An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet Part 20

With their matchlocks they fired one after the other at my two yaks, only a few yards off. Although they aimed carefully, no one succeeded in hitting them. I knew they fired with bullets, for I could hear the hissing sound of the missiles.

Next came an interesting display of horsemanship. I should have enjoyed it more had I not been suffering agonies all the time. The performance helped to cheer me. First there were races in which only two ponies at a time took part, the last race being run between two winners. A _kata_ was presented to the final winner. Next one horseman rode ahead full gallop flying a _kata_, while some others followed closely behind. The _kata_ was dropped. When it settled on the ground, the hors.e.m.e.n following the leader rode away, and, at a given signal, galloped back wildly, converging toward the _kata_, attempting to pick it up without dismounting. Some of the younger men were very clever at this game.

Another sport consisted in one man on foot being seized and lifted on to the saddle by a mounted comrade riding full gallop.

Though I could not see as well as I wished, I enjoyed the show, and expressed admiration for the ponies. The Pombo thoughtfully ordered the best of them to be brought closer to me, and had me lifted into a sitting posture, so that I could see them better.

This was a great relief. I was suffering more from my humiliating position, being unable to stand, than from the tortures themselves, bad as they were. The Pombo told me that I must now look toward the tent. He then got up and walked toward it.

The opening of the tent was over twenty feet long. Some soldiers came and dragged me close in front of it, so that I could witness all that went on.

Two powerful Lamas entered the tent with the Pombo. A number of other people who were inside were turned out. They closed the tent for a few minutes, and then opened it again. In the mean time a gong summoned the Lamas from the monastery and, a few minutes later, a procession of them came down and took their places inside the tent.

The Pombo, in his yellow coat and trousers and four-pointed hat, sat on a high-backed chair in the centre of the tent. By his side stood the two Lamas who had first entered with him. The Pombo was beyond doubt in a hypnotic trance. He sat motionless, with his hands flat on his knees and his head erect; his eyes were fixed and staring. He remained like this for some minutes. All the soldiers and people who had collected in front of the tent went down on their knees, laid their caps on the ground, and muttered prayers. One of the two Lamas, a fellow with evident mesmeric powers, now laid his hand upon the shoulders of the Pombo, who gradually raised his arms with hands outstretched and remained, as if in a cataleptic state, for a long time without moving.

Next the Lama touched the Pombo's neck with his thumbs, and caused his head to begin a rapid circular movement from left to right.

Certain exorcisms were p.r.o.nounced by the hypnotizer. The Pombo began most extraordinary snake-like contortions, moving and twisting his arms, head, body, and legs. He worked himself, or rather was worked, into a frenzy that lasted some time. The crowd of devotees drew nearer and nearer to him, praying fervently. There were deep sighs and cries of astonishment, even of terror, when the Pombo performed some of the more eccentric movements with his limbs. Now and then this weird dance terminated in a strange posture, the Pombo actually doubling himself up with his head between his feet and his long, flat hat resting on the ground. While he was in this position, the bystanders went one by one to touch his feet and make low prostrations and salutations. At last the hypnotizer, seizing the Pombo's head between his hands, stared in his eyes, rubbed his forehead, and woke him from the trance. The Pombo was pale and exhausted. When he lay back on the chair his hat fell off. His clean-shaven head unmistakably showed that he, too, was a Lama. Indeed, he belonged to a very high order, probably the first rank after the Dalai Lama of Lha.s.sa.

_Katas_ were distributed after this performance to all the Tibetans present, who folded them and stowed them away in their coats.

The Pombo came out of his gaudy tent. I told him that the dance was beautiful, but I was very hungry. He asked me what I wanted to eat. I said I should like some meat and tea.

A little later a large vessel with a delicious stew of yak meat was brought to me, as well as _tsamba_ in abundance. I felt famished, but I had the greatest difficulty in swallowing even a little food. This, I thought, must be owing to the injuries to my spine and the semi-mortification of my limbs, which had apparently affected my whole system except my head.

When the Pombo had retired and night came on, I was again tied to the stretching log. This time with my legs stretched not so far apart. My arms were again fastened to the pillar behind, but with no strain on them.

Late in the evening half a dozen Lamas came from the monastery with a light and a large bra.s.s bowl which, they said, contained tea. The wounded Lama, with his head bandaged up, was among them. He was so anxious for me to drink some of the steaming beverage, in order that I should keep warm during the cold night, that I became suspicious. When they pushed a bowl of the liquid to my lips, I merely sipped a little and declined to take more, spitting out what little they had poured into my mouth. I unfortunately swallowed a few drops. A few minutes later I was seized with sharp pains in my stomach, which continued for several days after. The drink proffered me was poisoned.

