Through Unknown Tibet

by M. S. Wellby

After seriously considering the pros and cons, we decided to remain where we were, Camp 40, for the day, and on the morrow to strap the man to a pony, with a muleteer walking on either side to support him. The idea of carrying him on a stretcher certainly entered our heads, but its execution was an impossibility.

It was indeed a very gloomy day, most of the time being spent in trying to get enough water from the holes we had dug. The unhappy Sulloo was fed through a small opening, by holding back his head and pouring down brandy and water or mutton broth.

One sad event seldom comes without a second. As we had no meat with us, and it was imperative that Sulloo should have something in the shape of beef-tea, for solid food could never be his fare again, we had to slay our dear old sheep and make the soup from his bones and what flesh there was. We wondered all the time what possible good we could be doing the man. He would never be able to eat again, nor even speak, or, as Shukr Ali put it, "What's the use of troubling about him? Admi kabhi nahin banjaega! He'll never make a man any more."

Our caravan was very depressed as it moved off the next morning at 4.30, marching for five miles over a most barren, sandy, and desolate country, when there was some improvement, and we were able to call a halt, again managing to get brackish water by digging. Poor Sulloo was brought into camp later on, and seemed to be doing well, for the bleeding ceased when he was placed on the ground and rested from the motion of the pony. He would lie huddled up in a heap on the pony's back, and if the pony happened to take an uneven pace or make a sudden jolt over an unlevel piece of ground, the jar to the man must have been almost unbearable. The second march was accomplished, too, without any casualty to man or beast.

OUR MULES BEING WATERED.

The following day we had two stragglers, and Sulloo came in late, for even the two miles an hour was too fast for him. The land we marched over was remarkable for its various coloured stones; there were different shades of blue, red, green, yellow, black, and white, all perhaps indicating the presence of a multitude of minerals. The fine range of mountains to the north was still kept in sight, and we conjectured they must be a part of the Kuen Lun. Towards evening we came to a sandy nullah at the foot of an easy pass, and as water was good and plentiful a foot below the surface, and the animals had had none that day, we halted and made our drinking trough with the waterproof sheet. The wind blew hard and bitterly cold that evening from the north, and as we had no meat we tried one of Lazenby's pea-soup squares. These were excellent, and quite equal to a meal; would that we had brought more of them. After the strong night wind, we had a perfectly still cloudless morning as we began the ascent of the pass, whose summit we reached almost simultaneously with the rising sun.

We were sorely in need of meat, and although there was good grass round and about, yet there was no water visible above the surface, and this was how we accounted for the remarkable absence of any game. During the latter part of the day things improved, for an antelope was shot, but as none of the men were at hand to hallal the beast the entire meat fell to our share, so we made the most of our opportunity by carrying enough to last us for five or six days. And if we were lucky enough during that time to shoot another antelope, we promised the men they should have the whole of it, provided one of them came up quick enough to hallal it.

During the night of the 2nd July some snow fell, and caused some of our mules to stray in search of grass and better shelter, and, what was worse still, forced upon us a late start. We passed through a very barren, sandy country, so much so that it was no surprise to us at not finding the remotest trace of any one ever having been there before. We calculated by our dead reckoning and the plane-table that we had just crossed the eighty-fourth degree of longitude, and if that were the case, we knew by the latitudes we had taken that we must be about forty miles south of the village of Iman Mula, which lies just south of the Kuen Lun, or it would be more correct to say, the place according to our map would be there, if in reality such a village existed. At our first halt there was a hill, quite close, completely covered with loose round stones of a fossil-like appearance, or the equal halves of them, about the size of Tangerine oranges, one of which we brought back with us. There was good water in the black clayey soil that lay just below the surface, and we were able to satisfy the most thirsty of our animals. During the day there was thunder and a shower of snow. It seemed as though there was about to be a breaking up of the grand weather.