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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4244.txt b/4244.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d95aac8 --- /dev/null +++ b/4244.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2930 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Among the Tibetans +by Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop) +(#4 in our series by Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop) + + +***************************************************************** +THERE IS AN ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF THIS TITLE WHICH MAY BE VIEWED +AS EBOOK ( # 41635 ) at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41635 +***************************************************************** + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + +AMONG THE TIBETANS + + + + +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 Panjab 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 Panjabi; 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 +khitmatgar. + +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. + +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, via 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 facade 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 degrees 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. + +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 +seventies of the journey to Lesser Tibet. + +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 Panjab 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 Panjab 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 slopes 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 2s. 3d., 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.' + + + +CHAPTER II--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. + +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. + +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 1d. to 1s. 4d., 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 degrees to 130 degrees, 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. + +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. + +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 Panjab, 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 swash buckler, 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 degrees! + +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 hippophae 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.' + + + +CHAPTER III--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 Hippophae 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 pig-tails streaming +from their heads, and their uncouth yells and wild gesticulations, +they looked true river-demons. + +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! + +The Lower Nubra valley is wilder and narrower than the Upper, its +apricot orchards more luxuriant, its wolf-haunted hippophae 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'etre 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 exereta 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 +firstfruits 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 churn 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 degrees 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. + +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! + +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} + +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 degrees 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 caresses 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. + + + +CHAPTER IV--MANNERS AND CUSTOMS + + + +Joldan, the Tibetan British postmaster in Leh, is a Christian of +spotless reputation. Every one places unlimited confidence in his +integrity and truthfulness, and his religious sincerity has been +attested by many sacrifices. He is a Ladaki, and the family property +was at Stok, a few miles from Leh. He was baptized in Lahul at +twenty-three, his father having been a Christian. He learned Urdu, +and was for ten years mission schoolmaster in Kylang, but returned to +Leh a few years ago as postmaster. His 'ancestral dwelling' at Stok +was destroyed by order of the wazir, and his property confiscated, +after many unsuccessful efforts had been made to win him back to +Buddhism. Afterwards he was detained by the wazir, and compelled to +serve as a sepoy, till Mr. Heyde went to the council and obtained his +release. His house in Leh has been more than once burned by +incendiaries. But he pursues a quiet, even course, brings up his +family after the best Christian traditions, refuses Buddhist suitors +for his daughters, unobtrusively but capably helps the Moravian +missionaries, supports his family by steady industry, although of +noble birth, and asks nothing of any one. His 'good morning' and +'good night,' as he daily passed my tent with clockwork regularity, +were full of cheery friendliness; he gave much useful information +about Tibetan customs, and his ready helpfulness greatly facilitated +the difficult arrangements for my farther journey. + +The Leh, which I had left so dull and quiet, was full of strangers, +traffic, and noise. The neat little Moravian church was filled by a +motley crowd each Sunday, in which the few Christians were +distinguishable by their clean faces and clothes and their devout +air; and the Medical Mission Hospital and Dispensary, which in winter +have an average attendance of only a hundred patients a month, were +daily thronged with natives of India and Kashmir, Baltis, Yarkandis, +Dards, and Tibetans. In my visits with Dr. Marx I observed, what was +confirmed by four months' experience of the Tibetan villagers, that +rheumatism, inflamed eyes and eyelids, and old age are the chief +Tibetan maladies. Some of the Dards and Baltis were lepers, and the +natives of India brought malarial fever, dysentery, and other serious +diseases. The hospital, which is supported by the Indian Government, +is most comfortable, a haven of rest for those who fall sick by the +way. The hospital assistants are intelligent, thoroughly kind- +hearted young Tibetans, who, by dint of careful drilling and an +affectionate desire to please 'the teacher with the medicine box,' +have become fairly trustworthy. They are not Christians. + +In the neat dispensary at 9 a.m. a gong summons the patients to the +operating room for a short religious service. Usually about fifty +were present, and a number more, who had some curiosity about 'the +way,' but did not care to be seen at Christian worship, hung about +the doorways. Dr. Marx read a few verses from the Gospels, +explaining them in a homely manner, and concluded with the Lord's +Prayer. Then the out-patients were carefully and gently treated, +leprous limbs were bathed and anointed, the wards were visited at +noon and again at sunset, and in the afternoons operations were +performed with the most careful antiseptic precautions, which are +supposed to be used for the purpose of keeping away evil spirits from +the wounds! The Tibetans, in practice, are very simple in their +applications of medical remedies. Rubbing with butter is their great +panacea. They have a dread of small-pox, and instead of burning its +victims they throw them into their rapid torrents. If an isolated +case occur, the sufferer is carried to a mountain-top, where he is +left to recover or die. If a small-pox epidemic is in the province, +the people of the villages in which it has not yet appeared place +thorns on their bridges and boundaries, to scare away the evil +spirits which are supposed to carry the disease. In ordinary +illnesses, if butter taken internally as well as rubbed into the skin +does not cure the patient, the lamas are summoned to the rescue. +They make a mitsap, a half life-size figure of the sick person, dress +it in his or her clothes and ornaments, and place it in the +courtyard, where they sit round it, reading passages from the sacred +classics fitted for the occasion. After a time, all rise except the +superior lama, who continues reading, and taking small drums in their +left hands, they recite incantations, and dance wildly round the +mitsap, believing, or at least leading the people to believe, that by +this ceremony the malady, supposed to be the work of a demon, will be +transferred to the image. Afterwards the clothes and ornaments are +presented to them, and the figure is carried in procession out of the +yard and village and is burned. If the patient becomes worse, the +friends are apt to resort to the medical skill of the missionaries. +If he dies they are blamed, and if he recovers the lamas take the +credit. + +At some little distance outside Leh are the cremation grounds--desert +places, destitute of any other vegetation than the Caprifolia +horrida. Each family has its furnace kept in good repair. The place +is doleful, and a funeral scene on the only sunless day I experienced +in Ladak was indescribably dismal. After death no one touches the +corpse but the lamas, who assemble in numbers in the case of a rich +man. The senior lama offers the first prayers, and lifts the lock +which all Tibetans wear at the back of the head, in order to liberate +the soul if it is still clinging to the body. At the same time he +touches the region of the heart with a dagger. The people believe +that a drop of blood on the head marks the spot where the soul has +made its exit. Any good clothing in which the person has died is +then removed. The blacksmith beats a drum, and the corpse, covered +with a white sheet next the dress and a coloured one above, is +carried out of the house to be worshipped by the relatives, who walk +seven times round it. The women then retire to the house, and the +chief lama recites liturgical passages from the formularies. +Afterwards, the relatives retire, and the corpse is carried to the +burning-ground by men who have the same tutelar deity as the +deceased. The leading lama walks first, then come men with flags, +followed by the blacksmith with the drum, and next the corpse, with +another man beating a drum behind it. Meanwhile, the lamas are +praying for the repose and quieting of the soul, which is hovering +about, desiring to return. The attendant friends, each of whom has +carried a piece of wood to the burning-ground, arrange the fuel with +butter on the furnace, the corpse wrapped in the white sheet is put +in, and fire is applied. The process of destruction in a rich man's +case takes about an hour. During the burning the lamas read in high, +hoarse monotones, and the blacksmiths beat their drums. The lamas +depart first, and the blacksmiths, after worshipping the ashes, +shout, 'Have nothing to do with us now,' and run rapidly away. At +dawn the following day, a man whose business it is searches among the +ashes for the footprints of animals, and according to the footprints +found, so it is believed will be the re-birth of the soul. + +Some of the ashes are taken to the gonpos, where the lamas mix them +with clay, put them into oval or circular moulds, and stamp them with +the image of Buddha. These are preserved in chod-tens, and in the +house of the nearest relative of the deceased; but in the case of +'holy' men, they are retained in the gonpos, where they can be +purchased by the devout. After a cremation much chang is consumed by +the friends, who make presents to the bereaved family. The value of +each is carefully entered in a book, so that a precise return may be +made when a similar occasion occurs. Until the fourth day after +death it is believed to be impossible to quiet the soul. On that day +a piece of paper is inscribed with prayers and requests to the soul +to be quiet, and this is burned by the lamas with suitable +ceremonies; and rites of a more or less elaborate kind are afterwards +performed for the repose of the soul, accompanied with prayers that +it may get 'a good path' for its re-birth, and food is placed in +conspicuous places about the house, that it may understand that its +relatives are willing to support it. The mourners for some time wear +wretched clothes, and neither dress their hair nor wash their faces. +Every year the lamas sell by auction the clothing and ornaments, +which are their perquisites at funerals. {2} + +The Moravian missionaries have opened a school in Leh, and the wazir, +finding that the Leh people are the worst educated in the country, +ordered that one child at least in each family should be sent to it. +This awakened grave suspicions, and the people hunted for reasons for +it. 'The boys are to be trained as porters, and made to carry +burdens over the mountains,' said some. 'Nay,' said others, 'they +are to be sent to England and made Christians of.' [All foreigners, +no matter what their nationality is, are supposed to be English.] +Others again said, 'They are to be kidnapped,' and so the decree was +ignored, till Mr. Redslob and Dr. Marx went among the parents and +explained matters, and a large attendance was the result; for the +Tibetans of the trade route have come to look upon the acquisition of +'foreign learning' as the stepping-stone to Government appointments +at ten rupees per month. Attendance on religious instruction was +left optional, but after a time sixty pupils were regularly present +at the daily reading and explanation of the Gospels. Tibetan fathers +teach their sons to write, to read the sacred classics, and to +calculate with a frame of balls on wires. If farther instruction is +thought desirable, the boys are sent to the lamas, and even to the +schools at Lhassa. The Tibetans willingly receive and read +translations of our Christian books, and some go so far as to think +that their teachings are 'stronger' than those of their own, +indicating their opinions by tearing pages out of the Gospels and +rolling them up into pills, which are swallowed in the belief that +they are an effective charm. Sorcery is largely used in the +treatment of the sick. The books which instruct in the black art are +known as 'black books.' Those which treat of medicine are termed +'blue books.' Medical knowledge is handed down from father to son. +The doctors know the virtues of in any of the plants of the country, +quantities of which they mix up together while reciting magical +formulas. + +I was heartily sorry to leave Leh, with its dazzling skies and +abounding colour and movement, its stirring topics of talk, and the +culture and exceeding kindness of the Moravian missionaries. +Helpfulness was the rule. Gergan came over the Kharzong glacier on +purpose to bring me a prayer-wheel; Lob-sang and Tse-ring-don-drub, +the hospital assistants, made me a tent carpet of yak's hair cloth, +singing as they sewed; and Joldan helped to secure transport for the +twenty-two days' journey to Kylang. Leh has few of what Europeans +regard as travelling necessaries. The brick tea which I purchased +from a Lhassa trader was disgusting. I afterwards understood that +blood is used in making up the blocks. The flour was gritty, and a +leg of mutton turned out to be a limb of a goat of much experience. +There were no straps, or leather to make them of, in the bazaar, and +no buckles; and when the latter were provided by Mr. Redslob, the old +man who came to sew them upon a warm rug which I had made for Gyalpo +out of pieces of carpet and hair-cloth put them on wrongly three +times, saying after each failure, 'I'm very foolish. Foreign ways +are so wonderful!' At times the Tibetans say, 'We're as stupid as +oxen,' and I was inclined to think so, as I stood for two hours +instructing the blacksmith about making shoes for Gyalpo, which kept +turning out either too small for a mule or too big for a dray-horse. + +I obtained two Lahul muleteers with four horses, quiet, obliging men, +and two superb yaks, which were loaded with twelve days' hay and +barley for my horse. Provisions for the whole party for the same +time had to be carried, for the route is over an uninhabited and arid +desert. Not the least important part of my outfit was a letter from +Mr. Redslob