Part 16
For days we went. We left their mirth For where the springs of light arise, And dawns lean over to the earth, And stars are split to lower skies White, white the wastes around us lay, The wild peaks gathered round to see Our fires affront the awful day, Our speech the torrents’ giant glee.
We camped above the lake, and it was cold—cold! A bitter wind blew through the rocks—a wind shrilling in a waste land. Now and then it shifted a little and brought the hoarse roar of some distant torrent or the crash of an avalanche. And then, for the first time I heard the cry of the marmot—a piercing note which intensifies the desolation. We saw them too, sitting by their burrows; and then they shrieked and dived and were gone.
We made a little stir of life for a while—the men pitching our tents and running here and there to gather stunted juniper bushes for fuel, and get water from an icy stream that rippled by. But I knew we were only interlopers. We would be gone next day, and chilly silence would settle down on our blackened camp-fires.
In the piercing cold that cut like a knife I went out at night, to see the lake, a solemn stillness under the moon. I cannot express the awe of the solitudes. As long as I could bear the cold, I intruded my small humanity; and then one could but huddle into the camp-bed and try to shut out the immensities, and sleep our little human sleep, with the camp-fires flickering through the curtains, and the freezing stars above.
Next day we had to climb a very great story higher. Up and up the track went steadily, with a sheer fall at one side and a towering wall on the other. We forded a river where my feet swung into it as the pony, held by two men, plunged through. It is giddy, dazzling work to ford these swift rivers. You seem to be stationary; only the glitter of the river sweeps by, and the great stones trip the pony. You think you are done, and then somehow and suddenly you are at the other side.
And here a strange thing happened. When the morning came, we found that a _sadhu_—a wandering pilgrim—had reached the same height on his way to the Cave. He was resting by the way, very wearied, and shuddering with the cold. So I ventured to speak to him and welcome him to our fire and to such food (rice) as he could accept from some of our men; and there, when we stopped for the mid-day meal, he sat among us like a strange bird dropped from alien skies. Sometimes these men are repulsive enough, but this one—I could have thought it was Kabir himself! Scrupulously clean, though poor as human being could be, he would have come up from the burning plains with his poor breast bare to the scarring wind, but that some charitable native had given him a little cotton coat. A turban, a loin-cloth looped between the legs, leaving them naked, grass sandals on feet coarse with travelling, and a string of roughly carved wooden beads such as the Great Ascetic himself wears in his images were all his possessions, except the little wallet that carried his food—rice and a kind of lentil. I thought of Epictetus, the saint of ancient Rome, and his one tattered cloak.
A wandering sadhu; far he came, His thin feet worn by endless roads; Yet in his eyes there burnt the flame That light the altars of the Gods.
The keen wind scarred his naked breast. I questioned him, and all the while The quiet of a heart at rest Shone in his secret patient smile.
Yes, he had come from hot Bengal, From scorching plains to peaks of ice; Took what was given as chance might fall, And begged his little dole of rice.
“And have you friends, or any child? Or any home?” He shook his head, And threw his hands out as he smiled, And “Empty,” was the word he said.
And so he sat beside our fire, As strange birds drop from alien skies, Gentle but distant, never nigher, With that remoteness in his eyes.
This was a man of about fifty-five, tall, thin, with a sensitive face, yet with something soldierly about him; dignified and quiet, with fine hawk-like features and strained bright eyes in hollow caves behind the gaunt cheek-bones. A beautiful face in both line and expression; a true mystic, if ever I saw one!
He told me he had walked from Bengal (look at the map and see what that means!) and that the poor people were very kind and gave him a little rice sometimes, when they had it, and sometimes a tiny coin, asking only his prayers in return. That he needed very little, never touching meat or fish or eggs, which he did not think could be pleasing to God. For sixteen years he had been thus passing from one sacred place to the other—from the holy Benares to Hardwar where the Ganges leaves the hills, and farther still, praying—praying to the One. “There is One God,” he said; and again I thought of Kabir, the supreme mystic, the incarnate Joy, who also wandered through India,—striving, like this man:
He has looked upon God, and his eyeballs are clear; There was One, there is One, and but One, saith Kabir,—
To learn and discern of his brother the clod, And his brother the beast, and his brother the God.
But does it not fill one with thoughts? That man had a soul at rest and a clear purpose. And the Christ and the Buddha were sadhus; and if it seem waste to spend the sunset of a life in prayer, that may be the grossest of errors. We do not know the rules of the Great Game. How should we judge? So he came with us, striding behind the ponies with his long steadfast stride, and his company was pleasing to me.
