of rock rising on one side 2,000 feet
perpendicularly from a torrent, the spur itself having an altitude of
11,000 feet, with red peaks, snow-capped, rising to a height of over
20,000 feet behind the vast irregular pile of red, white, and yellow
temples, towers, storehouses, cloisters, galleries, and balconies,
rising for 300 feet one above another, hanging over chasms, built out on
wooden buttresses, and surmounted with flags, tridents, and _yaks'_
tails, a central tower or keep dominating the whole, it is perhaps the
most picturesque object I have ever seen, well worth the crossing of the
Shayok fords, my painful accident, and much besides. It looks
inaccessible, but in fact can be attained by rude zigzags of a thousand
steps of rock, some natural, others roughly hewn, getting worse and
worse as they rise higher, till the later zigzags suggest the
difficulties of the ascent of the Great Pyramid. The day was fearfully
hot, 99° in the shade, and the naked, shining surfaces of purple rock
with a metallic lustre radiated heat. My 'gallant grey' took me up
half-way--a great feat--and the Tibetans cheered and shouted
'_Sharbaz!_' ('Well done!') as he pluckily leapt up the great slippery
rock ledges. After I dismounted, any number of willing hands hauled and
helped me up the remaining horrible ascent, the rugged rudeness of which
is quite indescribable. The inner entrance is a gateway decorated with a
_yak's_ head and many Buddhist emblems. High above, on a rude gallery,
fifty monks were gathered with their musical instruments. As soon as the
_Kan-po_ or abbot, Punt-sog-sogman (the most perfect Merit), received us
at the gate, the monkish orchestra broke forth in a tornado of sound of
a most tremendous and thrilling quality, which was all but overwhelming,
as the mountain echoes took up and prolonged the sound of fearful blasts
on six-foot silver horns, the bellowing thunder of six-foot drums, the
clash of cymbals, and the dissonance of a number of monster gongs. It
was not music, but it was sublime. The blasts on the horns are to
welcome a great personage, and such to the monks who despised his
teaching was the devout and learned German missionary. Mr. Redslob
explained that I had seen much of Buddhism in Ceylon and Japan, and
wished to see their temples. So with our train of _gopas_, _zemindar_,
peasants, and muleteers, we mounted to a corridor full of _lamas_ in
ragged red dresses, yellow girdles, and yellow caps, where we were
presented with plates of apricots, and the door of the lowest of the
seven temples heavily grated backwards.
[Illustration: SOME INSTRUMENTS OF BUDDHIST WORSHIP]
The first view, and indeed the whole view of this temple of _Wrath_ or
_Justice_, was suggestive of a frightful _Inferno_, with its rows of
demon gods, hideous beyond Western conception, engaged in torturing
writhing and bleeding specimens of humanity. Demon masks of ancient
lacquer hung from the pillars, naked swords gleamed in motionless hands,
and in a deep recess whose 'darkness' was rendered 'visible' by one
lamp, was that indescribable horror the executioner of the Lord of Hell,
his many brandished arms holding instruments of torture, and before him
the bell, the thunderbolt and sceptre, the holy water, and the baptismal
flagon. Our joss-sticks fumed on the still air, monks waved censers, and
blasts of dissonant music woke the semi-subterranean echoes. In this
temple of Justice the younger _lamas_ spend some hours daily in the
supposed contemplation of the torments reserved for the unholy. In the
highest temple, that of Peace, the summer sunshine fell on Shakya Thubba
and the Buddhist triad seated in endless serenity. The walls were
covered with frescoes of great _lamas_, and a series of alcoves, each
with an image representing an incarnation of Buddha, ran round the
temple. In a chapel full of monstrous images and piles of medallions
made of the ashes of 'holy' men, the sub-abbot was discoursing to the
acolytes on the religious classics. In the chapel of meditations, among
lighted incense sticks, monks seated before images were telling their
beads with the object of working themselves into a state of ecstatic
contemplation (somewhat resembling a certain hypnotic trance), for there
are undoubtedly devout _lamas_, though the majority are idle and unholy.
