To Lhassa at Last Part 4

But that Lha.s.sa column with its train of transport has got well out of the bog by now, and it behoves us to overtake it.

CHAPTER XII

TO RALUNG: MORE SUPPLY MATTERS: A VISIT TO A MONASTERY

From Gyantse to Ralung is a steady upward incline, and took us three days. It rained most of the time, both day and night; it was difficult to get dry again when once you were wet, and there was a good deal of discomfort experienced in all quarters. One camping ground was particularly unpleasant, which for the most part consisted of ploughed land that was not only soaking with the rain, but had recently been irrigated. As we had risen considerably higher than the Gyantse plain, the crops on this and similar ground had hardly begun to show. In fact, from here onwards for many days to come, there seemed very little chance of obtaining any grazing for our animals. We had taken all the transport we could, and loaded it with as many supplies as possible, all selected according to our known needs on the one hand, and the possible but unknown resources of the country on the other; but even so our prospects were not rosy. The mule, for instance, cannot live on grain alone: he must have fodder, and one mule in a very few days will consume as much fodder as is equivalent in weight to his own authorised load.

Hence, if you provide a mule with a reserve of fodder to last him that number of days and make him carry it, you might just as well leave him behind, since he will then be able to carry nothing else except his own fodder. This, in a country where fodder is not locally procurable, is, at any rate in the case of the pack mule, one of the great problems of army transport, and we were brought face to face with it more than once during this march. Grain too is heavy stuff, or, in other words, gets quickly consumed. We used over two hundred maunds a day, or more than a hundred mule loads, and so could not start our march with many days'

supply in reserve without excluding other things that also had to be carried. The next heaviest item was tsampa (the Tibetan barley flour which we were now using as a subst.i.tute for the 'ata' or coa.r.s.ely ground wheat flour usually consumed by natives). Of this we used seventy maunds daily, and so had only a few days in reserve. Meat, though a large item, is much more tractable stuff, for it walks on its four feet till you kill it. It can even be of use in carrying other things. For instance, we had made up our minds that, if sheep and cows ran short, we would eat each yak that, on account of the depletion of supplies, had no longer a load to carry! The other items of food, though many of them costly and highly essential, were none of them very bulky, and of these we had been able to bring along some weeks' reserve.

Our more pressing needs were therefore confined to fodder and grain and tsampa, and many were the foraging parties that went forth on arrival in camp, or that made a detour from the line of march in search of these articles, some drawing blank, some getting very little, and some occasionally a fair haul. At Ralung we got a fair haul. There is a very fine monastery there, situated up a valley five miles from where we camped. I remember spending a very pleasant afternoon there. I had gone there, immediately after arriving in camp, with my commanding officer to see what could be got out of the place. We found some whole barley, some tsampa, and a fair stock of straw. My commanding officer left me there to await the necessary transport while he went back to camp to send it.

I really had a very pleasant time, being hospitably entertained both by the monks and also the nuns--especially the latter. They brought me out 'chang' to drink, a home-brewed light wine, made I believe from barley, and the carca.s.s of a sheep that had been cooked whole, and from which you were expected to pick off your individual requirements. It had already had a lot taken from it, and from a certain self-a.s.sertiveness that there was about it, I concluded that it had been a standing dish for a considerable period, and contented myself with my own sandwiches.

Then they came and talked to me through the interpreter whom I had with me, and quite a youthful little nun in a picturesque woolly red cap came and sat beside me and did her knitting. My overcoat had been wet through for three days, and the sun coming out gave me a chance of drying it.

Quite warm and cosy it all was, with ladies' society and all thrown in.

I was quite sorry when, after several hours of waiting, a long serpent-shaped line of mules slowly trailed up the valley and came for the grain, the tsampa, and the straw.

We were paying again for what we foraged, and I remember doling out what must have seemed to the recipients a prodigious number of rupees.

Tibetan monasteries are undeniably rich, but, especially in outlying parts, I fancy they do all their buying and selling in kind. For instance, they collect their taxes in kind, and it is certainly feasible for them to obtain labour, clothing, and such necessaries without having recourse to coin. The fact that the average Lama was unused to dealing in large sums of money seemed to always have one of two opposite effects. He either did not seem to grasp the fact that a large sum of money really represented 'articles of value,' and had no desire whatever to part with any of his possessions in exchange for it, or else, being either less ignorant and knowing its value, or more simple-minded and attracted by its glitter, he would accept the money with p.r.o.nounced greed.

