CHAPTER LXII

ADVENTURES OF OURSELVES AND PUPPY IN NAGRONG

On March 6 we made another hop towards our destination. It is difficult to travel over the high plateaus of Tibet in winter, and we could not march more than four hours a day. The morning was clear, but we had not gone far beyond a small lake, with its mantle of ice covered with driftsand and dust, before the storm increased in violence and made me reel in the saddle. The clouds of dust became thicker, the sandspouts were dark reddish-brown at the base, and the gusts tore up furrows in the ground like ploughshares, while frequently spiral forms were seen which could only be produced by cyclonic whirlwinds. On the left hand shimmered a lake, its surface partly white with gypsum and salt, partly streaked brown with driftsand, and with open water only in two places; it was the ghost of a lake which was doomed to disappear.

Two built-up fireplaces served us capitally for a camping-ground on the shore where the grazing was good. On the eastern side of the lake was a brick-red ridge of medium height, which I wished to paint in order to record the effective tones in the dust mist. I waited for the others with Kutus and Gulam, and we had scarcely induced a fire to burn before the storm rose at noon to a hurricane. Now everything vanished--lake, ridge, all except the nearest tufts of grass. The fire was fenced in with stones and clods lest it should be blown away, sand and minute pebbles beat against my dry skin coat, and I had to cover all my face, for the skin smarted as though lashed by whip-cord, if it were exposed for a second to the wind. Fortunately the others made their way to us. Every man had to lend a hand to raise my tent. At length Gulam came crawling backwards and yelled into my ear that the tent was ready. With straddling legs and all my muscles on the stretch I fought my way to it, and was glad to catch hold of a tent rope before I was blown down. At last I was under cover and could recover my breath. The tent cloth was puffed out like a balloon, and threatened every moment to burst with a report. The sand and rubbish beat upon it, producing a deafening noise. It was as dark as at twilight, and the wind roared and whined through the grass. The men tried to set up their own tent, but when the wind had overturned it twice they let it lie, weighting it with the baggage that it might not fly away. Five Ladakis lay in the lee of my tent rolled up like hedgehogs, and I let them come in, where they sat silent and motionless for a couple of hours. The others had crept under the ruins of their unfortunate tent. Puppy and Little Puppy lay in a corner and kept each other warm. However, the temperature was 35.8°, and we had not had such warmth for three months. A long and dismal evening! It was with difficulty I got a piece of bread, a cup of tea, and a piece of dried meat. We were deaf and dizzy when at length we sought repose under our rugs, while the storm continued to rage outside.

I awoke to hear the same old music, and to go out to my horse was like plunging into icy-cold water. Neither the sky nor the horizon was visible, and the mountains were dim shadows. With Kutus and Gulam I led the way, following a path trodden by men. Dark, chill, and doleful was the land of eternal twilight, frost, and the wicked demons of the air. After a march of 8 miles we halted at the edge of a belt of ice, a frozen stream in several branches, which ran to the south-west. The gale flew over the clear sheet of ice, and the red dust was swept over it like flames. With the assistance of Kutus I slid over to the other side, and in the shelter of the opening of a small valley we made the usual fire.

The caravan came to the edge of the ice. It was impossible to sand a path, for the grains would have been swept away. The animals were led across singly, each helped over by several men. For all that a mule fell and gave a fearful wrench to one of its hind legs, and with great difficulty it was helped up to the camp. All of us had grey distorted faces, our eyes ran, full of sand and dust. My lips bled and my teeth were black. March is the worst month, but we had never experienced such bad weather before. What is the use of looking forward to spring when the days are darker as time goes on?

The injured mule had evidently dislocated its leg. It was thrown down and a rope was fastened round its hoof and the end was pulled by the men. When it was at full stretch Lobsang hit the rope hard with a tent-pole in order to set the dislocated joint in place again, but I could not perceive that the operation had any effect. No; the mule was lost to us just when we could ill afford to lose one of our best animals.

And it was lost indeed, for on the morning of March 8 it could not take a step. It was sad to pass the death sentence, and a pitiful sight when the fresh warm blood spurted out in powerful jets and moistened the barren soil. It lay quiet and patiently, and after a few convulsions expired, and was left in solitude when we moved on over the dreary waste.

