To Lhassa at Last Part 2

CHAPTER VI

OVER THE JALAP-La: CHUMBI: BEARDS

After a week of Gnatong I was ordered to Chumbi, where the reinforcements and a portion of the old force had been concentrating preparatory to what is officially described as 'the second advance to Gyantse.'

My way lay through Kapap over the Jalap-La, and down through Langram and Rinchingong, and thence to Chumbi. The _piece de resistance_ was the part between Kapap and Langram. There is an easy uninteresting pa.s.s between Gnatong and Kapap. Kapap itself looked a bleak dismal spot, lying all in the clouds at the end of a long dark lake. From here you rise to the top of the Jalap-La, which is about 14,900 feet high. The suffix 'La' denotes a 'pa.s.s.' There was snow on the pa.s.s which covered the road in some places. I got into a small drift once, my pony flopping down suddenly till his girths were in the snow. He knew nothing about snow in those days, and must have been very much astonished. One's first acquaintance with so high an alt.i.tude impresses one greatly. There is something so strange about the atmosphere that one feels as though one were in another planet. The effect of the atmosphere on distances is most curious. You see the details of a hill in the distance so clearly that it seems far nearer than it is. Distance-judging by eye for military purposes in high alt.i.tudes is an art governed by rules entirely different from those that govern it at an ordinary elevation.

I was a bit weak after my attack of mountain sickness, and stuck to my pony's back the whole way. I felt a natural anxiety with regard to the native followers who accompanied me--an orderly, a syce, and a bearer.

They were all three plainsmen. Hills of any size whatever were quite strange to them. Whether they would live at the height of Mont Blanc was a question of some moment. I expected at any time to see one or other of them lying down gasping like a freshly caught fish. I think they all died in imagination many times before they reached the top of the pa.s.s.

They turned wild eyes of anguish and reproach towards me whenever I waited to see how they were getting on. Eventually I found it best to leave them to themselves, and only know that they arrived down the far side alive, but expressing a poor opinion of Tibet as a country (for we now were in Tibet).

The walk down to Langram was trying to the toes, but brought us off the bare mountain tops and into a region of pine-woods, the very smell of which is always comforting. Here I stopped the night, descending next morning to Rinchingong, which is in the Chumbi valley, and stands barely over 9,000 feet. Two miles above Rinchingong we had pa.s.sed Yatun, the frontier Tibetan village built against that Chinese wall which stretched as a barrier right across the valley, but has since been demolished by British dynamite. Here, besides the dwellings of some Tibetan inhabitants, were the houses of the British official who controls the Chinese customs in this direction, and of Miss Annie Taylor, the lady missionary who has worked for long, and all alone, among the Tibetans of the border, nursing them in sickness, and telling them of Christianity. 'Ani' is Tibetan for nun, and the name 'Ani memsahib' has therefore a double signification to those who use it.

The first glimpse of a building on the north side of the Jalap-La proclaims the fact that you are no longer in India or under the influence of Indian ideals of domestic or other architecture. The houses in the Chumbi valley are not, however, as typically Tibetan as those further north, being far more Chinese in appearance. It is, in fact, curious that Chinese influence seems more prevalent in the Chumbi valley than in any other part of Eastern Tibet, except Lha.s.sa itself. The number of Chinamen actually resident in the Chumbi valley is itself large, and there seems to have been a great deal of inter-marriage here at one time or another between the local Tibetans and Chinamen proper, the women of such unions having of course been Tibetan, since the Chinaman, when he goes roaming, invariably, I believe, leaves his women folk at home.

The following day brought me into Chumbi. It was pleasant to be in a big camp again, to join a large mess, and get the latest news from headquarters.

The valley itself was a delightful spot to have reached. After the unpleasantnesses of those heights that one had traversed, this valley seemed a sheer Garden of Eden. It was a place to dally in, in which to wander about accompanied by your best girl, picking wild flowers for her, and listening with her to the humming of the bees, and the bubbling of laughing brooks, rather than a place in which to concentrate an army for an advance into the enemy's country.

