To Lhassa at Last Part 6

REACHING LHa.s.sA: SUPPLIES: MESSING: THE LHa.s.sA BAZAAR

The mode of our arrival in the environs of Lha.s.sa was something of an anti-climax. We had marched four hundred miles, fought a few fights, and provided ourselves throughout our journey with the necessaries of life, much against the will of the enemy, and here we were at Lha.s.sa, where an exciting climax to our march, such as a good fight in the Lha.s.sa plain, would have been highly artistic. Here stood the Debun monastery, and there further on the Sara monastery, full of monks who at that time hated us. A few good sh.e.l.ls in those monasteries would have set the monks buzzing in consternation like swarming bees disturbed. There glistened in the sun the gilded roof of the chief astrologer's house, that would have made grand loot and have looked so well in the British Museum. There ahead of us rose majestically on its conical hill the Pota-La, that _piece de resistance_ which would have really taxed our efforts, and by its side on a similar hill the Medical College, challenging us by its proud eminence to seize it. But such wild schemes were not to be realised. These ways were not our ways. We marched quietly into a swampy camp, sat down, and began to negotiate. Those that negotiated were busy men, for the amount of talking that the representatives of the Tibetan Government got through, and that needed listening to, before anything was settled, must have been immense. The rest of us were not often very busy. 'Those also serve who only stand and wait' was our motto.

There was reluctance at first on the part of the monasteries to sell us supplies, but this was shortly overcome. We had for one day to feed the natives of the force on peas soaked overnight in water as a subst.i.tute for tsampa, while waiting for supplies to come in; but from the time when the latter began to do so till we left Lha.s.sa we felt no pinch. The large monasteries were our chief purveyors, but besides these the Chinese community of Lha.s.sa comprised certain considerable merchants who at the instigation of the Amban placed their wares at our disposal from the very first. A Chinese market was a great boon to us, for the Chinaman, especially if at all influenced by other civilisations, has ideas on dietetics more nearly approximating to both those of the British and of the native of India than do the Tibetan's ideas. To the ordinary Tibetan the sucking of mouthfuls of tsampa at irregular intervals from a dirty leather bag which he hangs from his neck represents an adequate idea of diet. The monks and richer laymen of course do themselves better; but such dainties as they indulge in did not appeal to our palates, nor to those of Indian natives. Their b.u.t.ter, for instance, which at times both British and native had to make use of, had always a special flavour of its own--a flavour which in an indefinable way suggests Tibet and its many a.s.sociations, being allied to a blend of such smells as that of Tibetan fuel, of joss-stick incense, and of temple floors smeared with grease. Few Europeans and fewer natives could eat Tibetan b.u.t.ter with relish. The Chinaman, on the other hand, provided us with flour sufficiently fine to bake with, with white and brown sugar, with that solidified form of mola.s.ses called 'goor,' and with dried fruits. Latterly we had often had to mix tsampa with flour to eke out our stock of the latter when baking bread for British troops. The result, though not unwholesome, was of a deep brown colour, and hardly palatable. If once cut into overnight, a tsampa loaf would have subsided into something very stodgy by morning, though, if all consumed at a sitting, it would not be found so heavy.

During the latter part of our march we had run out of most of such delicacies as a supply column usually carries, and, as I have already mentioned, no arrangement could be made to bring up the loads and loads of parcels which were now acc.u.mulating at Gyantse for most individuals and messes belonging to the column. In those days, in our att.i.tude towards food, we reverted very much to the proverbial school-boy. We were frankly greedy in thought, word, and deed. The most favourite of interesting conversations was to discuss the ideal menu at a first-rate London restaurant. But sometimes these imaginings grew too painful. I remember well a case of two officers at noon on a comparatively hot day, sitting by the wayside at a halt.

'Ah,' said one, 'what I should really like now would be a large tumblerful of good iced hock-cup.'

These idle words touched a tender spot in the other officer, to whom hock-cup happened to be the beau-ideal of drinks.

'Shut up!' the latter answered angrily, a fierce light in his eye; 'if you mention hock-cup again, I'll break your head!'

