Now as regards your plan. I gather that you will not be in India before next spring, when perhaps I may still see you. I will arrange to have a good native surveyor ready to accompany you, and I will further have a man instructed in astronomical observations and in meteorological recording—so as to be available for you at the same time.
I cannot say what the attitude of the Tibetan Government will be at the time that you reach India. But if they continue friendly, we will of course endeavour to secure for you the requisite permits and protections.
Assuring you that it will give me the greatest pleasure in any way to further your plans,—I am yours sincerely,
Curzon.
It may easily be conceived how important this active protection and help on the part of the Viceroy was to me. I was especially pleased that I was allowed to take with me native topographers experienced in survey work, for with their co-operation the maps to be compiled would be far more valuable, while, released from this complicated work which takes up so much time, I could devote myself entirely to researches in physical geography.
With this kind letter at starting I commenced my fifth journey to Asia. Lord Curzon had, indeed, when I reached India, already left his post, and a new Government was shortly to take the helm in England with Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as premier. But Lord Curzon’s promises were the words of a Cæsar, and I had not the slightest doubt that a Liberal Government would respect them.
On October 16, 1905, the same day on which I had started twelve years before on my journey through Asia, I again left my dear old home in Stockholm. This time it seemed far more uncertain whether I should see all my dear ones again; sometime or other the chain that binds us must be broken. Would it be granted me to find once more my home unchanged?
I travelled viâ Constantinople and the Black Sea, through Turkish Armenia, across Persia to Seistan, and through the deserts of Baluchistan to Nushki, where I reached the most western offshoot of the Indian railway system. After the dust and heat of Baluchistan, Quetta seemed to me a fine fresh oasis. I left this town on May 20, 1906, descended in four hours from a height of 5500 feet to a country lying only 300 feet above sea-level, and found in Sibi a temperature of 100° F. in the evening. Next day I passed along the Indus and Sutlej through Samasata and Batinda to Ambala, and I was now, in the hottest part of the year, the only European in the train. The temperature rose to 107°, the height I had shortly before recorded in Baluchistan, but it was much more endurable in the shady carriage, which was protected by a roof and hanging screens from the direct heat of the sun; it was well, however, to avoid touching the outside of the carriage, for it was burning hot. Two window openings are covered with a tissue of root-fibres which are automatically kept moist, and a wind-catcher sends a draught into the carriage through the wet matting. At a window like this the temperature even at noon was only 81½°, and therefore I had nothing to complain of. At some stations there are excellent restaurants, and natives travelling on the train sell on the way lemonade and ice as clear as glass.
Nevertheless in India’s sultry dried-up plains one longs for the mountains with their pure cool air. From Kalka a small narrow-gauge railway carries one in 6½ hours to a height of 7080 feet, and one finds oneself in Simla, the summer residence of the Viceroy and the headquarters of the Indian Army. The road is one of the most charming and magnificent in the world. The little railway climbs up the steep flanks in the boldest curves, descends the slopes into deep and narrow ravines, passes along steep mountain spurs, where the train seems as though it would plunge into space from the extreme point; then the train crosses bridges which groan and tremble under its weight, enters pitch-dark tunnels, and again emerges into the blinding sunshine. Now we run along a valley, catching a glimpse of the bottom far below us, then mount upwards to a ridge affording an extensive view on both sides, then again traverse a steep slope where several sections of the marvellously winding line can be seen below. The scene changes every other minute, new contours and landscapes present themselves, new points of view and lights and shades follow one another, and keep the attention of the traveller on the stretch. There are 102 tunnels on the route, most of them quite short, but the longest has a length of three-quarters of a mile.
We pass through one zone of vegetation after another. The flora of the plain is left far behind; now the eye notices new forms in new zones—forms characteristic of the various heights of the southern slopes of the Himalayas—and at last appear the dark deodar forests, the royal Himalayan cedars, with their luxuriant green foliage, amidst which are embedded the houses of Simla like swallows’ nests. How fascinating is this sight, but how much more imposing as a symbol of the power of the British Empire! Here the eagle has its eyry, and from its point of vantage casts its keen eyes over the plains of India. Here converge innumerable telegraph wires from all the corners and extremities of the British Empire, and from this centre numerous orders and instructions are daily despatched “On His Majesty’s Service only”; here the administration is carried on and the army controlled, and a host of maharajas are entangled in the meshes like the prey in the nest of a spider.