An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet Part 15

Apparently my yaks knew this part of the country well. I noticed that, whenever I lost the track, all I had to do was to follow them, and they would bring me back to it again. When I drove them away from the track, they showed a great disinclination to move, whereas they proceeded willingly enough while we were on the highway. No track was visible except here and there, where the footmarks of the last nomads, with their sheep, ponies, and yaks, had destroyed the gra.s.s.

Half a mile on the other side of the river was an encampment of some fifty or sixty tents, with hundreds of yaks and sheep grazing near it.

At this point my two yaks, which I noticed had been marching with more than usual smartness, bolted while I was ordering Chanden Sing and Mansing to take down the loads, and went straight into the water.

In attempting to make them turn back, Mansing threw a stone at them, which, instead of having the desired effect, sent them on all the faster. The current was strong, and the bottom of the river so soft that they both sank. When they reappeared on the surface it was only to float rapidly away down-stream. We watched them with ever-increasing anxiety.

They seemed quite helpless. We ran panting along the river-bank, urging them on with shouts in order to drive them to the other side. In their desperate struggle to keep afloat, and powerless against the current, the two yaks collided violently in mid-stream. The b.u.mp caused the pack-saddle and load of the smaller yak to turn over. The animal, thus overbalanced and hampered, sank and reappeared two or three times, struggling for air and life. It was, indeed, a terrible moment. In order to save the load, I threw off my clothes and jumped into the water. I swam fast to the animal, and, with no small exertion, pulled him on sh.o.r.e, some two hundred yards farther down-stream. We were both safe, though breathless; but, alas! the ropes that held the baggage had given way, and saddle and load had disappeared. This loss was a dreadful blow to me. I tried hard, by repeatedly diving into the river until I was almost frozen, to recover my goods, but failed to find them or even to locate them. Where I suspected them to be the water was over twenty feet deep. The bottom of the river was of soft mud, so that the weight alone of the loads would cause them to sink and be covered over.

Diving at such great elevations gave a peculiar and unpleasant sensation. The moment I was entirely under water, I felt as if I were compressed under an appalling weight which seemed to crush me. Had the liquid above and around me been a ma.s.s of lead instead of water, it could not have felt heavier. The sensation was especially noticeable in my head, which felt as if my skull were being screwed inside a vise. The beating in my temples was almost unbearable. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances I can remain under water for over a minute, but at such high elevations I could never hold out for longer than fifteen or twenty seconds. Each time that I emerged from below, gasping for air, my heart beat alarmingly violently, and my lungs seemed as if about to burst.

I was so exhausted that I did not feel equal to conveying my two men across. I unloaded the stronger yak, and then, with endless trouble, I drove him and his mate again into the water. Unhampered, and good swimmers as they are, the two yaks floated away with the current and reached the other side. Chanden Sing and Mansing, with their clothes and mine tied into a bundle over their shoulders, got on the animals, and, after a somewhat anxious pa.s.sage, arrived safely on my side. We encamped. My men mourned all night over the lost property. The next morning I made fresh and unsuccessful attempts to recover the loads.

Unhappily they contained all my tinned provisions, and what little other food I had, 800 rupees in silver, the greater part of my ammunition, changes of clothing, shoes, my hurricane lantern, and sundry knives, razors, etc.

The only thing we recovered was the wooden pack-saddle, which was washed ash.o.r.e some six hundred yards farther down.

Our situation can be summed up in a few words. We were now in the centre of Tibet, with no food of any kind, no clothes to speak of, and no boots or shoes, except those we wore, which were falling to pieces. What little ammunition I had left could not be relied upon, owing to its having been in water on several occasions. Around us we had nothing but enemies--insignificant enemies, if you like, yet enemies after all.

I got some comfort in thinking that the water-tight cases with my scientific instruments, notes, sketches, maps, and a quant.i.ty of gold and silver money were saved. As far as I was concerned, I valued them more than anything else I possessed.

We went on, hungry, worn out, with our feet lacerated, cheering one another as best we could. We laughed at our troubles. We laughed at the Tibetans and their comical ways. We laughed at everything and everybody, until eventually we laughed at ourselves. But the days seemed long.

Though fasting gives you at first an acute pain in your inside, it does not become unbearable until after several days' absolute want of food.