Chumbi would make a glorious summer sanitarium for British troops in the hot weather, provided that that projected route, which is to avoid the pa.s.ses and run through Bhutan to the Bengal Duars, ever becomes an accomplished fact. Two thousand feet higher than most hill stations, and yet below the really giddy heights, in a climate no hotter at any time than an English summer, never parched with drought and never visited by protracted spells of rain, not perched on an inconvenient hilltop away from its water supply, but lying in a fertile valley, through which runs a river of pure water that knows not the germ of enteric, with enough flat s.p.a.ces to hold commodious barracks and to provide good recreation grounds, it seems that it would prove an altogether desirable haven for the invalid soldiers from Calcutta and the Presidency district.

A week spent here was pleasant enough, enabling one, so to speak, to recover one's breath after descending from those heights we had left behind and before tackling those in front. I soon learnt, with the same school-boy jubilation to which I have previously alluded, that I was to accompany the advance.

Here, of course, at this rendezvous of troops many old friends ran across one another. It was sometimes difficult for two friends to recognise each other on account of the obstacles to recognition formed by their respective beards. The soldier's service beard, in its various forms and aspects, forms an interesting study. There is, of course, the ordinary dull beard grown by an adequately but not outrageously hirsute person and trimmed to a conventional shape, which makes the wearer resemble any such normal being as a naval officer, a parson, or respectable middle-aged civilian of everyday life. The only striking feature of this beard is that it is productive of unexpected likenesses.

You have, for instance, known a brother officer for many years, and never found him possessed of any of the glamour of royalty; you meet him on service wearing his beard, and find he is the veritable double of the Prince of Wales.

But there are other beards. There is, for instance, what may be called the 'Infant prodigy' beard, a monstrosity adorning the chin of a quite youthful officer. The latter may be put to serve under you. And it takes time and much hardening of yourself against external influences before you have the effrontery to order the young gentleman about, or tell him off when he is in error. I remember an instance of a fairly senior captain calling on a regimental mess and being entertained during his visit by the only officer of that regiment then present. The latter possessed an 'Infant prodigy' beard, which was also flecked with a few abnormal grey hairs. I was in that mess too at the moment--in the capacity of honorary member only--and followed the interview with relish. The senior captain was becomingly deferential, and the youngster's grey beard wagged with what appeared becoming dignity. At last a light was brought in by a servant, for it was growing dark, which flashed for a moment on Mr. Greybeard's shoulder strap, and revealed two simple subaltern's stars. The gradual, almost imperceptible, change in the senior captain's manner, and the corresponding falling from his high estate of Mr. Greybeard were interesting to watch. The former soon got up to go.

'd.a.m.n that fellow! I mistook him for the colonel,' is what I am sure he said to himself when he got outside.

Then there is what may be called the 'British workman' beard--that is, the beard which is allowed to grow in its own sweet way, and may adopt any of the sizes or shapes that one sees on the faces of such British workmen as never visit a barber. This type also is productive of strange likenesses, not to public personages or one's own compeers, but to the men of the British working cla.s.s whom one has known in old days. There were many officers so adorned who made excellent gamekeepers or gillies, and in particular I remember a certain stalwart major whose beard grew in two inverted horns that splayed outwards on his chest, and who was the very image of my father's old gardener. I once very nearly addressed him as 'Horton' by mistake, for that happened to have been the gardener's name.

CHAPTER VII

TO PHARI

The 'second advance' began in due course. The first few camping grounds were small, so that we had to proceed on the three days' march to Phari in several columns, two columns a day leaving Chumbi together, but halting at separate camping grounds on the way up, and meeting again at Phari.

This march to Phari was, until we actually reached the Phari plain, quite the wettest I have known. It rained incessantly. The first day we climbed a few miles up to Lingmatam. (How like one another the names of places in this part of the world are! It took me months to distinguish between Lingtam, Langram, and Lingmatam.) From Lingmatam (a sopping, spongy, flat little plain nestling in the hills, that had obviously only just missed its proper vocation of being a lake instead of a plain) we marched up a rough bridle-path through pine-woods to Dhota. We had a very long train of pack-mule transport in our column, and the checks up that steep narrow winding path were interminable, while rain fell the whole time. Whenever anything went wrong with a mule's load, which of course happened frequently owing to the steepness and roughness of the track, it was impossible to take the mule aside to adjust the load, for there was no room at the side, and the mule had to be halted where he was till the adjustment was completed. This involved the halting of say five hundred mules, who happened to be behind the mule who had first been halted. And when the latter at last moved off, it of course took an appreciable interval of time before the next mule followed suit.