That was a wondrous climb. Had any God ever such an approach to his sanctuary as this Great God of the heights? We climbed through a huge amphitheatre of snows, above us the ribbed and crocketed crags of a mighty mountain. It was wild architecture—fearful buttresses, springing arches, and terrible foundations rooted in the earth’s heart; and, above, a high clerestory, where the Dawn might walk and look down through the hollow eyeholes of the windows into the deeps of the precipice below.
I suppose the architect was the soft persistence of water, for I could see deep beach-marks on the giant walls. But there it stood, crowned with snow, and we toiled up it, and landed on the next story, the very water-shed of these high places—a point much higher than the goal of our journey. And that was very marvellous, for we were now in the bare upper world, with only the sky above us, blue and burning on the snow, the very backbone of the range; and, like the Great Divide, the rivers were flowing both ways, according to the inclination of the source.
Before us lay snow which must be crossed, and endless streams and rivers half or wholly buried in snow. That was a difficult time. The ponies were slipping, sliding, stumbling, yet brave, capable, wary as could be. I shall for ever respect these mountain ponies. They are sure-footed as goats and brave as lions and nothing else would serve in these high places. In Tibet they have been known to climb to the height of 20,000 feet.
Sometimes the snow was rotten, and we sank in; sometimes it was firm, and then we slipped along; sometimes riding was impossible, and then we picked our way with alpenstocks. But everywhere in the Pass summer had its brief victory, and the rivers were set free to feed the sultry Indian plains.
At last we won through to another high marg, a pocket of grass and blossom in the crags; and there, at Panjitarni, we camped. Of course, we had long been above all trees, but nothing seemed to daunt the flowers. This marg lay basking in the sun, without one fragment of shade except when the sun fell behind the peaks in the evening. But the flowers quivered, glowed, expanded. My feet were set on edelweiss, and the buttercups were pure gold. The stream ran before me pure as at the day-dawn of the world, and from all this innocent beauty I looked up to the untrodden snow, so near, yet where only the eagle’s wings could take her.
Next day was an enforced rest, for everyone, man and beast, was weary; so we basked in the sun, reading and writing, and but for the July snow and the awful peaks, it was hard to believe that one was in the upper chambers of the King’s Palace. Yet the air was strange, the water was strange, and it was like a wild fairy-tale to look down from my camp-bed and see the grey edelweiss growing thick beside it, and hear the shriek of the marmot.
Next day we should reach the Cave, and when it came the morning looked down upon us sweet and still—a perfect dawn.
First we crossed the marg, shining with buttercups, and climbed a little way up a hill under the snows, and then dropped down to the river-bed under caves of snow for the path above was blocked. It was strange to wade along through the swift, icy waters, with the snow-caves arching above us in the glowing sunlight. The light in these caves is a wonderful lambent green, for the reflected water is malachite green itself; but I was glad when the passage was over, for it looked as if some impending mass must fall and crush us.
We climbed painfully out of the water, and in front was a track winding straight up the mountain. It was clear that we could not ride up; but we could not delay, so we started as steadily as the ponies. I hardly know how they did it—the men dragged and encouraged them somehow. And still less do I know how we did it. The strain was great. At one point I felt as if my muscles would crack and my heart burst. We did the worst in tiny stages, resting every few minutes, and always before us was the sadhu winning steadily up the height. It was a weary, long climb, new elevations revealing themselves at every turn of the track. Finally, I fell on the top and lay for a bit to get my wind, speechless but triumphant.
We rode then along the face of the hill—an awful depth below, and beside us flowers even exceeding those we had seen. Purple asters, great pearl-white Christmas roses weighting their stems, orange-red ranunculus. It was a broken rainbow scattered on the grass. And above this heaven of colour was the Amarnath mountain at last—the goal.
Then came a descent when I hardly dared to look below me. That too could not be ridden. In parts the track had slipped away, and it was only about six inches wide. In others we had to climb over the gaps where it had slipped. At the foot we reached a mighty mountain ravine—a great cleft hewn in the mountain, filled like a bowl to a fourth of its huge depth with snow, and with streams and river rushing beneath. We could hear them roaring hollowly, and see them now and then in bare places. And at the end of the ravine, perhaps two miles off, a great cliff blocked the way, and in it was a black hole—and this was the Shrine.
The snow was so hard that we could ride much of the way, but with infinite difficulty, climbing and slipping where the water beneath had rotted the snow. In fact, this glen is one vast snow-bridge, so undermined is it by torrents. The narrowness of it and the towering mountains on each side make it a tremendous approach to the Shrine.
A snow-bridge broke suddenly under my pony and I thought I was gone; but a man caught me by the arm, and the pony made a wild effort and struggled to the rocks. And so we went on.
The Cave is high up the cliff, and I could see the sadhu’s figure striding swiftly on as if nothing could hold him back.
