CHAPTER VIII

THE ARYANS OF SARIKOL

A SARIKOLI LOVE SONG

Alas, my unfaithful Love!

Alas, my inconstant Heaven!

I am become thin as a blade of grass from craving for thee.

Oh, thou heavenly Beauty

Whose ears are adorned with gold,

Would that I might become thy closest companion.

Thy breasts are as a newly plucked apple.

Oh, mount thy swift steed and ride with me.

When its shoes are worn, I will replace them with silver.

We left the Russian Pamirs by a pass that seemed, when we reached its summit, to have an almost interminable descent, as we saw miles of a stony track stretching out below our feet. Half-way down we were met by a contingent of tribesmen clad in long red, blue, yellow, or crimson coats, with the white felt Kirghiz hats or leather and sheepskin caps, their bedding of vividly coloured felts being strapped on to their saddles; and when we finally emerged from the long winding valley, great Muztagh Ata was so close that it seemed as if we could easily ride up to its snow-line. We were now back again in the delightful uplands of Chinese Turkestan, and for the first time for many days we saw what might by courtesy be called a house. It consisted of two dark and dirty rooms opening into a squalid courtyard surrounded by a mud wall, and I felt that the Kirghiz akhoi was a far preferable dwelling to this, as it can be moved from place to place and its surroundings are thus kept clean. In the few instances where the Kirghiz had built a walled enclosure for their flocks, and in consequence occupied the same camping ground permanently, the place was quite uninhabitable for Europeans.

We made one of our longest halts on the fine grazing grounds of Tagharma, a broad plain with encampments at intervals. A group of akhois had been prepared for us, and a big crowd welcomed my brother as we rode into camp, many Sarikolis having ridden over from Tashkurghan, their capital, some sixteen miles off, to greet him. We were now at an altitude of some nine thousand feet, and the lassitude and the “hand-at-my-throat” feeling that I had experienced on the Roof of the World left me entirely, and I revelled in the delicious weather, which was neither too hot nor too cold. It was delightful to stroll about the valley in the evenings, my heavy fur coat and wool-lined boots being no longer needed, and I was charmed with the sheets of mauve primulas, the big white cistus, white and mauve anemones, pretty blue daisies with yellow centres, millions of little cream flowers with a most deceptive resemblance to a daisy, the familiar dandelion, and others. In the hills I came across a curious plant, dark brownish-red, the size and shape of a sheep’s tongue, which had no leaves, but pushed its way out of the sandy soil. It was rough to the touch when pulled up, but white and fleshy under the outer skin, and was heavy, with no distinctive smell.

One day the Kirghiz gave a display of the baigu, or “goat game,” which is the national form of sport. A goat was killed, and after its head and entrails had been removed and all its bones broken, the skin was stitched up and it was then thrown into the middle of a throng of men mounted on their wiry little ponies who constituted the mêlée. The first man that succeeded in picking it up tucked it under his thigh, holding it with one hand while he rode off, pursued by the others eager to wrest it from him. If he managed to keep his booty while he galloped round a flag and returned to the goal, he won the round and the game began afresh. The riders often held their short-handled whips in their mouths in order to have the right hand free when they bent down from their saddles to seize the goat, but owing to the shortness of their stirrups they had not particularly good seats and seemed to come off easily. I noticed that there was no excitement on the part of the ponies, and their masters could keep them at a canter only by tugging at their mouths, using the whip and belabouring their sides with their long boots. We watched the game from the far side of a stream that surrounded the playing-ground, but every now and again were obliged to retreat hurriedly; for some of the performers would plunge into the rivulet with a great splashing, or even leap it, and ride amuck among the spectators. Our servants and the large crowd of onlookers did their best with shouts and crackings of whips to keep the players to their own side of the water; but the Kirghiz were half mad with excitement, yelling, shrieking, pulling at one another, and never ceasing to urge their unfortunate ponies.

THE GAME OF BAIGU—THE MÊLÉE.

Page 150(a).

THE GAME OF BAIGU—THE PICK-UP.

Page 150(b).

THE GAME OF BAIGU—THE VICTOR.

Page 150(c).

My brother gave a coloured silk handkerchief to the victor of each round, a gift much appreciated, and when these were used up, lengths of fine white mull muslin were awarded, which would be used by the women, who had been left in the akhois, to wind on the framework of their headgear. After about an hour, seeing that the grass-fed ponies were becoming exhausted, he offered one big prize for a round that was to be the last, and so the game closed. The lofty mountains that ringed us made a glorious background to an animated scene that was full of colour, the riders fastening back the skirts of their gay coats to get them out of the way and thus displaying the brilliant linings.