But before starting I had ascended a hill and looked around. Which was more expedient--to travel north-east or south-west? Both directions lay out of our course. I decided for the south-west, and hastened down to my tent, where Gulam served up breakfast. Brown Puppy and Little Puppy gave me their company to get their share. Little Puppy had grown so much that he could do what he liked with his mother. When I gave her a piece of meat the young one flew upon her and took it away. I had to hold Little Puppy that his mother might eat in peace. When we set out, Puppy and the yellow dog remained behind with the slaughtered mule, finding a convenient point of departure in an open wound in the soft muscles of the neck. There they stood gorging when we started along the ice-belt of the stream towards the south-west.

With my usual followers I rode in advance. The suffocating, blinding, deafening storm was right in our faces. Gulam walked in front, stopped, looked through the field-glass, and gave me the sign to dismount. The stream swept round the foot of a cliff in front of us.

"What is it?" I asked Gulam when we came up to him.

"A large stone house with a wall and a couple of smaller huts. They are not visible at this moment because of the mist, but they lie close to the foot of the mountain."

"Yes; now they can be seen. It is strange that no dogs rush at us."

"What is to be done? Shall we turn back? Surely a chieftain lives here, and he will come and search us down to the skin."

"No; it is too late, for we must have been seen already."

How I regretted that we had not travelled to the north-east! But we must put on a good face in our unlucky situation. We passed the village at a distance of 100 yards, and halted in the shelter of the dark porphyry crag crowned by two _chhortens_ and a _mani_. At least it was pleasant to get shelter for a moment. It was like taking refuge in a gateway when it pours. All around was dead and dreary; no one was seen; only a couple of jackdaws croaked, and a hare sped out of its form so near us that we could have caught it with the hand if we had been alert. Kutus and Gulam went out to gather fuel. I searched the suspicious neighbourhood with the field-glass, where treachery seemed to lurk behind every projection. It cleared a little towards the south-east, enough for me to detect a black tent of unusual size about 200 yards off. Four strings with prayer-streamers were stretched out from a high pole. I had been in hopes that we should get past the first dwellings, as no dogs had shown themselves, but I had never heard of an uninhabited tent. And the outward appearance of this tent indicated the presence of an important chief. Thanks to the mist, we had stumbled right on to his camp, and he would not be caught napping by poor strolling Ladakis.

Gulam had been to the large house, the yard door of which stood open, and had found in a shed a large quantity of fuel of a kind of shrub the Tibetans call _ombo_. So we waited and waited, expecting to see the caravan emerge from the mist, but when nothing was heard of it Kutus went out to search. It had wandered quite out of its course, and had made a long circuit round the house and tent, for the leaders were convinced that I wished to slip by unnoticed. A horse had fallen, and now we had only two left, and 5 mules out of 40 animals.

The three tents were set up in a line close together, and Abdul Kerim went with Kunchuk to the large tent. We saw through the mist that a man came out to meet them, and that all three went into the tent, and then we waited with our hearts in our mouths. The men returned at dusk with good news. The tent was inhabited by a lonely old Amchi-lama, _i.e._ a monk-doctor, who at the same time looked after the souls of the Nagrong nomads, determined from astrological books the lucky and unlucky days for baptisms and other affairs, and assisted people with the same remedies when they were sick, died, and finally were buried. He was from Sera in Lhasa, and had lived three years in Nagrong. The tent was a movable temple, furnished inside with altars, burning butter lamps, and votive bowls, where the hermit performed service--we heard him beating a temple drum at midnight. It belonged, as well as the large house, to the Gertse Pun Bombo, or the chief of the Gertse district, who a few days before had gone off a day's journey to the east, with his flocks, children, and all, but was soon expected back in consequence of a dispute between two of his subjects. Perhaps, after all, it was well we travelled south-west instead of north-east, for we might have fallen into the jaws of the Gertse Pun himself. This potentate comes to Nagrong in late summer and takes up his abode in the stone house, while a hundred nomad tents are set up around and a fair is held.

