From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People

by Sven Anders Hedin

We were to ride south-eastwards and endeavour to strike the great Mongolian pilgrim route to Lhasa. Many Mongolians betake themselves annually in large armed caravans to the holy city to pay homage to the Dalai Lama, and obtain a blessing from him and the Tashi Lama. Perhaps it was wrong of me to give myself out for a Lamaist pilgrim, but there seemed no other means of getting to the forbidden city.

We left the main camp on July 27, and those we left behind did not expect ever to see us again. The first day we did not see a living thing, and the second day we rode twenty-five miles farther without hindrance. Our camp that day was situated on open ground beside two lakes, and to the south-east stood some small hills, in the neighbourhood of which our animals grazed. Ördek was to watch them during the night in order that we might have a good sleep, for when he left us we should have to guard them ourselves.

Here my disguise was improved. My head was shaved so that it shone like a billiard ball. Only the eyebrows were left. Then the Lama rubbed fat, soot, and brown colouring-matter into the skin, and when I looked in a small hand-glass I could hardly recognise myself; but I seemed to have a certain resemblance to my two Lamaist retainers.

In the afternoon a storm broke out from the north, and we crept early into our little thin tent and slept quietly. At midnight Ördek crept into the tent and whispered in a trembling voice that robbers were about. We seized our weapons and rushed out. The storm was still raging, and the moon shone fitfully between the riven clouds. We were too late. With some difficulty we made out two horsemen on the top of the hills driving two loose horses before them—we found afterwards that one was my favourite white horse, the other Shagdur's yellow one. Shagdur sent a bullet after the scoundrels, but it only hastened their pace.

It was still dark, but there was no more sleep for us. We settled ourselves round a small blaze, boiled rice and tea, and lighted our pipes. When the sun rose we were ready to go forward. First we examined the tracks of the thieves and found that they had come down on us with the wind, and had thus eluded the watchfulness of the dogs. One of the men had crept along a rain furrow right among the grazing horses, and, jumping up, had frightened the best two off to leeward. There a mounted Tibetan had taken them in hand and chased them on in front of him. The third had waited with his comrade's horse and his own, and then he also had made off. They had no doubt been watching us all day. Perhaps they already knew that we came from my headquarters, and they might even send a warning to Lhasa.

Ördek was beside himself with fright at having to make the two days' journey back on foot and quite alone. We heard afterwards that he did not dare to go back on our trail, but sneaked like a wild cat along all the furrows, longing for night; but when darkness came he was still more terrified and thought that every stone was a lurking villain. A couple of wild asses nearly frightened him out of his senses, and made him scuttle like a hedgehog into a ravine. When he arrived in the darkness of night at the main camp, the night watchman took him for a stranger and raised his gun. But Ördek shouted and waved his arms, and when he got to his tent he lay down and slept heavily for two whole days.

We three pilgrims rode on south-eastwards, and pitched our tent on open ground by a brook twenty-five miles farther on. Our positions were now reversed; Shagdur was the important man and I was only a mule-driver. With the Cossacks I always spoke Russian, but now no language must be used but Mongolian, which the Lama had been teaching me for a long time previously. After dinner I slept till eight o'clock in the evening, and when I awoke I found my two comrades in a state of the greatest anxiety, for they had seen three Tibetan horsemen spying upon us from a long distance. We must therefore expect fresh trouble at any moment.

The night was divided into three watches, from nine o'clock to midnight, midnight to three o'clock, and three o'clock to six o'clock, and usually I took the first and the Lama the last. The animals were tethered to a rope fastened to the ground in the lee of the tent, and Tiger was tied up in front of them and Lilliput behind them.

At half-past eight Shagdur and the Lama were asleep in the tent, and my first night watch began. I strolled backwards and forwards between Tiger and Lilliput, who whined with pleasure when I stroked them. The sky was covered with dense black clouds, lighted from within by flashes of lightning, while thunder rolled around us and rain streamed down in a perfect deluge. It beat and rang on the Mongolian stewpans left out at the fireplace. Sometimes I tried to get a little shelter in the tent opening, but as soon as the dogs growled I had to hurry out again.

At last it is midnight and my watch is at an end; but Shagdur is sleeping so soundly that I cannot find it in my heart to waken him. I am just thinking of shortening his watch by half an hour when both dogs begin to bark furiously. The Lama wakes up and rushes out, and we steal off with our weapons in the direction in which we hear the tramp of a horse going away through the mud. In a little while all is quiet again, and the dogs cease to bark. I wake up Shagdur and creep into my berth in my wet coat.