Baigu did not commend itself to me when I learnt that the ponies were often forced to play for four hours on end, and were then tightly tied up and left without food and water until the next morning, when they were turned loose to graze. In fact, the inhabitants of Chinese Turkestan struck us as very bad horse-masters, and one might almost say that their ideal was for their unlucky animals to have no food, no drink, and no rest. For example: the practice was to tie up the heads of the baggage animals when they reached the halting-place, the poor things being left without food and water for a period in proportion to the length of the march. If possible their masters never allowed them to lie down, stirring them up if they did so during grazing, and tying them up tightly at night, the idea being that the legs of a horse swell if he is allowed to repose himself. Again and again I have seen horses tethered to trees growing on high banks, the poor animals being left in discomfort for hours owing to the uncertain foothold.

My brother had a constant struggle to induce our grooms to water our horses during our long mid-day halts, old Jafar Bai asserting that they would go lame if allowed to drink. On one occasion when my particular mount took to limping he was very triumphant, and told every one that it was owing to our way of flying in the face of custom with regard to the water question. But his triumph was short-lived, for when the grey’s shoe was removed it was found that the farrier had cut the hoof ruthlessly in order to make it fit the shoe—a common practice. My brother’s plan of picketing our animals with long ropes while grazing also came in for much censure, and was said to be the cause of any malady that the water theory did not cover.

As we had not tasted fresh fish since leaving Europe, we enjoyed a large but somewhat tasteless variety that was caught in the river which meandered through the Tagharma Valley, and thought it would be interesting to do some angling ourselves. We had brought fishing-rods with us, having been told that the rivers simply swarmed with a species of trout, and one afternoon, when the heat of the day was over, we sallied forth attended by a horde of bare-legged Kirghiz who carried our landing-net, and who so scared the few fish we saw that not a single nibble rewarded our efforts. On enquiry I found that the natives, who evidently scorned our orthodox methods, were accustomed to dam up the shallow river in suitable places with clods of earth, making a cul de sac into which they drove the fish, which then fell an easy prey.

It was a proud day for Nadir when we left Tagharma to go to Tashkurghan, his native place. I was sorry to leave the pleasant grassy valley dotted with groups of akhois, from which shaggy dogs in charge of the flocks of sheep and goats rushed out to bark at us. Nearer and nearer we approached the mountains, until we reached a gorge through which ran the Sarikol River. This defile led us into the wide Sarikol Valley, where we were met by a big group of its inhabitants headed by the Aksakal, or British Agent, a native of Lahore. They had as usual erected a tent, and pressed pillaus, tea, sweetmeats, and little squares of tough native bread upon us. Nadir, who was a kind of understudy to the Aksakal, with the title of Watchman, proudly brought his little son to show me. He had been met by three generations of strikingly handsome relatives, and all round us were Persian-speaking Aryans with no resemblance whatever to the surrounding Kirghiz tribes. They were handsome, well-built men and youths, with aquiline noses, clear-cut features, fine dark eyes and thick black beards and moustaches; and one and all looked intelligent and alert.

As we rode past the cemetery on our way to camp, I noticed that the tombs were more ornate than those of the Kirghiz, and was struck by curious clay erections at one end of them which reminded me of rabbits sitting up. These, I was told, were intended to hold lights, a custom which had nothing to do with Mohamedan practice, but probably was borrowed from Buddhism.

Our akhois were pitched on a stretch of grazing near a branch of the river which cuts up the valley with its numerous tributaries and is so deep, and runs so swiftly in summer, that every year without fail it takes a toll of human and animal life. High above us towered the long ridge on which Tashkurghan is built. As the town is printed in large type on all the maps I was surprised to find it but a small collection of dilapidated mud houses, many of which were in ruins. It is, however, the spot alluded to by the Chinese traveller Hiuen-Tsiang, who visited it in the seventh century. On the highest point stood a large castellated Chinese fort, and not far off, in an equally dominating position, was the small Russian fort, where an officer, his wife, and a troop of Cossacks were quartered. The young captain called upon us, saying that his wife had not seen a European woman for two years, and asked us to dine with them that evening, while in our turn we entertained them in camp. They must have led a very dreary life as they were cut off almost completely from the outer world, and there are but few resources in the Sarikol Valley, especially during the long winter. The Russian lady was delighted to meet me, though, as she could speak no language save her own, conversation was very difficult. She took me into her tiny garden, a walled-in plot which the Cossacks had cleared of boulders and in which a few poplar saplings and some minute cabbages and lettuces were struggling to gain a livelihood from the barren ground. It almost brought the tears to my eyes when she pointed out with intense pride a solitary bloom of mignonette, the only flower in this mockery of a garden, though it was mid-July. To amuse me she told the Cossacks to release a couple of wolf-cubs kept in a den in the courtyard, and when the poor little beasts made a dash for liberty I secretly hoped that they would escape, in spite of the Persian proverb which says, “To be kind to the wolf is to be cruel to the lamb.”