to the headman or chief of the Chang-pas or Champas, the +nomadic tribes of Rupchu, to whose encampment I purposed to make a +detour. These nomads had on two occasions borrowed money from the +Moravian missionaries for the payment of the Kashmiri tribute, and +had repaid it before it was due, showing much gratitude for the +loans. + +Dr. Marx accompanied me for the three first days. The few native +Christians in Leh assembled in the gay garden plot of the lowly +mission-house to shake hands and wish me a good journey, and not a +few who were not Christians, some of them walking for the first hour +beside our horses. The road from Leh descends to a rude wooden +bridge over the Indus, a mighty stream even there, over blazing +slopes of gravel dignified by colossal manis and chod-tens in long +lines, built by the former kings of Ladak. On the other side of the +river gravel slopes ascend towards red mountains 20,000 feet in +height. Then comes a rocky spur crowned by the imposing castle of +the Gyalpo, the son of the dethroned king of Ladak, surmounted by a +forest of poles from which flutter yaks' tails and long streamers +inscribed with prayers. Others bear aloft the trident, the emblem of +Siva. Carefully hewn zigzags, entered through a much-decorated and +colossal chod-ten, lead to the castle. The village of Stok, the +prettiest and most prosperous in Ladak, fills up the mouth of a gorge +with its large farm-houses among poplar, apricot, and willow +plantations, and irrigated terraces of barley; and is imposing as +well as pretty, for the two roads by which it is approached are +avenues of lofty chod-tens and broad manis, all in excellent repair. +Knolls, and deeply coloured spurs of naked rock, most picturesquely +crowded with chod-tens, rise above the greenery, breaking the purple +gloom of the gorge which cuts deeply into the mountains, and supplies +from its rushing glacier torrent the living waters which create this +delightful oasis. + +The gopa came forth to meet us, bearing apricots and cheeses as the +Gyalpo's greeting, and conducted us to the camping-ground, a sloping +lawn in a willow-wood, with many a natural bower of the graceful +Clematis orientalis. The tents were pitched, afternoon tea was on a +table outside, a clear, swift stream made fitting music, the +dissonance of the ceaseless beating of gongs and drums in the castle +temple was softened by distance, the air was cool, a lemon light +bathed the foreground, and to the north, across the Indus, the great +mountains of the Leh range, with every cleft defined in purple or +blue, lifted their vermilion peaks into a rosy sky. It was the +poetry and luxury of travel. + +At Leh I was obliged to dismiss the seis for prolonged misconduct and +cruelty to Gyalpo, and Mando undertook to take care of him. The +animal had always been held by two men while the seis groomed him +with difficulty, but at Stok, when Mando rubbed him down, he quietly +went on feeding and laid his lovely head on the lad's shoulder with a +soft cooing sound. From that moment Mando could do anything with +him, and a singular attachment grew up between man and horse. + +Towards sunset we were received by the Gyalpo. The castle loses +nothing of its picturesqueness on a nearer view, and everything about +it is trim and in good order, it is a substantial mass of stone +building on a lofty rock, the irregularities of which have been taken +most artistic advantage of in order to give picturesque irregularity +to the edifice, which, while six storeys high in some places, is only +three in others. As in the palace of Leh, the walls slope inwards +from the base, where they are ten feet thick, and projecting +balconies of brown wood and grey stone relieve their monotony. We +were received at the entrance by a number of red lamas, who took us +up five flights of rude stairs to the reception room, where we were +introduced to the Gyalpo, who was in the midst of a crowd of monks, +and, except that his hair was not shorn, and that he wore a silver +brocade cap and large gold earrings and bracelets, was dressed in red +like them. Throneless and childless, the Gyalpo has given himself up +to religion. He has covered the castle roof with Buddhist emblems +(not represented in the sketch). From a pole, forty feet long, on +the terrace floats a broad streamer of equal length, completely +covered with Aum mani padne hun, and he has surrounded himself with +lamas, who conduct nearly ceaseless services in the sanctuary. The +attainment of merit, as his creed leads him to understand it, is his +one aim in life. He loves the seclusion of Stok, and rarely visits +the palace in Leh, except at the time of the winter games, when the +whole population assembles in cheery, orderly crowds, to witness +races, polo and archery matches, and a species of hockey. He +interests himself in the prosperity of Stok, plants poplars, willows, +and fruit trees, and keeps the castle maims and chod-tens in +admirable repair. + +Stok Castle is as massive as any of our mediaeval buildings, but is +far lighter and roomier. It is most interesting to see a style of +architecture and civilisation which bears not a solitary trace of +European influence, not even in Manchester cottons or Russian +gimcracks. The Gyalpo's room was only roofed for six feet within the +walls, where it was supported by red pillars. Above, the deep blue +Tibetan sky was flushing with the red of sunset, and from a noble +window with a covered stone balcony there was an enchanting prospect +of red ranges passing into translucent amethyst. The partial ceiling +is painted in arabesques, and at one end of the room is an alcove, +much enriched with bold wood carving. + +The Gyalpo was seated on a carpet on the floor, a smooth-faced, +rather stupid-looking man of twenty-eight. He placed us on a carpet +beside him, and coffee, honey, and apricots were brought in, but the +conversation flagged. He neither suggested anything nor took up Dr. +Marx's suggestions. Fortunately, we had brought our sketch-books, +and the views of several places were recognised, and were found +interesting. The lamas and servants, who had remained respectfully +standing, sat down on the floor, and even the Gyalpo became animated. +So our visit ended successfully. + +There is a doorway from the reception room into the sanctuary, and +after a time fully thirty lamas passed in and began service, but the +Gyalpo only stood on his carpet. There is only a half light in this +temple, which is further obscured by scores of smoked and dusty +bannerets of gold and silver brocade hanging from the roof. In +addition to the usual Buddhist emblems there are musical instruments, +exquisitely inlaid, or enriched with niello work of gold and silver +of great antiquity, and bows of singular strength, requiring two men +to bend them, which are made of small pieces of horn cleverly joined. +Lamas gabbled liturgies at railroad speed, beating drums and clashing +cymbals as an accompaniment, while others blew occasional blasts on +the colossal silver horns or trumpets, which probably resemble those +with which Jericho was encompassed. The music, the discordant and +high-pitched monotones, and the revolting odours of stale smoke of +juniper chips, of rancid butter, and of unwashed woollen clothes +which drifted through the doorway, were over-powering. Attempted +fights among the horses woke me often during the night, and the sound +of worship was always borne over the still air. + +Dr. Marx left on the third day, after we had visited the monastery of +Hemis, the richest in Ladak, holding large landed property and +possessing much metallic wealth, including a chod-ten of silver and +gold, thirty feet high, in one of its many halls, approached by gold- +plated silver steps and incrusted with precious stones; there is also +much fine work in brass and bronze. Hemis abounds in decorated +buildings most picturesquely placed, it has three hundred lamas, and +is regarded as 'the sight' of Ladak. + +At Upschi, after a day's