!>'■■'■ ^ :'■'■ *;T>iM QJorneU Itmteraitg Slibcarg 3tfjaca, Sew lark CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 Cornell University Library DS 485.H6W74 The abode of snow observations on a to i 3 1924 023 017 670 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023017670 '•;:■! , i ;_ f\ - ) H THE ABODE OF SNOW OBSERVATIONS ON A JOURNEY FROM CHINESE TIBET TO THE INDIAN CAUCASUS, THROUGH THE UPPER VALLEYS- J > / OF THE HIMALAYA (J^r^V/Tr**^' ' n *'l 'S ANDREW WILSON WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCOCLXXV PREFACE. In the twenty-ninth chapter of this work, I have fully explained how the phrase " Abode of Snow " is a literal translation of the Sanscrit compound " Himalaya," and . therefore forms an appropriate title for a work treating of those giant mountains. The Abode of Snow par excellence is not in the Himalaya, or even in the Arctic region, but (setting Saturn aside) in the Ant- arctic region. Owing to the greater preponderance of ocean in the southern hemisphere, the greatest ac- cumulation of ice is round the South Pole ; and hence the not improbable theory that, when the accumula- tion has reached a certain point, the balance of the earth must be suddenly destroyed, and this orb shall almost instantaneously turn transversely to its axis, moving the great oceans, and so producing one of those cyclical catastrophes which, there is some reason to believe, have before now interfered with the develop- ment and the civilisation of the human race. How near such a catastrophe may be, and whether, a IV PREFACE. when it occurs, a few just men (and, it is to be hoped, women also) will certainly be left in the upper valleys of the Himalaya, I am unable to say ; but it is well to know that there is an elevated and habitable region of the earth which is likely to be left undepopulated even by such an event as that just alluded to. Whether humanity will lose or gain by having to begin again from the simple starting-point of " Om mani padme haun " (vide Chapter XXXV.) is also a subject on which I feel a little uncertain ; but we may at least hope that the jewel in the lotus will not be lost ; that what has accrued to it from the efforts and the agony of so many thousand years, of so many hundreds of human generations, may pass over to the inhabitants of a newly-formed earth. And when we come to consider what the grand valuable results of this our awful striving, our dread history, have been, most of what we are given to boast of will have to be relinquished ■ as worthless, and we may, even as Christians, be glad to take refuge in the comprehensive Lama prayer, " God, consider the jewel in the lotus. Thy will be done." For, however appalling may have been the amount of human crime and woe, however pitiable Our mistakes and ineffectual our struggles, there has ever been a jewel in the rank lotus of human life — some- thing beautiful in it which is not of it, yet is mysteri- ously connected with, and hidden within, it. Viewed in this light the Lama prayer has a touching signifi- cance, and is not without a great lesson for us all. PBEFACB. • V But the Himalaya may have many visitors before that other Abode of Snow turns things topsy-turvy, if it ever do so ; and these, I hope, may find my book of some service. It was not for them, however, that this volume was written, but for those who have never seen and may never see the Himalaya. I have sought, in however imperfect a manner, to enable such readers in some degree to realise what these great mountains are, — what scenes of beauty and grandeur they present — what is the character of the simple people who dwell among them — and what are the incidents the traveller meets with, his means of conveyance, and his mode of life. In attempting this I have had to struggle with what a kindly critic has called " the utterly unknown," and have been compelled, as a necessary part of the enterprise, to make my pages bristle with names and other words which are quite unfamiliar, and indeed for the most part entirely new, to the ordinary English reader — the very individual whose interest I want to engage. It has also been necessary to introduce some details of physical science, ethnology, archaeology, and history ; but these have been subordinated to the gene- ral aim of producing an intelligible idea of the region described. Perhaps I may be excused for suggesting that some little effort on the reader's part is also called for, if indeed my labours are of any value, — which I am by no means sure of. If there were any merit at all in my journey it lay only in the condition • of body in which I commenced VI PKEFACE. it and carried it