The effect of all the coin that we took to and left in the country must have had a curious economic effect on Tibet. For a country that trades largely by barter to be suddenly flooded with rupees should, according to the ordinary principles of political economy, raise the current prices of all commodities to an extraordinary extent. However, Tibet, queer country that it is, has probably a political economy all of its very own, and will arrange such a matter entirely differently from Western expectation.

Even our rupees, as such, were not always approved, a distinction being sometimes drawn between those enfaced with King Edward's head and those enfaced with Queen Victoria's. The latter were approved on the ground that they were 'Kampani' rupees, the Queen's face being apparently regarded as the trade mark of the East India Company, of which the past generation of Tibetans must have heard and pa.s.sed on the memory to their children, who still thought it was in existence. A new symbol, such as that of a man's head, was thus naturally viewed at first with suspicion.

CHAPTER XIII

THE KARO-La

The next day brought us just under the Karo-La pa.s.s, and we camped at a height of 16,600 feet, with a great ma.s.s of snow so near us on the hillside that, while the sun was still up, it quite hurt our eyes to look in that direction. Avalanches of snow kept falling from the ma.s.s, coming down with a great thud that was almost startling. There was a little mountain sickness that night; but, considering the height and the fatigue that had been involved in reaching it, there was remarkably little. A very little reconnoitring to the front in the early afternoon had revealed the enemy in position a mile or so the other side of the pa.s.s. They had built two walls, one behind the other, on what appeared to be admirably selected ground. They seemed in fact to have been studying tactics to some purpose.

It was pleasant to get up the next morning in a sharp frost, and to get, as it were, one glimpse into winter--a glimpse, however, that only lasted till the sun got up. Cold for the past few months had not been our bugbear, but rain, and to-day there was no rain, the sky was cloudless, and the air crisp and fresh, and as soon as the sun was up, even moderately warm.

A few minutes' walk took us to the top of the pa.s.s, 16,800 feet. From there the road descended gradually, but the headquarters' Staff, whom for the moment I was accompanying, kept to the hillside at the same level as the top of the pa.s.s till they came to a good _coin de vantage_ from which to view the first phase of the fight. For it was obvious that we were to be opposed.

The artillery stayed close by us, while two parties of Ghurkhas were sent to scale the heights on either side, and the Fusiliers and some more infantry sent along the valley to attack the formidable-looking walls which the Tibetans had erected ahead of us.

It soon appeared that the enemy had decided at the last to leave the two walls down in the valley, behind either of which they could have a.s.suredly made a useful stand, and had instead betaken themselves to the top of an almost inaccessible ridge overlooking the walls and about two thousand feet above them, on what was to us the right side of the valley. From near the top of this ridge a jingal soon began firing, and kept up an intermittent cannonade for several hours. Our artillery fired a great many rounds in that direction, but it was difficult to ascertain what effect they had. It was apparent that the brunt of the fighting during this phase of the action would fall upon the right party of Ghurkhas, who now in the distance, as they climbed steadily up the steep cliffs to our right front, looked like a string of tiny ants. They must have climbed two to three thousand feet before they reached the ridge, and thus gone into action at a height bordering on 20,000 feet. Before they could get near the enemy they had to cross a steep strip of snow.

Ploughing through that within range of the enemy must have been somewhat trying. They got near them at last and accounted for a good many, including, it was afterwards ascertained, two important leaders. The ridge on which the Tibetans made their stand contained several caves, in which the enemy proceeded to hide, so that what followed must have been a species of ratting, which resulted in the capture of a good many prisoners.

Meanwhile the rest of our forces moved onwards, and the 40th Pathans were at length sent in pursuit of several of the enemy who were seen escaping upwards in the direction of a glacier, while the artillery from their new position kept the latter moving with a few rounds of shrapnel. After a lot of ammunition, breath, and muscular tissue had been expended in this uphill pursuit, there was no sign left anywhere of the enemy on or below the skyline. They had apparently disappeared over the glacier.

We were then ready to march to camp. After a very short distance we pa.s.sed Zara, a small village alongside of which is a Chinese rest-house.

Close to the village we came upon our enemy's camp standing as they had left it in the morning. We got from it a good deal of tsampa and found more in the village itself, where they had evidently stored their reserve of this, their only article of food. We were in need of firewood too, and found a lot of useful logs lying about the camping ground, not to mention a large number of tent poles made of good seasoned wood, which burnt well that night in our own camp.

We camped about five miles further on, and about a thousand feet lower down. To descend into a somewhat more plentiful air was a relief after a night and a day on the Karo-La.