That is to say, if you are accustomed, as we were, to long intervals between one meal and the next. When we got to our third day's fasting we were keen enough for a meal. Perceiving black tents close to the mountain-side, about four miles out of our course, we made for them with famished haste. We purchased two bucketfuls of yak's milk, one of which I drank there and then myself, the second being equally divided between my two servants. That was all we could get. They would sell us nothing else.

After this we moved forward again, making steady, and, if one allows for the great elevation, comparatively rapid progress. We held our own against all comers. We encountered pleasant people and unpleasant ones, but, whether their manner was courteous or the reverse, we could nowhere obtain food for love or money.

Poor Mansing and Chanden Sing, not having the same interest that I had in my work to keep up their spirits, were now in a dreadful condition.

Cold, tired, and starved, the poor wretches had hardly strength left to stand on their feet, the soles of which were badly cut and sore. It really made my heart bleed to see these two brave men suffer as they did for my sake. No word of complaint came from them; not once did their lips utter a reproach.

"Never mind if we suffer or even die," said the poor fellows, when I expressed my sympathy with them, "we will follow you as long as we have strength to move. We will stand by you, no matter what happens."

I had to relieve Chanden Sing of his rifle, as he was no longer able to carry it. I, too, felt languid as the days went by, and we got scarcely any food. I cannot say that I experienced severe physical pain. This was due, I think, to the fact that my exhaustion brought on fever. I had a peculiar feeling in my head, as if my intellect, never too bright, had now been altogether dulled. My hearing, too, became less acute. I felt my strength slowly dying down like the flame of a lamp with no more oil in it. The nervous excitement and strain alone kept me alive. I went on walking mechanically.

We reached an encampment of some eighty black tents and a mud guard-house. We were positively in a starved condition. It was utterly impossible to proceed farther, owing to the wretched condition of my two men. They begged to be given ponies to ride. Their feet were so sore that, notwithstanding their anxiety to follow me, they could no more.

The natives received us kindly, and consented to sell me ponies, clothes, and provisions. We encamped about two miles beyond the settlement. During the evening several persons visited my tent, bringing gifts of flour, b.u.t.ter, and _tsamba_, accompanied by _katas_, the veils of friendship. I made a point of invariably giving the Tibetans, in return for their gifts, silver money to an amount three or four times the value of the articles they presented us with. They professed to be very grateful. A man called Ando, who styled himself a Gourkha, but wore the garb of the Tibetans, came to visit us in our tent, and promised to bring several ponies for sale the next morning. He also undertook to sell a sufficient quant.i.ty of food to enable us to reach Lha.s.sa. To show his good faith, he brought a portion of the supplies in the evening, and said he would let us have the remainder the next morning.

We next had a visit from a Lama, who appeared civil and intelligent. He presented us with b.u.t.ter and _chura_ (cheese). He had travelled as far as Calcutta in India, and was then on his way from Gartok to Lha.s.sa.

Having an excellent pony, he expected to arrive there in four or five days. Other Lamas and men who came to see us stated that they had come from Lha.s.sa in four days.

The natives, as usual, showed great reticence in giving us the name of the encampment, some calling it Toxem, others Taddju. North of us was a low pa.s.s in the hill range. As I had already seen as much as I wanted of the Tibetans, it was my intention, if I succeeded in purchasing enough provisions and ponies, to cross over this pa.s.s and proceed toward the Sacred City, following a course on the northern side of the mountain range. The highway to Lha.s.sa was getting so thickly populated that I thought it advisable in the future to travel through less inhabited regions. I intended proceeding, dressed as a European, until within a few miles of Lha.s.sa. Then I would leave my two men concealed in some secluded spot, and a.s.suming a disguise, I would penetrate alone during the night into the city. This would have been easy enough, as Lha.s.sa has no gates, and only a ruined wall round it.

I was able to purchase some clothing and boots from the Tibetans. The pigtail that I needed in order to pa.s.s for a Tibetan I could make with the silky hair of my yaks. I would pretend to be deaf and dumb, as I could not speak the Tibetan language perfectly enough to pa.s.s for a native.

A good meal brought hope and high spirits. When I retired to sleep I saw myself already inside the Sacred City walls.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: Religious fanatics.]

CHAPTER XVIII

CAPTURED

In the night I heard noises several times. I went out of my tent to look for the disturbers, but failed to discover any one. This had become my nightly experience, and I attached little importance to these sounds.