Though the Chinese Governor met my brother when he entered Tashkurghan, providing tea for him on the road and calling upon him, he was evidently unwilling to admit Europeans into the fort, and gave what I imagine must be the stock excuse, that he had not the wherewithal to entertain an English guest. When I read Sir Thomas Gordon’s account of his visit to Sarikol in The Roof of the World, I was struck by the fact that the Chinese Governor of that day—it was 1874—put off Sir Thomas and his party with the same excuse when they wished to return his call.

The Sarikolis are Mohamedans of the Ismaili sect, and acknowledge the Agha Khan as their spiritual head. They talk Persian with a somewhat uncouth accent, and the very warm welcome they gave my brother was partly due to their delight at hearing him speak the Persian of Persia.

One day we crossed the many branches of the river and clambered up a steep neck in the hills in order to have a view of the long valley leading up to the stony Taghdumbash Pamir. At our feet small hamlets were dotted about, surrounded by badly-grown crops of wheat, barley, peas, lucerne and mustard. The plant last mentioned is grown for its oil, which is used in the little native lamps, and I was told that the Sarikolis show traces of their fire-worshipping ancestry by never blowing out a flame, thus copying the practice of the Zoroastrians. I was much interested to find in this backwater of the world a close connection with the bygone legends of Persia, Nadir informing us that Mount Afrasiab was the name of the hill behind us, and pointing out a hill of remarkable shape just opposite across the valley, saying that it was Besitun, the scene of Ferhad’s almost impossible engineering feat. Let me tell this famous legend of old Persia as far as possible in his own words:

Now King Afrasiab[2] greatly loved the fair Shirin his wife and cared for no other woman, and his wrath was kindled when he perceived that her beauty had cast a spell over Ferhad the architect, who became as a man distraught. Near the palace of the monarch lay Mount Besitun and behind it was a stream that ran down from the hills above and gave the mighty king an idea by which to cure the vain passion of his servant. Therefore he summoned Ferhad to his presence and swore to him that if he could bore a tunnel in the mountain through which the stream could run he should have the lovely Queen as his reward.

Afrasiab knew that the task was not in the power of man to perform, but love increased the strength of Ferhad an hundredfold, and at the end of a year the tunnel was nigh completion and the king was greatly alarmed. At last he thought of a plan by which he hoped to keep his beloved wife and yet not break his royal oath. Therefore, one day when Ferhad was in a perilous position on the face of the rock, a royal servant suddenly announced to him that beautiful Shirin was dead; and her lover, losing his foothold from the shock, fell headlong from the mountain and was killed on the spot.

There was also a further proof of the work of Ferhad in the shape of a long furrow on a rock, which all the inhabitants believed was made by the Persian’s chisel.

NASIR ALI KHAN, A MUKI OF SARIKOL.

Page 156.

While we enjoyed the wide view from our eyrie and listened to Nadir we became aware that an old man in a flowered coat, snowy turban and slippers, was struggling up the steep track, helped along by two servants. It was the muki, the priest of the Sarikolis, and a man of great importance in the valley, as I grasped when our shikari hastened to meet him and kissed his hands and those of his servants. The old gentleman, panting with his exertions, had come to offer us hospitality and insisted that we should descend and drink tea in his house. We were soon ushered into a little plastered room with an elaborately carved wooden ceiling and seated ourselves at a table covered with a red silk cloth, on which were biscuits, raisins, almonds, and loaf sugar, three or four lumps of which the servants tried to put into the little Russian glasses of tea which they handed us. The principal men of the district squatted on the floor and listened as the muki told my brother how he travelled every two years to India bearing the offerings of the Faithful to the Agha Khan. Our host was very anxious for us to wait while his invisible womenkind prepared a feast in our honour. Though we declined this invitation our visit did good; for two brothers, rich landowners who had long been at enmity with one another, became reconciled that morning when they met to pay their respects to the Consul.

On our return to camp I received the Aksakal’s wife, a Kashgar woman who came gorgeously attired in an embroidered blue silk coat and brought her three children with her. One was a most attractive little girl of five, dressed in a striped silk coat with gold embroidered green velvet cap, under which hung her four black plaits of hair. She enjoyed looking at our illustrated papers, and where children were depicted she pointed them out as being herself or her brothers, according to size. When Sattur gave her tea she was imperative about the quantity of milk and the number of lumps of sugar that she wanted, and I was thankful that she condescended to approve of the strings of coral that I gave her and allowed me to fill her pockets and those of her brothers with fancy biscuits.