It must be understood that all Tibetan literature is 'sacred,' though
some of the volumes of exquisite calligraphy on parchment, which for our
benefit were divested of their silken and brocaded wrappings, contain
nothing better than fairy tales and stories of doubtful morality, which
are recited by the _lamas_ to the accompaniment of incessant cups of
_chang_, as a religious duty when they visit their 'flocks' in the
winter.
The Deskyid _gonpo_ contains 150 _lamas_, all of whom have been educated
at Lhassa. A younger son in every household becomes a monk, and
occasionally enters upon his vocation as an acolyte pupil as soon as
weaned. At the age of thirteen these acolytes are sent to study at
Lhassa for five or seven years, their departure being made the occasion
of a great village feast, with several days of religious observances.
The close connection with Lhassa, especially in the case of the yellow
_lamas_, gives Nubra Buddhism a singular interest. All the larger
_gonpos_ have their prototype in Lhassa, all ceremonial has originated
in Lhassa, every instrument of worship has been consecrated in Lhassa,
and every _lama_ is educated in the learning only to be obtained at
Lhassa. Buddhism is indeed the most salient feature of Nubra. There are
_gonpos_ everywhere, the roads are lined by miles of _chod-tens_,
_manis_, and prayer-mills, and flags inscribed with sacred words in
Sanskrit flutter from every roof. There are processions of red and
yellow _lamas_; 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
closely linked with the laity, yet ruling all affairs of life and death
and beyond death, are all connected by education, tradition, and
authority with Lhassa.
We remained long on the blazing roof of the highest tower of the
_gonpo_, while good Mr. Redslob disputed with the abbot 'concerning the
things pertaining to the kingdom of God.' The monks standing round
laughed sneeringly. They had shown a little interest, Mr. R. said, on
his earlier visits. The abbot accepted a copy of the Gospel of St. John.
'St. Matthew,' he observed, 'is very laughable reading.' Blasts of wild
music and the braying of colossal horns honoured our departure, and our
difficult descent to the apricot groves of Deskyid. On our return to
Hundar the grain was ripe on Gergan's fields. The first ripe ears were
cut off, offered to the family divinity, and were then bound to the
pillars of the house. In the comparatively fertile Nubra valley the
wheat and barley are cut, not rooted up. While they cut the grain the
men chant, 'May it increase, We will give to the poor, we will give to
the _lamas_,' with every stroke. They believe that it can be made to
multiply both under the sickle and in the threshing, and perform many
religious rites for its increase while it is in sheaves. After eight
days the corn is trodden out by oxen on a threshing-floor renewed every
year. After winnowing with wooden forks, they make the grain into a
pyramid, insert a sacred symbol, and pile upon it the threshing
instruments and sacks, erecting an axe on the apex with its blade turned
to the west, as that is the quarter from which demons are supposed to
come. In the afternoon they feast round it, always giving a portion to
the axe, saying, 'It is yours, it belongs not to me.' At dusk they pour
it into the sacks again, chanting, 'May it increase.' But these are not
removed to the granary until late at night, at an hour when the hands of
the demons are too much benumbed by the nightly frost to diminish the
store. At the beginning of every one of these operations the presence of
_lamas_ is essential, to announce the auspicious moment, and conduct
religious ceremonies. They receive fees, and are regaled with abundant
_chang_ and the fat of the land.
In Hundar, as elsewhere, we were made very welcome in all the houses. I
have described the dwelling of Gergan. The poorer peasants occupy
similar houses, but roughly built, and only two-storeyed, and the floors
are merely clay. In them also the very numerous lower rooms are used for
cattle and fodder only, while the upper part consists of an inner or
winter room, an outer or supper room, a verandah room, and a family
temple. Among their rude plenishings are large stone corn chests like
sarcophagi, stone bowls from Baltistan, cauldrons, cooking pots, a
tripod, wooden bowls, spoons, and dishes, earthen pots, and _yaks_' and
sheep's packsaddles. The garments of the household are kept in long
wooden boxes.
