The illustrious gentlemen were much amused with my costume. “You are a Sahib,” they said; “you were for six weeks the guest of the Tashi Lama; you employ one caravan after another, and leave a quantity of money behind you, and yet are dressed more shabbily than any of your servants.”
At night their horses and mules were driven to the station-house by soldiers, and we ought to have taken the same precaution, for our horses were attacked by wolves. The brown horse we had bought two weeks before for 100 rupees had his two right feet tied together lest he should run away, and the wolves directed their attack on him, as he could not escape, ate him up, and took the head off with them. At any rate it was missing in the morning from the skeleton, which was pretty closely stripped.
On April 29 we rode together on the road down the Semoku valley, which runs to the upper Brahmaputra (Illust. 335). This we left on the left hand, as well as the tasam, and ascended a valley where the little village of Ushy with its stone huts and barley fields is situated. The 150 inhabitants are at home only at seedtime and harvest; the rest of the year they are away, tending their sheep. Thence we proceeded the following day to the pass Ushy-la. The way is marked by a succession of mani heaps and chhortens, and the pass by rods so thin as to be invisible at a distance, and the streamers they carry look like a flock of tied birds. A little farther to the north-west we crossed the pass Gye-la, where Chomo-uchong makes a fine display, and soon after we were on the main pass of the same name (16,135 feet). From a hill near, the eye can sweep over all the horizon, the peaks and glaciers of the Himalayas, Chomo-uchong, and close at hand to the south-south-east the Brahmaputra valley with the river meandering in several arms. We encamped on the bank of the Sachu-tsangpo, which flows into the Chaktak-tsangpo west of Saka-dzong. Here also lies a votive block of a hard green rock, covered with offerings, bits of butter, and streamers.
The 1st of May was celebrated by a march over the Lamlung-la, a difficult pass, on the saddle of which, 16,791 feet high, the traveller is again rewarded by a magnificent view over this complicated sea of mountains. From here Chomo-uchong’s seven summits appear in a compact group; the central one is of a regular conical shape and is pure white all over; the others consist chiefly of black cliffs and projections, from among which issue small blue-tinged glaciers. The length of the massive corresponds to that of Lunpo-gangri, of which it is a continuation.
In the Namchen valley our united camp formed quite a little village, for all the chiefs of the country were convened to a consultation. And here it was that Rindor and Pemba Tsering joined us with all the goods we had ordered from Saka-dzong. We stayed here two days. The weather was raw and chilly, and the temperature constantly fell to 8.2°. There was no spring as yet. But the wild-geese were on their migration, and when Tubges once shot a gander at a neighbouring brook, Oang Gye came to complain to me. He was quite overcome at this brutal murder, and could not conceive how my servant could be so heartless and cruel.
“You are right,” I answered; “I am myself sorry for the wild-geese. But you must remember that we are travellers, and dependent for our livelihood on what the country yields. Often the chase and fishing are our only resources.”
“In this district you have plenty of sheep.”
“Is it not just as wrong to kill sheep and eat their flesh?”
“No!” he exclaimed, with passionate decision; “that is quite another matter. You surely will not compare sheep to wild-geese. There is as much difference between them as between sheep and human beings. For, like human beings, the wild-geese marry and have families. And if you sever such a union by a thoughtless shot, you cause sorrow and misery. The goose which has just been bereaved of her mate will seek him fruitlessly by day and night, and will never leave the place where he has been murdered. Her life will be empty and forlorn, and she will never enter upon a new union, but will remain a widow, and will soon die of grief. A woman cannot mourn more deeply than she will, and the man who has caused such sorrow draws down a punishment on himself.”
The excellent Oang Gye was quite inconsolable. We might shoot antelopes, wild sheep, and partridges as much as ever, if only we left the wild-geese in peace. I had heard in the Lob country similar tales of the sorrow of the swans when their union was dissolved by death. It was moving to witness Oang Gye’s tenderness and great sympathy for the wild-geese, and I felt the deepest respect for him. Many a noble and sensitive heart beats in the cold and desolate valleys of Tibet.