CHAPTER XVIII
THE END OF THE CROSSING: THE 'CHIT' IN TIBET
The Sappers and Miners, the coolis, the boatmen, the various units employed on fatigue, and the mule drivers must have been heartily glad when the crossing was all over. We were leaving both yaks and donkeys behind here (to work with convoys between Gyantse and Chaksam), so that we did not have to accomplish the feat of embarking and disembarking these somewhat clumsy animals; but even so, the amount of labour that had been involved was immense. I am told that, at any rate in Indian frontier warfare, there has hitherto been no instance of a force of this size crossing a river of this dimension without the aid of a pontoon bridge (the materials for which it would have been impossible on this occasion to carry with us). Further, the actual breadth of the river gave no idea of the difficulty of crossing it. The swiftness of the current, the whirlpools, and the speed with which the river, fed as it was by mountain streams, rose and fell, constituted the main difficulties. Further, in addition to the main channel which was the chief obstacle, there was a second channel beyond it, which, though not wide and sometimes fordable, constituted an additional delay to the crossing. As the last boatload crossed, the river was rising fast, and I am told that the amount of spare material left at the ends of the long rope, which was the main factor in swinging the large boats across without letting them drift down-stream, could be measured by the inch. Another inch or so in the rise of the river, and a corresponding widening of the stream, would have left that rope all too short for the work it had to accomplish, and our crossing might have been indefinitely delayed, for afterwards the river still continued rising.
We left the Tsangpo fairly well stocked with provisions. During the march of forty-five miles to Lhassa we were informed that we should come across all that we required. The road from North Chaksam followed the course of the river for three miles; then, taking a sharp turn to the left, entered another wide valley watered by another river, the course of which we were to trace up-stream as far as Lhassa.
On the first day out of Chaksam I had rather an amusing experience of the value set by a Tibetan on a 'chit' written by a British officer. In this respect the Tibetan out-herods Herod. India is the land of the 'chit.' The word is an abbreviation of 'chitthi,' a letter, and in its shortened form is specially applied to a certificate of good character given to a servant or to any pass in guarantee of respectability on any simple recognition of services rendered. A native barber in India who has cut your hair three times will ask for a 'chit' as a guarantee that he has done so. But the Tibetan, whether sophisticated lama or simple peasant, was even more susceptible to the charms of a 'chit,' those charms of course possessing for him something of the mystical, since he never understood its contents. Any 'chit' was apparently regarded as a sort of talisman, and was displayed by the owner with pride and confidence to every one, especially the next British officer who came his way.
On that day I was sent ahead with the advance guard to see what supplies each village contained. I had no transport with me nor means of collecting the supplies, and through an oversight had taken no one with me to send back with messages to the rear as to the result of my discoveries in each village. There was no use in telling a villager to point out to the officer who would come after me what stores I had unearthed; for the villagers, though well paid, would always evade supplying stores if possible. The only expedient left was to make use of those charms which were possessed by the 'chit.' In the first village I found fifty maunds of tsampa; so, solemnly taking out my pocket book, I wrote on a leaf of it 'fifty maunds of tsampa in a top-room of the house with the big red door,' and, tearing this out of the book, presented it with grave dignity to the owner of the house. At the next villages I acted similarly. Some hours after I reached camp the officer in charge of the transport that had been detailed for foraging reached camp in due possession of my fifty maunds of tsampa and all the other articles that I had enumerated in the subsequent chits. It had turned out exactly as I had hoped. That officer had entered the various villages in turn, and the proud possessors of the chits, innocent of their real purport, had come up to him and presented them with childlike simplicity for him to read, and of course they had given him just the information which they did not want to give him, but which he required, and which I had had no other means of conveying to him.
It was playing it rather low down perhaps, but, after all, we wanted the supplies.
CHAPTER XIX
MONASTERIES: FORAGING IN MONASTERIES: A DREAM
There were at least two fair-sized monasteries which during the next few days we visited to obtain supplies. Monasteries seem to vary in character as they vary in size. Buddhism seems, in fact, to have left its mark upon Tibet in the manner of some great flood. Here on a lone hilltop stands a tiny monastery stagnant, like some small pool left by the flood, the monks few in number, their persons sordid, their minds vacant, and what remains of their religion stale or even polluted; while elsewhere in larger monasteries religion is clearer and more vital, and life less stagnant. This is a pure generalisation, and doubtless men, holy after their lights, often live in remote hovels, and in the chiefer centres religion may often be dreamy or callous, and sordid vices be not unknown. But perhaps, merely as a generalisation, the above may hold good.