Jam, as we marched to Lha.s.sa, though not a necessity, was our primary desideratum. With long days in the open air and also with considerable fatigue to undergo, you craved for the sustenance of sweet things. Till sugar also began to run short, we used to make treacle from it. Like the school-boy, we, as a rule, thought little of alcohol. Just as water at that alt.i.tude boils at a low temperature, so did it need only a little fiery spirit to give the desired tingle to the blood. Most messes had soon run out of whiskey, and rum in small quant.i.ties from the supply column took its place.

I am inclined to think that, delightful as messing in a large mess is, something is lost by having no personal share in your own catering. A mess president, of course, especially on service, has a vast weight upon his shoulders. He has to foresee the wants of many hungry mouths months ahead, and fit them in to a scanty allowance of transport. But his function is of a special kind. The ordinary member of a mess simply eats what is put before him, notes whether it is good, bad, or indifferent, and thinks no more about it. On the other hand, if, with the aid of a purely experimental cook, you run your own messing, quite a new vista of energy is at once opened out to you. It becomes intensely interesting.

You become very greedy, of course, and a good dinner becomes the mark of a successful day, and a bad dinner that of an unsuccessful one; but even so the arts of catering and of the supervision of cooking, when practised in difficulties, are not in themselves sordid, but demand skill and forethought of a high order. One wants company of course. I messed on the method of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Spratt with another officer.

He was of the lean, I the fat kind. He breakfasted at eleven, or (if on the march) when he reached camp. I ate a huge breakfast the moment I was out of bed, and ran to a lunch later, which my messmate scorned. So, after all, we only met at dinner, but then that is the only meal at which company is a necessity. He dined usually on curry and rice, which I have always disliked, while I had roast meat served up to me in chunks on a dish, much as my dog gets it at home. Thus we got all the mutual advantages of each other's company when that was desirable, without the effort of subscribing to each other's tastes. We found it a most workmanlike arrangement. When, on reaching Lha.s.sa, we had ample leisure, we began to grow fastidious, and to insist upon our cooks enlarging the culinary horizon. A little harsh treatment soon taught the youth who fed me to turn out a pa.s.sable omelette, and a little more coercion resulted in quite eatable rissoles. In the end, when he came to take orders for dinner, he would rattle off a string of high-sounding dishes with French names, which would have really made a fine feast, if served otherwise than on enamelled iron plates, set upon a table cloth of advertis.e.m.e.nt sheets from a stale newspaper. Once I had a comrade to lunch on a sunny day, and, thinking to do him well, produced somewhere from the bottom of my kit a long disused but spotless bed sheet, and made use of this as a table cloth. My friend asked for its removal before the second course, complaining of incipient snow-blindness. When I got to India and to polite society, and began wiping my mouth with a table napkin, I discovered that on the first few occasions the napkin used to come away in my pocket. Of course, on making use of it, one thought subconsciously that it was one's handkerchief, and so tucked it away as such.

Tobacco, without a parcels post to bring it to us, became very scarce.

The Sahib missed his pipe or cheroot, and the native his 'hubble-bubble,' and both alike took to the 'Pedro' cigarette, the produce of an enterprising firm whose custom extended to Lha.s.sa. Vendors of Pedros had followed us on the march, and, apart from this, the Lha.s.sa bazaar abounded in the article, getting it, I suppose, through China or by the trade route that lies through Nepal. By a rough estimate it would appear that for two months at least four thousand souls smoked an average of ten Pedros daily. The rate grew very much enhanced with the constant demand, and I know of one needy officer who, in view of the fortune thus doubtless made by the firm, has announced his intention of going head-down for home and offering his hand and heart to Miss Pedro, if he finds such a person existing.

Shopping in the camp bazaar was the ladylike way in which we often spent our mornings. We had only been in camp at Lha.s.sa for twenty-four hours, when a bazaar was formed just outside camp by Tibetan, Chinese, and Nepali traders. It needed a little supervision to prevent disputes and disorder, but the provost-marshal quickly had it in hand. An attempt to fix rates for various more necessary articles was not wholly successful, human nature on the buyer's part crying out for the article at all cost, and human nature on the seller's seizing an easy chance of profit. There were vegetables in that bazaar and sticks of wild rhubarb. There was 'ata,' in small quant.i.ties, which the sepoy would buy greedily as a change from his tsampa. There were packets of white loaf sugar fetching exorbitant prices, and thick Chinese candles with bits of stick for wicks. Later on, when we had moved from our first camp to that which we occupied for the greater part of the time, the bazaar developed. The vendors by that time had discovered our childish mania for curios, and brought with them each morning such trinkets as would attract our fancy.

