As I now perceived that we should have to travel on the road which Nain Sing in the year 1865, and Ryder and Rawling and their comrades in 1904, had passed along, I wrote, after consultation with Robert and Muhamed Isa, to Tang Darin and Lien Darin in Lhasa. I represented in an urgent appeal to the former, the High Commissioner, that it could not clash with any treaty if I, being already in Tibet, travelled to Ladak by one road or another, provided that I actually did go thither, and that I therefore begged permission to take the following route: I wished to take my homeward way past the lake Tedenam-tso, of which Nain Sing had heard, then to visit the Dangra-yum-tso, and thence to proceed to Tradum and to the Ghalaring-tso, the holy mountain Kailas, the Manasarowar lake, the sources of the Indus and the Brahmaputra, and lastly Gartok. To the other, the Amban of Lhasa, I also wrote about the way I desired to take, and promised to send him a report about it from Gartok. I told both that I wished for a speedy answer, and would wait for it in Raga-tasam.
As soon as I had come to a decision, I called Tundup Sonam and Tashi, and told them to get their sleep over by midnight. Then I wrote the above-mentioned letters and letters to my parents and to Major O’Connor. When my correspondence was ready, it was past midnight. The camp had lain several hours in sleep when I made the night watchman waken the two messengers and Muhamed Isa. Their orders were such as they had never received before. They were to travel day and night along the 220 miles to Shigatse and hand over my letters to Ma. They need not wait for an answer, for I had asked the Mandarins to send me special couriers. Provisions they need not take, for they would be able to get everything on the great high-road, and I gave them money to hire the horses they required. They would be able to reach their journey’s end in ten days, and in a month we ought to have an answer. If they did not find us in Raga-tasam on their return, they were to follow in our track.
Tundup Sonam and Tashi were in good spirits and full of hope when Muhamed Isa and I accompanied them outside the camp, and watched them disappear into the dark night. They made a detour to avoid the twelve black tents standing here, lest the numerous dogs of the village should bark. It was not far to the great high-road, and at the next tasam, as the stations are called, they could hire horses at daybreak. Muhamed Isa and I sat a while in my tent in lively conversation about our prospects. Not till I had crept into bed after a tiring day did it occur to me that it was perhaps cruel to let the two men ride alone day and night through Tibet. But it was too late, they must now fulfil their mission.
There was no hurry now. We stayed here seven days. Westwards the way was open, but not the way I wished to take, and therefore we were prisoners in our own tents. “Patience,” whispered the ceaseless winds. The unknown land lay to the north; I could not give it up till all my efforts had proved fruitless. We had cold unpleasant weather, with frequently more than 36 degrees of frost, and on the night of May 15 as much as 46.4 degrees. The Tibetans said that this neighbourhood is always cold, even when spring reigns all around.
I lay on my bed and read David Copperfield, Dombey and Son, and The Newcomes, for I had now a whole library to read through, the gift of the obliging Major O’Connor. Robert gave me lessons in Hindustani, and I drew types of the people. A puppy of the same age as our own warily came up to my tent and got a breakfast. Mamma Puppy was by no means pleased with this wayside guest, who looked comical, as shy and quiet as a mouse; he sat by the hour together at the fire and looked at me, at length falling asleep and turning on his side. When he appeared again at dinner, he was thoroughly worried by Puppy, but nevertheless went calmly to the family mat and laid himself down. Puppy was furious, but so dumbfoundered at this unexpected impudence that she laid herself down on the ground beside the mat.
Tibetans came every day to my tent and implored us to make a start. When this proved useless, they declared at length, that they could no longer supply us with provisions, for no more were to be had in the neighbourhood. I asked them, as an experiment, whether they would forward two letters to the Mandarins in Lhasa, but they replied that they had no authority to do this. They were much astonished when they heard that I had sent off letters five days previously. For two days I lay in bed, for I was quite at an end of my strength, and made Robert read to me.
On Whitsunday, May 19, we had another long palaver. The Tibetans read to me the instructions they had received from Lhasa, which were dated “on the tenth day of the second month in the year of the fiery sheep.” I was there called Hedin Sahib, and the orders contained the following clauses: “Send him out of the country. Let him not turn aside from the tasam, and guide him neither to the right nor to the left. Supply him with horses, yaks, servants, fuel, grass, and everything he wants. The prices he must pay are the usual prices fixed by the Government. Give him at once anything he asks for and refuse him nothing. But if he will not conform to the directions on his passport, but says he will take other routes independently, give him no provisions, but keep firm hold of him and send off messengers at once to the Devashung. Do not venture to think for yourselves, but obey. Any one in the provinces who does not obey will be beaten; so run the regulations you have to conform to. If he gives no trouble, see that the nomads serve him well and do him no harm on the way to Gartok. Then it will be the business of the Garpuns (the two Viceroys) to take him under their protection.”
And yet I was not satisfied. I told them that I could not think of conforming to my passport, which was contrary to my religion, and that I must go northwards from the Chomo-uchong to Saka-dzong. They were quite at liberty to send messengers to the Devashung. We would wait. Then they held a council, and at length agreed to let us take the northern route, but we must set out on May 21.
| 212. Chomo-uchong from Lamlung-la. |
| 213. Panorama from the Ta-la. (The Brahmaputra Valley and the Himalayas in the background.) Sketches by the Author. |
I lay on my bed and dreamed of the tramp of horses coming both from the east and the west, of the roads open to me to the mysterious mountain system in the north, round which my plans and my dreams circled continually like young eagles.