It is not difficult to imagine the terrible plight of an unarmed Kirghiz attacked by wolves. They track him by scent and pursue him. Their wicked eyes glow with fury and blood-thirstiness. They wrinkle up their upper lips to leave their fangs exposed. Their dripping tongues hang out of their jaws. The traveller hears their sneaking steps behind him, and turning round can distinguish in the dusk their grey coats against the white snow. He grows cold with fright, and putting up a prayer to Allah, springs and dashes through the drifts in the hope of reaching the nearest village of tents.
Every now and again the wolves halt and utter their awful prolonged howl, but in an instant they are after the man again. Every minute they become bolder. The man flies for his life. They know that he cannot hold out long. Now they catch hold of a corner of his fur coat, but let go when he throws his cap at them. They pounce upon it and tear it in pieces. This only whets their appetites. The poor man staggers on until he can hardly put one foot before another, and is almost at his last gasp. This is the moment, and the wolves throw themselves upon him from all sides. He screams, and fights with his hands; he draws out his knife and stabs into the pack in front of him, but a large wolf springs upon him from behind and brings him to the ground. There he has at any rate his back protected, but the eyes and teeth of the wolves gleam above him in the darkness, and he stabs at them with his knife. They know that he will tire of this game soon. Two wolves tear open his boots to get at his feet. He cannot reach them with his knife, so he sits up, and at the same moment the leader seizes him by the neck so that the blood spurts out over the white snow. The wolves have now tasted blood and nothing can restrain them. The man is beside himself and throws himself about thrusting desperately with his knife. The wolves attack him from behind and he falls again on his back. Now his knife moves more slowly. The wolves yelp, bark and pant, and the froth hangs round their teeth. The unfortunate man's eyes grow dim and he closes them, consciousness leaves him and he drops the knife from his hand, and the largest wolf is about to plunge his fangs into his throat. But suddenly the leader stops and utters a short bark, which in wolf's language is equivalent to an oath, for at the foot of an adjacent hill are seen two mounted Kirghizes, who have come out to seek their comrade. The wolves disappear like magic. The poor man lies quite motionless in his tattered furs, and the snow around is stained red with blood. He is unconscious, but is still breathing and his heart beats. His friends bind up his wounds with their girdles and carry him on the back of a horse to the tent, where he soon comes back to life beside the flames of the evening fire.
Of course the Kirghiz must hate wolves. But the animals are cunning and seldom expose themselves to gunshot. Woe to the wolf that is wounded or caught! He is not killed, but the most cruel tortures are devised for him.
When heavy winter snow falls in the Alai valley, the wolves return to the higher wilds of the Pamir where the snow lies less deep, and here they chase the wild sheep, Ovis Poli, as it is named after its discoverer, Marco Polo. It has large, round, elegantly curved horns and is somewhat larger than the wild sheep of Tibet. The wolves chase Marco Polo's sheep by a cunningly devised method. They hunt up a herd and single out some less cautious or less quick-footed member. This animal is forced by a watch posted ready beforehand to take refuge on a projecting rock which is surrounded by wolves. If they can get up to the sheep they take him easily, but if not, they wait till his legs give way with weariness and he falls into the jaws of his pursuers.
Many a time I have met wolves in various parts of Asia, and many sheep, mules, and horses of mine have they destroyed. How often has their dismal howl sounded outside my tent, as though they were calling for my flesh and blood!
We had ridden 300 miles when we came to a small Russian frontier fort which rears its simple walls on the middle of the "Roof of the World," beside one of the headwaters of the Amu-darya. On the other side of the frontier lies the Eastern Pamir, in the dominion of the Emperor of China.
"The Father of Ice-Mountains"
Wherever one may be in the Eastern Pamir one sees the Mus-tagh-ata, the "Father of Ice-Mountains," rear its rounded summit above all the other peaks (see map, p. 56). Its height is 25,800 feet, and accordingly it is one of the loftiest mountains in the world. On its arched crest snow collects, and its under layers are converted by pressure into ice. The mountain is therefore crowned by a snow-covered ice-cap. Where there are flat hollows round the summit, in these also snow is piled up as in bowls. It glides slowly down with its own weight, and by pressure from above is here also converted into ice. Thus are produced great tongues of ice, which move downwards exceedingly slowly, perhaps only a few yards in the year. They are enclosed between huge steep ridges, from which time after time gravel and blocks of stone fall down on to the ice and are carried down to lower levels. The further the ice descends the warmer becomes the air, and then the ice melts in the sun. As it melts below, the stream of ice is forced down from above, so that its lowest margin is always to be found in the same place. The gravel and boulders are brought down thither and piled up together so as to form great mounds and ridges, which are called moraines. The ice-stream itself is called a glacier. Many such tongues of ice fringe Mus-tagh-ata on all sides. They are several miles long and half a mile to a mile broad. The surface is very uneven and consists of innumerable knobs and pyramids of clear ice.
I made several excursions on the glaciers of Mus-tagh-ata on foot or on yaks. One must be well shod so as not to slip, and one must look out for crevasses. Once we were stopped by a crevasse several yards broad and forty-five feet deep. When we stooped over the brim and looked down, it had the appearance of a dark-blue grotto with walls of polished glass, and long icicles hung down from the edges. Streamlets of melted ice run over the surface of the glacier, sometimes flowing quietly and gently as oil in the greenish-blue ice channels, sometimes murmuring in lively leaps. The water can be heard trickling and bubbling at the bottom of the crevasses, and the surface brooks often form fine waterfalls which disappear into chasms of ice. On warm days when the sun shines, thawing proceeds everywhere, and the water trickles, bubbles, and runs all about the ice. But if the weather is dull, cold, and raw, the glaciers are quieter, and when winter comes with its severe cold they are quite hard and still, and the brooks freeze into ice.
The yaks of the Kirghizes are wonderfully sure-footed, and one can ride on them over slippery hillocky ice where a man could not possibly walk. The yak thrusts down his hoofs so that the white powdered ice spurts up around him, and if the slope is so steep that he cannot get foothold, he stretches out all four legs and holds them stiff and rigid as iron and thus slides down without tumbling. Sometimes I rode over moraine heaps of huge granite blocks piled one upon another. Then I had to take a firm grip with my knees, for the yak springs and jumps about like a lunatic.