46. "For purposes of self-protection I shall no longer jot down exactly our location," the next entry reads. I note merely that we are somewhere in Little Thibet and that I have met the MAN IN YELLOW ROBES AND YELLOW TURBAN AT THE LOW WHITE MONASTERY as I was told to do in the Memorandum at Berlin…. And I approached him with the RIGHT FOOT first, my hands held in the appropriate position, until he asked me in excellent French: 'Whence come you?' Then I made the proper sign and whispered the name of the room adjacent to another room which satisfied the Lama that I was the bearer of a MESSAGE to the Exalted Dalai-Lama as well as the principal Khutuktus of the EAST…. My little audience was much mystified, BUT the MAN IN YELLOW ROBES understood…. He began whirling a brass prayer wheel as he advanced toward my 'prisoner' and salaamed…. Then laying his right hand on the 'prisoner's' shoulder the Lama said: 'Your credentials, sahib, are correct,—and it is well; as your misfortunes have been great, great will be the blessings that will fall upon thy family and thy name. Thy piety hath been known to all my brethren, likewise thy toleration,—although the INFIDEL hath been a thorn pressed evilly against thy side … beware of that same infidel today! He is plotting evil HERE against thy very life,—he envieth the lives of thine!… A religious war now breweth in this land!… SPIES haunt thy footsteps from the rising to the setting sun…. BEWARE lest thy fair daughters and thy wife shall disappear!… Our prayers, sahib, shall attend thee; and our numerous eyes shall remain open to the PERILS as thou goest EAST where arms are open to receive thee,—but see thou, sahib, THAT THOU DOST WALK DILIGENTLY IN THE DIRECTION OF THOSE ARMS!…
"… The Lama backed away…. Never did he cease whirling the prayer wheel as he spoke … this constitutes the perpetual prayer of Lamas, the theory being that the wheel communicates the petition to the air and, thus, mingled with the elements, it ascends naturally to the heaven of the blessed…. We were then conducted through a long row of very low rooms ornamented with a variety of Buddhist statues that have never been dusted nor apparently disturbed, to an open terrace which overlooked a dreary waste of gray rocks and broken ledges and offered to our view the slender roadway that lay like a ribbon across the plain until it faded into the golden glow of the Eastern horizon…. When I looked at that single road, and recalled the WARNING of the Lama so solemnly given to my 'prisoner' about the care to be given to his daughters, I REALIZED FULLY THE MEANING OF THE PRYING EYES that followed us everywhere after my encounter with the milk-fed MUSSULMAN disguised as a Hindu mendicant!…"
XIII
AN ENEMY IN PURSUIT
47. Local color is given in this note:
"We have had an exciting day…. The strategy one must sometimes employ in traveling through a hostile country is based upon the principle of deception…. It was the work of Maria too, who had evidently been reading up on certain occult works of the Eastern magicians and brought them into play at a moment when we were surrounded by a band of marauders in the company of my 'Hindu' friend…. To explain: There is a certain kind of little animal held sacred among these strolling outlaws…. The possession of one of these animals is supposed to be a guarantee of future happiness as well as a protection against all danger…. They are very hard to entrap and the Ladakian Islamites will spend a month endeavoring to ensnare one…. We were quite a distance from the convent at Saspoula, where the road runs around among the rocks and turns back upon itself like a horseshoe in the wooded hills…. At one of these bends the pursuers had encamped ready to dash down upon us as we turned the bend and make away with the girls in the direction of their camp in the secluded mountain passes…. Maria had secured a number of those little animals, and, twisting a fine hairpin around one of their hind legs, she let one by one escape…. The animals clambered toward the higher elevations where the banditti lay in waiting…. Their movements being impeded by the hair pins on their legs they offered an apparently easy PRIZE to the superstitious Islamites…. Abandoning their present enterprise against our party they dashed after the deceptive animals and disappeared over the hills in a mad scamper for GOOD LUCK…. This little ruse cleared our pathway and permitted us to reach Saspoula before the sun had set…. Here we passed a number of shrines besides the French and Thibetan convents…. Avoiding the convent with the tri-color floating from its mast we approached the other…. Here again were the dusty idols, banners and flags thrown into one corner, the floors littered with ugly masks and prayer wheels and books and rolls upon rolls of sacred papers mutely breathing their delegated prayers.
"… As we had been informed, the lamas here were ready to receive us, with meal and beds prepared and our own apartments all in order…. The Lama who greeted us was about five feet tall, low flat forehead, flat nose, full thick lips, rather round small head and with a sweep of black whiskers falling from his chin…. In fact, NONE of these lamas are GRAY,—the only thing that suggests AGE is their stooped and slender bodies and bent and bony fingers…. AND THEY ALLOW THE PRACTICE OF POLYANDRY in their diocese!… One woman has a dozen husbands … and every THIRD man we meet with is a lama.
"… Still the women we see here are more attractive than those we encountered in Cashmere.
"… Before leaving the convent we were again cautioned against holding conversation with STRANGERS we might encounter in the numerous caravans along the road to LEH…. We punctiliously obeyed these instructions during the rest of our journey until we reached the PETAK convent, which stands upon an isolated rock beside an abandoned garrison or fort, with its two towers looking like ant hills beside the majestic mountain that rises ten thousand feet above our resting place…. This mountain is the sentinel that protects our entrance into Thibet…. Six miles away is LEH, elevated eleven thousand feet above the lowlands and around whose shadowy convents rise those immense granite pinnacles to an elevation of eighteen thousand feet, where their frosty crests are enshrouded in the fezzes of eternal snows!…
"… Leh, with its circlet of stubby aspen trees, its succession of terraces, its old fort and the palace of its forgotten Moguls, has its arms outstretched for us…. The mystic word has been passed along our route and BEHOLD we are encamped in a well-furnished three-story white bungalow with odors oozing from the kitchen that promise a night of security and content!…"