Dreams and delights

by L. Adams Beck

To learn and discern of his brother the clod,

And his brother the beast, and his brother the God.

But does it not fill one with thoughts? That man had a soul at rest and a clear purpose. And the Christ and the Buddha were sadhus; and if it seem waste to spend the sunset of a life in prayer, that may be the grossest of errors. We do not know the rules of the Great Game. How should we judge? So he came with us, striding behind the ponies with his long steadfast stride, and his company was pleasing to me.

That was a wondrous climb. Had any God ever such an approach to his sanctuary as this Great God of the heights? We climbed through a huge amphitheatre of snows, above us the ribbed and crocketed crags of a mighty mountain. It was wild architecture—fearful buttresses, springing arches, and terrible foundations rooted in the earth’s heart; and, above, a high clerestory, where the Dawn might walk and look down through the hollow eyeholes of the windows into the deeps of the precipice below.

I suppose the architect was the soft persistence of water, for I could see deep beach-marks on the giant walls. But there it stood, crowned with snow, and we toiled up it, and landed on the next story, the very water-shed of these high places—a point much higher than the goal of our journey. And that was very marvellous, for we were now in the bare upper world, with only the sky above us, blue and burning on the snow, the very backbone of the range; and, like the Great Divide, the rivers were flowing both ways, according to the inclination of the source.

Before us lay snow which must be crossed, and endless streams and rivers half or wholly buried in snow. That was a difficult time. The ponies were slipping, sliding, stumbling, yet brave, capable, wary as could be. I shall for ever respect these mountain ponies. They are sure-footed as goats and brave as lions and nothing else would serve in these high places. In Tibet they have been known to climb to the height of 20,000 feet.

Sometimes the snow was rotten, and we sank in; sometimes it was firm, and then we slipped along; sometimes riding was impossible, and then we picked our way with alpenstocks. But everywhere in the Pass summer had its brief victory, and the rivers were set free to feed the sultry Indian plains.

At last we won through to another high marg, a pocket of grass and blossom in the crags; and there, at Panjitarni, we camped. Of course, we had long been above all trees, but nothing seemed to daunt the flowers. This marg lay basking in the sun, without one fragment of shade except when the sun fell behind the peaks in the evening. But the flowers quivered, glowed, expanded. My feet were set on edelweiss, and the buttercups were pure gold. The stream ran before me pure as at the day-dawn of the world, and from all this innocent beauty I looked up to the untrodden snow, so near, yet where only the eagle’s wings could take her.

Next day was an enforced rest, for everyone, man and beast, was weary; so we basked in the sun, reading and writing, and but for the July snow and the awful peaks, it was hard to believe that one was in the upper chambers of the King’s Palace. Yet the air was strange, the water was strange, and it was like a wild fairy-tale to look down from my camp-bed and see the grey edelweiss growing thick beside it, and hear the shriek of the marmot.

Next day we should reach the Cave, and when it came the morning looked down upon us sweet and still—a perfect dawn.