march over blazing gravel, I left the +rushing olive-green Indus, which I had followed from the bridge of +Khalsi, where a turbulent torrent, the Upshi water, joins it, +descending through a gorge so narrow that the track, which at all +times is blasted on the face of the precipice, is occasionally +scaffolded. A very extensive rock-slip had carried away the path and +rendered several fords necessary, and before I reached it rumour was +busy with the peril. It was true that the day before several mules +had been carried away and drowned, that many loads had been +sacrificed, and that one native traveller had lost his life. So I +started my caravan at daybreak, to get the water at its lowest, and +ascended the gorge, which is an absolutely verdureless rift in +mountains of most brilliant and fantastic stratification. At the +first ford Mando was carried down the river for a short distance. +The second was deep and strong, and a caravan of valuable goods had +been there for two days, afraid to risk the crossing. My Lahulis, +who always showed a great lack of stamina, sat down, sobbing and +beating their breasts. Their sole wealth, they said, was in their +baggage animals, and the river was 'wicked,' and 'a demon' lived in +it who paralysed the horses' legs. Much experience of Orientals and +of travel has taught me to surmount difficulties in my own way, so, +beckoning to two men from the opposite side, who came over shakily +with linked arms, I took the two strong ropes which I always carry on +my saddle, and roped these men together and to Gyalpo's halter with +one, and lashed Mando and the guide together with the other, giving +them the stout thongs behind the saddle to hold on to, and in this +compact mass we stood the strong rush of the river safely, the +paralysing chill of its icy waters being a far more obvious peril. +All the baggage animals were brought over in the same way, and the +Lahulis praised their gods. + +At Gya, a wild hamlet, the last in Ladak proper, I met a working +naturalist whom I had seen twice before, and 'forgathered' with him +much of the way. Eleven days of solitary desert succeeded. The +reader has probably understood that no part of the Indus, Shayok, and +Nubra valleys, which make up most of the province of Ladak, is less +than 9,500 feet in altitude, and that the remainder is composed of +precipitous mountains with glaciers and snowfields, ranging from +18,000 to 25,000 feet, and that the villages are built mainly on +alluvial soil where possibilities of irrigation exist. But Rupchu +has peculiarities of its own. + +Between Gya and Darcha, the first hamlet in Lahul, are three huge +passes, the Toglang, 18,150 feet in altitude, the Lachalang, 17,500, +and the Baralacha, 16,000,--all easy, except for the difficulties +arising from the highly rarefied air. The mountains of the region, +which are from 20,000 to 23,000 feet in altitude, are seldom +precipitous or picturesque, except the huge red needles which guard +the Lachalang Pass, but are rather 'monstrous protuberances,' with +arid surfaces of disintegrated rock. Among these are remarkable +plateaux, which are taken advantage of by caravans, and which have +elevations of from 14,000 to 15,000 feet. There are few permanent +rivers or streams, the lakes are salt, beside the springs, and on the +plateaux there is scanty vegetation, chiefly aromatic herbs; but on +the whole Rupchu is a desert of arid gravel. Its only inhabitants +are 500 nomads, and on the ten marches of the trade route, the bridle +paths, on which in some places labour has been spent, the tracks, not +always very legible, made by the passage of caravans, and rude dykes, +behind which travellers may shelter themselves from the wind, are the +only traces of man. Herds of the kyang, the wild horse of some +naturalists, and the wild ass of others, graceful and beautiful +creatures, graze within gunshot of the track without alarm, I had +thought Ladak windy, but Rupchu is the home of the winds, and the +marches must be arranged for the quietest time of the day. Happily +the gales blow with clockwork regularity, the day wind from the south +and south-west rising punctually at 9 a.m. and attaining its maximum +at 2.30, while the night wind from the north and north-east rises +about 9 p.m. and ceases about 5 a.m. Perfect silence is rare. The +highly rarefied air, rushing at great speed, when at its worst +deprives the traveller of breath, skins his face and hands, and +paralyses the baggage animals. In fact, neither man nor beast can +face it. The horses 'turn tail' and crowd together, and the men +build up the baggage into a wall and crouch in the lee of it. The +heat of the solar rays is at the same time fearful. At Lachalang, at +a height of over 15,000 feet, I noted a solar temperature of 152 +degrees, only 35 degrees below the boiling point of water in the same +region, which is about 187 degrees. To make up for this, the mercury +falls below the freezing point every night of the year, even in +August the difference of temperature in twelve hours often exceeding +120 degrees! The Rupchu nomads, however, delight in this climate of +extremes, and regard Leh as a place only to be visited in winter, and +Kulu and Kashmir as if they were the malarial swamps of the Congo! + +We crossed the Toglang Pass, at a height of 18,150 feet, with less +suffering from ladug than on either the Digar or Kharzong Passes. +Indeed Gyalpo carried me over it stopping to take breath every few +yards. It was then a long dreary march to the camping-ground of +Tsala, where the Chang-pas spend the four summer months; the guides +and baggage animals lost the way and did not appear until the next +day, and in consequence the servants slept unsheltered in the snow. +News travels as if by magic in desert places. Towards evening, while +riding by a stream up a long and tedious valley, I saw a number of +moving specks on the crest of a hill, and down came a surge of +horsemen riding furiously. Just as they threatened to sweep Gyalpo +away, they threw their horses on their haunches, in one moment were +on the ground, which they touched with their foreheads, presented me +with a plate of apricots, and the next vaulted into their saddles, +and dashing up the valley were soon out of sight. In another half- +hour there was a second wild rush of horsemen, the headman +dismounted, threw himself on his face, kissed my hand, vaulted into +the saddle, and then led a swirl of his tribesmen at a gallop in +ever-narrowing circles round me till they subsided into the decorum +of an escort. An elevated plateau with some vegetation on it, a row +of forty tents, 'black' but not 'comely,' a bright rapid river, wild +hills, long lines of white sheep converging towards the camp, yaks +rampaging down the hillsides, men running to meet us, and women and +children in the distance were singularly idealised in the golden glow +of a cool, moist evening. + +Two men took my bridle, and two more proceeded to put their hands on +my stirrups; but Gyalpo kicked them to the right and left amidst +shrieks of laughter, after which, with frantic gesticulations and +yells of 'Kabardar!', I was led through the river in triumph and +hauled off my horse. The tribesmen were much excited. Some dashed +about, performing feats of horsemanship; others brought apricots and +dough-balls made with apricot oil, or rushed to the tents, returning +with rugs; some cleared the camping-ground of stones and raised a +stone platform, and a flock of goats, exquisitely white from the +daily swims across the river, were brought to be milked. Gradually +and shrinkingly the women and children drew near; but Mr. -'s Bengali +servant threatened them with a whip, when there was a general +stampede, the women running like hares. I had trained my servants to +treat the natives courteously, and addressed some rather strong +language to the offender, and afterwards succeeded in enticing all +the fugitives back by showing my sketches, which gave boundless +pleasure and led to very