CHAPTER LXVII
APRIL 24
In these days our life was dismal and lonesome, and our future uncertain. We went as in the dark, feeling with our hands lest we should fall. Every day which passed without any untoward event came upon me as a complete surprise. We had now only two days’ journey to Raga-tasam on the great highway, where caravans and travellers fare to and fro, and Government officials are responsible that no unauthorized person slips past. I was thoroughly sick of my disguise and the constant uncertainty, and longed for a crisis to free me from my embarrassment. But to deliver ourselves, of our own free will, into the hands of the Tibetans was out of the question. They must detect us themselves, and till then the strain on our nerves must continue.
April 24—the anniversary of the Vega’s return to Stockholm in 1880! At sunrise the whole country lay under a bright wintry shroud of white snow. The thermometer had fallen to 2½°, but when the sun mounted up the horses steamed, and light clouds of vapour rose up from the snow, so that we might have been riding through a land of sol-fataras and fumaroles. Our caravan animals struggled bravely up the tough ascent. Of sheep we had only twenty left, and two of them were veterans from Lumbur-ringmo-tso. Twice we thought that the pass, Kinchen-la, was just before us, but new heights rose farther back, and we worked our way up hills, among which brooks run down towards Basang and Saka-dzong, where Muhamed Isa sleeps in his mound. To the south-west Chomo-uchong’s summits presented a grand sight. At length we made the last ascent up to the top of the pass, where the height is 17,851 feet above sea-level. At the other side a river runs north-east, one of the headwaters of the Raga-tsangpo. To the west there is a brilliant spectacle, the summits of Lunpo-gangri rising in sharp and savage beauty from a maze of mountains and ridges, which shine in lighter bluer shades the more remote they are. To the north-east we catch a glimpse of an outlying ridge covered from foot to crest with new-fallen snow. The broad flat valley of the Raga-tsangpo stretches eastwards as far as the eye can see. In the far distance to the east-south-east a grand snowy crest shines forth, the northernmost of the Himalayan system (Illust. 199).
We stayed a long time at the top, and I sketched a panorama. Then we followed the track of the caravan over the lower shoulders of two mountains, and found our camp pitched in a valley with good grass and a brook partially frozen. My tent looked towards its bank, and all three stood as usual in a line. This day also had passed satisfactorily, but all would be different next day, for then we should come to Raga-tasam, where we encamped last year and stayed a week. Camp 391 was, then, the last where we could still feel at ease, for we had seen no living being all day long, and had no neighbours. Here, then, we must arrange some fresh safeguards.
We must sort out from our already scanty baggage all articles that might excite suspicion, as, for example, the small padded leather box in which the theodolite was packed; for the future it would be rolled with its inner wooden case in my bed. Further, the hypsometer’s leather case and the actinometer, which probably would never be used again. Whatever was combustible was to be thrown into the fire and the rest buried. A couple of rugs of camel’s wool were also to be discarded.
| 334. Tibetans with Yaks. |
| 335. Dorche Tsuen on the March. |
To begin with, we must make a change in our housing arrangements. I was to sleep for the last time in my old weather-beaten tent, where our chief, Abdul Kerim, was henceforth to set up his quarters and receive guests. For me a compartment of about 2 square yards, not larger than my bed, was partitioned off in Abdul Kerim’s tent. This crib, which, when the camp was set up, was enclosed on all sides, was henceforth to be my prison cell. It was like a secret drawer in a bureau, and when it was ready I inspected it and found it somewhat narrow but comfortable.