I have issued orders to the Chinese and native authorities along your route to afford you all the facilities in their power.
Wishing you a successful journey, I am, yours truly,
Chang Yin Tang.
The letter leaves nothing to be desired as far as obliging amiability is concerned, but its contents are diplomatically obscure. Chinese and native authorities in the Chang-tang, where we had not seen a living soul for eighty-one consecutive days! Like Gaw, he falls back on the treaty signed by Great Britain to close the most interesting country in the world to exploration.
Ma knew the contents of the letter, and asked if it were still my determination to follow the Raga-tsangpo upwards. If so, the route was open to me. I answered in the affirmative, without showing any sign of my satisfaction, for this road was not sanctioned by Tang’s letter. Now some of the gentlemen of the Dzong had to look after the procuring of provisions—all by Tang’s orders.
All of a sudden the authorities of Shigatse became very polite, and showered down visits on me, after they found that I was in the good books of the most powerful man in Tibet in temporal affairs. Six sacks of tsamba, a sack of rice, and twelve cubes of brick tea were brought to my courtyard, and exact information was asked for as to the points I intended to touch on beyond the mouth of the Raga-tsangpo. However, I did not satisfy them, but said that not a single name up there was known to me. I thought to myself that it was most prudent not to excite suspicion by too many details; the farther we got away from the central authorities the greater prospect we had of being left alone. They inquired how many horses we wanted, and I at once said 65, so as to be well provided; they went away very quietly, as though they thought that this was a very large number.
| 167. Duke Kung Gushuk, Brother of the Tashi Lama. |
On March 24 Muhamed Isa came back with the silver money, more letters, and all kinds of articles which Major O’Connor, with his usual kindness, had procured for me. In the afternoon a great council was held: Ma, the two Lhasa gentlemen, the whole Shigatse Dzong, and Tsaktserkan—in all, nearly 20 officials, about 100 servants, Chinese soldiers, and newsmongers; so that the whole court was filled. The new passport was solemnly read to me. Therein the places were mentioned through which I might pass: the Raga-tsangpo, then Saka-dzong, Tradum, Tuksum, Gartok, Demchok, and the Ladak frontier. I must not stop at any point, must make long day’s marches, and travel straight along the valleys of the Brahmaputra and the Indus. I considered it useless to make any objections to the regulations; not a word was said of the country north of the Tsangpo, where I suspected the existence of the great mountain system. But I thought that we might contrive ourselves in some way or other an excursion thither, and resolved to give them plenty of trouble before they got rid of me. Two Chinamen, an official of the Labrang and one from the Shigatse Dzong, were to accompany me for the first part of the journey, and then be relieved by four others. The escort was introduced to me. The gentlemen insisted that we should start next day, but I declared that we required two days more to complete our preparations. All the provisions they had hurriedly collected were weighed in their presence, and paid for by me.
The brown puppy arranged for the morning of the 25th an interlude which certainly was not unexpected. Inspired by uncivilized ideas about the sanctity of my tent, the bitch had not ventured in for a long time, but now, just as I sat writing my last letter, she came and scratched a hole with her fore-paws in a corner of my tent, whined uneasily, laid her head on my knee, and looked very unhappy, as though she wished me to understand how helpless she felt. Before I was aware two very small puppies lay squeaking at my feet. While the young mother was licking her first-born with great tenderness, Muhamed Isa made a soft lair for the family. Puppy had scarcely taken her place on it when two more puppies made their entrance into this queer world. Then she probably thought that this was enough, for after a good meal of meat and a bowl of milk she rolled herself up with her well-tended young ones and went to sleep. The new puppies were black as coal and small as rats. I bought a basket for them to travel in until they could follow on foot the caravan in which they were born, and become good caravan dogs. We had tried here, too, in vain to get some good dogs, for our vagabonds from the Ngangtse-tso were good watch-dogs but unpleasant companions. Now we had suddenly a whole pack, and it would be an amusement to us to watch their development. Whatever might be our future fate, we could not reach Ladak in less than half a year, and by that time the puppies would have grown big and comical. Henceforth Puppy was allowed to live in my tent, and we became the best friends in the world, for I was as anxious and careful about the young ones as she. But she would not allow any one to approach who had no business here; scarcely half an hour after the catastrophe she dashed at two boys who were loitering about the court. There was a dreadful whining in the corner of the tent, but both the mother and young ones were as well as could be expected under the circumstances, as it is expressed in society bulletins.
In the meantime there was a very busy commotion in our courtyard. The heavy baggage was packed; rice and tsamba for the men, and barley for the horses, sewed up in bags accurately weighed; Chinese macaroni, cabbages, onions, fine wheaten flour, spices, potatoes, and as many eggs as we could get, were brought in from the market. The books, which I had received from O’Connor, filled a box to themselves, and would be thrown away, one after another, as soon as they had been read. When all had been packed up, my tent looked very bare.