numerous requests for portraits! The gopa, +though he had the oblique Mongolian eyes, was a handsome young man, +with a good nose and mouth. He was dressed like the others in a +girdled chaga of coarse serge, but wore a red cap turned up over the +ears with fine fur, a silver inkhorn, and a Yarkand knife in a chased +silver sheath in his girdle, and canary-coloured leather shoes with +turned-up points. The people prepared one of their own tents for me, +and laying down a number of rugs of their own dyeing and weaving, +assured me of an unbounded welcome as a friend of their 'benefactor,' +Mr. Redslob, and then proposed that I should visit their tents +accompanied by all the elders of the tribe. + + + +CHAPTER V--CLIMATE AND NATURAL FEATURES + + + +The last chapter left me with the chief and elders of the Chang-pas +starting on 'a round of visits,' and it was not till nightfall that +the solemn ceremony was concluded. Each of the fifty tents was +visited: at every one a huge, savage Tibetan mastiff made an attempt +to fly at me, and was pounced upon and held down by a woman little +bigger than himself, and in each cheese and milk were offered and +refused. In all I received a hearty welcome for the sake of the +'great father,' Mr. Redslob, who designated these people as 'the +simplest and kindliest people on earth.' + +This Chang-pa tribe, numbering five hundred souls, makes four moves +in the year, dividing in summer, and uniting in a valley very free +from snow in the winter. They are an exclusively pastoral people, +and possess large herds of yaks and ponies and immense flocks of +sheep and goats, the latter almost entirely the beautiful 'shawl +goat,' from the undergrowth at the base of the long hair of which the +fine Kashmir shawls are made. This pashm is a provision which Nature +makes against the intense cold of these altitudes, and grows on yaks, +sheep, and dogs, as well as on most of the wild animals. The sheep +is the big, hornless, flop-eared huniya. The yaks and sheep are the +load carriers of Rupchu. Small or easily divided merchandise is +carried by sheep, and bulkier goods by yaks, and the Chang-pas make a +great deal of money by carrying for the Lahul, Central Ladak, and +Rudok merchants, their sheep travelling as far as Gar in Chinese +Tibet. They are paid in grain as well as coin, their own country +producing no farinaceous food. They have only two uses for silver +money. With part of their gains they pay the tribute to Kashmir, and +they melt the rest, and work it into rude personal ornaments. +According to an old arrangement between Lhassa and Leh, they carry +brick tea free for the Lhassa merchants. They are Buddhists, and +practise polyandry, but their young men do not become lamas, and +owing to the scarcity of fuel, instead of burning their dead, they +expose them with religious rites face upwards in desolate places, to +be made away with by the birds of the air. All their tents have a +god-shelf, on which are placed small images and sacred emblems. They +dress as the Ladakis, except that the men wear shoes with very high +turned-up points, and that the women, in addition to the perak, the +usual ornament, place on the top of the head a large silver coronet +with three tassels. In physiognomy they resemble the Ladakis, but +the Mongolian type is purer, the eyes are more oblique, and the +eyelids have a greater droop, the chins project more, and the mouths +are handsomer. Many of the men, including the headman, were quite +good-looking, but the upper lips of the women were apt to be 'tucked +up,' displaying very square teeth, as we have shown in the preceding +chapter. + +The roofs of the Tsala tents are nearly flat, and the middle has an +opening six inches wide along its whole length. An excavation from +twelve to twenty-four inches deep is made in the soil, and a rude +wall of stones, about one foot high, is built round it, over which +the tent cloth, made in narrow widths of yak's or goat's hair, is +extended by ropes led over forked sticks. There is no ridge pole, +and the centre is supported on short poles, to the projecting tops of +which prayer flags and yaks' tails are attached. The interior, +though dark, is not too dark for weaving, and each tent has its loom, +for the Chang-pas not only weave their coarse woollen clothing and +hair cloth for saddlebags and tents, but rugs of wool dyed in rich +colours made from native roots. The largest tent was twenty feet by +fifteen, but the majority measured only fourteen feet by eight and +ten feet. The height in no case exceeded six feet. In these much +ventilated and scarcely warmed shelters these hardy nomads brave the +tremendous winds and winter rigours of their climate at altitudes +varying from 13,000 to 14,500 feet. Water freezes every night of the +year, and continually there are differences in temperature of 100 +degrees between noon and midnight. In addition to the fifty dwelling +tents there was one considerably larger, in which the people store +their wool and goat's hair till the time arrives for taking them to +market. The floor of several of the tents was covered with rugs, and +besides looms and confused heaps of what looked like rubbish, there +were tea-churns, goatskin churns, sheep and goat skins, children's +bows and arrows, cooking pots, and heaps of the furze root, which is +used as fuel. + +They expended much of this scarce commodity upon me in their +hospitality, and kept up a bonfire all night. They mounted their +wiry ponies and performed feats of horsemanship, in one of which all +the animals threw themselves on their hind legs in a circle when a +man in the centre clapped his hands; and they crowded my tent to see +my sketches, and were not satisfied till I executed some daubs +professing to represent some of the elders. The excitement of their +first visit from a European woman lasted late into the night, and +when they at last retired they persisted in placing a guard of honour +round my tent. + +In the morning there was ice on the pools, and the snow lay three +inches deep. Savage life had returned to its usual monotony, and the +care of flocks and herds. In the early afternoon the chief and many +of the men accompanied us across the ford, and we parted with mutual +expressions of good will. The march was through broad gravelly +valleys, among 'monstrous protuberances' of red and yellow gravel, +elevated by their height alone to the dignity of mountains. Hail +came on, and Gyalpo showed his high breeding by facing it when the +other animals 'turned tail' and huddled together, and a storm of +heavy sleet of some hours' duration burst upon us just as we reached +the dismal camping-ground of Rukchen, guarded by mountain giants +which now and then showed glimpses of their white skirts through the +dark driving mists. That was the only 'weather' in four months. + +A large caravan from the heat and sunshine of Amritsar was there. +The goods were stacked under goat's hair shelters, the mules were +huddled together without food, and their shivering Panjabi drivers, +muffled in blankets which only left one eye exposed, were grubbing up +furze roots wherewith to make smoky fires. My baggage, which had +arrived previously, was lying soaking in the sleet, while the +wretched servants were trying to pitch the tent in the high wind. +They had slept out in the snow the night before, and were mentally as +well as physically benumbed. Their misery had a comic side to it, +and as the temperature made me feel specially well, I enjoyed +bestirring myself and terrified Mando, who was feebly 'fadding' with +a rag, by giving Gyalpo a vigorous rub-down with a bath-towel. +Hassan Khan, with chattering teeth and severe neuralgia, muffled in +my 'fisherman's hood' under his turban, was trying to do his work +with his unfailing pluck. Mando was shedding futile tears over wet +furze which would not light, the small wet corrie was dotted over +with the Amritsar men sheltering under rocks and nursing hopeless +fires, and fifty mules and horses, with