In the Forbidden Land Part 13

THE Mangshan River rises from this glacier, but we left the glacier (17,800 feet) to the right, and, turning sharply northwards, began our ascent towards the pa.s.s. To gaze upon the incline before us was alone sufficient to deter one from attempting to climb it, had one a choice; in addition to this, the snow we struggled over was so soft and deep that we sank into it up to our waists. Occasionally the snow alternated with patches of loose _debris_ and rotten rock, on which we were no better off; in fact, the fatigue of progressing over them was simply overpowering. Having climbed up half-a-dozen steps among the loose cutting stones, we felt ourselves sliding back to almost our original point of departure, followed by a small avalanche of s.h.i.+fting material that only stopped when it got to the foot of the mountain.

At 19,000 feet we were for a considerable distance on soft snow, covering an ice-field with deep creva.s.ses and cracks in it. We had to feel our way with great caution, particularly as there was only the light of the moon to depend upon.

Fortunately, as we rose higher, there were no more creva.s.ses, but I began to feel a curious exhaustion that I had never experienced before. At sunset the thermometer which Kachi carried for me had descended forty degrees within a few minutes, and the sudden change in the temperature seemed to affect us all more or less; but we went on, with the exception of Bijesing, who was seized with mountain sickness so violently that he was unable to proceed. The doctor, too, a man of powerful build, was suffering considerably. His legs, he said, had become like lead, and each seemed to weigh a ton. The effort of lifting, or even moving, them required all his energy. Although he was terribly blown and gasping for breath, yet he would not give in, and he struggled on bravely until we reached an alt.i.tude of 20,500 feet. Here he was seized with such exhaustion and pain that he was unable to proceed. Kachi Ram, the Rongba and I went ahead, but we also were suffering, Kachi complaining of violent beating in his temples and loud buzzing in his ears. He also gasped and staggered dangerously, threatening to collapse at any moment.

At 21,000 feet he fell flat on the snow. He was instantly asleep, breathing heavily and snoring raspingly. His hands and feet were icy cold, and I rubbed them. But what caused me more anxiety than anything was the irregular beating and throbbing of his heart. I wrapped him up in his blanket and my waterproof, and, having seen to his general comfort, I shouted to the doctor, telling him what had happened, and that I was going to push on as much higher as I could stand, the Rongba being now the only one of the party who was able to keep up.

A thick mist came on and enveloped us, which considerably added to our trials. Our efforts to get on after we left Kachi at 21,000 feet were desperate, our lungs in convulsion as if about to burst, our pulses hastened, our hearts throbbing (mine being ordinarily very regular) as if they would beat themselves out of our bodies. Exhausted and seized by irresistible drowsiness, the Rongba and I nevertheless at last reached the top. It was a satisfaction to have got there, to have reached such an alt.i.tude, although I had long realised the impossibility of getting my men over by this way. It served me also to ascertain the amount of snow on the other side of the range, which, when the fog lifted somewhat, I found to be greater on the northern slope than on the southern. Although almost fainting with fatigue, I registered my observations. The alt.i.tude was 22,000 feet, the hour 11 P.M., and there was a strong, cutting North-East wind. I had stupidly forgotten to take my thermometer out of Kachi's pocket when I left him, and was unable to register the temperature, although I had done so only a few minutes before I left Kachi at 21,000 feet. The cold was intense. The stars were extraordinarily brilliant and the moon shone bright for a while over the panorama around me, and though it was a view of utter desolation, it had nevertheless a curious indescribable fascination. Below me, to the south, were mountainous ma.s.ses buried in snow, and to the South-West and North-East were peaks even higher than the one on which I stood. To the north stretched the immense, dreary Tibetan plateau with undulations and intricate hill ranges, beyond which a high mountain range with snow peaks could just be perceived in the distance. I could see very little snow near by, except on the northern slope of the range I was standing on, and on the hill-tops which dotted the plateau.

I had barely taken it in, barely realised the wonder of nature asleep when the mist again rose before me and I saw a gigantic phantom rising out of it. It stood in the centre of a luminous circle, a tall, dark figure in the folds of an enormous veil of mist. The effect was overwhelming, and it was only after some moments that I realised that the spectre wore my features, was a liquid presentation of my own proportions colossally enlarged; that I stood in the centre of a lunar rainbow, and that I was gazing on the reflection of myself in the mist. As I moved my arms, my body, or my head, the ghostlike figure moved, and I felt myself irresistibly changing my postures--oddly and nervously at first--then, with an awakening sense of the ridiculous in my actions--so as to make my image change and do as I did. I felt like a child placed for the first time in front of a mirror.

