Through Unknown Tibet

by M. S. Wellby

In this little nullah we found three stones which from the way they were placed showed that they had been used for a fireplace, but not at any very recent date, more likely two or three years ago. This was the first sign of mankind since leaving Lanak La, and had probably been made by some nomads who had wandered in this direction. We here consumed two more of our remaining three bags of bhoussa, thereby still more lightening our loads.

According to our intention, camp was astir at 3.30 a.m., and we were well off before 5 o'clock, and even at that hour it was so warm that our gloves were not even wanted. It was a grand morning, and as we faced the glorious rising sun, we were blinded by its brilliancy and found it most difficult at first to see precisely where we were going. After passing into a fairly grassy valley, the home of the kyang, we descended to a fresh-water lake. At the time when the caravan was approaching this water, we were both some distance off, shooting and taking observations, and blamed ourselves afterwards at having left the muleteers. These men knew the animals had been short of water lately, yet took no step to prevent the calamity which naturally occurred at the sight of a clean fresh-water lake. They, poor brutes, forgetful of the loads on their backs, with one accord made a simultaneous rush to satisfy their thirst. The water, although only two or three feet deep, concealed a treacherous bottom of several feet of soft mud and as they plunged in further and deeper, a general collapse ensued, and the mules and ponies lay in a heap unable to extricate themselves, with a good chance too of being drowned. Nor did any of our baggage benefit by the soaking it received. Each animal as he lay had to be unloaded separately, no easy undertaking, and then pulled out of the mud on his side by head and tail, by four or five men. Furthermore the weight of each load was considerably increased by this disaster, and as the going along the edge of the water was not of the best, there were more stragglers than ever into our new camp, two of them not even getting in at all. Around the lake were several antelope, while geese and Brahmini ducks were fairly plentiful.

There appeared to be no outlet, and from the nature of the soil for some distance round the lake, we judged that its size varied in accordance with the rainfall. From this lake two routes were open to us, one running in a somewhat northerly direction through a good, grassy, watered valley, which we should have liked to have taken; but as the other route led almost due east, we took it, and perhaps made a wrong decision, for we came to a dried-up country, with small salt lakes, and had to dig deep in a dry river bed for water. The antelope we had slain made its mark upon the men, for the quantities of meat they ate made them lazy and late in making a start the next morning.

As we moved off at six o'clock, there was a light mist hanging over the land, with no breath of wind to dissolve it, a pretty sure sign of a hot day. We began ascending for some miles, and then dipped into a dry river bed. This looked a likely place to find water again by digging, and as fair grass grew around, we decided to halt. We had only marched seven miles, yet there were stragglers, and four loads had to be abandoned. This loss we could ill afford, so agreed to halt another day, when we could send back some of our stoutest mules and recover the baggage. We had no fear whatever of a stranger turning up during the night and running off with some of the goods. As we intended remaining another day at this spot, it was indispensable that we should contrive some means for watering the animals properly. We found water flowing three or four feet below the surface, but a single hole was very quickly emptied, and then we had to wait until it had refilled, so that watering in this kind of way would have taken half the day. Every one, therefore, was set to work to dig water-holes. We carried with us a large waterproof sheet, and having made a trench in the sand, in the shape of a trough, we spread the sheet over it, and then filled it up from the various holes. In this way the mules and ponies could come and drink as often and as much as they liked, and they probably would have drunk more than they did, had not the water been somewhat saltish, with certain purging qualities. We also set about lessening the loads again, and many of the articles which we had imagined before to be absolutely necessary were here discarded. Two of our five little tents were abandoned, and we took the opportunity of photographing our last entire camp. Other things, too, were left, for our animals were dying at an alarming rate. Out of our original thirty-nine only twenty-one remained, including the riding pony of Shahzad Mir. Our own riding days had before this come to an end.

17th JUNE. THREE OF OUR TENTS ARE ABANDONED AT THIS SPOT.

Yet we had only come 150 miles from Lanak La, but our hopes of coming across nomads, from whom we might either purchase yak or exchange some of our own worn-out mules, strengthened us in our determination not to entertain for a moment the idea of turning back. The men, too, were so confident that we should ere long fall in with nomads that they became lavish with their rations. Instead of continuing the practice of doling their allowance out to them every three or four days, they had latterly been permitted to have the full run of it, after being made well aware how long the rations should last if they never exceeded the amount agreed upon. This plan was instituted because in spite of all our endeavours to regulate the consumption of food, yet in the dead of night they would undo and take out whatever extra they fancied, even when the foolhardiness of such a procedure was carefully explained to them. Nevertheless, we reaped one advantage from their avarice, namely, that the loads grew lighter in a shorter time than they otherwise would have done. One man, Mahomed Rahim, annoyed at being upbraided for his laziness and sulky temperament, threatened to turn back. This we gave him full permission to do, much to his astonishment, and on second thoughts he withdrew his threat, and even our own persuasion would not induce him to go.

During our halt we were able to overhaul all the luggage. Some of it had suffered from the immersion in the lake, notably the contents of our dispatch box, for all our papers inside it had had a thorough soaking, and each one had to be put under a stone to be dried again, and to save it from being blown away by the strong wind.

About half a mile from our camp was a solitary hill rising up between eight and nine hundred feet above the level of the camp. I climbed over the rocks to the summit of this to spy out the land, and see which would be the most favourable route to take. South-east of us lay a fine range of snow mountains, and I reckoned that if we could manage to steer just north of these, there would be no more difficulty about water to annoy us. All the ranges, large and small, seemed to run east and west, and it struck me how much more difficult, for this reason, it would be to traverse Tibet from north to south. Directly south of us, some sixty or eighty miles off, was another magnificent snow range with enormous white peaks. Some six or eight miles south-east was a dark blue salt lake, with two other smaller ones nestling close to it, and in the nullah immediately south of us grew grass which, for this country, was rich. Far away to the north again loomed another mighty snow range. Our own way eastwards, as far as I could make out, would take us past a small lake, and then, skirting round some low hills, turned up a nullah half left, where there seemed, through my glasses, to be good grass.