Our great difficulty that night was the lack of fodder. The mules had had a long day and no grazing, and there was not a blade of anything to give them. We did the best we could by doling out an extra pound of grain per animal, which was issued, after a long soaking, in small quant.i.ties at frequent intervals. This helped to fill the gaps left by the lack of fodder. A weed resembling vetch with a small purple flower grew on the hillside. We also cut some of this and gave it to the mules, who ate some of it, but on the whole preferred any loose ends of their next-door neighbours' jules or blankets. There was a great deal of woollen texture consumed that night, and some of the jules were a sorry sight in the morning.

The noise made at night by hungry mules who have no fodder is very distressing. That night they kept up a constant complaining.

CHAPTER XIV

NAGARTSE: ENVOYS: DEMOLITIONS: BATHS: BOILING WATER

Next day we reached Nagartse. This is a village surmounted by a jong which is perched at the end of a rocky ridge which runs from higher hills close down to a corner of the Lake Palti. There is one monastery inside the jong itself, and another on the hillside close by. There was a belt of standing crops close to the jong which were more advanced than those on the other side of the Karo-La. On the whole we appeared to have reached something of an oasis. If the enemy had decided to make a stand against us here, we should have had very little difficulty in ousting them. It would have been quite easy to send our mountain guns up on to the ridge above the jong, and a very few sh.e.l.ls from that position would have probably secured a speedy evacuation. As a matter of fact, after a little parleying, they decided to evacuate, and we were to be free of the jong and all it contained, while of course we respected all property of theirs that pertained to religion.

From here onwards we were constantly met by deputations of envoys. The sight, which first of all used greatly to tickle the fancy, of important Tibetan personages under bright umbrellas and riding splendid mules splendidly caparisoned, and led by servants in gorgeous liveries, soon grew quite common. At every point of any importance along the line of our advance, this or a similar cavalcade would come hurrying up. What exactly used to take place at the interviews which followed, I am not privileged to know, but apparently fresh reasons were advanced on each occasion for our not going further on our way to Lha.s.sa, and fresh specious promises of considering our demands in a conciliatory though vague spirit were never wanting. But after a pleasant talk of many hours the purple and fine linen used to ride away baffled.

We halted at Nagartse for two nights. We found it a useful place to have captured. Unfortunately it contained little grain, of which now we were growing very short, but we found in it a large storehouse of bagged tsampa, which was very welcome. It proved also to have been used by the enemy as an a.r.s.enal, and several boxes of gunpowder were discovered in it, hidden away in a barn among quant.i.ties of straw. We had grown wary in searching jongs since the day, a fortnight or so before, when some accident such as a lighted match falling through a flooring in Gyantse-jong had caused the explosion of a store of gunpowder which had done much havoc among a party of Fusiliers close by, several of whom had been seriously injured.

The gunpowder found at Nagartse was destroyed by us, and certain portions of the buildings demolished, the latter process producing a fine haul of firewood in the shape of the beams and rafters of the demolished houses. That process of demolition, in which the Sappers and Miners were past masters, is one of the dirtiest jobs I know. I was there to collect wood from the _debris_, which the Sappers and Miners demolished. As each wall falls it throws up a cloud of dust, and the filth of ages in small particles enters your eyes, your ears, your hair, and your mouth, and covers your clothes: no small matter when the clothes in which you stand may be the only suit you possess, and the function of having a bath cannot be undertaken lightly, but needs due warning, ample preparation, and a.s.sured leisure.

Many of us who serve in India have, for considerations of health, which to the Englishman at home seem absurd, but are nevertheless proved by Anglo-Indian experience to be imperative, had to abjure the cold bath.