We dismounted before the Cave, and began the last climb to the mouth. I got there first, almost done, and lo! a great arch like that of the choir of a cathedral; and inside, a cave eaten by water into the rock, lighted by the vast arch, and shallow in comparison with its height of 150 feet. At the back, frozen springs issuing from the mountain. One of the springs, the culminating point of adoration, is the Lingam as it is seen in the temples of India—a very singular natural frost sculpture. Degraded in the associations of modern ignorance the mystic and educated behold in this small phallic pillar of purest ice the symbol of the Pillar of Cosmic Ascent, rooted in rapture of creation, rising to the rapture of the Immeasurable. It represents That within the circumference of which the universe swings to its eternal rhythm—That which, in the words of Dante, moves the sun and other stars. It is the stranger here because before it the clear ice has frozen into a flat, shallow altar.
The sadhu knelt before it, tranced in prayer. He had laid some flowers on the altar, and, head thrown back and eyes closed, was far away—in what strange heaven, who shall say? Unconscious of place or person, of himself, of everything but the Deity, he knelt, the perfect symbol of the perfect place. I could see his lips move— Was it the song of Kabir to the Eternal Dancer?—
He is pure and eternal, His form is infinite and fathomless. He dances in rapture and waves of form arise from his dance. The body and mind cannot contain themselves when touched by his divine joy. He holds all within his bliss.
What better praise for such a worshipper before him in whose ecstasy the worlds dance for delight—here where, in the great silence, the Great God broods on things divine? But I could not know——
I could not know, for chill and far His alien heaven closed him in. His peace shone distant as a star Remote in skies we cannot win.
I laid my flowers on the altar of ice beside his. Who could fail to be moved where such adoration is given after such a pilgrimage? And if some call the Many-Named “God,” and some “Siva,” what matter? To all it is the Immanent God. And when I thought of the long winter and the snow falling, falling, in the secret places of the mountains, and shrouding this temple in white, the majesty of the solitudes and of the Divine filled me with awe.
Outside the marmot’s cry was shrill, The mountain torrents plunged in smoke; Inside our hearts were breathless still To hear the secret word He spoke. We heard Him, but the eyelids close, The seal of silence dumbs the lips Of such as in the awful snows Receive the dread Apocalypse.
Later we climbed down into the snowy glen beneath the Cave, and ate our meal under a rock, with the marmots shrilling about us, and I found at my feet—what? A tuft of bright golden violets—all the delicate penciling in the heart, but shining gold. I remembered Ulysses in the Garden of Circe, where the _moly_ is enshrined in the long thundering roll of Homer’s verse:—
“For in another land it beareth a golden flower, but not in this.”
It is a shock of joy and surprise to find so lovely a marvel in the awful heights.
We were too weary to talk. We watched the marmots, red-brown like chestnuts, on the rocks outside their holes, till everything became indistinct and we fell asleep from utter fatigue.
The way back was as toilsome, only with ascents and descents reversed; and so we returned to Panjitarni.
Next day we rested; for not only was it necessary from fatigue, but some of our men were mountain-sick because of the height. This most trying ailment affects sleep and appetite, and makes the least exertion a painful effort. Some felt it less, some more, and it was startling to see our strong young men panting as their hearts laboured almost to bursting. The native cure is to chew a clove of garlic; whether it is a faith cure or no I cannot tell, but it succeeded. I myself was never affected.
Of the journey down I will say little. Our sadhu journeyed with us and was as kind and helpful on the way as man could be. He stayed at our camp for two days when we reached Pahlgam; for he was all but worn out, and we begged him to rest. It touched me to see the weary body and indomitable soul.
At last the time came for parting. He stood under a pine, with his small bundle under his arm, his stick in his hand, and his thin feet shod for the road in grass sandals. His face was serenely calm and beautiful. I said I hoped God would be good to him in all his wanderings; and he replied that he hoped this too, and he would never forget to speak to Him of us and to ask that we might find the Straight Way home. For himself, he would wander until he died—probably in some village where his name would be unknown but where they would be good to him for the sake of the God.
So he salaamed and went, and we saw him no more. Was it not the mighty Akbar who said, “I never saw any man lost in a straight road”?
He came with us; we journeyed down To lowlier levels where the fields Are golden with the wheat new-mown, And all the earth her increase yields.
He told us that his way lay on. He might not rest; the High God’s cry Rang “Onward!” and the beacon shone, “And I must wander till I die.
“But when I speak unto my God I still will tell him you were kind, That you may tread where He has trod Until the Straight Way home you find.”
He joined his hands in deep salute, And, smiling, went his lonely way, Sole, yet companioned, glad, yet mute, And steadfast toward the perfect day.
And still I see him lessening Adown the endless Indian plain. Yet certain am I of this thing— Our souls have met—shall meet again.