through, and in the determination with which, despite serious discouragement, I pursued what appeared to be a desperate remedy. My original intention was only to visit Masiiri and Simla, and have a distant view of the Himalaya ; but the first glimpse of the Jumnotri and Gangotri peaks excited long- ings which there was no need to restrain, and I soon perceived that the air of the hill-stations could be of no use to me. So I set off from Simla, determined above all things to keep as high up as I could, and to have a snowy range between me and the Indian monsoon, and then, so far as consonant with that, to visit as many places of interest as possible. It probably would have been better had I been able to take more notes on the way ; but the great fatigue of the journey, and the strain arising from my being alone, were rather too much for me ; and sometimes, for several days at a time, I could do no more than note down the name of the village where we camped, and the temperature at day- break. There are many subjects, especially relating to the latter part of my journey, on which I wished to write at length, but found it inexpedient to do so in order not longer to delay the publication of this volume. As it is, I feel deeply indebted for its having been written at all to the encouragement, consideration, and ad- vice of Mr Blackwood, the Editor of the famous Magazine which bears his name, and in which a great part, but not the whole, of this narrative originally PREFACE. Vll appeared. From the outset he sympathised warmly with my plan, and throughout he never failed to cheer my flagging spirits with generous praise, not to speak of other encouragement. Then he gave me a great deal of admirable advice. There is nothing that is commoner in this world than advice — nothing that is showered down upon one with more liberal profusion ; but there is nothing rarer than judicious useful advice, the first condition of which is sympathetic appreciation of what one would be at ; and it was this invaluable kind of advice which Mr Blackwood freely tendered, pointing out where the treatment of my subject re- quired expansion, or aiding me by his knowledge of the world and profoundly appreciative literary taste. I am charmed to find that the lotus of literature con- tains such a jewel ; and I must say, also, that both the Messrs Blackwood did me essential service by the con- sideration they displayed when I sent in my manu- script at unreasonable times, or altered proofs unmer- cifully at the last moment. Prince Bismarck said to Count Arnim that the business of the Prussian Foreign Office could not be carried on if every Embassy were to conduct itself in the way that of Paris did ; and I am sure the business of Maga could not be carried on at all if all its contributors were to try its patience as I did. I was much indebted also to an old friend — a genius loci and yet a man of European celebrity — who at the commencement of the appearance of my articles wrote Vlll PREFACE. to me in terms of the warmest encouragement. It may be that the favour with which the original articles ap- pear to have been received may stand in the way of success now that they are reproduced in book-form ; so I may mention that, though long passages have not been added to this reprint, yet very many short ones have ; the interstices, so to speak, have been filled up; greater accuracy has been attained ; and the whole work has been recast, and that into a form which, I venture to believe, will make it more acceptable to all readers ; and I am led to hope that this may be so, among other reasons, by the fact that an American publishing house, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, has already prepared stereotyped plates of my book, with a view to republication across the Atlantic. I feel some regret at not having been able either to repress my outbreaks on the difficult subject of the policy which ought to be pursued in governing India, or to enter into the question in a fuller and more satis- factory manner than I have done ; but while that subject lay beyond the proper scope of this work, it was one which the incidents of my journey naturally led me incidentally to refer to. I shall now only express my profound conviction, that if India were more directly governed with an enlightened view to our own national interests than it is at present, it would be far better for the people of India ; that it is the English in India, far more than the Bengal ryot, the educated native, or the Indian prince, who have PREFACE. IX reason to complain of the British Eaj ; and that, under a superficial appearance of contentment and progress, there