For such a hot bath is the only form of complete ablution. Your tent, if you do not exceed your scale of transport, will be small and will have no bath-room attached; then for preparing the bath, you have to remove all the ordinary contents of the tent outside into the open. Then will follow the setting in position of whatever form of camp bath you may possess, or may be able to borrow. Meanwhile an extra allowance of firewood has to be procured and the water made hot. By the time all is ready and you are beginning to take off your clothes a considerable time will have pa.s.sed. If, during that period, some exigency of field service does not arise which requires you to leave all those preparations regretfully, and postpone the bath to another day, you are lucky. Even if you get through with your project without being disturbed, it is as likely as not that the day for getting your clothes washed being a movable feast, you will have nothing to put on that will not seem a defilement to your freshly polished skin. Getting water hot enough was sometimes difficult when you wanted as much as is necessary for a bath, if the wind blew high and firewood was scanty. But this was nothing compared with the difficulty experienced in such forms of cookery as were a.s.sociated with boiling water. The temperature at which water boils at an alt.i.tude of, say, 15,000 feet is, I believe, some forty degrees lower than boiling point on the sea-level. I wondered for a long time why my tea never seemed to have been made with boiling water, and I am afraid a certain faithful youth who used to make it for me got rather harsh treatment till my scientific education was sufficiently advanced to absolve him. Tea that is served up at a temperature of forty degrees below the normal boiling point can never be very nice. And it got cool very quickly, which of course was natural. When I returned to India the other day, I could not make out why I was always burning my tongue over my tea, till I remembered that of course the tea which I was now drinking was made with water that boiled at an ordinary boiling temperature, and so remained too hot to drink till it had been allowed to stand for a decent interval.

It was in its effect upon rice as part of the natives' ration that this low boiling point was really of serious import. Rice well boiled is a good ration for natives, but there was many a case of indigestion and colic attributed to the rice which had been spuriously boiled at one of these high alt.i.tudes, but never really cooked.

CHAPTER XV

LAKE PALTI: DRAWING BLANK: PETE-JONG

We left Nagartse in very wretched weather, and for the next few days marched in rain and camped in rain. A spell of bad weather like this, bad enough as it is for every one, man or beast, is perhaps worst of all for the mules who carry the tents, for a thoroughly soaked tent is literally twice its normal weight; and ours on this occasion, after the initial soaking, got no drier for several days in succession.

We were now marching alongside the Lake Palti. Once or twice the clouds broke for an hour or so, and the sun and sky lit up the lake, and so showed it us in its true colour--that unique shade of turquoise, unlike anything in water scenery that the most travelled of us had ever seen before. I forget whether any scientific explanation of the peculiar colour was forthcoming among the learned, but the water of the lake being distinctly brackish may contain certain salts which, being diluted throughout the whole extent of the lake, produces some faint effect of colour on the water, and this, in combination with the sky's reflection, results in the turquoise shade which we so admired.

The Tibetans, with that large-mindedness which characterises their disposal of their dead, do not forget the fishes of the Lake Palti, and in that region corpses are made away with by being thrown into the lake.

It would thus appear that, what with its salts and functions as a cemetery, the lake supplied but indifferent drinking water. At one or two camps that we occupied by its side, there were no streams flowing down from the hills, so we had to be content with the lake, but no ill effects resulted.

Many were the fish that were caught in Lake Palti, as we skirted its banks, and that embellished those dinners that were now getting so plain. The regular trout fishing appliances--greenheart rod, reel and silk-spun line, catgut cast and choice Zulu or March-brown fly--accounted for large numbers; but side by side with the sportsman so equipped would stand some sepoy or follower with a lengthy stick, a bit of string, and a bent pin baited with a bit of tsampa, whose efforts would be crowned with success quite similar. Really accommodating fish those were, that gave the skilled angler the entertainment he sought, and yet did not disdain that humbler one who with simpler devices fished only for the pot.

Yasig was our first camp out of Nagartse.

There was a village two miles from camp, but it contained no supplies, and was deserted except for a few old women. In those days, to the casual traveller through Tibet, old women would have appeared to form the bulk of the population. A useful thing, an old woman! You can use her as a cat's-paw. Though afraid to go yourself into the vicinity of the invading foe, you can yet send your old woman to watch over your interests in the village, to feed and milk the cows that you have left hidden there, to perform such small agricultural functions generally as may save the farm from utter ruin, and to return periodically with the latest news of the foe. That seemed to be the idea which dominated the Tibetans in this matter, and perhaps it was a sound one. I can certainly imagine no more effective 'chowkidar' upon a village than an ancient, toothless, slatternly Tibetan woman, who greets you with tongue out and thumbs upturned (the conventional symbols of submission), and weeps long and loud from the moment you approach her until you leave her. I believe Aristotle has defined tragedy as 'a purging of the emotions with sympathy and a kind of horror.' According to this definition the sight of these old women was essentially tragic. You went to a village hoping to find in it a stock of good things, and you found only this old woman and nothing else. You were sorry for the old girl, of course; but when you saw the filth encasing her and the lice enveloping her, you were filled indeed with 'a kind of horror,' and rode away promptly with your emotions thoroughly purged after the correct Aristotelian method. The Tibetan of course knew that this would happen, and this was why he sent his old woman to guard his property.