Sonam Tsering now accompanied me on my expedition. I had ordered him in the morning to halt at Deasy’s and Rawling’s camp, and therefore he marched on this day in the front with the mules. It was, of course, of great importance for my route survey to visit a spot so accurately fixed.
There was not the slightest difficulty in finding the spot, and when we reached the camp, which lay on a small flat space between gently rounded hills, Muhamed Isa had already digged out seven boxes. One of them contained flour, which had gone quite bad in the long interval, and probably was already spoiled when Rawling was here three years before. Only one box was of Tibetan workmanship, for Rawling, as Sonam Tsering informed me, had exchanged some of his worn-out Kashmir boxes for Deasy’s Turkestan chests, which were much better. But even Rawling’s boxes were better than the easily damaged wooden boxes from Leh, in which we kept candles and tinned meats. We therefore appropriated some of them and used our own as firewood. After all, Rawling had so thoroughly ransacked the depôt that there was very little left for me; but I was not in such urgent need of the goods. Some boxes of American beef were very welcome to the dogs, but the men despised them as long as we had fresh mutton. Cubical tins, which had contained Indian meal, lay all about the place. One of the boxes held a quantity of empty cartridge-cases; they had not been used, and Sonam Tsering believed that the Changpas had been here a couple of years after Rawling, and had picked out the powder; he pointed out to me one or two fireplaces, which seemed much more recent. In another box we found a shipping almanac and some map-sheets of Upper Burma—Deasy had planned to pass into that country, but had been prevented by sickness and death in his caravan. A packet of blotting-paper came in very handy, for Robert had started a herbarium for me; and Muhamed Isa discovered some ropes in good condition. Besides these things, we took only a couple of novels and Bowers’ description of his journey in Tibet in 1891, a welcome addition to my very scanty library (Illustration 79).
We were now in a country which several travellers had visited before me. Wellby and Malcolm, who discovered Lake Lighten, a lake already touched by Crosby, I have already mentioned. Dutreuil de Rhins, Wellby and Malcolm, Deasy, Rawling, and the Austrian naturalist, Zugmayer (1906), had been at Yeshil-kul. I crossed the route of the last a couple of months after his journey; he, like the Frenchman and the English explorer, has written a valuable book on his observations. At the time I knew nothing of his journey, but now I find that I crossed his route only at one point. Wellby’s and Dutreuil de Rhins’ paths I crossed only once, but Deasy’s at two points. In the following days it was harder to avoid the districts where Wellby and Rawling had been, and where the latter especially, with the help of native surveyors, had compiled such an accurate and reliable map that I had no prospect of improving it.
Consequently, I longed for country which had never been touched by other travellers. My camp 22 was identical with Rawling’s No. 27, and his expedition had skirted the lake Pul-tso, which lay a day’s march in front of us, both on the northern and southern side. Therefore, to avoid his route, I made for the middle of this lake, which stretches north and south, an unusual orientation.
When the great caravan is loaded up, and starts at sunrise, the camp is usually full of noise and commotion. In consequence of our daily loss of baggage horses the loads have always to be re-arranged; when, however, the crowd has moved off, all is quiet again, the iron brazier and the hot bath-water are brought, and in my tent, with its opening turned to the east, because the prevailing wind blows from the west, it is soon as hot as in a vapour bath. This heat often tempts one to put on lighter clothing, but one soon regrets it, for it is always cold outside. Then we go on through the desolate country where three expeditions have converged to the same point.
The soil is brick-red, the pasturage good everywhere. To the south lie low hills with arched tops, to the north stretches the immense mountain system of the Kuen-lun with several imposing mountain masses covered with eternal snow, and just in front of us rises the colossal dome-shaped, snow-covered massive, which Rawling named the “Deasy Group.” We had seen this gigantic elevation from Yeshil-kul, and it would serve us for a landmark for several days to come.
The caravan encamped on the bank of the Pul-tso (16,654 feet) near a small rock of limestone. Tundup Sonam, the “Grand Court Huntsman” of the caravan, begged to be allowed to go out shooting, and was given four cartridges. After a few hours he returned with three cartridges, and showed a yak’s tail as a proof that he had killed a huge beast, which he had found grazing peacefully by itself behind the hills to the south. Now the caravan had fresh meat to last ten days; “and when it is consumed, Tundup will shoot us another yak,” said Muhamed Isa, who was always much pleased when men he had picked out made a good job of their work. I had marrow from the yak’s bones for dinner—a dish that would not have disgraced the table of Lucullus (Illustrations 68, 69).
CHAPTER XI