are gathering forces, mostly powerless for good, which may at any moment break forth with destruc- tive fury, and are certain to do so whenever the energies of this country are more fully occupied else- where. It may be fancied that some of my descriptions of what I encountered among the Himalaya are some- what exaggerated, and especially, I understand, the achievements of the little pony which carried me over the great Shigri glacier. A lady writing to me on this subject remarks : " Had. I not known you to be scrupulously truthful — in fact, fastidiously careful in the use of language, lest it might convey a shade of meaning beyond the thought, opinion, or fact, you wished to express — I might have regarded some of your descriptions as exaggerated; but I consider accuracy, both verbal (that is, in the use of words) and in the statement of facts, to be one of your strong points — barring and excepting in the making of promises with respect to letter- writing." So I have carefully recon- sidered everything which might appear to bear the marks of exaggeration, and, while finding almost nothing to alter on that ground, have thought it best to say nothing about one or two incidents which might really appear incredible. I have only to add on this sub- ject, that the state of Himalayan paths differs some- what from year to year, according to the amount of X PEEFACB. labour expended upon them, and the landslips which occur. The frontispiece and vignette to this volume are both taken from photographs of Messrs Shepherd & Bourne of Calcutta and Simla, who sent up an expe- dition into Spiti, and have provided, the public with many admirable photographs of Himalayan scenery, all, or most of which, are obtainable in London. The frontispiece represents a view in the Shigri Valley, or Valley of Glaciers, looking down the Chandra river, near to where my first camp in that valley was pitched; but the snow has been brought down a little lower by the lithographer, in order to represent the scene as it was when I saw it; and the figure of a yak, along with some- thing like my tent, have been added to the foreground. The vignette gives a very fair idea of a Himalayan highway, and of one of those jhulas, or twig-bridges, which I have described in Chapter XXI. The bridge represented is in the upper Spiti valley, between Dan- kar and Mani, and differs from those usually to be met with only in that it does not cross a deeply-sunk torrent. The map which accompanies this volume has been based on a section of a large school-map of India by the Kev. J. Barton, published under the direction of Committees of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and of the National Society. Mr Trelawney Saunders, the Geographer to the East India Office, has given this school-map his valuable aid in bringing out PREFACE. XI clearly the various mountain-ranges to the north of India; and I found, after examining many maps, that no other which I could avail myself of would serve so well as the basis of a small map which would present at a glance the relative positions of the Panjab plain, the Western Himalaya, the Hindu Kush, and the Kara- korum Mountains. It seemed to me of much more importance to convey a general idea of that vast and little-known district of mountainous country than to present a detailed plan of my own route; for only those who are in, or are about to enter, the districts I traversed, will have any object in following me from stage to stage ; and they can do so much better in Major Montgomerie's route-map and the five mile to the inch sheets of the Trigonometrical Survey, than in any map which it would be advisable for me to prepare. At the same time, I have marked my route carefully in the map which I present ; I have added to it a large number of places which I visited, and have altered the spelling in accordance with that of my book. That matter of spelling has caused no little trouble. It may not be generally known in this country that some years ago the Indian Government determined that Indian names should be spelt, at least in all official documents and publications, on one system. The system is based on the Jonesian-Wilsonian system of transliteration, as modified by the oriental societies, and has further been modified for practical purposes Xll PREFACE. J3y Dr W. W. Hunter, the head of the Indian Statisti- cal Department. It partakes of the nature of a com- promise, for accents are only used when specially necessary, and not as marking intonation, but only as indicating different vowel-sounds ; and in the lists drawn up by Dr Hunter they are used very sparingly, and are omitted in some cases where they might have been added with advantage. I have followed these official lists in most instances, and the simple rules to be borne in mind in order to render their system of spelling intelligible are that, — 1. The long d sounds broadly, as in almond. 