dejected heads and dripping +tails, and their backs to the merciless wind, were attempting to pick +some food from scanty herbage already nibbled to the root. My tent +was a picture of grotesque discomfort. The big stones had not been +picked out from the gravel, the bed stood in puddles, the thick horse +blanket was draining over the one chair, the servant's spare clothing +and stores were on the table, the yaks' loads of wet hay and the +soaked grain sack filled up most of the space; a wet candle sputtered +and went out, wet clothes dripped from the tent hook, and every now +and then Hassan Khan looked in with one eye, gasping out, 'Mem Sahib, +I can no light the fire!' Perseverance succeeds eventually, and cups +of a strong stimulant made of Burroughes and Wellcome's vigorous +'valoid' tincture of ginger and hot water, revived the men all round. +Such was its good but innocent effect, that early the next morning +Hassan came into my tent with two eyes, and convulsed with laughter. +'The pony men' and Mando, he said, were crying, and the coolie from +Leh, who before the storm had wanted to go the whole way to Simla, +after refusing his supper had sobbed all night under the 'flys' of my +tent, while I was sleeping soundly. Afterwards I harangued them, and +told them I would let them go, and help them back; I could not take +such poor-spirited miserable creatures with me, and I would keep the +Tartars who had accompanied me from Tsala. On this they protested, +and said, with a significant gesture, I might cut their throats if +they cried any more, and begged me to try them again; and as we had +no more bad weather, there was no more trouble. + +The marches which followed were along valleys, plains, and mountain- +sides of gravel, destitute of herbage, except a shrivelled artemisia, +and on one occasion the baggage animals were forty hours without +food. Fresh water was usually very scarce, and on the Lingti plains +was only obtainable by scooping it up from the holes left by the feet +of animals. Insect life was rare, and except grey doves, the 'dove +of the valleys,' which often flew before us for miles down the +ravines, no birds were to be seen. On the other hand, there were +numerous herds of kyang, which in the early mornings came to drink of +the water by which the camps were pitched. By looking through a +crevice of my tent I saw them distinctly, without alarming them. In +one herd I counted forty. + +They kept together in families, sire, dam, and foal. The animal +certainly is under fourteen hands, and resembles a mule rather than a +horse or ass. The noise, which I had several opportunities of +hearing, is more like a neigh than a bray, but lacks completeness. +The creature is light brown, almost fawn colour, fading into white +under his body, and he has a dark stripe on his back, but not a +cross. His ears are long, and his tail is like that of a mule. He +trots and gallops, and when alarmed gallops fast, but as he is not +worth hunting, he has not a great dread of humanity, and families of +kyang frequently grazed within two hundred and fifty yards of us. He +is about as untamable as the zebra, and with his family +affectionateness leads apparently a very happy life. + +On the Kwangchu plateau, at an elevation of 15,000 feet, I met with a +form of life which has a great interest of its own, sheep caravans, +numbering among them 7,000 sheep, each animal with its wool on, and +equipped with a neat packsaddle and two leather or hair-cloth bags, +and loaded with from twenty-five to thirty-two pounds of salt or +borax. These, and many more which we passed, were carrying their +loads to Patseo, a mountain valley in Lahul, where they are met by +traders from Northern British India. The sheep are shorn, and the +wool and loads are exchanged for wheat and a few other commodities, +with which they return to Tibet, the whole journey taking from nine +months to a year. As the sheep live by grazing the scanty herbage on +the march, they never accomplish more than ten miles a day, and as +they often become footsore, halts of several days are frequently +required. Sheep, dead or dying, with the birds of prey picking out +their eyes, were often met with. Ordinarily these caravans are led +by a man, followed by a large goat much bedecked and wearing a large +bell. Each driver has charge of one hundred sheep. These men, of +small stature but very thickset, with their wide smooth faces, loose +clothing of sheepskin with the wool outside, with their long coarse +hair flying in the wind, and their uncouth shouts in a barbarous +tongue, are much like savages. They sing wild chants as they picket +their sheep in long double lines at night, and with their savage +mastiffs sleep unsheltered under the frosty skies under the lee of +their piled-up saddlebags. On three nights I camped beside their +caravans, and walked round their orderly lines of sheep and their +neat walls of saddlebags; and, far from showing any discourtesy or +rude curiosity, they held down their fierce dogs and exhibited their +ingenious mode of tethering their animals, and not one of the many +articles which my servants were in the habit of leaving outside the +tents was on any occasion abstracted. The dogs, however, were less +honest than their masters, and on one night ran away with half a +sheep, and I should have fared poorly had not Mr. -- shot some grey +doves. + +Marches across sandy and gravelly valleys, and along arid mountain- +sides spotted with a creeping furze and cushions of a yellow-green +moss which seems able to exist without moisture, fords of the Sumgyal +and Tserap rivers, and the crossing of the Lachalang Pass at an +altitude of 17,500 feet in severe frost, occupied several uneventful +days. Of the three lofty passes on this route, the Toglang, which is +higher, and the Baralacha, which is lower, are featureless billows of +gravel, over which a carriage might easily be driven. Not so is the +Lachalang, though its well-made zigzags are easy for laden animals. +The approach to it is fantastic, among precipitous mountains of red +sandstone, and red rocks weathered into pillars, men's heads, and +numerous groups of gossipy old women from thirty to fifty feet high, +in flat hats and long circular cloaks! Entering by red gates of rock +into a region of gigantic mountains, and following up a crystal +torrent, the valley narrowing to a gorge, and the gorge to a chasm +guarded by nearly perpendicular needles of rock flaming in the +westering sun, we forded the river at the chasm's throat, and camped +on a velvety green lawn just large enough for a few tents, absolutely +walled in by abrupt mountains 18,000 and 19,000 feet in height. Long +after the twilight settled down on us, the pinnacles above glowed in +warm sunshine, and the following morning, when it was only dawn +below, and the still river pools were frozen and the grass was white +with hoar-frost, the morning sun reddened the snow-peaks and kindled +into vermilion the red needles of Lachalang. That camping-ground +under such conditions is the grandest and most romantic spot of the +whole journey. + +Verdureless and waterless stretches, in crossing which our poor +animals were two nights without food, brought us to the glacier-blue +waters of the Serchu, tumbling along in a deep broad gash, and +farther on to a lateral torrent which is the boundary between Rupchu, +tributary to Kashmir, and Lahul or British Tibet, under the rule of +the Empress of India. The tents were ready pitched in a grassy +hollow by the river; horses, cows, and goats were grazing near them, +and a number of men were preparing food. A Tibetan approached me, +accompanied by a creature in a nondescript dress speaking Hindustani +volubly. On a band across his breast were the British crown, and a +plate with the words 'Commissioner's chaprassie, Kulu district.' I +never felt so extinguished. Liberty seemed lost, and the romance of +the desert to have died out in one moment! At the camping-ground I +found rows of salaaming Lahulis