Skins of all kinds would be brought for sale; the skins of very young lambs, almost as curly as real Astrakan, which, made up together in winter linings for lamas' robes, seemed equally adaptable to the opera cloaks of our sisters and cousins and aunts at home; skins too of the lynx, the marmot, the wolf, and the snow fox. And women would come wearing heavy earrings set with turquoises and 'charm boxes' similarly set, which they wore as lockets at the neck. They would take these off to sell to you and haggle, like the veritable Eastern traders that they were, with you for the price.

Besides the Tibetan or Chinese candle, we also found imported candles of European manufacture. But most imports for household use appeared to be j.a.panese, as, for instance, soap and matches; neither of these were of good quality, and j.a.pan does not seem to take pains to appear at her best in the Lha.s.sa market. But to get a new cake of soap, even if it did crumble away quickly, was a luxury, and the return to a land of matches was a great relief. I remember an officer who on the march had latterly possessed himself of a Tibetan flint and steel and learnt to light a cigarette with them.

There are just about half a dozen prime necessities of no great bulk which always seem to run out sooner than expected on field service. A reserve in a supply column of the following would always come in useful: of matches, three mule loads; of wax candles, seven mule loads; of soap, ten mule loads; of some strong forbidding kind of tobacco that in times of privation would go a very long way, ten mule loads; of chocolate creams and barley sugar, thirty mule loads. Sixty such mules laid out per brigade would be much blessed.

When relations with the Tibetans had become less strained, we used to go in organised parties to visit the bazaar in Lha.s.sa city itself. These parties reminded one of a Sunday-school treat. The part of curate would be played by some field-officer who would collect his school children outside camp. These would consist of those officers, soldiers, sepoys, and followers whose turn it was to go. He would conduct us with careful supervision from the camp to the city, and there let us loose for two hours to play in the bazaar. The bazaar was one circular street, surrounding the cathedral which, though once or twice entered by favoured individuals, was out of bounds for us.

In the city the same kinds of things were for sale as were brought to the camp bazaar, but there was a larger variety of imported goods. How some of those things ever got to Lha.s.sa was a mystery. In one shop I saw a whole row of small looking-gla.s.ses 'made in Austria,' and beside them a score or so of penknives 'made in Germany.' The British tradesman's pictorial almanac will, I suppose, be found hanging on the gates of the new Jerusalem; it had certainly penetrated Lha.s.sa, usually in the form of a royal family group. One coronation group on the wall of a Kashmiri shop was especially fine. Strangest of all to find was a bicycle of the Rover pattern--quite out of gear, but doubtless interesting to the Tibetan as a Western curio. He may have thought it was a species of Christian prayer-wheel.

I was short of dinner plates, and bought one. It was of tin, and had stamped on it a comprehensive lesson in both political and physical geography. All round the rim faces of clocks were stamped. Each face was encircled with a scroll containing the name and the number of the population of some large city of the world, while the clock in the centre showed what the time was in that city when the clock in London stood at twelve noon. The population of London as stamped on the plate stood at quite a low figure, but London was selected as the honoured city whose clock should stand at the precise hour of noon, and the whole geography lesson was in English. One would therefore come to the conclusion that the plate was a British product, dating back to the period of some not very recent census. To have traced that plate from Birmingham to Lha.s.sa would have been interesting.

Beggars swarmed in the bazaar. One man earned an obviously ample livelihood by carrying his grandfather on his back through the streets.

The grandfather was certainly the quintessence of decrepitude, and as such would appeal to the benevolent, who apparently never thought of suggesting to the young man that it would be better to leave grandfather at home in bed, and go out unenc.u.mbered to earn an honest living.

Malefactors in chains are also seen crawling about, a peripatetic prison being apparently less felt by the Lha.s.sa exchequer than one of bricks and mortar.

