CHAPTER LVIII

FORTY DEGREES BELOW ZERO

With fresh blocks of ice in our sacks we set out on January 10 straight towards the projection at the foot of which camp 8 had been pitched, and where I knew that the grass was good. The great level barren plain stretched between us and the spot, and we had 15 miles to cover. The wind was boisterous, and we were frozen through in a minute. In the lee of the caravan, which went in advance, lay a cloud of dust like smoke. The yellow hue of the grass could be seen from a distance, and the sight so refreshed my men that they began to sing on the march. The animals understood that they were coming to good pasturage, and quickened their pace without any shouts from the men. The tents were set up in the same place as last year, and here I closed my long circuitous route through Tibet. It was with a melancholy feeling I saw this place again, where Muhamed Isa had raised his tall cairn. Now we had avoided all dangers from Rudok, and we minded little that England and Russia had promised each other not to let a European into Tibet for three years. The height here was 16,198 feet.

For several days I had spoken of this place with its good pasturage, and when we broke up our camp on the 11th I was able to promise my men a still better camp for the next night. They were astonished that I was so much at home in these dreary regions. The track of the great caravan of 1906 was blown away by the passage of many storms, but the Aksai-chin lake soon came into sight, its surface looking grey and dismal in the chilly weather. Six kiang spoors converged to the fine spring of fresh water near the shore, where we kindled our fires among the same stones as last time. Pasturage and fuel are abundant in the neighbourhood; it is a veritable oasis--the best camp we had had since Köteklik. But the storm still raged, and the salt waves rose high over the lake, cooled down to 20.7°, though there was no sign of ice. In the night it snowed hard again, and on the 12th, which was made a day of rest, the lake lay blue amidst a landscape of shining white.

When all goes well the Mohammedans read no prayers. Probably they think that when we can help ourselves it is unnecessary to disturb Allah.

We had to pay a horse as toll for the good pasturage. He lay frozen hard in the camp on the morning of the 13th, after a night temperature of -18.4°. The yellow dog remained beside him, and when he came late at night into the next camp, he was so fat and puffed up that it was evident he had stored up food for several days. Two ravens followed us with their hoarse croaking. Snow fell thickly and hid the view. A herd of antelopes disappeared like shadows in the mist. A sheep died on the way, and two more had to be killed, for they were worn-out; we had now only three left. The cold penetrated everywhere in the night, and the thermometer sank to -33°.

On January 14 we made south-eastwards over a plain of soft, tiring ground, which caused us the loss of a mule. The caravan moved very slowly forward and in close order; the animals marched more comfortably when they were together; those which would linger behind, overcome with fatigue, were driven forward by the Ladakis. At camp 304 the grass was poor, and two mules seemed to be near their end. The cold was fearfully sharp in the night. The thermometer fell to -39.6°, or to nearly 40 degrees below zero, and almost to the freezing-point of mercury. That was the lowest temperature I ever recorded in all my journeys in Asia.

But January 15 brought a fine morning and an Italian blue sky. Abdul Kerim and all the other Mohammedans waited on me, in a tragi-comical procession, with dried apricots and almonds, and a simultaneous cry of "Aid mubarek," or "A blessed Festival." One of the festivals of Islam fell on this day. Exceedingly comical was the procession of the four Lamaists, who came up as the others retired; and Lobsang, who led them, took off his cap and scratched his head in Tibetan fashion, but did not put out his tongue--he had no doubt learned in Leh that this performance was not pleasing to a European. I gave them 10 rupees each and handed the caravan bashi a watch, which he was to wind up well every evening to be sure of the time.

On we marched again, moving slowly, for the ground rose. We proceeded like a funeral procession, and Suen was the parson. There was no longer reason to fear thirst, for half the country was covered with snow. But every mile caused us a struggle, and it was long before we came to the cliff we were making for. We left a huge snowy massive on the right hand.

Next day's march took us over a flat saddle to a small side valley where there was some grass. The temperature had been down to -29.9°, and I could not by any means get life into my feet. Sometimes they ached, sometimes there was an uncomfortable pricking in my toes, and then again they lost all feeling. During the day's rest we allowed ourselves in camp 306 Tubges shot an antelope and an Ovis Ammon, a feat which prolonged the lives of our last two sheep. In the evening the men were cheerful and hopeful as they sat around the flesh-pot.

Gulam Razul had presented me with six bottles of whisky, which, sewed up in thick felt, had been brought all the way; for Ladakis maintain that when a mule shows signs of exhaustion and weakness it can be cured by giving it whisky or other spirits. But the bottles were heavy, so three of them were emptied and set up as a memorial on some stones. Perhaps some time or other they may be found by another traveller. The other three were kept.