The ill.u.s.tration on page 145 represents a solar spectre with circular rainbow which I saw later on at a comparatively low alt.i.tude; the lunar effect differed from this in that the colours of the rainbow were but faintly distinguishable.

The Rongba had fallen exhausted, and I felt so faint with the awful pressure on my lungs, that, despite all my efforts to resist it, I collapsed on the snow. The coolie and I, s.h.i.+vering pitifully, shared the same blanket for additional warmth. Both of us were seized with irresistible drowsiness, as if we had taken a strong narcotic. I fought hard against it, for I well knew that if my eyelids once closed they would almost certainly remain so for ever. I called to the Rongba. He was fast asleep. I summoned up my last atom of vitality to keep my eyes open.

The wind blew hard and biting, with a hissing noise. How that hiss still sounds in my ears! It seemed like the whisper of death. The Rongba, crouched with teeth chattering, was moaning, and his sudden shudders bespoke great pain. It seemed only common charity to let him have the blanket, which was in any case too small for both, so I wrapped it tightly round his head and body. He was doubled up with his chin on his knees. This small exertion was quite sufficient to make me lose the tug-of-war in which I was pulling against nature. Just like the subject who, under hypnotic influence, feels his own will and power suddenly going from him, so I felt the entire hopelessness of further struggle against the supernatural forces I was contending with. Falling backwards on the snow, I made a last desperate effort to gaze at the glittering stars ... my sight became dim and obscured....

For how long this semi-consciousness lasted, I do not know. "G.o.d! how ghastly! Doctor! Kachi!" I tried to articulate. My voice seemed choked in my throat. Was what I saw before me real? The two men, as if frozen to death by the side of each other, seemed lying on that vast white sheet of snow, motionless as statues of ice. In my dream I attempted to raise them. They were quite rigid. I knelt beside them, calling them and frantically striving to bring them back to consciousness and life.

Bewildered, I turned round to look for Bijesing, and, as I did so, all sense of vitality seemed to freeze within me. I saw myself enclosed in a quickly contracting tomb of transparent ice. It was easy to realise that I too would shortly be nothing but a solid block of ice, like my companions. My legs, my arms were already congealed. Horror-stricken as I was at the approach of such a hopeless, ghastly death, my sensations were accompanied by a languor and la.s.situde indescribable but far from unpleasant. To some extent thought or wonderment was still alive. Should I dwindle painlessly away, preferring rest and peace to effort, or should I make a last struggle to save myself? The ice seemed to close in more and more every moment. I was choking.

I tried to scream! to force myself through the suffocating weight on me!

I gave a violent plunge, and then everything had vanished. The frozen Kachi, the doctor, the transparent tomb! Nothingness!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SPECTRE AND CIRCULAR RAINBOW]

At last I was able to open my eyes, which ached as if needles had been stuck into them. It was snowing hard. I had temporarily lost the use of my legs and fingers. They were frozen. So violent was the shock of realising how very near death I had really been, that in waking up from the ghastly nightmare I became acutely alive to the full importance of instantly making my way down to a lower level. I was already covered with a layer of snow, and I suppose it was the frigid pressure on my forehead that caused the dream. It is, however, probable that, had it not been for the hideous vision that shook my nerves free of paralysing torpor, I should never have awakened from that spell-bound silence.

I sat up with difficulty, and by beating and rubbing them, slowly regained the use of my lower limbs. I roused the Rongba, rubbed him, and shook him till he was able to move. We began our descent.

No doubt the satisfaction of going up high mountains is very great; but can it be compared to that of coming down?

Descending was dangerous but not wearisome. The incline being extremely steep, we took gigantic strides on the snow, and when we came to patches of _debris_, we slid ten or fifteen feet each step amidst a deafening roar from the huge ma.s.s of loose stones set in motion by our descent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I ROUSED THE RONGBA"]

"Hark!" I said to the Rongba, "what is that?"

We waited till all was silence, and with hands up to our ears listened attentively. It was still snowing.

"_Ao, ao, ao! Jaldi ao! Tumka hatte?_ Come, come, come quickly! Where are you?" cried a faint distressed voice from far down below.

We quickened our pace; having hardly any control over our legs, our descent was precipitous. The snow-fall ceased and we became enveloped in a thick mist which pierced into our very bones.

Guided by the anxious cries of the doctor, whose voice we recognised, we continued our breakneck journey downward. The cries got more and more distinct, and at last, to my great joy, we came face to face with Wilson, who, thank Heaven, was alive but almost helpless, as he said his legs were still like lead, and it was all he could do to move them.

Owing to his anxiety about us, he had been shouting for a long time, and getting no answer, he became very uneasy, all the more so as he found he could in no way come to our help. He had quite given us up for lost.