drawn up, and Hassan Khan in a state +which was a compound of pomposity and jubilant excitement. The +tahsildar (really the Tibetan honorary magistrate), he said, had +received instructions from the Lieutenant-Governor of the Panjab that +I was on the way to Kylang, and was to 'want for nothing.' So +twenty-four men, nine horses, a flock of goats, and two cows had been +waiting for me for three days in the Serchu valley. I wrote a polite +note to the magistrate, and sent all back except the chaprassie, the +cows, and the cowherd, my servants looking much crestfallen. + +We crossed the Baralacha Pass in wind and snow showers into a climate +in which moisture began to be obvious. At short distances along the +pass, which extends for many miles, there are rude semicircular +walls, three feet high, all turned in one direction, in the shelter +of which travellers crouch to escape from the strong cutting wind. +My men suffered far more than on the two higher passes, and it was +difficult to dislodge them from these shelters, where they lay +groaning, gasping, and suffering from vertigo and nose-bleeding. The +cold was so severe that I walked over the loftiest part of the pass, +and for the first time felt slight effects of the ladug. At a height +of 15,000 feet, in the midst of general desolation, grew, in the +shelter of rocks, poppies (Mecanopsis aculeata), blue as the Tibetan +skies, their centres filled with a cluster of golden-yellow stamens,- +-a most charming sight. Ten or twelve of these exquisite blossoms +grow on one stalk, and stalk, leaf, and seed-vessels are guarded by +very stiff thorns. Lower down flowers abounded, and at the camping- +ground of Patseo (12,000 feet), where the Tibetan sheep caravans +exchange their wool, salt, and borax for grain, the ground was +covered with soft greensward, and real rain fell. Seen from the +Baralacha Pass are vast snowfields, glaciers, and avalanche slopes. +This barrier, and the Rotang, farther south, close this trade route +practically for seven months of the year, for they catch the monsoon +rains, which at that altitude are snows from fifteen to thirty feet +deep; while on the other side of the Baralacha and throughout Rupchu +and Ladak the snowfall is insignificant. So late as August, when I +crossed, there were four perfect snow bridges over the Bhaga, and +snowfields thirty-six feet deep along its margin. At Patseo the +tahsildar, with a retinue and animals laden with fodder, came to pay +his respects to me, and invited me to his house, three days' journey. +These were the first human beings we had seen for three days. + +A few miles south of the Baralacha Pass some birch trees appeared on +a slope, the first natural growth of timber that I had seen since +crossing the Zoji La. Lower down there were a few more, then stunted +specimens of the pencil cedar, and the mountains began to show a +shade of green on their lower slopes. Butterflies appeared also, and +a vulture, a grand bird on the wing, hovered ominously over us for +some miles, and was succeeded by an equally ominous raven. On the +excellent bridle-track cut on the face of the precipices which +overhang the Bhaga, there is in nine miles only one spot in which it +is possible to pitch a five-foot tent, and at Darcha, the first +hamlet in Lahul, the only camping-ground is on the house roofs. +There the Chang-pas and their yaks and horses who had served me +pleasantly and faithfully from Tsala left me, and returned to the +freedom of their desert life. At Kolang, the next hamlet, where the +thunder of the Bhaga was almost intolerable, Hara Chang, the +magistrate, one of the thakurs or feudal proprietors of Lahul, with +his son and nephew and a large retinue, called on me; and the next +morning Mr. -- and I went by invitation to visit him in his castle, a +magnificently situated building on a rocky spur 1,000 feet above the +camping-ground, attained by a difficult climb, and nearly on a level +with the glittering glaciers and ice-falls on the other side of the +Bhaga. It only differs from Leh and Stok castles in having blue +glass in some of the smaller windows. In the family temple, in +addition to the usual life-size images of Buddha and the Triad, there +was a female divinity, carved at Jallandhur in India, copied from a +statue representing Queen Victoria in her younger days--a very +fitting possession for the highest government official in Lahul. The +thakur, Hara Chang, is wealthy and a rigid Buddhist, and uses his +very considerable influence against the work of the Moravian +missionaries in the valley. The rude path down to the bridle-road, +through fields of barley and buckwheat, is bordered by roses, +gooseberries, and masses of wild flowers. + +The later marches after reaching Darcha are grand beyond all +description. The track, scaffolded or blasted out of the rock at a +height of from 1,000 to 3,000 feet above the thundering Bhaga, is +scarcely a rifle-shot from the mountain mass dividing it from the +Chandra, a mass covered with nearly unbroken ice and snowfields, out +of which rise pinnacles of naked rock 21,000 and 22,000 feet in +altitude. The region is the 'abode of snow,' and glaciers of great +size fill up every depression. Humidity, vegetation, and beauty +reappear together, wild flowers and ferns abound, and pencil cedars +in clumps rise above the artificial plantations of the valley. Wheat +ripens at an altitude of 12,000 feet. Picturesque villages, +surrounded by orchards, adorn the mountain spurs; chod-tens and +gonpos, with white walls and fluttering flags, brighten the scene; +feudal castles crown the heights, and where the mountains are +loftiest, the snowfields and glaciers most imposing, and the greenery +densest, the village of Kylang, the most important in Lahul as the +centre of trade, government, and Christian missions, hangs on ledges +of the mountain-side 1,000 feet above Bhaga, whose furious course can +be traced far down the valley by flashes of sunlit foam. + +The Lahul valley, which is a part of British Tibet, has an altitude +of 10,000 feet. It prospers under British rule, its population has +increased, Hindu merchants have settled in Kylang, the route through +Lahul to Central Asia is finding increasing favour with the Panjabi +traders, and the Moravian missionaries, by a bolder system of +irrigation and the provision of storage for water, have largely +increased the quantity of arable land. The Lahulis are chiefly +Tibetans, but Hinduism is largely mixed up with Buddhism in the lower +villages. All the gonpos, however, have been restored and enlarged +during the last twenty years. In winter the snow lies fifteen feet +deep, and for four or five months, owing to the perils of the Rotang +Pass, the valley rarely has any communication with the outer world. + +At the foot of the village of Kylang, which is built in tier above +tier of houses up the steep side of a mountain with a height of +21,000 feet, are the Moravian mission buildings, long, low, +whitewashed erections, of the simplest possible construction, the +design and much of the actual erection being the work of these +capable Germans. The large building, which has a deep verandah, the +only place in which exercise can be taken in the winter, contains the +native church, three rooms for each missionary, and two guest-rooms. +Round the garden are the printing rooms, the medicine and store room +(stores arriving once in two years), and another guest-room. Round +an adjacent enclosure are the houses occupied in winter by the +Christians when they come down with their sheep and cattle from the +hill farms. All is absolutely plain, and as absolutely clean and +trim. The guest-rooms and one or two of the Tibetan rooms are +papered with engravings from the Illustrated London News, but the +rooms of the missionaries are only whitewashed, and by their extreme +bareness reminded me of those of very poor pastors in the Fatherland. +A garden, brilliant with zinnias, dianthus, and petunias, all of +immense size, and planted with European trees, is an oasis, and in it +I camped for some weeks under a willow tree, covered, as many are, +with a sweet secretion so abundant as to drop on the roof of the +tent, and which the people collect and use as honey. + +The mission party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Shreve, lately arrived, +and now in a distant exile at Poo, and Mr. and Mrs. Heyde, who had +been in Tibet for nearly forty years, chiefly spent at Kylang, +without going home. 