The old lama had no servants, but every third day a man came to bring him wood. He must find it dull in the long winter evenings, when he hears the storm roaring outside, and silence reigns within around the gods who answer his prayers and the rolls of his drum with a smile of reconciliation. But probably he is a philosopher and has no fear of the dangers of the night. In his tent lay several sacks full of _tsamba_, barley, rice, and butter, but he had no authority to sell anything without the permission of the Gertse Pun. Instead, he pointed out where the tent of the Pun's brother-in-law stood, where all kinds of prime goods could be bought.

We therefore decided to remain where we were over March 9, and Abdul Kerim with three attendants sought out the brother-in-law, met with a friendly reception, and bought five sheep and two goats, besides two sheep-loads of rice and as much barley, and also a bag of tobacco, which the men had long wanted. All day long I was a prisoner in my tent; my period of freedom was over. And when the evening came and enveloped the dreary Nagrong valley in its shadows, I could think of nothing else but my old trusty comrade, the oldest of all that had been with me in Tibet, Brown Puppy. In the company of the yellow dog she had remained in the morning with the mule which had dislocated its leg, and I had seen nothing of her since. We had hoped, however, that she would find us again, as she had so often done before, but now we were convinced that she had lost our trail, and, desperate and crazy with anxiety, was seeking for us over hill and dale, only to wander farther and farther from the right direction. It was useless to send men after her, and it was not advisable to divide our small party at such a critical time. The dogs had remained a long time tearing at the mule's neck, and when at last they were satiated they had started to follow us and had lost our track in the terrible wind and sand clouds. If they once crossed over ice they would never find our track again. Now thoughts of my old tent companion worried me more than anything else. Only that very morning she had lain on her felt rug in the usual corner, and we had breakfasted together. Where was she? what was she doing at this moment? Day and night she would run barking and whining over desolate Chang-tang with her nose to the ground, searching for our track till her paws were torn and painful. What would she do when night came down with its dreadful darkness and its prowling wolves? Were the dogs keeping together, or were they seeking us along different paths, having lost each other? Would Puppy some time find a home with friendly nomads and lead a comfortable life again, or would she come to want and be tied outside a poor tent, and, pining in hopeless sorrow, remember her past life, which, from when she lapped milk in my room at Srinagar, had been spent in my caravan? I was never to receive an answer to these questions, for the parts she and the yellow dog played in our romance were ended. For the future her life would shape itself differently, but I was never to gain any knowledge of the remaining chapters of her existence. I lay awake at night thinking of her misfortune, and looked every morning to see if perchance she had come back in the night and was lying in her usual corner, and I fancied I heard her trotting outside my tent in the dusk, or thought I could distinguish the profile of a lonely half-starved dog on a mound or crag with its nose up and howling at the storm. For some time I suffered from a delusion, imagining that a shade, the restless soul, the invisible ghost of a dog followed me wherever I went. I felt the presence of an invisible dog which followed me into my tent, and among the Tibetans, and always whined and pleaded for help, and I was worried that I could give no help or consolation to my lost, wandering friend. But soon we had other things to think of, other dogs became my friends, and we were daily entangled in a skein of troubles which must lead to a crisis, and the cares of the past paled before the gravity of the moment.

March 10. Such a day as this is interesting to look back on, but it was hard and cruel as long as it lasted. Before six o'clock I was awakened with the disquieting information that two Tibetans were approaching our tents. I made haste to dress myself and paint my face and hands black with a thin coating. Meanwhile the strangers arrived and were invited into Abdul Kerim's tent, where I heard them talking pleasantly about sheep and money--so they were not spies; our time had not yet come. One of the guests was the brother-in-law, the other a neighbour of his, who, when he heard what a good price we paid for sheep, said he was ready to sell us four he had brought with him, as well as a lively goat. Abdul Kerim had received a general order to buy all the sheep he could procure, so he took them. The goat was, as has been said, a lively beast, and he ran off at once and could not be caught again.

The two Tibetans went off to the lama's tent to drink tea, but the critical time was not yet over, for probably they would return to see us start. Therefore, while the tents were still standing, I set out with Tubges, Little Kunchuk, and "Snoring Kunchuk," as we called Sonam Kunchuk on account of his terrible timber-sawing propensities, when they drove our thirty-one sheep down the valley. As we went off the Tibetans came out and watched us, but did not suspect anything wrong. To escape detection I had hurriedly turned to sheep-driving (Illust. 318), but I soon found that I had no natural aptitude for this occupation, so invigorating, but so trying to the patience. I fancied I imitated my Ladakis as closely as possible, whistled and shouted in the same way, and threw out my arms when a sheep left the crowd, but the animals showed me not the least obedience, but went where they liked when I was near. After an hour's walk in the teeth of the wind I had had enough, and while the other shepherds went on with the sheep, Kunchuk and I stayed in a cranny out of sight of the lama's tent, while I could look over all the valley.