The Sarikolis are very fond of music and dancing, and a troupe of youths led by a man who banged the drum in masterly fashion performed for our amusement. A couple played on pipes and the others sang many songs interspersed with dances, one small boy doing most complicated steps and waving his arms gracefully. All had their hands hidden by the sleeves of their thick blue, red, buff, or striped coats, and wore white felt Kirghiz hats with black brims, and either leather or clumsy felt riding boots. They sang with great entrain and some of the tunes were very pleasing, though monotonous, while others had a curious accompaniment of howls—I can describe it in no other way. The performance lasted for hours, and every now and then the troupe divided into two groups which sang alternately to one another something in this style:

First Group: “Your cheeks are like tulips.”

Second Group: “Your eyes are dark as spring-water.”

Only the old people remember the songs of war and fighting; for now the young are not interested in these and only care to listen to themes of love. Iftikhar Ahmad kindly took down for me the words of two of these songs, one of which forms the heading of this chapter. This is the other:

The Song

Oh, my faithless Beloved whose garments are of gold

The whole world is praising you,

You are indeed the daughter of your mother.

Your silver head-dress gleams;

Your teeth are white as pearls,

And your lips red as coral.

Oh, beautiful one with the dancing eyes!

Chorus

I praise you, but the world blames you.

You enter the feast with pomp.

Your cloak is of silk and your turban is wound twice round your head.

My love is fairer than all other women.

A good mother has given birth to a most beautiful daughter.

On her bosom she wears pearls.

These pearls are gifts from me.

Her boots are scarlet of the softest leather,

And she is attired in a cloak from India.

SARIKOLI DANCERS.

Page 158.

Nowadays the Sarikol Valley is at peace. The walled town on the ridge is half in ruins, while the defences of the villages below are full of breaches and most of its former inhabitants live outside it.

The Sarikolis make but a scanty livelihood in their beloved valley. It is covered with snow during several months of the year, and their meagre crops of wheat, barley and peas were plentifully mixed with weeds. Their women enjoy a good position and are not veiled; monogamy is the custom of the country and divorce is rare. They are a hospitable race, and when a man gives a feast he never appears at it, and comes into the room only when it is over, at the urgent appeal of his guests. When these thank him he says that the collation he has set before them is merely “a refuge beneath a rock,” and when the guests depart he speeds them on their way with the wish that their “road may be white.”

They have a curious custom of placing a newly-born child in a skin full of powdered cow-dung, its head only being left outside. The contents of the bag are changed every day, and during the winter a hot stone is placed at the feet of the infant.

When the time came for us to leave, my chief regret was that I must bid farewell to the particular view of Muztagh Ata seen from our camp, its snowy dome seeming to block up one end of the valley and looking its grandest and most majestic, especially in the moonlight.

Our servants were now very efficient. Jafar Bai was an invaluable packer, and so ready to turn his hand to any job that I always fancied he was put upon by the other servants. He looked after our interests in every way, and was so trustworthy that I often handed him the keys of the store-boxes to give out supplies if I were busy. I would not have granted the same privilege to lusty Daoud, who purloined all he could and always said that he had hich, or nothing, in his particular store-box. Indeed my old factotum once neatly summed up the contrast between my cook and my butler by remarking, “Daoud always tells you that he has nothing, but Sattur always has everything.”

Daoud, however, could rise to an occasion, and he invariably surpassed himself if we had guests; but honest Sattur took a pride in making our tea, sugar, and so on, last as long as possible. He was more like a child than a grown-up man with wife and family dependent upon him, and at first he used to bring one cup or plate at a time from his boxes, when laying the table or producing tiffin in the open. We remonstrated about his slow method, and one day he arrived carrying everything in a coloured table-cloth and laughing softly to himself as he pictured our surprise at his cleverness.

On the return journey to Kashgar our first camp was at Issak Boulak, a secluded little valley high up in the hills. The name means Hot Springs, and we reached it by crossing a series of steep nullahs, up and down the crumbling banks of which our horses had to scramble, as our guide could find no track. At last we arrived at a fold of the mountains, within which was an orange-coloured stream fed by hot sulphur springs that gushed out of the hillside at a temperature of 150° Fahrenheit. My brother and I clambered up to the source of the water, and I dipped a finger cautiously into one of the two springs that were bursting out of the barren rock and pouring into a big pool below, which is visited by sufferers from rheumatism, who sit all day in the hot water. Sattur brought a can of almost boiling water for my bath, bursting into giggles as he poured it in, so mirth-inspiring did he find this labour-saving phenomenon.