CHAPTER XXI

ENOUGH OF LHa.s.sA: A TRIP DOWN COUNTRY: LIFE IN A POST: TRUE HOSPITALITY: A BHUTYA PONY

Since I reached India, I have been told that every moment I spent in the romantic environs of Lha.s.sa must have been intensely interesting, and that to have been to Lha.s.sa is the envy of the world. I suppose, like the brute one is, one got _blase_ and indifferent to one's good fortune, but it is certain that those 'crowded hours of glorious life' began to pall. We did the best we could to while away the time. An energetic race committee provided gymkhanas and a 'sky meeting' (just, says the intelligent foreigner, what a British army _would_ indulge in, on arrival at such a place). A football tournament followed. Football at thirteen thousand feet is like playing the game at an ordinary level--with an eighty-pound load on your back. Less strain on the lungs was a rifle meeting. To escort our military or political betters to the city on a state visit was another mild form of entertainment. The Chinese Amban often received such visits. The ordinary officer who formed part of the escort did not take part in the actual visit. He stayed outside on the doorsteps. Sometimes he was known to go into the Amban's kitchen, where an elderly matron gave him a cup of tea.

Luckily, though it rained generally once in the twenty-four hours, it did so mostly at night, so that we were seldom confined to our tents in the daytime. Even so, we felt rather like prisoners. Going out beyond the vicinity of the camp meant going out armed, and proceeding to any distance meant being accompanied by an escort, such precautions having been specially indicated by the attack made on two officers by a certain fanatical lama.

It is not surprising that the life we led left many gaps which it was hard to fill. I was glad when one day I got orders to go on a ten days'

trip down the line as far as Pete-jong and back.

These ten days initiated me into the life of those portions of the force who had been left to man posts on the line of communications.

The native soldier soon makes himself very much at home in his post. He has deeply regretted not going to the front, but with a useful belief in 'kismet' makes the best of things. The relief from marching and the ample leisure to cook food are redeeming features. The post-commandant, if the only British officer on the spot, feels his circ.u.mstances more acutely. Not only does he grieve at being left behind, but since in ordinary times no life is more social than that of a British officer, he at first feels his loneliness greatly. He may love his men, he may be--in the wording of that common Hindustani metaphor--veritably their 'father and mother,' but still he cannot go to them for company. He can exchange few ideas with them, and as regards social intercourse, he is almost as much alone as if he were on a desert island. If, however, by any chance there are two officers together in one post, they should enjoy themselves. For though ordinary regimental life is, as I said above, the most social in the world, it yet also suffers from the disabilities of its own sociability. In a regimental mess you know twenty men well, and may go on knowing them so for twenty years, but perhaps you will never know any one of them really intimately. To share a post on the line of communications with one other officer for a few months should result in an intimacy. That is almost a new military experience.

If a post-commandant had shooting or fis.h.i.+ng within reach of his post, he usually, even though alone, soon found life bearable. Sometimes foraging to collect a reserve of rations for the march down was his only recreation, and this soon palled. He was not necessarily always alone, for the traffic up and down the line was sometimes brisk, and he would perhaps once or twice in a week be invaded by some officer who was travelling up or down with the post or with a convoy.

It was my lot to be often such an invader, and for sheer genuine hospitality commend me to the officers in charge of the posts on the Sikkim-Tibet line of communications. It shames me to think of the way they have entertained me, and of my utter inability to return their hospitality. May I have a chance some time!

I had to go down to Chaksam with the mounted infantry postal escort which travelled the whole distance in one day, going as light as possible, my syce on one mule, my bedding on a second, and a mule driver on a third, and without either cook or orderly. It was a case of 'sponging' wherever I went, for I knew those kind hosts down the line would forbid me to live off bully-beef and biscuits. Looking over my belongings before I left, I found a tinned oxtongue, which by an oversight had remained unregarded and uneaten somewhere at the bottom of a kit bag for many months. A convoy too had just come in, and from it I seized one of a few pots of jam. Thus armed I visited Chaksam and Pete-jong. These two articles were all that I could proffer in return for hospitality, but both under present conditions were dainty rarities, and, my hosts a.s.sured me, quite paid for my keep. At Chaksam, where the tongue was left, and where there was a doctor as well as a post-commandant, I was afterwards informed that the doctor, as soon as I was gone, promptly found the post-commandant suffering from acute enteritis, so put him on to milk diet and wolfed all the tongue himself!

