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.