2. The short a without an accent, has usually some- what of a u sound, as the a in rural. 3. The \ with an accent, is like ee, or the i in ravine. 4. The H with an accent is like oo, or the u in bull. 5. The e has a broad sound, as the a in dare. 6. The o sounds openly, as in note. 7. The ai sounds as in aisle, or the i in high. 8. The au sounds like ou in cloud. The most striking peculiarities of this system are the substitution of H for oo, of i for ee, and the expres- sion of broad a by d. It totally ignores the genius of the English language, and may be considered as an- other instance of that subjection of England to India which has been going on of late years. Another objection to it is, that it is not thoroughgoing, and is apt to land the a and the u sounds in hopeless con- fusion ; while a third is, that it is liable to mislead from PREFACE. Xlll its employment of accents in a different sense from that which they have, except incidentally, in European languages. But I doubt not these objections have been duly considered by the promoters of the system, and that they have followed the plan which seemed to them best fitted to procure uniformity in the spelling of Indian names, which is an end of so great import- ance that I have deemed it right to follow the Govern- ment system of spelling, but not as a very advanced or always strictly accurate disciple. I am afraid an accent here and there has got on the wrong letter, and I have sometimes continued the use of double letters ; but, in truth, to carry out this system with perfect accuracy one would require not only to have the names before one written in an Indo-Aryan language, but also to be in the habit of dealing with them in such a language. Suffice that I have sacrificed my own comfort, if not also that of my readers, on the Indian Government's linguistic altar. As one of the first to do so in this country, I trust I may be excused if my steps have occasionally tripped. When publishing in the Magazine I used the word " Himaliya," but that was only in order to break the usual custom of pro- nouncing it "Himmalaya," and now return to what is the more strictly accurate form. One word more, and I have done. Like many other men, I have written hundreds — I may say thousands — of more or less insignificant articles in newspapers and periodicals : but, like the vast majority of my fellow- XIV PREFACE. labourers in that department of literature, I have sought to keep back my name rather than to thrust it obtru- sively before the public in connection with productions which, however good or bad of their kind, had no in- dividuality or importance sufficient to warrant their being connected with any particular author. That is the usual feeling of public writers in this country ; but there is always some one insensible to it. A few months ago one of those candid friends who are the gentian and rhubarb of life, remarked to me : " What a stupid article that is on the Cuttle-pish which you have in ! I wonder you put your name to it." Now the cuttle-fish is a denizen of the ocean with which I am well acquainted, from its toughness as an article of diet, it having been the habit of my Hong-Kong butler to give me a curry of it whenever he was displeased with me, adding, when he saw my frown, the dubious consolation : " Eh ! No likey ? I tinkee he makee you likey to-mollow (to-morrow) cully too muchee." But to write articles on the cuttle-fish was, I knew, out of my line ; and I was shocked at having my name pointed out to me, printed in full, at the bottom of such an article. At first I cherished the hope that this was the work of some practical humourist; but found, on inquiry, that this alter ego, the cuttle- fish A. W., was a sad reality ; that he had published several articles of the same kind, and had as much title as myself to the name he bears. I know how vain it is PREFACE. XV to hope that any pushing young Scotchman will con- sent to preach behind a screen if he has any opportu- nity of doing so in front of it ; therefore I address no remonstrance or request to the ichthyologist himself. But, would not some Scotch University — say Aberdeen or Glasgow — have the goodness to make a distinc- tion between us by conferring upon him the degree of D.D., L.L.D., or whatever other high academical dis- tinction his arduous researches into the character of the cuttle-fish may justify ? London, July 1875. ITINEBABY. The character of the more important part of my journey will be rendered more intelligible by the following list of halting-places for the night, along with their heights : — Place. Province. Height in feet. Date. 1873. Simla British territory 7,084 June 2 Fagii . Keontal about 7,000 3 Theog Theog about 7,000 4 Muttiana . Komarsen about 7,000 5 Narkanda . Jl nearly 9,000 6 Kotgarh Kotgarh 6,700 » Ml Nirth Kunawar or Bus- sahir about 3,000 » 12 Rampiir j? about 3,000 „ 13 Gaura Kunawar 6,023 14 Serahan 7,115 „ 15, 16 Taranda about 7,000 .. 