The following day my left foot, which had remained lifeless since I had been untied from the rack the first time, began to get better, and the circulation was gradually restored. The pain was unbearable.

In the morning indecision again prevailed as to what they would do to us. A number of Lamas were still anxious to have us beheaded, whereas the Pombo and the others had the previous night almost made up their minds to send us back to the frontier. Unluckily, it appears that the Pombo had a vision during the night. A spirit told him that, if he did not kill us, he and his country would suffer from a great calamity. "You can kill the _Plenki_," the spirit was reported to have said, "and no one will punish you if you do. The _Plenkis_ are afraid to fight the Tibetans."

Among the Lamas no important step is taken without incantations and reference to occult science. The Pombo ordered a Lama to cut off a lock of my hair. A soldier did this with a blunt knife, and the Pombo rode up with it in his hands to the Lamasery to consult the oracle. The lock was handed in for examination. After certain incantations, the oracle answered that I must be beheaded or the country would be in great danger.

The Pombo rode back disappointed, and now ordered that one of my toe-nails should be cut. This operation was performed with the same blunt knife; the oracle was again consulted; the same answer was received.

Three such consultations are usually held by the high court of the a.s.sembled Lamas, the Tibetans on the third occasion producing for the oracle's decision a piece wrenched from a finger-nail. The Lama who performed this last operation examined my hands and spread my fingers apart, expressing intense astonishment. In a moment all the Lamas and soldiers came round and examined my hands--a repet.i.tion of my experience at the Tucker monastery. The Pombo, too, on being informed, immediately came and inspected my fingers. Matters from that moment took a different turn.

When, some weeks later, I was released I was able to learn from the Tibetans the reason of their amazement. My fingers happen to be webbed rather higher than usual. This is most highly thought of in Tibet. A person possessing such fingers has, according to the Tibetans, a charmed life. No matter how much is tried, no real harm can be done to him.

Apart from the question whether there was much charm or not in my life in Tibet, there is no doubt that this trifling superst.i.tion did much toward hastening the Pombo's decision as to what was to be our fate.

The Pombo ordered that my life should be spared, and that I should on that very day start on my return journey toward the Indian frontier. He took from my own money one hundred and twenty rupees, which he placed in my pocket for my wants during the journey, and commanded that, though I must be kept chained up, I was to be treated kindly, and my servants also.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 14: From sunset one evening to sunset next day.]

CHAPTER XXIII

LED TO THE FRONTIER

When all was ready, Mansing and I were led on foot to Toxem. Our guard consisted of some fifty hors.e.m.e.n. We had to travel at a great speed despite our severely lacerated feet, our aching bones, and the sores and wounds with which we were covered all over. The soldiers led me tied by the neck like a dog, and dragged me along when, panting, exhausted, and suffering, I could not keep up with the ponies. We crossed several cold streams, sinking in water and mud up to our waists.

At Toxem, to my delight, I beheld Chanden Sing still alive. He had been kept prisoner in the mud house, where he had remained tied upright to a post for over three days. For four days he had eaten no food nor drunk anything. He was told that I had been beheaded. He was in a dreadful condition--almost dying from his wounds, cold, and starvation.

We were detained for the night in one of the rooms of the mud house. The place was packed with soldiers who gambled the whole night, and sang and swore and fought, preventing us from sleeping for even a few minutes. We were half choked by the smoke from the fire.

The next day at sunrise Chanden Sing and I were placed on yaks, not on riding-saddles, but on wooden pack-saddles. Poor Mansing was made to walk, and was beaten mercilessly when, tired and worn, he fell or remained behind. Finally they tied a rope round his neck and dragged him along in a most brutal manner. A strong guard prevented our escaping.

The soldiers demanded fresh relays of yaks and ponies, and food for themselves, at all the encampments, so that we travelled fast. In the first five days we covered one hundred and seventy-eight miles, the two longest marches being, respectively, forty-two and forty-five miles.

Afterward we did not march quite so quickly.

We suffered considerably on these long marches. The soldiers ill-treated us, and would not allow us to eat every day for fear we should get too strong. They let us have food only every two or three days. Our exhaustion and the pain caused by riding those wretched yaks in our wounded condition were terrible.

All our property had been taken away from us. Our clothes, in rags, were swarming with vermin. We were barefooted and almost naked. The first few days we generally marched from before sunrise till an hour or two after sunset. As soon as we reached camp we were torn off our yaks, and our jailers fastened heavy rings round our ankles, in addition to those we already had round our wrists. Thus hampered with chains, the Tibetans knew we could not possibly escape. We were left to sleep out in the open without a covering of any kind. Some nights we were lying on snow; other nights we were drenched in rain. Our guard generally pitched a tent under which they slept. Even when they did not have a shelter, they usually went to brew their tea some fifty yards or so from us.