The postal service from Gyantse to Lha.s.sa was performed by mounted infantry, each garrison _en route_ containing a detachment of mounted infantrymen, who took the post from stage to stage. The stages were pretty far apart. The first was from Gyantse to Ralung, over thirty miles; the second over the Karo-La to Nagartse, a distance of nearly thirty; the third from Nagartse to Pete-jong, eighteen miles; the fourth from Pete-jong to Chaksam, thirty-two; and the fifth and last from Chaksam to Lha.s.sa, about forty-five. The work thus done by the mounted infantry between Lha.s.sa and Gyantse was considerable. A fairly hefty sepoy, carrying rifle and accoutrements and a few mail bags, is no mean weight to put on the back of a thirteen-hand pony, even for a short distance, and it is surprising how well the ponies, some of them ordinary country-breds from the plains of India, stood those long marches. Keeping them shod was a considerable difficulty, for the combination of damp weather and stony roads knocked the shoes off very quickly, and the stock of the latter was limited.

Having done my work at Chaksam and Pete-jong, I returned to the former place with the post, prepared to proceed to Lha.s.sa the next day; but it had been raining in torrents for some days past, and, though mail bags and the like could be taken across the river in skin boats, there was no chance of taking my pony and mules across till the flood subsided. After three days it was found possible to take the animals over at Parte (the crossing which the column subsequently used on the march down), ten miles up the river, and the following day I was able to reach Lha.s.sa with the upward post.

I shall not easily forget that day. It has been made memorable to me by the vagaries of a certain Bhutya pony ridden by an officer who was accompanying me. To get one's kit and oneself over forty-five miles of indifferent roadway in one day, especially when you have no change of mount, involves early rising. We got up at four o'clock, after sleeping in the domestic temple of a Tibetan farm-house on a sacred but not very clean floor. We sent our kit on ahead, and also my syce, who was mounted on a mule, in charge of part of the mounted infantry postmen. The remainder of the latter accompanied our two selves a little later. My companion had not ridden his pony for some time, and the latter, disliking the process of being mounted, began by suddenly sidling away when his master was only half on his back, with the result that his master came off and tumbled to the ground, still keeping hold of the reins. The pony, anxious to be free, danced a jig on his master's stomach. Luckily, being of a hard-footed hill-breed, his feet were not shod, so that no serious injury resulted, as would have been the case if the trampling had been done in iron shoes. At length the pony broke away from the reins and scampered off, leaving his rider to recover the breath that had been squeezed out of his body and to pick himself up.

This was an awkward beginning to the day's march, but, finding no bones broken, and the pony having, for the occasion, allowed himself to be caught, my friend mounted, successfully this time, and we proceeded on our way. After some miles we overtook and pa.s.sed the other party, and pushed on till, finding we had gone twenty miles from Chaksam, were in a pleasant spot suitable for resting in, and were uncommonly hungry, we dismounted, took our ponies' bridles off, tied the animals up, gave them their grain, and set to work upon our own sandwiches.

We rested an hour, and, thinking our surroundings too pleasant to leave abruptly, we decided on another half-hour's rest. Just as we had done so, and were looking forward to a spell of peaceful contemplation of romantic scenery, as seen through the beautifying haze of tobacco-smoke, one of us noticed that the Bhutya was fidgeting with his head rope. He was on the edge of a field of green peas that were tickling his fancy. As we looked, by some device known only, I should think, to Bhutya ponies, he slipped the neck rope over one ear. Before we could get at him he had slipped it over the other and was free. The only man who had ever been known to catch the pony when he was free was his own syce, whom his master had left at Chaksam. Here we were twenty miles from Chaksam and twenty-five from Lha.s.sa, and my friend with many bruises on his body already contracted that morning, and a sore hip that, though not preventing him riding, yet hurt him every time that he tried to walk.

