After the delay we moved off steadily again, and for the first time found wild rhubarb growing. Besides this, we had found a moth and a beetle. All this encouraged us in the belief that we must be drawing nearer to more genial climes, and possibly, too, to some habitations of men.
Whilst making these long marches of sixteen or eighteen miles a day, which would take us eight or nine hours, we used to call a halt about half-time for a few minutes, when we found a place where extra good grass was growing, that whilst the mules grazed, all might recoup themselves with a little rest, and satisfy in some slight degree the hunger from which we always suffered, by eating some cold meat and any vegetables we could find.
One afternoon, after pitching camp, I had gone to the top of some adjacent hills to collect onions, for they generally grew on the higher ground. Whilst so employed, I chanced, as one was wont to do, to look round the surrounding country, and saw in the distance some men coming along in the same direction that we ourselves had come. Of course, I knew it must be another reappearance of the deserters. Not wishing to speak to them any more, nor that they should speak to our two men for fear they might contaminate them, I shouted to Shahzad Mir to take his gun and meet them, and forbid them to follow us any further. Until we felt certain that they had ceased to track us, the watching over our mules was a constant anxiety for all.
As a matter of fact, the occasion when Shahzad Mir turned these men back was the last on which we saw them. The nights we spent afterwards watching over our little camp, in half expectation of their sudden reappearance, were, as it turned out to be, only a waste of rest and energy, for we never saw these men again, and whether they found their way to Lhassa is a doubtful question. Whatever fate befel these wretched men, it was brought on by their own deeds, and against our most earnest endeavours to do all in our power for them. Whatever was in store for them they most assuredly deserved. They had tried and hoped to leave us to fate in the midst of solitude, and had curiously enough served themselves out with this very same punishment.
After this event all went smoothly and cheerily; all worked equally and with a will as one man. The mules, too, grew stronger on the excellent grass we had come to, and wild onions and rhubarb were abundant everywhere. Afterwards grass became scarce again, and one day we had to march twenty miles before a spot suitable to camp in could be found. Here lay a small lake, which, to our disappointment, was of brackish water, resulting in our having to resort to our original plan of digging. The night by this lake, Camp 78, was warm, the temperature not falling below forty degrees Fahr. Ahead of us the land appeared to be studded with lakes, and we decided to steer along the north side of them.
As rain had fallen during the early morning the tents were heavy, but the level marching in some degree compensated for this misfortune. That which we had surmised to be a number of lakes proved to be one salt one, which alone relieved the barren country we had quite unexpectedly marched into. The prospect, too, of shooting any game was disheartening, nor did there seem any chance of the mules getting any more grass. Yet once again, when our fortune was at a very low ebb, providential and unaccountable help was at hand, for suddenly there appeared in this desert country a solitary antelope. Our only reason for his being there was that he had lost his way. He was astonishingly tame, and easily shot. Even more wonderful still was our finding, in the middle of this expanse of sand, salt and gravel, a kind of oasis, consisting of about an acre of rising ground, covered with beautiful grass, and when we began to dig we found good water just below the surface. Instead of reading about some fairy tale, we were really acting one.
Soon after pitching our camp in this garden of plenty rain fell heavily. We thought of the deserters, and wondered what shelter or food they had providentially found. During the night the rain ceased, and a hard frost set in. When we began to load up, we found our tent was just like a sheet of thin iron, and the only way of folding it up was to bend the ends over and then stand on them.
We crossed some hills, and then descended into a valley of sandy soil. There was also rich grass, and several small streams flowed across the valley, taking their rise from the snow peaks north of us. Here we saw immense herds of antelope, all females and young ones. They were so timid that it was impossible to get nearer than 600 or 700 yards to them. Far away in the hills, too, we saw numbers of yak. We concluded that as thousands and thousands of wild antelope had chosen this pasture-land to live in, surely it must be a befitting place also for nomads and their flocks. We wondered why there was nobody living there, and still more that we could find no signs that anybody ever had done so. In this valley we even found a wild orchid. On arrival—we had marched sixteen miles in six hours—all the twelve animals were in fit and strong condition.
During the next day's march we again saw thousands of antelope, and the country was everywhere well watered, with abundance of good grass, rhubarb, and onions. All day long we had been gradually mounting, and just before halting, at a spot which we considered to be the top of our pass, we saw in a nullah close by a wild animal resembling a prodigious cat. Coming to close quarters, I killed her with my shot-gun; and on proceeding a little further up the nullah I found the remains of a young antelope, and, crouching under a rock near to the carcass, two small thickly-coated animals, no doubt the young ones of the mother I had just slain. They were strong little fellows, with large powerful paws, and difficult to hold; one in fact was as much as a man could manage. The dead mother we skinned, and brought her skin and skull back to India. We also made arrangements for keeping the two young ones, in hopes of bringing them back alive. We put each in a separate nosebag, tied up in such a way that the head remained outside. They were then hung, one on each side, on the back of a spare mule, and thus carried with impunity.
Our route took us along the edge of a fresh-water lake, on the banks of which was very fine vegetation. We discovered we had made a mistake the previous evening in imagining we had reached the summit of the pass, for after leaving the lake we had twelve more miles of uphill marching over a good deal of heavy ground and most barren country, the only vegetation being rhubarb. Several nullahs, too, had to be crossed. As we drew near the top three of our animals became completely knocked up, necessitating a rearrangement of the loads, and all the others were showing signs that they would suffer the same plight, had we insisted on continuing our march.