Multiply that appreciable interval by the number of mules in the rear, say five hundred, and you find that it takes perhaps a full half-hour before the five-hundredth is at last on the move again. Thus that initial adjustment of a refractory load has cost the rear of the column half an hour's delay, and by the end of the half-hour you may be sure that the load of another mule has got loose, and the whole process has to be repeated. This is just an instance of the trials of a transport officer, and of his faithful servants, the transport driver and the pack-mule.

I remember, during one such check, being seated on my pony at a point of the road where it was impossible to dismount for lack of s.p.a.ce, with one mule's head buried in my pony's tail and another mule's tail flicking my pony's nose, the rain trickling off my helmet and down my neck, and, worst of all, a strong aroma rising from the khud beneath where lay the remains of a mule who had met his death at that spot at a date that was palpably neither very recent nor yet innocuously remote. To be bound almost literally hand and foot in the vicinity of a bad smell is a form of torture which in its way gives points to any inquisition.

Dhota lies at a considerable height above Lingmatam, and, before we reached camp, many of the mule drivers were somewhat exhausted with their climb. There was a certain amount of almost inevitable straggling on the part of some of them--a most unfortunate occurrence, for it resulted in a few leaving their mules to their own devices just when the control of the latter was most necessary. For after emerging from the pine forest a few miles below Dhota we came on to a hillside on which grew ever so little of the deadly aconite plant. A check would occur somewhere to the column. Those mules who were left standing without their drivers would--as is the nature of the beast--try to improve the s.h.i.+ning hour by picking up a little grazing from the roadside. Here and there a mule would swallow some aconite, and the chances were that before he reached camp he would foam at the mouth and quickly expire. A few, though poisoned, reached camp alive, and of these a small proportion were saved by drastic remedies. But the deaths that day from aconite poisoning almost reached double figures--a regrettable occurrence, for the mule is an animal for whom, when one knows him, one entertains affection, and, besides this, each mule carries two maunds of useful provisions on his back, and we were not too well off for transport. After another wet night on another wet camping ground, we marched into Phari. We had left the green valley of the Chumbi; we had mounted upwards through the pine forests beyond; we had emerged into a region of rugged scenery where great rocky precipices hung over us. We wondered what still wilder regions we were now approaching as we still climbed higher. But all of a sudden, as it seemed, we had reached the end of our climb and found ourselves on a level green plain with rolling green downs around us, the sort of homely gentle scene that meets you when, for instance, you cross the border between England and Scotland, or pa.s.s on the railway the lower fells of c.u.mberland--a scene suggestive of sheep grazing on rich close turf, and of comfortable homesteads hidden away in the folds of the hills. This abrupt transition brought to the mind the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. It seemed that we had climbed to the top of the world that had hitherto been ours, and were starting afresh on a new level.

This sensation was chiefly illusory; for that level green plain and those rolling green downs deceived one with their greenness, and proved on closer inspection to be but indifferent pastures, while after a mile or two the plain bent round a corner, and we came in view of such mighty irregularities of the earth's surface as left no doubt as to our being still in the very heart of the mountains. For as we turned that corner, suddenly, as with a sudden flash, and all lit up with the sunlight that had just dispelled the clouds, Chumalari stood before us, his white top only a few miles away, but many thousand feet above us, and so reaching to a height in the sky that to the stranger's eye was almost appalling.