On the 18th we continued to follow the same longitudinal valley. All the ranges in this country run east and west, the usual direction in Tibet. To the right was a lofty range we must cross if we would travel south-eastwards. Through a gap in the northern mountains was visible to the north-east the mighty snowy dome we had passed to the right of in 1906. Eastwards there seemed to be no obstacle in the way, but we diverged south-eastwards up a valley. Before we encamped (Illust. 301) another mule had fallen, and then we had lost a fourth of the caravan.

Next day we proceeded further up the valley. Sometimes it was only 10 yards broad between solid horizontal terraces. Below a steep crag lay five pot-stones, and therefore Tibetan hunters must have come thus far. The Ladakis were delighted to meet with signs of human beings again. The valley opened out into an extensive plain, and a gap was seen to the south-east, but as the ground was lower towards the east we turned our steps in that direction. From the low threshold the view was anything but encouraging--a world of mountains. We resolved to encamp where we were (17,405 feet high) and to try the other, southern, passage next day.

A miserable camp! The storm raged so violently that the tents could hardly be set up, and the iron tent-pegs beat together and rattled until they were fixed. We had first to make a fire before we could use our numbed hands, and a small stone wall had to be raised to prevent the fire from being carried away. Now Nature and the elements were against us, whereas we might in the future expect opposition from man. The pasture was wretched, and a grey horse and the last mule from Poonch lay dead in the morning. It was the senior of the veterans, for it had come with me all the way from Srinagar and had done good service, and I was grieved at losing it. Now there was only one creature left which had seen the first beginning of the caravan, namely, our brown Puppy. She and the little puppy kept me company in this oppressive, weary solitude.

From camp 309, where we stayed a day, there was an uninterrupted view over another longitudinal valley, to the south of the former. There lay a contracted salt lake. At almost every camp, as on the former journey, I drew a panorama of the surroundings, and tried sometimes to paint small water-colour drawings (Illust. 302). Then I had to sit in the opening of the tent and hold the block over the fire to prevent the brush freezing into a lump of ice. But the sky, which should have been of an even blue or grey tone, usually turned into a film of ice with strange stars and crystals.

In camp 310 we also remained a day, for the pasture was better than we had found for a long time. The grass grew in sand on the shore of a small freshwater lake with a free opening, where at length the animals got a good drink after having had to quench their thirst with snow. We had travelled 188 miles since Christmas Eve, or about 6½ miles a day on an average--a terribly slow pace. Now we had had a furious storm for three days, and here yellow whirls of sand flew over the ice and the wind moaned and rustled through the grass. Abdul Kerim sewed together a long Mohammedan coat for me, which I was to wear under my fur when I assumed my disguise.

On January 24 the whole country was covered with dazzling snow and the sun shone, but a stormy blast drove the fine snow particles in streaks over the land, and a roaring sound was heard. Antelopes careered lightly over the ground, dark against the white snow. A mule died on the way; not even Tibetan mules can bear this climate. I was benumbed and half-dead with cold before I reached the camp.

After a temperature of -21.3° the neighbourhood was enveloped in semi-darkness by heavy clouds. The jagged mountains to the south reminded me of a squadron of armoured vessels at gunnery practice in rainy weather. Their grey outlines peeped out from the low clouds. The valley was about 6 miles broad. Towards the east the snow lay less thickly, and finally only the footprints of wild animals were filled with snow, like a string of pearls in the dark ground.

As I turn over the leaves of my diary of this terrible journey how often I come across the remark that this was the hardest day we had hitherto experienced. And yet days were always coming when we suffered still more. So it was on January 26. The sky was covered with such compact clouds that we might fancy we were riding under a prison vault. The storm raged with undiminished violence, and a quarter of an hour after I had mounted my horse I was benumbed and powerless. My hands ached, and I tried to thaw my right hand by breathing on it whenever I had to take a note, but after reading the compass for two seconds my hands lost all feeling. My feet troubled me less, for I had no feeling at all in them. I only hoped I should reach the camp before the blood froze in my veins (Illust. 305).

Then we come at length to the Arport-tso and leave the northern basin of the lake on our left, while a large basin swells out like a fjord towards the south. A mountain spur sends out a cape into the lake, which has a very irregular outline. It stands in our way. Shall we leave it on the right or left? We come up to the middle of the lake shore and wait while Lobsang goes to see if the caravan can travel over the ice. He hurries forward and makes us a sign to follow. We go down to the beach and along a spit which narrows down to a fine point.