Family life presents some curious features. In the disposal in marriage
of a girl, her eldest brother has more 'say' than the parents. The
eldest son brings home the bride to his father's house, but at a given
age the old people are 'shelved,' i.e. they retire to a small house,
which may be termed a 'jointure house,' and the eldest son assumes the
patrimony and the rule of affairs. I have not met with a similar custom
anywhere in the East. It is difficult to speak of Tibetan life, with all
its affection and jollity, as '_family life_,' for Buddhism, which
enjoins monastic life, and usually celibacy along with it, on eleven
thousand out of a total population of a hundred and twenty thousand,
farther restrains the increase of population within the limits of
sustenance by inculcating and rigidly upholding the system of polyandry,
permitting marriage only to the eldest son, the heir of the land, while
the bride accepts all his brothers as inferior or subordinate husbands,
thus attaching the whole family to the soil and family roof-tree, the
children being regarded legally as the property of the eldest son, who
is addressed by them as 'Big Father,' his brothers receiving the title
of 'Little Father.' The resolute determination, on economic as well as
religious grounds, not to abandon this ancient custom, is the most
formidable obstacle in the way of the reception of Christianity by the
Tibetans. The women cling to it. They say, 'We have three or four men to
help us instead of one,' and sneer at the dulness and monotony of
European, monogamous life! A woman said to me, 'If I had only one
husband, and he died, I should be a widow; if I have two or three I am
never a widow!' The word 'widow' is with them a term of reproach, and is
applied abusively to animals and men. Children are brought up to be very
obedient to fathers and mother, and to take great care of little ones
and cattle. Parental affection is strong. Husbands and wives beat each
other, but separation usually follows a violent outbreak of this kind.
It is the custom for the men and women of a village to assemble when a
bride enters the house of her husbands, each of them presenting her with
three rupees. The Tibetan wife, far from spending these gifts on
personal adornment, looks ahead, contemplating possible contingencies,
and immediately hires a field, the produce of which is her own, and
which accumulates year after year in a separate granary, so that she may
not be portionless in case she leaves her husband!
[Illustration: MONASTIC BUILDINGS AT BASGU]
It was impossible not to become attached to the Nubra people, we lived
so completely among them, and met with such unbounded goodwill. Feasts
were given in our honour, every _gonpo_ was open to us, monkish blasts
on colossal horns brayed out welcomes, and while nothing could exceed
the helpfulness and alacrity of kindness shown by all, there was not a
thought or suggestion of _backsheesh_. The men of the villages always
sat by our camp-fires at night, friendly and jolly, but never obtrusive,
telling stories, discussing local news and the oppressions exercised by
the Kashmiri officials, the designs of Russia, the advance of the
Central Asian Railway, and what they consider as the weakness of the
Indian Government in not annexing the provinces of the northern
frontier. Many of their ideas and feelings are akin to ours, and a
mutual understanding is not only possible, but inevitable[1].
[1] Mr. Redslob said that when on different occasions he was smitten by
heavy sorrows, he felt no difference between the Tibetan feeling and
expression of sympathy and that of Europeans. A stronger testimony to
the effect produced by his twenty-five years of loving service could
scarcely be given than our welcome in Nubra. During the dangerous
illness which followed, anxious faces thronged his humble doorway as
early as break of day, and the stream of friendly inquiries never ceased
till sunset, and when he died the people of Ladak and Nubra wept and
'made a great mourning for him,' as for their truest friend.
Industry in Nubra is the condition of existence, and both sexes work
hard enough to give a great zest to the holidays on religious festival
days. Whether in the house or journeying the men are never seen without
the distaff. They weave also, and make the clothes of the women and
children! The people are all cultivators, and make money also by
undertaking the transit of the goods of the Yarkand traders over the
lofty passes. The men plough with the _zho_, or hybrid _yak_, and the
women break the clods and share in all other agricultural operations.