To us men the romance of scenery is very elusive. I have known nice old ladies to whom a fine sunset was a real substantial joy, giving them the same nocturnal exhilaration that baser clay can only acquire by absorbing a bottle of champagne. Given a male mind properly swept and garnished for the time being by some potent influence--preferably of course a sweet influence of the feminine gender--even the most businesslike and prosaic of us can, if only for short intervals at a time, empty ourselves of the things of this ugly world and a.s.similate a little of nature's beauty. But in ordinary humdrum life, when that sweet feminine influence is no longer at his side (or, if still at his side, has lost much of its old magic by having been so foolish as to be now his mere wife), the ordinary brutal humdrum man regards the finest waterfall in the world as merely a good place at which to dilute his whiskey, finds blue sunlit waters rather trying to the eyes, and execrates the glorious sweep of the mountain in front of him as conducive to perspiration and shortness of breath as he climbs it. We can't help it, we men; we are built that way; it is the nature of the beast. But even so when by some strange accident we are taken unawares, and some rare and magnificent glory of nature suddenly confronts us, and, without our consenting or even against our will, pierces that crust of sordid matter-of-factness that usually encases us so securely, as did that great white mountain Chumalari that day when we met him on the Phari plain, then we too abandon ourselves and for once in a way find ourselves drinking in the beauty as greedily as ever that old lady drinks in her sunset.

A few miles along the plain brought us to Phari.

CHAPTER VIII

TO KANGMA

All our little columns concentrated at Phari. Our camp was just outside the 'jong' or fort. Phari-jong was quite typical of the genus 'jong,'

looking from the outside like the sort of mediaeval castle that sometimes adorns the foreground of a drop-scene in a theatre. On the inside it was rather extra-typical, being even more rambling, darker, and dirtier than most jongs. A grim humorist had selected the topmost garret as the post-office. This selection gave the local postmaster, who was also possessed of grim humour, the vastest entertainment. For the little columns came pouring in day after day, bringing all sorts of folk who were pining for their letters. Every one, as soon as he was off duty, went head-down to the post-office. We were now at a level of 15,000 feet, and the climb, at that alt.i.tude, of several hundred feet of rough Tibetan pa.s.sages and staircases was a great strain on the lungs to any one unused to it.

The postmaster sat in his office, cool and comfortable, while all day long officers, British rank and file, sepoys and followers, poured in for their letters, every one arriving panting, with his tongue lolling out, and quite unable to state his requirements for at least two minutes. The postmaster made a point of asking every one most politely what he wanted at the very moment of his arrival, so as not to keep him waiting, and grinned diabolically at the desperate efforts of the latter to splutter out his name and address. When, as one of the victims in question, I went for my letters, and had duly provided him with my share of the entertainment, I asked him whether he was not enjoying himself, and he a.s.sured me it was the best fun he had ever had in his life.

From Phari to Kangma we marched in two columns, of which I accompanied the second.

The 'Tang-La' was our first halting-place--a bleak spot very much swept by the wind. From there we marched to Tuna, and thence to Dochen, with Chumalari on our right, showing us a new view of himself as we rounded each spur that jutted out into the plain. We pa.s.sed many herds of the Kiang or wild a.s.s, some of us galloping after them in an attempt to get a close view; but they are fleet and wary, and evaded us altogether. The simple peasant of that part of Tibet has been known to allude to the Kiang as the 'children of Chumalari,' and thus to explain their sanct.i.ty, for Chumalari himself is a sacred mountain. Whether belief in this origin of the Kiang is orthodox, or merely a local superst.i.tion, I do not know.

Hereabouts we pa.s.sed the 'hot springs,' where still lay what was left of the corpses of many Tibetans who had fallen in the fight that had occurred there some months before. We had, I am told, once actually buried these corpses when we found that the enemy were making no effort in that direction; but the Tibetans, holding curious theories on the subject, had again unearthed them. The principle that apparently governs Tibetan obsequies is the desirability of making a corpse fulfil its natural function as food for animals. Hence exposure of corpses as food for wolves or vultures causes them no pang. They even, it is said, so far elaborate the above principle as to regard a corpse as specially honoured when given as food to the domestic pig, the origin of this development of the principle being of course really utilitarian; for the high-placed Tibetan, since in his life he 'feeds high and lives soft,'

must of necessity in his death be specially nutritious. Lama-fed pork is--so they say--regarded as the greatest of delicacies.