Issak Boulak was an isolated spot at the back of beyond, and behind our camp a long twisting defile led into the very heart of the mountains, making me hope to come across some wild creature as we turned corner after corner; but the only sign of life was a hawk that swooped so low as to brush my hat. All the birds we saw during our tour were wonderfully tame. Hoopoes and choughs flew close as if to observe us, the pretty yellow wagtails merely hopped aside as we passed, the cheery desert-larks almost let us tread upon them, while pigeons and partridges had little fear of the gun.

At our halt at Subashi I had my first experience of riding a yak, or kutass. Though I had watched these creatures with their formidable horns moving with ungainly gait over their pastures and had laughed at the uncouth gambols of their calves at play, I had no wish for a more intimate acquaintance with them. But one morning, as we looked at the tremendous mass of Muztagh Ata, my brother proposed that we should try to reach one of the glaciers that hang on its mighty slopes, and accordingly we set off mounted on yaks. Instead of a bridle, the animal has a rope passed through the cartilage of the nose, and, though this is sufficient for the experienced, in the case of novices it is necessary to have the mount led. I sat astride on the peaked Chinese saddle, and found the movement of the kutass comfortable though slow, and we were soon working our way up the flank of the mountain without track of any kind. The ugly, good-tempered Kirghiz who led my yak wore a padded cotton coat striped with scarlet, blue, black and yellow; his long riding-boots were of red leather, and his velvet cap both lined and bordered with fur, while a cloth tied round his waist held his knife and various odds and ends, among which was a hunch of native bread. “I don’t know Persian,” he remarked to me in that tongue, and “I do not speak Turki” was my reply; but in spite of the language difficulty we understood one another quite well, and I did my part in urging my mount when it hung back and pulled at the nose-rope. It was a long stiff climb to reach the glacier, and all the yaks were panting, grunting and gnashing their teeth before we dismounted and stumbled over the mass of big boulders that were hurled in confusion one upon another just below the immensely thick curtain of ice. The altitude took my breath away, even the hardy Kirghiz complained of splitting headaches, and a big yellow dog, guardian doubtless of some flocks feeding on the scanty grazing below, made a sudden appearance and gave vent to the most lugubrious howls. The Kirghiz never venture into the fastnesses of Muztagh Ata, believing the “Father of the Snows” to be haunted by fairies, by camels of supernatural whiteness, and by the sound of drums, this last being possibly the thunder of avalanches. It was thrilling to be on the slopes of this great mountain, its crest as yet unscaled by any human being, in spite of the efforts of Sir Aurel Stein, and we were entranced with the magnificent mountain panorama from our point of vantage. As the descent was very steep we remounted our yaks, and my brother led off along the mountain side. But my guide was of an enterprising nature, and to my horror we started down what appeared to me to be a sheer precipice. Expostulations were of no avail; he turned a deaf ear to them; so I rammed my feet into the stirrups, leant back as far as I could, and clung to the pommel of my saddle, feeling that I might at any moment be flung over the head of my steed. I confess that my heart was in my mouth as my kutass accomplished the descent in a series of long slides, always recovering itself when I imagined that it was just about to fall headlong and bring us both to disaster. My opinion of it as a mount was unbounded, and it crowned its perfections by picking its way unerringly among the boulders that were piled up on either side of the glacier stream along which our route lay. Wild rhubarb was growing in profusion, and I made my boy gather it, as we had not tasted fresh fruit or vegetables for some weeks, and the Russian jam I had bought at Kashgar had fermented and gone off like bombs when the bottles were opened, though Daoud’s apricot conserve had borne the long journey perfectly.

MUZTAGH ATA—THE SNOUT OF A GLACIER.

Page 162.

We had had a superb view from the flank of Muztagh Ata, but nothing to compare with that which we enjoyed from the shore of Little Lake Karakul that lies at the foot of this giant of the Pamirs. Here to the north stood up in all its grandeur the great mountain barrier separating us from Kashgar, which we had looked upon as some enchanting vision when seen at rare intervals from the roof of the Consulate. The “Father of the Snows” and its rival—the natives call it Kungur—rose sheer from the lake, in company with peak behind peak, all nobly serrated and wrapped in eternal snow. Guardians of the Roof of the World, their proud virginal crests, as yet untrodden by the foot of the explorer, offer an indescribable attraction to him who has felt the lure of the Inaccessible.

A KIRGHIZ AND HIS DAUGHTER.

Page 164.

