"Where are Mansing and the rabbu?"[26] I asked of my bearer.
"He remained behind at the beginning of the swamp. He was too exhausted to drag along the goat you purchased."
I was much concerned, on scouting the country all round from a hillock with my telescope, to see no signs of the poor fellow, and I was angry with myself for not noticing his disappearance before. As there were many Tibetans about the spot where he had remained, I feared foul play on their part, and that he might have been overpowered. Again I imagined that, weak as he was, he might have been sucked down in one of the deeper mud-holes, without a chance of saving himself. I left Chanden Sing to look after the yaks and turned back in search of him. As I hurried back mile after mile, struggling again half across the mud swamp, and yet saw no signs of the poor coolie, I was almost giving up my quest in despair, when my eye caught something moving about half a mile farther on. It was the goat all by itself. I made for it with a sinking heart.
It was only on getting quite close to it that I perceived the poor coolie, lying flat and half sunk in the mud. He had fallen in a faint, and though he was still breathing, he was quite insensible. Fortunately he had taken the precaution of tying the rope of the rabbu tight round his arm, and thus not only was it owing to the animal that I had found his whereabouts, but I had also saved our precious acquisition. With some rubbing and shaking I brought the poor fellow back to life, and supported him by the arm until we rejoined Chanden Sing. Not till the middle of the night did we reach Tarbar, a large Tibetan encampment at the foot of the hill range.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] The Tibetans have three distinct kinds of goats: the rabbu, or large woolly animal, such as the one I had purchased; the ratton, or small goat; and the chitbu, a dwarf goat whose flesh is delicious eating. The rabbu and ratton are the two kinds generally used for carrying loads, and they have sufficient strength to bear a weight not exceeding 40 lbs. for a distance of from five to eight miles daily over fairly good ground.