Leaving Dochen and the lake, on the bank of which it lies, we turned up a valley to our left, and emerged at Kalatso, the name given to the post which adjoins the lake of the same name. From here we marched along the Kalatso plain to Menza. The next day was to bring us into Kangma.

My commanding officer was with the first column, and had given me orders to ride on early on alternate days to meet him at the camp ahead of me before he left the latter. His hour for leaving each such camp would be 9 A.M., by which hour I had to arrive there. I had to bring a sergeant with me on each occasion. It was fifteen miles from Menza to Kangma. The road was rather rough, so they said, but one could cover the distance in two hours and a half, so I decided to start with the sergeant at half-past six. At a quarter-past six I found that my pony had bruised a fetlock against a stone in the night and was distinctly lame. I could not get another mount, and had to share the sergeant's, and we had little more than our two hours and a half for the journey. It so happened that I had just been reading a story of primitive life in Western America, called 'The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come,' in which a very sound method by which two men can travel on one horse is alluded to. A. starts on horseback at, say, eight miles an hour, and B. on foot at, say, four miles. When A. has gone a given distance he dismounts, ties the horse to the nearest tree or stone, and proceeds on foot. Up in due course comes B., mounts the horse, and, riding on, should overtake A. just when A. has finished his fair share of walking; after which the process is repeated to the end of the journey.

I was A. and the sergeant was B. The road was quite deserted, and the part through which we were going was at that time reported quite peaceful, so there was practically no risk in leaving the pony alone for short spells at a time. It was a most comfortable arrangement altogether. We travelled at the average rate of six miles an hour. Each of us had a pleasant ride alternating with a pleasant walk. Even the pony, though, when on the move, kept going pretty hard, yet had pleasant breathers between whiles. We arrived punctually at 8.55 A.M., of course to find that the first column had decided to halt a day at Kangma, and that therefore there need not have been any hurry. But then, of course, that is always the way in such cases.

We had one great adventure just before we reached Kangma. I had been walking, and the sergeant had just caught me up, on the pony, when two shots rang out. I located them as coming from a village a short way off.

The sergeant affirmed that they were both volleys. I was in a beastly funk, and perhaps the sergeant was not altogether unmoved. Just then two mounted infantrymen, fully armed, rode up from the Kangma direction. I have great respect for mounted infantrymen, but I have known them spin yarns. We asked whether there were any of the enemy about, to which they replied that their name was legion, or words to that effect, and that they were all around us. This being so, it did not seem to matter in which direction we went; so we pushed on, indulging in the pleasure of each other's company for the time being (instead of one riding ahead while the other walked). Shortly we rounded a corner, and another shot rang out, followed by the appearance of two more mounted infantrymen. We asked the latter what the firing was about, and they told us that the commandant of the donkey corps, who was just round the next corner with his donkeys, was making a fine bag of pigeons.

CHAPTER IX

NAINI: TIBETAN WARFARE

We were all halted a day or two at Kangma. There was some truth after all in the yarn of the first two mounted infantrymen whom we had met on the road, for some of the enemy had been located not far away, and a flying column had gone out after them. The enemy evaded the column successfully, and the latter returned after no other incident except the death of a man and one or two mules from the effects of drinking water which the brave enemy, ignorant of such Western vagaries as the Geneva Convention, had artfully poisoned.

Some unladen mules, of which we stood in considerable need, were brought in that same day by a small escort from Gyantse. They had been fired on _en route_, and so everything began to point to the chance of a bit of fighting in the near future.

From here onwards we amalgamated into one column, and that first march out of Kangma was particularly typical of the inconveniences of a comparatively long column when marching on a narrow hill-road. It may seem strange, but was really quite natural, that our small force with its transport should occupy five miles of road-way, which was, I believe, its approximate length, and to get this five-mile-long serpent to crawl successfully through the 'Red Idol gorge,' and later on wriggle over a certain very narrow, rather ricketty bridge, that barred the way close to camp, was a matter of many tedious hours. Horribly cold it was too that afternoon, as one waited for one's kit to turn up, the valley just there being a veritable chimney that drew a terrific draught up from the Gyantse direction.