“I will find the way. You have only to follow the trail in the snow.”
Then began the tumult of breaking up camp, and the sound of tramping in the snow; but there was no singing. There were 27 degrees of frost with a boisterous wind from the west. Everything was taken except my things and Robert’s and the cooking utensils. A mule, which refused to move, remained with us. No fires lighted up the dark procession led by the horses and closed by the sheep. It moved off slowly, and the shouts of the men reached us more and more feebly till at length the caravan disappeared in the pale moonlight. I entered my tent stiff with cold. A quarter of an hour later a man came back with another mule which could not get on any further. So we had two dying animals with us.
And then came the night. The air was clear and calm, the stars twinkled like diamonds in the brightness of electric light, and the cold settled keenly round our tent. Outside, Tsering, Rabsang, Rehim Ali, and Bolu had rolled themselves together into a heap under all their belongings. As long as I was awake I heard the irrepressible Tsering telling his tales in the depth of his cave of furs, and the others occasionally giving vent to a subterranean giggle. Curious fellows, these Ladakis! No amount of cold seems to affect them, while I, in my tent, can only sleep a minute at a time.
An awful, terrible night in the lonely mountains of Tibet. The temperature sank to −17°, and that was too much for the two mules which had been left behind. One expired about midnight; he was the animal which Sonam Tsering had wished on the first day to send back to Leh as useless. We tried then to exchange him for a horse, but as no one would have him, he had to come with us after all. He was accustomed to travel with horses, and later on always went with them. To the astonishment of all he became strong and led the van—a good example for the horses. Now he lay cold and hard as iron, with his legs stretched out; if he had been lifted on to his feet he would have remained standing. Sonam Tsering wept when he heard that the animal was gone.
The other mule was heard moving about in the night and nibbling at the yak grass, which is too short for other animals except the yak; the tongue of the yak is provided with horny barbs which pluck up the fine velvety grass. Early in the morning I heard the mule squeal, and was glad that one at least still survived. But when the sun rose his strength too was spent, and when Tsering woke me he said that the animal was dying. He looked healthy and well nourished, but we tried in vain to raise him up and feed him with maize, and he was sacrificed to the gods of this valley of death. He did not move a limb or twitch an eyelid as the blood spurted out on to the snow; he seemed only to experience a welcome sense of peace and resignation, while his eyes were turned full on the sun.
As we were on the point of leaving this horrible camp, there came fresh tidings of misfortune. Tundup Sonam appeared to show us the way, and reported that the horse caravan had wandered off too far to the left, while the mules under Muhamed Isa had taken the opposite direction. Muhamed Isa, as soon as he found out his mistake, had descended into the first valley he could find, to wait there for the dawn. As for the flock of sheep, Tundup Sonam could only say that it had at first followed the track of the horses, but had afterwards turned away. The greatest confusion reigned everywhere, but the worst news Tundup Sonam kept to the last: four more mules had died during the night.
Our situation was desperate. We could not go on much longer; we were coming to a crisis. The ground, the weather, and the cold were all against us, the horses died wholesale, and it might be a hopeless distance to the nearest nomads. What did it matter whether the Tibetans would be friendly or hostile? Now the only question was: should we be able to drag ourselves along to inhabited districts? For, if these losses continued a few days longer, we should soon be compelled to abandon all the baggage and continue our journey on foot. But could we carry ourselves enough provisions to last us through this uninhabited country? Should we perish one after another in these icy deserts of the Tibetan Alps? And if at length, in a wretched, half-dead condition, we met with Tibetans, they could do what they liked with us. At any rate we could not force our way through to Shigatse and the unknown country to the north of the Tsangpo, the goal of all my most cherished dreams.
A journey straight across Tibet looks pleasant and easy on the map. In reality it is a serious and difficult undertaking, costing suffering, excitement, and tears. The meandering line is drawn in red on the map, for it is really marked with blood. We set out under the guidance of Tundup Sonam, and it soon became evident that we should never have found the way without him. Up and down, over hills and through valleys we threaded this intricate maze, where the deep snow smoothed down the inequalities and quite misled us in estimating the heights of the steep declivities. We left the track of the horses on our left; there a load of maize was left, but Tundup Sonam assured me it would be fetched. To the right appeared the high ground where the mules had wandered in the night trying their strength uselessly. An icy south-west wind blew over the bitterly cold snowfields. From time to time Tundup Sonam reared up a slab of schist to show the way to Tsering, who was coming behind without a guide.
Now we cross the trail of the mules and see the valley where they have passed the night. “Yonder, on the slope, lies a mule,” says Tundup Sonam, “and two behind the hill, and a little farther on a fourth.” We could not see them from where we were, but the ravens resting here, sleepy and satiated, confirmed his words.