In the morning Ando and two or three Tibetans came to sell us provisions and ponies. While my two servants and I were engaged in purchasing what we required, I saw a number of villagers approaching in groups. Some spun wool, others carried bags of _tsamba_ and flour, while others led a number of ponies. Having purchased provisions to last us a couple of months, we began the selection of mounts. Naturally my servants and myself were overjoyed at our unexpected luck, after sufferings and privations of all kinds, in finding ourselves confronted with abundance of everything we could possibly desire. Chanden Sing and Mansing, who were sportsmen of the very first order, delighted at the prospect of getting animals, rode first one pony and then another to suit themselves. Chanden Sing, having selected a handsome beast, called me to examine it before paying over the purchase-money. Unsuspecting of foul play, and also because it would not have been convenient to try the various lively ponies with my rifle slung over my shoulder, I walked unarmed to the spot, about a hundred yards away from my tent, where the restless animal was being held for my inspection. The natives followed behind me, but such a thing being common in any country when one buys a horse in public, I thought nothing of it. As I stood with my hands behind my back, I well recollect the expression of delight on Chanden Sing's face when I approved of his choice. As is generally the case on such occasions, the people collected in a crowd behind me expressed in a chorus their gratuitous opinion on the superiority of the steed selected. I had just stooped to examine the pony's fore legs when I was suddenly seized from behind by several persons, who grabbed me by the neck, wrists, and legs, and threw me down on my face. I struggled and fought until I shook off some of my a.s.sailants and regained my feet; but others rushed up, and I was surrounded by some thirty men, who attacked me from every side. They clung to me with all their might, and succeeded in grabbing again my arms, legs, and head. Exhausted as I was, they knocked me down three more times, but each time I regained my feet. I fought to the bitter end with my fists, feet, head, and teeth. Each time I got one hand or leg free from their clutches, I hit right and left at any part where I could disable my opponents. Their timidity, even when in such overwhelming numbers, was indeed beyond description. It was entirely due to it, and not to my strength, for I had hardly any left, that I was able to hold my own against them for some twenty minutes. My clothes were torn in the fight. Long ropes were thrown at me from every side. I became so entangled in them that my movements were impeded. One rope which they flung and successfully twisted round my neck completed their victory. They pulled hard at it from the two ends, and while I panted and gasped with the exertion of fighting, they tugged and tugged in order to strangle me. I felt as if my eyes would shoot out of my head. I was suffocating. My sight became dim. I was in their power.

Dragged down to the ground, they stamped, and kicked, and trampled upon me with their heavy nailed boots until I was stunned. Then they tied my wrists tightly behind my back; they bound my elbows, my chest, my neck, and my ankles. I was a prisoner!

[Ill.u.s.tration: PURCHASING PONIES]

They lifted me and made me stand up. Brave Chanden Sing had been struggling with all his might against fifteen or twenty foes, and had disabled several of them. He had been pounced upon at the same moment that I was, and had fought gallantly until, like myself, he had been entangled, thrown down, and secured with ropes. During my struggle I heard him call out repeatedly: "_Banduk, banduk, Mansing; jaldi, banduk!_" (Rifle, rifle, Mansing; quick, my rifle!) but, alas, poor Mansing the leper, the weak and jaded coolie, had been sprung upon by four powerful Tibetans, who held him pinned to the ground as if he had been the fiercest of bandits. Mansing was a philosopher. He had saved himself the trouble of even offering a resistance; but he, too, was ill-treated, beaten, and tightly bound. At the beginning of the fight a shrill whistle had brought up four hundred[10] armed soldiers who had lain in ambush round us, concealed behind the innumerable sand-hills and in the depressions in the ground. They took up a position round us and covered us with their matchlocks.

All was now over, and, bound like a criminal, I looked round to see what had become of my men. When I realized that it took the Tibetans five hundred men,[11] all counted, to arrest a starved Englishman and his two half-dying servants, and that, even then, they dared not do it openly, but had to resort to abject treachery; when I found that these soldiers were picked troops from Lha.s.sa and Sigatz (_Shigatze_), dispatched on purpose to arrest our progress and capture us, I could not repress a smile of contempt for those into whose hands we had at last fallen.