Here the ice on our left hand has been piled up into hummocks, 6 feet high, of grand transparent green flat slabs, but on the right, as far as we can see over the southern basin, the ice spreads its level smooth sheet of a beautiful dark green colour like leaves of laurel and lilac. We feel the usual fascination of the ice, and stand and stare down into the dark cold depths. Drifting snow sweeps like comets' tails over the smooth course. We stand on the very point of the promontory, with the narrowest part of the Arport-tso in front of us, for the lake is contracted like a wasp's waist. Here there are fences, walls, and barriers raised by ice pressure, and between them snow is drifted up, hard and dry on the surface. It would have been quite impossible to march over the bare ice; the caravan would have been carried away like chaff before the wind. But the snow affords us an excellent path. Lobsang leads the way, guiding us in many a wind, but we get across and come to the farther shore at the foot of a cliff.

Worse followed, for the rocky point fell straight down to the lake on its eastern side, and here we had slippery ice swept clear of snow which we sanded. One horse or mule after another slipped and fell. Some of them made no attempt to get up again, but were dragged over the ice to firm ground, where their loads were put on again. Some fell with a heavy thud on the hard treacherous ice. We had to double a whole series of points in this way till we came to one where further progress was impossible, for at its foot issued forth springs which produced large openings in the ice. There icy cold waves beat with a sharp sound against the edges of the ice under the lash of the wind, which drove continually clouds of snow dancing like elves over the dark green field of ice. We had to struggle up over steep slopes till at last we reached, thoroughly tired out, an inlet where a few leaves of grass grew. We had left a mule on the ice, and two men went back and gave it a drop of whisky so that it could come on to the camp. But my brown horse from Shigatse, which had so often carried me up to the east gate of Tashi-lunpo, remained behind for good. It is sad and depressing when a veteran dies.

Arport-tso lies at a height of 17,382 feet. The water, which was drawn from an opening in the ice, was quite potable. There was a high pass in front of us to the south-east, but we could not reach it in one day, and we camped on the plain at the south-east of the lake where Rawling had once stayed. It was little more than a mile thither, but the grass was good and the animals needed nourishment. It snowed thickly all day. It was warm and comfortable under cover, and we pitied the poor animals which were out grazing in the cold. The small puppy had grown so much that he could wander alone between the tents watching for an opportunity to steal meat. A sheep was slaughtered.

At night the cold was more severe again, and the thermometer sank to -30.3°. The sick mule sought shelter behind the men's tent, lay down at once, and gave vent to a piteous sound. I went out to look at it, and caused it to be put out of its misery.

On the morning of the 28th we found two horses dead on the grass. One was one of the veterans of Leh which Robert had ridden, and which also bore me to the springs in the Sutlej bed. We had now only twenty-three animals left, and my small white Ladaki was the last of the veterans. Little I thought, as he carried me over the Chang-lung-yogma, that he would survive a hundred and fifty comrades. Every morning two long icicles hung down from his nostrils. He was taken great care of, and I always saved a piece of bread from my breakfast for him. I had a particular affection for him and for Brown Puppy. They had been with me so long, and had passed through so many adventures.

A loss of three animals in one day was serious for such a caravan as ours. How would it all end? We had still an immense distance before us. We struggled for three hours with halting steps up this terrible pass which had a height of 18,281 feet. We encamped in the shelter of a rock and killed the last worn-out sheep, and then had no live store of meat.

The temperature fell to -24.5°, and the first sound I heard in the morning of the 29th was the everlasting howl of the storm. We marched south-eastwards through snow a foot deep. "One of our worst days," it is styled in my diary. We cared about nothing except to get to our camp alive. I had a scarf wound several times over my face, but it was quickly turned into a sheet of ice, which cracked when I turned my head. I tried to smoke a cigarette, but it froze on to my lips. Two horses died on the way, and Abdul Kerim's horse took over the load of one of them, while the man himself went on foot like the others. I followed the track of the caravan with Kutus. Then we found Kunchuk Sonam and Suen unable to go further; they suffered from pains at the heart. I tried to cheer them up, and promised to give them medicine if they would follow slowly in the track of the caravan. Was it now the turn of the men after half the caravan had been lost? Quite overcome with fatigue they hobbled at twilight into camp.

Abdul Kerim came into my tent very cast down and asked if we should fall in with nomads within ten days, for otherwise he considered our condition desperate. In truth, I could give him no consolation, but could only tell him that we must go on as long as there was a single mule left, and then try to drag ourselves along to the nomads with as much food as we could carry. Now we thought no longer of pursuers behind, or of dangers before us, but only wished to preserve our lives and come to country where we could find means of subsistence. Behind us the snow obliterated our tracks, and the future awaited us with its impenetrable secrets.