We looked for and found Kachi. He had slept like a top, curled up in his warm blanket and my overcoat, and was now quite refreshed, so all united again, we continued our race downwards, exchanging our experiences and sensations. We had no very serious mishaps, and life and strength gradually came back to us again when we descended to lower elevations.

The ascent from the glacier at the bottom of the mountain to the summit occupied four and a half hours; the precipitous descent, without counting stoppages, only the ninth part of that time, the distance covered being about one mile and three quarters.

Over the same trying stony valley we reached camp during the early hours of the morning. The distance from camp to the alt.i.tude reached and back was over ten miles; therefore, during the twenty-four hours I had altogether gone eighteen miles (quite a record at such great alt.i.tudes).

I may here also remark that, since breakfast at six o'clock the previous morning, I had taken no food of any kind, thus making an interval of twenty-three hours between one meal and the next. The anxiety of my men in camp was intense. They had lost all hope of seeing us again, and they were quite rea.s.sured when I told them that we would proceed later in the morning by the Lumpiya Pa.s.s, which was believed to be far easier.

In no time they had lighted a fire of dung, and after having had (at five o'clock in the morning) a handsome feed of rice, _chapatis_, extract of meat, and strengthening emergency food, we felt we were ent.i.tled to a well-deserved rest.

CHAPTER XXV

The sources of the Kuti River--The Lumpiya glacier--The summit of the range--Bird's-eye view of Tibet--Rubso frozen almost to death--The Lumpiya Pa.s.s--Two coolies in distress.

AT 9 A.M. we were ready again to start. The thermometer registered 40 inside the tent, and the minimum temperature outside during the night had been 14. We followed the Kuti River at the foot of the mountain range, travelling in a direction of 298 (b.m). On rounding a prominent headland, where the Kuti River flows through a narrow pa.s.sage, we saw facing us on a mound, fourteen stone pillars and pyramids with white stones on them and the customary flying prayers of cloth. It is from this point that the ascent to the Lumpiya Pa.s.s begins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ASCENDING THE LUMPIYA Pa.s.s]

There are two sources of the Kuti Yangti, joining in a large basin; one comes from two extensive glaciers to the S.W., the other from a glacier directly under the Lumpiya Pa.s.s. The river at the junction of the two sources is not more than six yards across. Our route gradually ascended, going N.W. first, then swinging away to N.E. until we attained an elevation of 17,350 feet on a flat basin covered with deep snow. So far we had proceeded with no very great trouble or fatigue, but matters suddenly altered for the worse. Each coolie in the long silent row at the head of which I marched, sank in the snow up to his knees, often up to his waist. They formed, undoubtedly, a picturesque sight in this lonely region, the only bit of life in the picture, the white frozen sheet of snow throwing into strong contrast their faces wrapped tightly round with white turbans. Some wore fur caps with ear flaps; all had long sheepskin coats and high boots of skins; many used snow spectacles; and as this procession, silent and grave, with loads on their backs, struggled higher and higher with piteous panting, you speculated apprehensively as to how many of them would ever return. Moving cautiously to avoid the many treacherous cracks, I made my way ahead with considerable trouble to a spot six hundred feet higher, where I halted for a while on a rocky island fairly clear of snow. As coolie after coolie arrived, breathing convulsively, he dropped his load and sat quietly by the side of it.

There was not a grumble, not a word of reproach for the hard work they were made to endure. Sleet was falling, and the wet and cold increased the discomfort. There was now a very steep pull before us. To the left, we had a glacier beginning in a precipitous fall of ice, about one hundred feet in height. Like the Mangshan glacier, it was in horizontal ribbon-like strata of beautifully clear ice, showing no dirt bands.

Perpendicular stripes of a darker greenish colour could be observed arising from the unequal degrees of compactness of the ice; the strata showed almost horizontal, with no curvatures nor depressions in any part of them. The top, the base and the sides of the glacier were in this case also buried in deep snow.

The doctor and I went ahead. In our anxiety to reach the summit, unable to discern the track, now covered by several feet of snow, we mistook our bearings, and with great fatigue climbed up an extremely steep incline.

Here we were on a patch of the troublesome loose _debris_, on which we struggled for over half an hour until we reached the top of the range, 18,750 feet, considerably higher than the pa.s.s itself. Four men had come with us, the others, to whom we signalled, bearing more to the west by another dangerous track skirting the glacier.