My blood boiled when, upon the order of the Lama, who the previous night had professed to be our friend, several men advanced and searched our pockets. They rifled us of everything we possessed. Then they began overhauling our baggage. The watches and chronometer were looked upon with suspicion, their ticking causing curiosity and even anxiety. They were pa.s.sed round, and mercilessly thrown about from one person to the other until they stopped ticking. They were then p.r.o.nounced "dead." The compa.s.ses and aneroids, which they could not distinguish from watches, were soon thrown aside, as "they had no life in them." Great caution was displayed in touching our rifles, which were lying on our bedding when the tent had been torn down.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I WAS A PRISONER]

Fears were entertained lest the rifles should go off unexpectedly. It was only on my a.s.surance (which made our captors ten times more cautious) that they were not loaded, that at last they took them and registered them in the catalogue of our confiscated property. I had upon me a gold ring that my mother had given me when I was a child. I asked permission to retain it. With their superst.i.tious nature they immediately thought that it had occult powers, like the wands one reads of in fairy tales.

A man called Nerba, who later on played an important part in our sufferings, was intrusted with the ring, and was warned never to let me see it again. It was heartbreaking, as we three prisoners sat bound and held down by guards, to see the Lamas and officers handle all our things so roughly that they spoiled nearly all they touched. Particularly disgusting was their avidity when, in searching the pockets of the coat I wore daily, and which I had not put on that morning, they found a quant.i.ty of silver coins, some eight hundred rupees in all. Officers, Lamas, and soldiers made a grab for the money, and when order was re-established only a few coins remained where the sum had been laid down. Other moneys which they found in one of my loads met with a similar fate. Among the things arousing the greatest curiosity was an india-rubber pillow fully blown out. The soft, smooth texture of the india-rubber seemed to take their fancy. One after the other they rubbed their cheeks on the cushion, exclaiming at the pleasant sensation it gave them. In playing with the bra.s.s screw by which the cushion was inflated, they gave it a turn, and the imprisoned air found its way out with a hissing noise. This created quite a panic among the Tibetans.

Their superst.i.tious minds regarded this hissing as an evil omen.

Naturally I took advantage of any small incident of this kind to work judiciously on their superst.i.tions and to frighten the natives as much as I could.

The Tibetans, having examined all except my water-tight cases of instruments, photographic plates, and sketches, seemed so upset at one or two things that happened, and at some remarks I made, that they hurriedly sealed up my property, which they had placed in bags and wrapped in blankets. They ordered the things to be placed on yaks and brought into the guard-house of the settlement. This done, they tied the end of the ropes that bound our necks to the pommels of their saddles, and, having loosed our feet, they sprang on their ponies and rode off, with shouts, hisses, and cries of victory, firing their matchlocks in the air, and dragging us prisoners into the settlement.

On reaching the settlement, my last words to my men before we were separated were: "No matter what they do to you, do not let them see that you suffer." They promised to obey me. We were conveyed to different tents.

I was dragged to one of the larger tents, inside and outside of which soldiers were placed on guard. They were at first sulky, and rough in their manner and speech. I always made a point of answering them in a collected and polite fashion. I had on many previous occasions noticed that nothing carries one further in dealings with Asiatics than to keep calm and cool. I felt confident that if we were ever to get out of our present sc.r.a.pe, it would be by maintaining a perfectly impa.s.sive demeanor in face of anything that might happen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRAGGED INTO THE SETTLEMENT]

The tent being kept closed, I was unable to see what was taking place outside, but I could hear the noise of people rushing here and there.

Orders were shouted, and the continuous tinkling of the soldiers'

horse-bells as they galloped past the tent made me conclude that the place must be in a state of turmoil. I had been some three hours in the tent when a soldier entered and ordered me out.

"They are going to cut off his head," said he to his comrades. Turning round to me, he made a significant gesture with his hand across his neck.

"_Nikutza_" (All right), said I, dryly.

It must not be forgotten that, when a Tibetan hears words to that effect, he usually goes down on his knees and begs for mercy with tears, and sobs, and prayers in profusion. So it is not surprising that the Tibetans were somewhat astonished at my answer. They seemed puzzled as to what to make of it. I was led out with more reluctance than firmness.

During the time I had been shut up a huge white tent with blue ornaments had been pitched in front of the mud house. Round it were hundreds of soldiers and villagers--a most picturesque sight.