As far as Chê-to my route followed the Litang-Batang road that leads into Tibet proper, and I met several yak caravans bringing goods to Tachienlu. Outside my quarters at Chê-to hung a proclamation in Chinese and Tibetan informing the people that the insurrection of the I-jên (barbarians) gave all good men a favourable opportunity for proving their loyalty to Government by ready compliance with the regulations about ula; but the dead bodies of no less than four yaks lying by the road-side between Tachienlu and Chê-to offered a grim comment on the results of those regulations.
"THE GATE OF TIBET."
CHÊ RI PASS
At Chê-to my road left the caravan-route and led into a wild region where during a day's march I passed only one lonely house, near which we encountered the only representative of the local population—a sad-faced old woman sitting astride a mottled yak. The day's journey (the second stage from Tachienlu) was long and arduous. The road from Chê-to rose steadily, but not steeply, through a confined valley, following the left bank of a stream. About midday we were picking our way laboriously through deep snow, and early in the afternoon we reached the summit of the pass of Chê Ri La, 17,400 feet above the sea-level.[176] The pass is a double one, the two summits being divided by a long valley which appears to have been at one time the bed of a glacier.[177] High as we were, there were peaks in the north-east that still towered several thousand feet above us, and to the south and south-west we saw nothing but a vast ocean of billowy mountains with innumerable trough-like valleys. The descent was a difficult one on account of the snow, which was almost too deep for our mules, one of which fell never to rise again. A fertile valley opened before us as we descended, and we soon struck the right bank of a stream flowing down from the snows of the range we had just crossed. A beautiful forest of firs covered the slopes on the eastern side. About 3,000 feet below the summit we came upon the first signs of human habitation—a herd of yak. Five li further we came to a few cultivated fields and a large two-storied house, which proved to be the beginning of the straggling hamlet of A Te, where we spent the night. In this valley the high peaks are all hidden, and though its elevation is about 13,000 feet the gently-sloping hills are well forested. Here for the first time I caught sight of the great white pheasant known as the machi.[178]
CHINESE TIBET
This day's march was a fair sample of our daily toil for the next few weeks. It was a continuous march up and down the snowy or forest-clad slopes of the loftiest mountains in China; and no doubt the journey would have been monotonous and arduous enough had it not been for the magnificence of the ever-changing scenery. The food which I shared with my followers was of the roughest and plainest. We lived almost entirely on tsamba—parched barley-meal, mixed with yak butter and the peculiar concoction which the Tibetans believe to be tea, and kneaded by one's own fingers into a thick paste. Occasionally—for I had to be very sparing of my cartridges—I contributed a pheasant to the table, and in two or three places we were able to buy goats. The goats trotted along with our caravan until we were hard up for food, and then they trotted no longer. White pigeons were numerous in the deeper valleys. Villages were very few—we seldom passed more than two in a day, and sometimes none at all, and as a rule they were nothing but the sorriest hamlets. We were generally able, however, to arrange our stages in such a way that we could spend the night under cover. We had no tent, and the nights were always too bitterly cold for sleeping out of doors. I was clothed in thick Peking furs, and wore boots lined with sheep-skin. During the day I wore smoked glasses to protect my eyes from snow-blindness. A couple of extra pairs I lent to two of my escort, and the rest wore the yak-hair eye-shade which the Tibetans call mig-ra. We found the villagers friendly and hospitable, and we never had any difficulty in getting accommodation when we came to a hamlet; and as we paid well for all supplies—a matter which sometimes caused evident surprise—we were always given the best that the village could produce or could spare. I did not meet a single Chinese between Chê-to and Li-chiang in Yunnan[179]—a journey that occupied about a month—and the Chinese language was entirely unknown.
Tibetan houses are gloomy stone buildings with small windows, and the rooms are both dark and dirty. I was sometimes grateful to the darkness for concealing some of the dirt, but my sense of smell unfortunately remained painfully acute. The windows are necessarily small, as paper is too scarce to be used as a protection against the wind, and glass is of course unknown. The apparent size of the houses is deceptive. A building that presents the outward appearance of a substantial two-or three-storied dwelling-house with many rooms, shrinks into a dismal and draughty collection of stables, courtyards, and dungeon-like living-rooms, when one gets inside. As often as not, the greater part of the ground-floor is used as a cattle-shed, and off this a short passage leads into the family common-room. The upstairs rooms—reached by clambering up a block of wood, with carved notches to serve as steps—are generally only granaries and barns, full of beasts that crawl and bite. In some cases I was provided with the luxury of a room to myself; but more often I had to share the living-room with men, women, children, and disagreeable animals that love the night. My slumbers would certainly have been unpleasantly disturbed if I had been less worn out at the end of each day's journey. There are no fire-places or chimneys. The fire is kindled in the middle of the room, and the smoke escapes by the door and windows or through holes in the wall, but much of it does not escape at all, and the effect is trying to the eyes; while the black streaky soot, that clings to the walls and hangs on spiders' webs dangling from the roof, adds to the general effect of gloom and discomfort.
TIBETAN TEA