Our tour was now drawing to a close. I felt a keen regret at leaving our free life in these uplands and exchanging an akhoi for a house, and I had also become fond of the friendly Kirghiz. These people are most devoted to their children. In one camp the Beg brought his little daughter to see me, and my guest played tune after tune on her rough home-made sitar, her fingers working with wonderful agility. In fact, her repertoire was so extensive that I feared the performance would never end; so I showed her a string of coral, which made her stop short in a glow of rapturous excitement. It was pretty to see her holding out the ornament to her proud father and then whispering in his ear to ask him to express her thanks, and finally putting on the necklace with shy smiles for the donor. A sturdy boy, some twelve years old, also rises in my memory, son of a Beg’s wife. This lady, who, I was told, practically ruled the tribe, was most pleasant and voluble and called upon me with her boy, bringing offerings of dirty lumps of cheese, a skin of rancid fat, and a strip of woven carpet. It was the fifth day of Ramazan and she expressed much regret that the fast forbade her to sample my tea and biscuits; but Kuli did full justice to everything, drinking with loud noises and waving his teaspoon excitedly, as he had never seen such an object and could not understand its use. Next day I noticed that he was taking an active part in the “goat game,” a green silk handkerchief that I had given his mother being tied round his waist. His father was giving the performance in my brother’s honour, and the players accompanied us as we left their encampment for a new halting-place.

The game began with a series of wild yells, and so recklessly did the players dash about that we were really in danger of being ridden down, in spite of shouts of warning from Jafar Bai and our Kirghiz guide. To our amusement Daoud joined in, forcing his pony into a reluctant canter; but, as he could not bend low enough from the saddle to pick up the goat when it lay on the ground, he was jeered at by Sattur and our less ambitious followers. The game finally ended on the shore of Lake Bulunkul, which is so choked up with sand from the hills rising close to it that, when we crossed, we found it practically dry ground with shallow streams meandering over its bed. It was towards the end of July and our horses were tormented by horse-flies, which we avoided as best we could by cantering whenever the rough ground allowed. In camp the grass was full of mosquitoes, which as we walked rose up in swarms and fastened upon us greedily. Luckily their bite was mild, and as this was our only experience of these pests we could not complain. Since we had left Lake Bulunkul we had made, as it were, a loop and returned again to Kuntigmas, where we halted for two days in order to meet Sir Aurel Stein, who was bound for the Russian Pamirs and Persia.

We could not return to Kashgar by way of the Gez defile, as it would have been impossible to cross the river, which was now in full flood; therefore we traversed the difficult Ulughat Pass, which is open only during the summer, and is dangerous for animals at the best of times. A long stony valley led us past great glaciers hollowed into caves, the entrances to which were fringed with stalactites of ice, and the mountains seemed to close in more and more forbiddingly. I confess that my heart almost failed me when we reached the foot of the pass and I saw a series of zigzag tracks faintly marked on what seemed to me to be the face of a precipice. It would have been impossible to negotiate such a place on horseback; but yaks were in readiness, and I mounted mine thankfully, with a grateful remembrance of the shaggy bull that had carried me up the flank of Muztagh Ata.

But I was now to learn that there are yaks and yaks. The animals assigned to my brother and me strongly objected to the job, and, looking at the path ahead, I did not wonder. They jibbed constantly, refused to proceed, and, what was most unpleasant, took to backing off the path and sliding in perilous fashion on to the long slopes of shifting rubble. They seemed quite callous to the pulling of their nose-ropes, and, though I clung to the peak of my saddle and vigorously belaboured the shaggy sides of my mount, it returned to the track only when it pleased. I became nervous on my brother’s account, because the fastenings of his saddle broke twice, and if he had not realized in time that he was sitting on the yak’s tail instead of in the middle of its back, he would have fallen right over the precipice. He had fastened the thong of his hunting-crop round the branching horns of his kutass, thereby saving himself from disaster. To help matters both of us imitated the cry with which the Kirghiz encouraged their animals: “Halbin! Halbin! Halbin! Ha!” These men felt the height considerably and rested at intervals, holding their heads in their hands as they were suffering from mountain-sickness—the pass was over 16,000 feet—and one poor boy lay down early in the ascent, weeping loudly and entirely refusing to proceed. At intervals they halted and ate yellow squares of tough bread and dried plums, the yaks throughout panting and gnashing their teeth instead of emitting their usual single grunt of content. Near the crest of the pass the track lay among rocks and crags, and I took my feet out of the stirrups and pressed them into my mount’s neck; for yaks have an unpleasant habit of brushing close to any obstacle on the path, and, owing to this, our baggage always suffered considerably. I was riding behind a Kirghiz pony that had been led in front of our party all the way, when suddenly this animal lost its footing and tumbled back right on to my mount, dragging its master along with it. If I had been on horseback we could not have avoided an accident, but luckily yaks appear to have no nerves, and mine stood firm and bore the shock right nobly.