The party that we had overtaken now came up, and, after sending on most of the escort so as not to detain His Majesty's mails, we proceeded to try all the dodges known to us of catching a refractory pony. I suppose, if we had been cowboys trained to use the la.s.so, we should have had no trouble. As it was, we experienced much.

A feeding-bag full of grain held out coaxingly at arm's length made the pony laugh. I tried him with a bit of commissariat biscuit, at which--as is often the way of people--he snorted. I tried stalking him from behind my own pony, and got fairly near him, only to find his two heels perilously near our two heads. We laid a grand snare, in the shape of two mule loading ropes joined together, and stretched across a tempting patch of the green-pea field, where not a trace of the rope could be seen, while the men at each end of the rope lounged peacefully and innocently with rea.s.suring looks upon their faces which we thought would not prevent the pony being quietly urged into the s.p.a.ce between them.

This ruse nearly succeeded. The pony stalked along, grazing as he went, till his feet were against the rope, at which the men holding it, after raising it a little, tried to run to the rear and so encircle the pony.

But before they had gone far he was kicking and tugging with his chest against the rope, and in a moment had wrenched it out of the hands of one of the men, and the next minute, after a series of derisive buckjumps, was in the next field munching young wheat.

After fifty minutes of fruitless manoeuvring we decided on a new plan.

Half a mile further on, the road left the open s.p.a.ce where we now were, and, running close to the side of the river, was flanked on the other side by almost precipitous rocks. The road here, therefore, formed a perfect defile, and we decided to proceed on our way, ignoring the Bhutya and trusting to his gregarious instinct and a little wholesome neglect on our part to induce him to follow us of his own initiative. We moved off in a body--mules, ponies, and men. The Bhutya, tired of green peas and young wheat, looked after us and followed us at a gentle trot.

We left my syce in ambush just outside the defile, but this proved unnecessary; for the pony, now quite anxious about being left behind, pushed his way in ahead of the last mounted infantryman, so that at last we had him in a trap. But to catch hold of him, now that he was in the trap, still taxed our efforts. A mounted infantryman grabbed him once by the forelock, and nearly got wrenched off his own pony by doing so, while the Bhutya leapt away, leaving in the man's hand enough of his own forelock to stuff a good pincus.h.i.+on. My syce had now come up. He was an elderly man, more intelligent in these matters than any of those present. He tempted the pony with bits of a tsampa chapatti that he drew from his pocket. The pony, forgetful of wheat and green peas, took to these. The syce in an instant had the reins of the bridle round the pony's neck, and would have held him fast had not he been lifted off his feet by the latter's rearing up. The pony was now free again and very indignant. Rampaging about, he tried to find an exit through a batch of mules in one direction and a batch of mounted infantry in the other, but found himself baffled in both. He looked up the rocks and found them impossible to climb, looked at the river beneath him and seemed to contemplate taking a header, but thought better of it, and at last stood sullenly at bay. My syce's next proffer of his own wayside ration brought the pony to terms. A rope-twitch was round his lip in an instant, and a moment later he stood bridled and in his right mind.

So on we hastened to Lha.s.sa at last, glad to have secured the pony, but now somewhat belated. At Trelung bridge, eight miles out of Lha.s.sa, was a small garrison, guarding the bridge. The officer in command fed us with a sumptuous tea. Much refreshed, we sped on our way, getting within sight of camp just as it was turning pitch dark, and having cause to realise the efficacy of our own camp defences by the way we floundered among ditches and abattis when barely twenty yards from the camp perimeter.

There was a 'Tommies' gaff' that night, outside the camp, around a roughly erected stage lit up with Chinese candles and decked out with green brushwood that had previously been used to make the jumps at the last gymkhana. We a.s.sembled to hear the familiar types of songs that form the programme of a soldiers' sing-song--some witty, some rather vulgar, some modified with topical variations by local poets, and all full of good cheer.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SIGNING OF THE TREATY

A day or two after--that is to say, on the seventh day of September 1904--the treaty was signed. If our peaceful arrival at Lha.s.sa had been the anti-climax of the Expedition, this--the signing of the treaty--though peaceful also, was its true climax. One certainly did have a feeling that day that one was witness of an event of imperial importance.