The soil, destitute of manure, which is dried and hoarded for fuel,
rarely produces more than tenfold. The 'three acres and a cow' is with
them four acres of alluvial soil to a family on an average, with 'runs'
for _yaks_ and sheep on the mountains. The farms, planted with apricot
and other fruit trees, a prolific loose-grained barley, wheat, peas, and
lucerne, are oases in the surrounding deserts. The people export apricot
oil, dried apricots, sheep's wool, heavy undyed woollens, a coarse cloth
made from _yaks'_ hair, and _pashm_, the under fleece of the shawl goat.
They complained, and I think with good reason, of the merciless
exactions of the Kashmiri officials, but there were no evidences of
severe poverty, and not one beggar was seen.
It was not an easy matter to get back to Leh. The rise of the Shayok
made it impossible to reach and return by the Digar Pass, and the
alternative route over the Kharzong glacier continued for some time
impracticable--that is, it was perfectly smooth ice. At length the news
came that a fall of snow had roughened its surface. A number of men
worked for two days at scaffolding a path, and with great difficulty,
and the loss of one _yak_ from a falling rock, a fruitful source of
fatalities in Tibet, we reached Khalsar, where with great regret we
parted with _Tse-ring-don-drub_ (Life's purpose fulfilled), the _gopa_
of Sati, whose friendship had been a real pleasure, and to whose courage
and promptitude, in Mr. Redslob's opinion, I owed my rescue from
drowning. Two days of very severe marching and long and steep ascents
brought us to the wretched hamlet of Kharzong Lar-sa, in a snowstorm, at
an altitude higher than the summit of Mont Blanc. The servants were all
ill of 'pass-poison,' and crept into a cave along with a number of big
Tibetan mastiffs, where they enjoyed the comfort of semi-suffocation
till the next morning, Mr. R. and I, with some willing Tibetan helpers,
pitching our own tents. The wind was strong and keen, and with the
mercury down at 15° Fahrenheit it was impossible to do anything but to
go to bed in the early afternoon, and stay there till the next day. Mr.
Redslob took a severe chill, which produced an alarming attack of
pleurisy, from the effects of which he never fully recovered.
We started on a grim snowy morning, with six _yaks_ carrying our baggage
or ridden by ourselves, four led horses, and a number of Tibetans,
several more having been sent on in advance to cut steps in the glacier
and roughen them with gravel. Within certain limits the ground grows
greener as one ascends, and we passed upwards among primulas, asters, a
large blue myosotis, gentians, potentillas, and great sheets of
_edelweiss_. At the glacier foot we skirted a deep green lake on snow
with a glorious view of the Kharzong glacier and the pass, a nearly
perpendicular wall of rock, bearing up a steep glacier and a snowfield
of great width and depth, above which tower pinnacles of naked rock. It
presented to all appearance an impassable barrier rising 2,500 feet
above the lake, grand and awful in the dazzling whiteness of the
new-fallen snow. Thanks to the ice steps our _yaks_ took us over in four
hours without a false step, and from the summit, a sharp ridge 17,500
feet in altitude, we looked our last on grimness, blackness, and snow,
and southward for many a weary mile to the Indus valley lying in
sunshine and summer. Fully two dozen carcases of horses newly dead lay
in cavities of the glacier. Our animals were ill of 'pass-poison,' and
nearly blind, and I was obliged to ride my _yak_ into Leh, a severe
march of thirteen hours, down miles of crumbling zigzags, and then among
villages of irrigated terraces, till the grand view of the Gyalpo's
palace, with its air-hung _gonpo_ and clustering _chod-tens_, and of the
desert city itself, burst suddenly upon us, and our benumbed and
stiffened limbs thawed in the hot sunshine. I pitched my tent in a
poplar grove for a fortnight, near the Moravian compounds and close to
the travellers' bungalow, in which is a British Postal Agency, with a
Tibetan postmaster who speaks English, a Christian, much trusted and
respected, named Joldan, in whose intelligence, kindness, and friendship
I found both interest and pleasure.
[Illustration: THE YAK (_Bos grunniens_)]