Certainly it was a relief to reach the level ground at the top of the pass, and to dismount while the Kirghiz knelt in prayer before a big cairn of stones crowned with rag-laden sticks. I looked back to enjoy the view of the immense glacier that filled the valley and the peaks towering far above us; but suddenly I had a splitting headache combined with nausea and faintness, which made me realize that I must be experiencing a touch of the mountain-sickness of which I had often read. I felt that I should soon recover if I could only leave the height on which we were standing, and a sturdy native assisted me down the steep track of shifting shale until my brother called to him to halt, thinking I might faint outright. Hot tea was produced from our thermos bottles, and after lying flat for a short time I revived, and enquired of Iftikhar Ahmad, who was also supported by a servant down the mountain-side, whether he, too, were suffering from mal de montagne? He explained that he was merely recovering from the effects of an opiate that he had taken to avoid the malady; but it seemed to me that the remedy was almost worse than the illness.

Although we were over the pass proper, our troubles were not yet at an end, for we had now to ride for a couple of hours along very steep and narrow tracks, where a false step of our ponies on the shifting shingle would have hurled us into the yellow water of the river roaring below, and so into the next world. At last a breakneck descent brought us to the bank of this river. We forded it and reached a group of akhois, where we halted for the night and enquired into casualties. Daoud and one of our grooms were quite lame; the chestnut had fallen and strained itself, and all the animals were badly in need of a rest after their exhausting experiences.

Consequently, next day’s march was a short one, but disagreeable; for the track lay along the stony bed of one of the dried-up watercourses that are so common throughout Chinese Turkestan. The valley widened out and the air became milder and milder as we descended, until we reached the first trees that we had seen for weeks. Willows, firs and poplars clung to the hillsides, rising from patches of abundant scrub, tamarisk with pink flower spikes, berberis with scarlet and orange berries and aromatic juniper; wild roses were in bloom, and the swallow and a brown bird with crimson under-wings flew and twittered.

Our baggage yaks were now discarded for camels, and when our caravan reached camp I was distressed by the lugubrious cries of a she-camel that resounded through the night. I found that her young one had been unable to keep up on the march and had accordingly been left on the road in the care of some Kirghiz, but would be rejoined by its disconsolate mother on her return. Female camels are greatly attached to their young, and I was told that, if deprived of them, they mourn and lament for at least three months, so that the general idea of the camel as an impassive and callous animal is quite wrong.

At the end of July we finally left the hills and rode some thirty miles into the plain to Opal, our last halt before we reached Kashgar. The march began down stony river-beds, valleys that widened out, and hills that became lower and lower until on our left they vanished altogether, while to our right they terminated in a bold cliff that rose sheer from a great plain shimmering with light. Silver streaks meandering across this plain indicated rivers, and beyond it we saw again the snowy crests of the Celestial mountains, and the picturesquely serrated peaks behind Miniol, while low hills, beautiful in pink and amber, ochre and mauve, made a fairy vision in the early morning light.

Luckily for us, the weather was cloudy and inclined to rain, as otherwise our sudden descent into the summer heat would have been somewhat trying. At Opal we were in the midst of trees and irrigation, and it was delightful to see golden wheat and barley ripe for the sickle, waving crops of maize and millet, fields of linseed in bloom, cotton in flower, and one of the six annual crops of lucerne in sheets of vivid green.

KASHGAR MUSICIANS.

Page 170.

Next day we were at Kashgar, and, much though I had enjoyed my late experiences, the comfort and cleanliness of the Consulate appealed strongly to us both, as did also the abundance of tomatoes, cauliflowers, cabbages, egg-plants, cucumbers, pumpkins and carrots in its well-stocked garden. We had returned to a season of plenty; for, although the apricots and the first crop of figs were over, the melons were at their prime, white, yellow, green and pink-fleshed, while the small peaches and nectarines were ripe, to be followed by a larger variety later, and the splendid grapes of many kinds and flavours were almost ready. To the servants it could not have been so pleasant, since we arrived in the middle of the great fast of Ramazan, half of which they had escaped owing to being on a journey. During the following fortnight they were very slack and tired, and, though we spared them as much as we could, I felt ashamed to eat three good meals a day while they might touch nothing, Daoud having to prepare our food, and Sattur having to see us eat it. Certainly it is more trying in the hot weather than in the cold of winter, but at any time of year it is not a light matter to let no food pass the lips between dawn and sunset for a whole lunar month. On the stretch of melon beds that lay below our terraced garden the owners had built shelters of leafy boughs and sang and played the whole night through, the noise of drums, pipes and bagpipes not being particularly conducive to our slumbers. The flies had become a nuisance, though I did my best to cope with them by making the doors and windows of the kitchen and larder practically fly-proof, and I found that carbolic sprinkled on a hot shovel stupefied the insects with its pungent smoke, so that they could be swept up. But, as might have been foreseen, nothing I could do was really efficacious, owing to the vis inertiae of the Oriental, and to his inherent incapacity to shut doors properly.