The wind from the N.E. was piercing and the cold terrible. Under the lee of a large rock we found temporary shelter, and through my telescope scanned the Tibetan plateau spread out before us. From this high eyrie we obtained a superb bird's-eye view. Huge ma.s.ses of snow covered the Tibetan side of the Himahlyas, as well as the lower range of mountains immediately in front of us, running almost parallel to our range. Two thousand feet below, between these two ranges, flowed, in a wide barren valley, a river which is afterwards called the Darma Yankti or Lumpiya Yankti. In the distance, a flat plateau, rising some eight hundred feet above the river, and resembling a gigantic embankment of a railway line, could be seen extending for many miles; and far away to the north, a chain of high blue mountains capped with snow, undoubtedly the Kangri chain with the Kelas peaks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LUMPIYA GLACIER AND Pa.s.s]

A painful incident had unfortunately happened to one of my followers: poor Rubso, a Christian convert, had fallen exhausted from cold and fatigue. He had been seized with cramp, and was lying in a semi-conscious state, his teeth chattering and his features distorted and livid; his eyes were sunken and lifeless, and he showed signs of complete collapse.

We hastily carried him under the shelter of a rock and rubbed him vigorously, in the hope of restoring his circulation. After more than half an hour of the greatest anxiety and exertion, to our intense relief he partially recovered, and was able to proceed slowly with our help.

Having climbed the wrong path, we now had to descend to the pa.s.s, six hundred feet lower. We made our way along dangerous rocks and _debris_. I was just clinging with my half-frozen fingers to a prominent rock, striving to get on the other side, when screams of distress from below struck my ears. Notwithstanding the unsafe position I was in, I could not help turning my head to see what had happened. On the steep incline of snow two coolies with their respective loads were sliding, at incredible speed. They eventually reached the basin, where the angle of the descent being suddenly altered, it caused them to revolve several times on their own axes, the different bags, &c., forming their loads, flying about and being scattered in every direction. I gave a sigh of relief when I saw the men getting up. One coolie picked up one after the other the goods that had been entrusted to him, tied them together, got them on his back, and began the difficult ascent a second time. The other was crying and moaning, so that we could plainly hear him from our elevation. He seemed giddy. After a moment or two he staggered, fell back and lay as if dead.

Hastening over the slippery rocks, and then down precipitously on the loose _debris_, I gained the pa.s.s, 18,150 feet. Two reluctant men were immediately despatched to the relief of the coolie in distress. They first carried his load up, then him. After some time he, too, got over the severe shock and fright, and though he was rather shattered and aching all over, I succeeded in persuading the man that nothing was the matter with him.

We then hurried down the steep declivity on the Tibetan side, to get away quickly from the bitterly cold, windy pa.s.s. Describing a wide arc of a circle, and then making straight down across several long snow-beds, we at last reached the river level and pitched our tents on snow at an alt.i.tude of 16,900 feet. There was no wood, no yak or pony dung, no lichens, no moss, and therefore nothing with which we could make a fire.

It seemed hard upon my men that, after such a toilsome day, they should be compelled to go to sleep without having had a good meal. They believe--and they are right--that eating cold food at such high elevations, with such low temperature, leads to certain death. They preferred, therefore, to remain without food altogether. Night came, and with it the wind blowing in gusts, and piling the grit and snow around our tents. During the nocturnal hours, with the hurricane raging, we had to turn out of our flapping canvases several times to make the loose pegs firmer. Fastening all the frozen ropes was very cold work. At 2 A.M. the thermometer was down to 12. At 9 A.M. in the sun, it went up to 26, and inside the tent at the same hour we had a temperature as high as 32--freezing-point.

CHAPTER XXVI

Mysterious footprints--Brigand or spy?--Pa.s.ses and tracks--Intense cold--No fuel--A high flat plateau--Fuel at last!--Two spies in disguise--What they took us for.

IN a hurricane of grit and drenching rain we packed up our traps as best we could and again started on our way. I was slightly in advance when, to my surprise, I noticed, some two hundred yards only from camp, a double line of recent footmarks on the snow. Those coming towards us were somewhat indistinct and nearly covered with grit, those going in the opposite direction seemed quite recent. After carefully examining these footprints, I felt pretty certain that they had been made by a Tibetan.

Where the footprints stopped, marks in the snow showed that the man had at different points laid himself flat on the ground. No doubt we had been spied upon and watched. My own men had shown many signs of terror ever since we had crossed to this side of the Himahlyas, and were now all anxiously stooping low over these prints and speculating on their origin.

Their excitement and fear were strange to watch. Some surmised that the man must be a _Daku_, a brigand, and that in the evening we should be attacked by the whole band; others maintained that the spy could only be a Sepoy sent by the Gyanema officers to watch our movements. In any case, this incident was held to be an evil omen, and during our march in a N.W.

direction along the bank of the river we continually saw the trail. The wildest speculations and imaginations were rife. To the left of us we pa.s.sed the valleys leading south to the Neway Pa.s.s; then a second to the Kats, 230 (b.m.). The bearings were taken from the mouth of the river descending from it, a tributary of the Darma Yangti.