'Plain living and high thinking' were the rule. +Books and periodicals were numerous, and were read and assimilated. +The culture was simply wonderful, and the acquaintance with the +latest ideas in theology and natural science, the latest political +and social developments, and the latest conceptions in European art, +would have led me to suppose that these admirable people had only +just left Europe. Mrs. Heyde had no servant, and in the long +winters, when household and mission work are over for the day, and +there are no mails to write for, she pursues her tailoring and other +needlework, while her husband reads aloud till midnight. At the time +of my visit (September) busy preparations for the winter were being +made. Every day the wood piles grew. Hay, cut with sickles on the +steep hillsides, was carried on human backs into the farmyard, apples +were cored and dried in the sun, cucumbers were pickled, vinegar was +made, potatoes were stored, and meat was killed and salted. + +It is in winter, when the Christians have come down from the +mountain, that most of the mission work is done. Mrs. Heyde has a +school of forty girls, mostly Buddhists. The teaching is simple and +practical, and includes the knitting of socks, of which from four to +five hundred pairs are turned out each winter, and find a ready sale. +The converts meet for instruction and discussion twice daily, and +there is daily worship. The mission press is kept actively employed +in printing the parts of the Bible which have been translated during +the summer, as well as simple tracts written or translated by Mr. +Heyde. No converts are better instructed, and like those of Leh they +seem of good quality, and are industrious and self-supporting. +Winter work is severe, as ponies, cattle, and sheep must always be +hand-fed, and often hand-watered. Mr. Heyde has great repute as a +doctor, and in summer people travel long distances for his advice and +medicine. He is universally respected, and his judgment in worldly +affairs is highly thought of; but if one were to judge merely by +apparent results, the devoted labour of nearly forty years and +complete self-sacrifice for the good of Kylang must be pronounced +unsuccessful. Christianity has been most strongly opposed by men of +influence, and converts have been exposed to persecution and loss. +The abbot of the Kylang monastery lately said to Mr. Heyde, 'Your +Christian teaching has given Buddhism a resurrection.' The actual +words used were, 'When you came here people were quite indifferent +about their religion, but since it has been attacked they have become +zealous, and now they KNOW.' It is only by sharing their +circumstances of isolation, and by getting glimpses of their +everyday-life and work, that one can realise at all what the heroic +perseverance and self-sacrificing toil of these forty years have +been, and what is the weighty influence on the people and on the +standard of morals, even though the number of converts is so small. +All honour to these noble German missionaries, learned, genial, +cultured, radiant, who, whether teaching, preaching, farming, +gardening, printing, or doctoring, are always and everywhere 'living +epistles of Christ, known and read of all men!' Close by the mission +house, in a green spot under shady trees, is God's Acre, where many +children of the mission families sleep, and a few adults. + +As the winter is the busiest season in mission work, so it is the +great time in which the lamas make house-to-house peregrinations and +attend at festivals. Then also there is much spinning and weaving by +both sexes, and tobogganing and other games, and much drinking of +chang by priests and people. The cattle remain out till nearly +Christmas, and are then taken into the houses. At the time of the +variable new year, the lamas and nuns retire to the monasteries, and +dulness reigns in the valleys. At the end of a month they emerge, +life and noise begin, and all men to whom sons have been born during +the previous year give chang freely. During the festival which +follows, all these jubilant fathers go out of the village as a +gaudily dressed procession, and form a circle round a picture of a +yak, painted by the lamas, which is used as a target to be shot at +with bows and arrows, and it is believed that the man who hits it in +the centre will be blessed with a son in the coming year. After +this, all the Kylang men and women collect in one house by annual +rotation, and sing and drink immense quantities of chang till 10 p.m. + +The religious festivals begin soon after. One, the worshipping of +the lamas by the laity, occurs in every village, and lasts from two +to three days. It consists chiefly of music and dancing, while the +lamas sit in rows, swilling chang and arrack. At another, which is +celebrated annually in every house, the lamas assemble, and in front +of certain gods prepare a number of mystical figures made of dough, +which are hung up and are worshipped by the family. Afterwards the +lamas make little balls which are worshipped, and one of the family +mounts the roof and invites the neighbours, who receive the balls +from the lamas' hands and drink moderately of chang. Next, the +figures are thrown to the demons as a propitiatory offering, amidst +'hellish whistlings' and the firing of guns. These ceremonies are +called ise drup (a full life), and it is believed that if they were +neglected life would be cut short. + +One of the most important of the winter religious duties of the lamas +is the reading of the sacred classics under the roof of each +householder. By this means the family accumulate merit, and the +longer the reading is protracted the greater is the accumulation. A +twelve-volume book is taken in the houses of the richer householders, +each one of the twelve or fifteen lamas taking a page, all reading at +an immense pace in a loud chant at the same time. The reading of +these volumes, which consist of Buddhist metaphysics and philosophy, +takes five days, and while reading each lama has his chang cup +constantly replenished. In the poorer households a classic of but +one volume is taken, to lessen the expense of feeding the lamas. +Festivals and ceremonies follow each other closely until March, when +archery practice begins, and in April and May the people prepare for +the operations of husbandry. + +The weather in Kylang breaks in the middle of September, but so +fascinating were the beauties and sublimity of Nature, and the +virtues and culture of my Moravian friends, that, shutting my eyes to +the possible perils of the Rotang, I remained until the harvest was +brought home with joy and revelry, and the flush of autumn faded, and +the first snows of winter gave an added majesty to the glorious +valley. Then, reluctantly folding my tent, and taking the same +faithful fellows who brought my baggage from Leh, I spent five weeks +on the descent to the Panjab, journeying through the paradise of +Upper Kulu and the interesting native states of Mandi, Sukket, +Bilaspur, and Bhaghat, and early in November reached the amenities +and restraints of the civilisation of Simla. + + + +Footnotes: + +{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. + +{2} For these and other curious details concerning Tibetan customs I +am indebted to the kindness and careful investigations of the late +Rev. W. Redslob, of Leh, and the Rev. A. Heyde, of Kylang. + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Among the Tibetans +by Isabella L. 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