We found a temperature of 98 degrees somewhat trying at first after the uplands we had left, but we enjoyed some pleasant rides to gardens outside the city, where we drank tea and ate fruit, and were offered trays of pistachios. The shell of these nuts is usually split at one end, and Mr. Bohlin quoted a Turki saying to the effect that “a smiling man is like an open pistachio.” In every garden there was a mud platform covered with felts or carpets, on which the natives lie, and sometimes, instead of this, a large oblong wooden table with very short legs. On these expeditions, Sattur followed in the carriage carrying our tea, and we heard that the townsfolk thought we must esteem him very highly to allow him to drive in state while we merely rode.

The crops of Indian corn were usually of the variety with big heads and no “cobs,” our informant saying that both children and dogs steal and eat the milky cobs to such an extent that it was hardly worth while to grow them. This is the last crop to be reaped, and there is an anecdote describing how one year the devil entered into a compact with a farmer who was to give His Satanic Majesty everything above ground. The wily cultivator then sowed carrots, and the disappointed devil accordingly stipulated that his share during the second year should be everything below ground; whereupon wheat was sown. Upon this, Satan demanded at the beginning of the third year that the top and root of the crops sown should be his. But the farmer again outwitted him by raising Indian corn and taking all the cobs, which grow partway down the plants.

All along the roads, mixing with the lofty durra plants, were the fan-like hemp leaves which emitted a strong odour. The Chinese forbid the cultivation of this plant, for hashish has worse effects upon its victims than opium; but the Kashgaris appear to pay little heed to the prohibition and prepare the deadly drug from the pollen which falls from the flowers upon the leaves. Much flax is grown, but only for the oil which is obtained from the seeds, and the natives were amazed, and even disbelieving, when Mr. Bohlin showed them linen made from its fibre. The oil is squeezed out by means of a wheel turned by a horse in a very narrow space, and when the poor animal gets dizzy, going round and round, it is blindfolded, and in the end it often goes blind in reality. On one occasion an intelligent Armenian brought a machine to Kashgar to extract the oil, but the mullas said it was unclean, and as no one dared to buy the oil the man was ruined. The mullas act more or less as guardians of order. We were told that during the summer there had been a fight about irrigation water—a most fruitful cause of dissension in the East—with the result that several of the townsfolk had been wounded. The priests, anxious to prevent the recurrence of such a scandal, had visited every house in the city and broken the points of all the knives, a somewhat original way of checking quarrels.

After being among the lusty, ruddy Kirghiz, the Kashgaris seemed to us pale and underfed, and I was not surprised to hear that any illness carries them off very quickly. Of course they were all suffering from the effects of Ramazan, but their usual food, a thin broth mixed with flour and piles of boiled macaroni, cannot be very sustaining. It was a great relief to me when August 12 arrived, and the fast was over and all our staff attended a service in the little mosque attached to the Consulate. Poor Jafar Bai looked very old and worn out, and told me that the torture of being unable to quench his thirst had been terrible. He and the other servants came to salaam us clad in new, or at all events clean, clothes, and to show their joy they beat a little hand-drum during the entire day. The townsfolk in their new dresses were a feast of colour for the eyes, and I remember one pretty little girl in yellow silk with a crimson skull-cap worked in gold, while another in a long magenta and green-patterned cotton held a big melon in each hand and gazed at us under a jaunty green cap. Many were fond of combining magenta and scarlet, which looked quite in place among the green trees and crops, and their love of colour greatly added to the charm of our daily rides.

Here are the words of one of the songs sung by children during the month of Ramazan, which was translated for me, its charming tune having haunted me. The chorus, however, struck me as somewhat ironical, for the yearly fast presses with great severity on the poor, who are forced to work for their livelihood, and cannot sleep all day and eat all night as do the rich.

These thirty fasts are our guests,

Those who do not keep the fast are animals.

Chorus.

Ramazan, the good month of Ramazan!

Holy and welcome Ramazan is the King of Months!

I come to your door singing praises of Ramazan,

May God in His mercy grant you a son to adorn your cradle.

Chorus, etc.

I shall not weary of singing the praises of Ramazan,

Nor will I leave until you have given me seven cakes of bread.

Chorus, etc.

On the tenth night of Ramazan Fate casts the lot of all men,

Therefore omit not to give alms to the poor on the eve of Destiny.

Chorus, etc.