There are two roads that lead from Phari to Khamba Dzong, our next objective; the short road passing over the Tang La and the Donka La, and a long road which starts first on the road to Lhasa and turns finally after two marches to the West. On account of the short time at our disposal, and having regard to the fact that we had now in earnest begun our race with the weather, we chose the shorter route. Owing to the condition of the animals, all had agreed that the yaks could not possibly, even by the short road, get to Khamba Dzong under six days. We therefore divided our party again into two. The advance party, with fifty Chumbi mules and a large collection of donkeys and particularly active bullocks, and even some cows, were to march to Khamba Dzong in four days, and were to be followed by 200 yaks in charge of our sardar, Gyaljen, and two of the Gurkha non-commissioned officers, to wit, Naik Hurké Gurung and Lance-naik Lal Sing Gurung, the other two Gurkhas being in charge of the treasure-chest which accompanied the first party; Lance-naik Tejbir Bura and Lance-naik Sarabjit Thapa were to march with the first party.
The sardar Gyaljen had accompanied Colonel Howard-Bury’s party on the first Expedition, and had, apparently, from the accounts given of him in last year’s volume, not been a very great success. I, however, gave him a second chance. He was a thoroughly capable man, and I had every hope, as he knew that I had heard about him and had also seen the report that had been made of him by Colonel Howard-Bury, that on this occasion he would pull himself together and do well; in this we were not disappointed. Of course, as all sophisticated men in his position are likely to do, he was out to benefit himself; but we were able pretty successfully to cope with this failing, and, generally speaking, his services were of great value, especially on certain occasions. Altogether, I think, he was a success.
Of course, we were rather well qualified from this point of view—both Morris and Geoffrey Bruce had an excellent knowledge of Nepal and of the Nepalese, and Nepalese is the one Eastern language which I may say that I also have a good knowledge of. All Sherpas are tri-lingual—that is to say, they talk their own Sherpa dialect of Tibet, Tibetan as a mother-tongue, and nearly all of them Nepalese as well. Owing to their being subjects of Nepal, the official language (that is, Nepalese) is the one they are obliged to employ in dealing with the authorities. Also nearly every one of the Tibetans we employed and who came with us from Darjeeling spoke Nepali as their second language. In consequence of this, nearly the whole of the work usually done by a sardar of coolies in Darjeeling was carried out by the officers of the Expedition, who dealt directly both with the men and with the people of the country.
On April 8 we started out. There was for a good long time a tremendous scrimmage getting all the different loads packed on to the animals, and dividing the animals, especially as the Tibetans had no idea of being punctual, and in consequence the yaks, ponies for riding, mules and bullocks, all drifted in at different times during the morning. Finally, however, our two large mixed convoys were got off. It was really a great piece of luck being able to keep the fifty Chumbi mules. These were laden in the early morning with what was necessary for our camp and despatched well before the rest of the luggage. The great convoy of 200 yaks was finally marshalled and sent off under the charge of the Gurkhas and the sardar, but the advance party’s luggage was spread over miles of country. In consequence of this, Geoffrey, Morris, and myself were delayed until quite late in the morning.
Nuns at Ta-tsang.
Our first march was about 16 miles, and the day was very threatening. We pushed along on ponies at a good pace and crossed the Tang La, which is a little over 15,000 feet, in rough, but not actually wet, weather. Luckily, the country is very open, over plains of more or less frozen grass. Over the main chain of the Himalaya the clouds had settled, and it was evident that the weather was breaking. A little after noon it broke with a vengeance. The clouds settled down, it began to snow heavily, and the wind increased to half a hurricane. Luckily, however, most of our local men knew the road well, otherwise in this great open and undulating country one could very easily get lost. The track, which was fairly well marked otherwise, was completely and rapidly obliterated in places. It was certainly a rather disheartening start. Morris was delayed for a time to look after some luggage; Geoffrey and myself pushed on. Going pretty quickly, we were able to pick up different parties, and were lucky enough to pass one small encampment of Tibetans. It was curious to see yaks contentedly chewing the cud, the whole of their weather-side being a mass of frozen snow. They seemed to be quite as happy lying out in a blizzard as though they had been ordinary civilised cows in a barn.
About what is usually known as tea-time we sighted the camp. Our excellent followers had got a few tents up, and I was fortunate enough myself to find that the porter who was carrying my big coat had already arrived. Nearly all Indian camp servants who are accustomed to travelling in the Himalaya are good in a crisis, and, when things get bad, come to the fore; but on this occasion they surpassed themselves. It must be understood that, in Tibet, very, very seldom can anything but dried yak-dung be found to make a fire with. On this occasion the snow had obliterated everything, and in consequence a fire had to be otherwise improvised. Some tents had been pitched, a fire had been got going, and very soon a hot meal and hot tea were forthcoming. The rest of the party gradually collected, but it was not until well after nightfall that the whole of the advance transport had managed to arrive. As a first march it certainly gave the party a very good idea of what they might have to put up with in Tibet; it was a real good entry into Tibetan travel. However, nobody was much the worse, and, the weather having cleared during the night, we had a brilliant sight the following morning.
On April 9, we made what I think was the hardest march undertaken on the Expedition. Our path led us over the ridge in its three bifurcations which runs North from Pawhunri and rapidly rises from our last camp, each of these ridges being just 17,000 feet, slightly more or less, and most of the path being at about 16,000 feet of elevation. At any time early in April great cold would be expected at such a height, but on this day the wind was blowing right over the Himalaya direct from the snows across these passes, and howling down the gorges between them. It was painfully cold, and the wind never abated from morning to night. We left about seven o’clock in the morning, and it was well after nightfall again before our transport was collected at our next camp at Hung-Zung-trak. Longstaff and myself pushed on in search of the camp for most of the day together, arriving before any of the animals at about 4.30 to five o’clock in the evening, and made our camp at the above-named place under some overhanging cliffs with fairly good grazing—such as grazing is in April—and with a stream beneath the camp from which water could be obtained. We were very shortly followed by our magnificent Chumbi transport, which had been pushing along at a tremendous pace the whole day long. I do not know what we should have done without it.
What was very much brought home to us was the absolute necessity of windproof material to keep out the tremendous cold of these winds. Fortunately, I had a very efficient mackintosh which covered everything, but even then I suffered very considerably from the cold. It simply blew through and through wool, and riding without windproof clothing would have been very painful. It was also very fortunate for us that the weather was really fine and the sun shone all day. I think we should have been in a very bad way indeed if the blizzard had occurred on the second day out from Phari, and not on the first.