Thus I have tried to give some dim picture of the wonders of that wonderful pilgrimage. But who can express the faith, the devotion that send the poorer pilgrims to those heights? They do it as the sadhu did it. Silence and deep thought are surely the only fitting comments on such a sight.
THE MAN WITHOUT A SWORD
THE MAN WITHOUT A SWORD
(What is told in this story of jujutsu or judo, the Japanese national science of self-defence and attack, is from the point of view of an expert, strange as it may appear.)
This is the true story of an experience which befell me in Japan. For six years I have kept silence and I tell it now only because my own knowledge assures me of the growing interest in matters relating to what Oriental scholars call “the formless world”—that is to say the sphere surrounding us which we now know to be independent of solidity and time as we conceive them, a world not to be grasped by our fallible senses yet apprehended by some of us in certain conditions not tracked and charted definitely. Modern science, feeling after the mysterious, has named this world which permeates ours and yet is invisible, the Fourth Dimension because it is not subject to the three illusions of length, breadth and height which imprison most of us from the cradle to the grave. But why philosophize? Let me tell my story.
My name is Hay, and I am a middle-class Scotchman, a public school and University man who, like others, took part in the War. I came through whole and sound but it left its mark. For one thing, it knocked to smithereens the average ideals of success and attainment, which, again like others, had shaped my life, and from being a strictly average man in that I followed the herd in all its decencies of convention the war left me naked and unsheltered in the open without a rag of conviction to hide me from the truth if it should happen to pass my way. But I had ceased to believe in its existence outside the things we use in daily intercourse.
Another effect also. My war experience was naval and chiefly in the Mediterranean where men of all nationalities were coming and going, and that constant contact wore thin the shell an Englishman inhabits—such crustaceans as we are!—until I began to see in what different terms the universe may be stated from the differing angles of race and nationality. What helped me to this understanding was a friendship I struck up with a Japanese naval officer—a remarkable fellow as I thought then and know now. He spoke English perfectly and had not only read but inwardly digested what he read, which is more than can be said for most of us. I owed him two services besides. He taught me to speak Japanese—I am quick at languages,—and being a great expert in the national art of defence and attack which is known as jujutsu, he began to give me lessons which were the beginning of much. His name was Arima, his age the same as mine—thirty-four,—and for very different reasons we both left our services when the war shut down.
Yet I knew our friendship would not end there, nor did it. One day while I was dining alone in my club in London, wondering whether I should ever again find anything which I honestly felt worth doing, a letter reached me. I knew the almost mercantile precision of the hand before I opened it and it sent a pleasurable thrill through nerves which had been stagnant with exhaustion since I had been ashore.
“Hay sama,
“I think much of you and wonder if you ever free a thought to cross the sea to my little house in Kyushu. That is our southern island and since illness drove me from our navy I live there. I need the sunshine of a friend’s company and if you feel the same need come, I beg you, and make me a long visit. I live in a beautiful valley run through by a river which will please you. It flows by rocks and mountains, pine woods and prosperous villages; a happy land. Not far from my house is a temple to Hachiman, God of War. I do not pay my devotions there for reasons which you will understand. But come, my friend. I have learned many things since we met and no doubt it is the same with you.”
That letter flung up a window in a stifling room. It meant escape from the dull indifference besetting me and contact with those people who of all in the world preserve the Stoic virtues which seemed to be the only ones likely to extricate me from my Slough of Despond. I wrote my answer within ten minutes and in two months I was in Japan.
I did not go at once to Arima, nor will I tell my first adventures on landing and making myself at home in Tokyo. They are neither good reading nor thinking. I had more than one reason to regret that Arima had made me free of the country by giving me its tongue. Pretty well worn out, with a stale taste of sour regrets in my mouth, I went down at last to Kyushu, and in the garden of Arima’s delightful little house I take up the story.
It was a true Japanese garden, a wide landscape seen through the diminishing end of a telescope. There was a forest, a mountain which had spilt its mighty boulders by the side of a running river with a Chinese bridge thrown over it. True, one could have bestridden the mountain and hopped the river, but what did that matter? The real river, the Kogagawa, rippled beside the grass which ran down to where a great willow dipped cool fingers in liquid crystal from the mountain heights, and under that green veil of drooping boughs with eyes half closed it was possible to dream that the little garden passed into the idea which had filled its maker’s mind, and became grand and terrible, a place of wild beauty and awe.
“It must be so,” said Arima smiling, “because he saw it so, and what a man has once clearly seen is registered immortal and can be seen by others when necessary.”
He sat under the willow, his fine bronzed face and throat bare to the flitting shadows of trembling leaves.
“Who made it?” I asked. “He cannot have been a common man.”
“He was my great-great-grandfather and very far from a common man. I have a paper in his own hand which tells why and how he made it and it is a very strange story.”