Helped by my two servants, who sat by me to keep watch and to screen me, I managed, at considerable risk, to keep a rough record of the return journey, on a small piece of paper that had remained in my pocket when I had been searched by the Tibetans. My hands being supple, I was able to draw my right hand out of its cuff. Using as a pen a small piece of bone I had picked up, and my blood as ink, I drew brief cipher notes and a rough map of the entire route back.

Necessarily I had to content myself with taking my bearings by the sun, the position of which I got fairly accurately by constantly watching the shadow projected by my body on the ground. Of course, when it rained or snowed, I had to reckon my bearings by the observations of the previous day. We travelled first west, then successively west-north-west, north-west, west, and north-west, following the Brahmaputra along a course south of the outward journey, until we reached the boundary of the Yutzang (the Lha.s.sa) province. The soldiers of our guard were severe with us. They ill-treated us in every possible way. Only one or two of the soldiers showed thoughtfulness, bringing us a little b.u.t.ter or _tsamba_ whenever they could do so unseen by their comrades. The guard was changed so frequently that we had no chance of making friends with the men. Each lot seemed worse than the last.

A curious incident happened one day, causing a scare among the Tibetans.

We had halted near a cliff. The soldiers were some twenty yards off.

Having exhausted all other means to inspire these ruffians with respect, as a last resort I tried ventriloquism. I spoke, and pretended to receive answers to my words from the summit of the cliff. The Tibetans were terror-stricken. They asked me who was up there. I said it was some one I knew.

"Is it a _Plenki_?"

"Yes."

Immediately they hustled us on our yaks while they mounted their ponies, and we left the place at a great speed.

On reaching a spot, which from observations taken on my outward journey I reckoned to be in longitude 83 6' 30" east, and lat.i.tude 30 27' 30"

north, I had a great piece of luck. It was at this point that the two princ.i.p.al sources of the Brahmaputra met and formed one river, one coming from the north-west, which I had already followed, the other coming from the west-north-west. The Tibetans, to my delight, selected the southern route, thus giving me an opportunity of visiting the second of the two princ.i.p.al sources of the great river. This second stream rose in a flat plain, having its first birth in a lakelet in approximate longitude 82 47' east and lat.i.tude 30 33' north. I gave the northern source my own name. I was glad to be the first white man to visit both sources of the Brahmaputra River.

Dreary as this period of captivity was, yet it was instructive. As we went along, I got the soldiers to teach me several Tibetan songs, and from the less ill-natured men of our guard I picked up, by judicious questioning, a considerable amount of information.

Over a more southerly and lower pa.s.s than the Maium Pa.s.s, by which, healthy, hopeful, and free, we had entered the province of Yutzang, we now left it, wounded, broken down, almost naked, and prisoners.

We proceeded in a north-westerly direction. Once clear of the sacred Yutzang province, our guard behaved with rather less cruelty. With the little money the Pombo had permitted me to keep we were now allowed to purchase food enough to provide us with more frequent meals. While we ate, the soldiers removed our handcuffs, which they temporarily placed round our ankles. With utensils lent us by our guard, we were able to cook some food. It seemed delicious. We used flat stones for dishes.

We crossed our former track, and then followed it almost in a parallel line, some miles north of it, along an undulating, clayey plateau, thus avoiding the marshy plain which we had found so troublesome to cross on our outward journey. We found a great number of black tents scattered here and there. One night, when encamped near some small lakes, we were allowed to purchase a goat. A soldier who had been friendly to us selected a fat one for us, and we were looking forward with pleasure to a solid meal when we found, to our dismay, that we had no means of dispatching the animal. We could not behead it, as the Tibetans would not trust us with a knife or sword. The Tibetans refused to kill the animal for us. Eventually our soldier friend allowed his scruples to be overcome by the payment of a rupee. He tied the animal's legs together, and having stopped up its nostrils with mud, he held the poor beast's mouth tightly with one hand until it died by suffocation. With his free hand the soldier during the performance revolved his prayer-wheel, praying fervently all the while.

We found ourselves at last in the plain, where a Tarjum's encampment of some two hundred tents was to be seen. Here we remained one night. There was a large a.s.semblage of Lamas and soldiers. In the middle of the night we were roughly roused from our sleep, and made to move our camp about a mile or so from the settlement. Early in the morning, having crossed the large stream, we proceeded in a south-westerly direction, reaching the encampment of the Tokchim Tarjum the same night. Here we were met by the officers who had on a previous occasion, during our outward journey, brought us gifts, and whom we had routed with their soldiers when they had threatened us.

This time they behaved considerately. The oldest of them showed us great civility, and professed admiration for our perseverance against such heavy odds. The old gentleman did all he could to make us comfortable, and even got two strolling musicians to amuse us.