At length the other men came with Abdul Kerim riding at their head. Our coats and turbans were of the same colour, so that any Tibetans who happened to be watching could not tell if it were Abdul Kerim or I that was riding. I now took my horse and went on in front with my usual companions. At eleven o'clock the storm rose to a furious pitch and dashed in our faces. Driftsand swept over the ground in dense masses; we were nearly suffocated, and we seemed to stand still while the country moved past us at a giddy pace. We crossed the valley in order to follow its western flank. The clouds of dust obscured the sun; nothing could be seen beyond a distance of 20 yards; chaos surrounded us. We stopped to get our breath, and lest we should miss the others, but as soon as they appeared like phantoms in the mist we set off again. I have experienced many sandstorms in Takla-makan and the Lob-nor desert, but hardly any so bad as this was. In Turkestan one simply encamps when a storm comes on, but what is the use of encamping to await the end of a storm which lasts thirty days? We strayed among small dunes, and, though the valley fell in the direction we were travelling, we seemed as though we were mounting to a lofty pass in consequence of the pressure of the storm. The driftsand rattled against my dry, hard coat, which, from the constant friction, became heavily charged with electricity. About every other minute there was a discharge, and I felt uncomfortable and often painful prickings, especially in the soles of the feet, the hands, and knees. At every such discharge the horse also pulled up and became nervous. At last, when my grey Tikze horse refused to go further, and we had quite lost sight of the others, and could not see where we were going, we came to a halt and huddled together with our backs to the wind. The electrical discharges continued even now, but were weaker. If I placed the tip of a finger near Gulam's or Kutus' hand a small electric spark was felt and seen, and both of us felt the shock. The men were exceedingly astonished, and hoped it was not witchcraft.

We sat waiting for three hours, and were prepared for an uncomfortable night. But Kutus came upon the other men just when they were giving up all attempt to find us before night. We encamped among the dunes, and before long all articles which were set out in my tent vanished under a thick layer of sand.

On the morning of the 11th the storm had somewhat abated; and, wearied and stiff after our experiences of the previous night, we continued our journey southwards and encamped at a deserted sheepfold. By nine o'clock compact sandspouts twisted slowly over the plain like spectres, so the storm was again at its usual height. We had _tsamba_ for only one day, but it did not count for much as long as we had such a good supply of meat. We were glad to get out of reach of the Gertse Pun; in this drifting sand it was impossible to find our trail--yes, even for our own dogs. Little Puppy did not miss his mother, but felt very important at being sole master on the ground, and barked at our sober sheep. It was, however, a serious matter for us that we were deprived of our night-watch in districts where we had most need of them. We must try to procure fresh dogs as soon as possible.

On March the 12th we marched the usual weary 6½ miles to the east-south-east through a fine, broad, longitudinal valley, and pitched our camp in a hollow full of rubbish. Our three tents were now always placed close together, so that, if any stranger came unexpectedly to my tent, I could crawl into Abdul Kerim's without being seen from outside. My Ladak _chapkan_ began to assume a more satisfactory colour, but we still did all we could to defile it and make it sooty and greasy. Little Puppy lent me his assistance by biting and tearing the sleeves so that they hung in rags. It would not be long before I had the appearance of a regular ruffian.

It snowed heavily all night, and in the morning the snow lay so deep, and the country was so thickly covered, that we thought it best to remain stationary. We were still farther removed from Brown Puppy, and it was vain for her to seek our trail. Perhaps it was providential that both she and the white horse were lost before they could betray us. Tibetans have wonderfully sharp eyes for animals, and recognize them again when they have seen them only once. Now the danger was over, for all the veterans had gone. Perhaps Puppy sacrificed herself that I might be successful! All the same, I seemed to see her wandering disconsolate and distressed about the desolate wastes in the north.