17 Poynda about 6,000 » 18, 19 Nachar i about 7,000 „ 20 Oorni nearly 9,000 » 21 Rogi . nearly 9,000 „ 22 Pangay 9,096 „ 23-27 Rarang about 9,000 „ 28 Jangi about 9,000 „ 29 Lippe about 9,000 » 30 Stignam 9,020 July 1 Shaso nearly 9,000 „ 2,3 Pii . about 10,000 July 4 to Aug. i Dubling about 10,000 Aug. 5 Khalb about 10,500 6 Namgea Fields about 13,000 7 Shipki Chinese Tibet 10,027 „ 8,9 Shipki Fields » about 13,000 10 Namgea Fields Kunawar about 13,000 11 Camp on Lio Porgyul Hangrang about 13,000 12 XVI ITINERARY. Place. Province. Height in feet. Date. 1873. Nako .... Hangrang _ . 11,975 Aug. 13,14 Chango J? 10,215 15 Camp on To-tzo R. . Chinese Tibet about 11,000 16 Lari .... Spiti about 11,600 „ 17 Poi . 33 about 12,000 18 Dankar >j 12,774 „ .19, 20 Kazeh )? about 12,800 21 Morang 33 about 13,000 22 Kiotro jj about 13,000 23 Losar .... )j 13,395 24 First Camp on Chandra R. Second do. 33 about 13,500 25 Lahaul about 12,500 26 Third do. jj about 12,000 27 Fourth do. jj about 11,500 28 Kokser 33 10,261 29 Sisii .... 33 - 9,938 30 Gandla 33 10,314 31 Kaelang 33 about 10,300 Sept. 1-3 Guhmohr . 33 about 10,600 4 Darcha 33 10,844 5 First CamponShinkalP. 33 about 12,000 „ 6,7 Second do. 33 about 15,000 8 Third do. Zanskar about 15,500 9 Kharjak 33 13,670 10 Thesur 33 about 13,000 11 Camp below Suley . 33 about 12,000 12 Mune J? about 12,500 13 Padam 33 11,873 14 Seni Gonpa 33 about 12,000 15 Phe . about 12,500 „ 16,17 First Camp on Pense P. 33 about 13,000 18 Second do. Surii about 13,000 19 Ringdom . 33 about 12,500 20 Gulmatongo 33 about 12,000 21 Parkatse . 33 about 12,000 22 Siiru .... 33 10,624 23 Sankii 33 about 10,000 24 Hamlet opposite Dras Dras about 10,500 „ 25 Dras .... 33 10,144 26 Mataan 33 about 10,500 27 Baltal Kashmir about 9,500 28 Sonamarg . 37 about 8,700 29 Goond 33 about 7,700 30 Kangan about 7,000 Oct. 1 Ganderbahl 33 about 6,500 3, 2 Srinagar . 33 5,235 „ 3-12 Avantipur . 33 about 5,400 13 Bijbehara . 33 about 5,500 14 ITINERARY. XV11 Place. Province. Height in feet. Date. 1873. Bawan Kashmir 5,896 Oc t. 15 Achibal about 5,900 , 16 Vernag j about 6,000 , 17 Rozlu about 6,500 , 18 On the Jhelam j about 5,400 , 19 Srinagar , 5,235 , 20,21 On the Jhelam . 5,200 22 Wular Lake j 5,187 , 23 Bararmila . \ , 24, 25 Oorun Booah 1 ±>8> > 26 Uri . j 3! 27 Chikote ^ -g s 28 Hatti . f s 1 ' 29 Ghurru eg \ 30 Tinali > ) Oct 31 to Nov. 1 Mozafarabad j 2,470 N( )V. 2 Gurhi Hubli Hazara about 4,500 , 3 Mansera jj about 4,200 , 4 Abbotabad jj 4,166 , 5-11 Sutanpur Serai V about 3,500 , 12 Hurripiir . » about 3,000 , 13 Torbela . JJ about 2,500 14 Pihiir Yusufzai about 2,600 , 15 Swabi jj about 2,000 , 16, 17 Shabashi Gurhi j» 15,000 , 18 Hoti Mardan » about 12,000 , 19 CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. TERSONAL. Modern travel — Influence of the Himalaya, .... 1 CHAPTER II. BOMBAY TO ALLAHABAD. Indian travel — Bombay — "Western Ghauts — Parallelism between the Ghauts and Himalaya — Tapti valley — Satpura and Vindhya ranges — Narbada valley — Jabalptir — The Marble Rocks — Scene by moon- light—Allahabad, ....... 5 CHAPTER III. HIMALAYAN PEAKS AND SANITARIUMS. Agra and Delhi — The Indian Mutiny — Darjiling — Mount Everest — Kanchinjanga — Sikkim — Nepal — Nairn Tal — Almora — Ranikhet — Masuri — Dharamsala — Dalhousie — Marri — The Hindu Kush — Simla, ........ 16 CHAPTER IV. RURKI, HARDWAR, AND THE TERAI. Saharunpur collections — Dr Jamieson — Major Lang — Losing one's head — Rurki Engineering College — Hardwar — The Great Mela — Jungle fires — The Terai — A Himalayan hunter — Mr Hayward — Fossils of the Sewatik — The Dehra Doon — Indian tea — Localities of the plantations, ....... 25 XV111 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. FIEST VIEWS OP THE HIMALAYA. Goitre — Mastiri — Climate— Interior routes — View of snowy peaks— The Abode of the Gods — Eoad to Simla — Appearance of Simla — Lines on the Himalaya, ...... 40 CHAPTER VI. SIMLA SOCIETY. Simla misunderstood — Amusements — Morals — Overwork — Convenience of position — Indian society, ..... 50 CHAPTER VII. ,. SIMLA CELEBRITIES. Lord Northhrook — The Bengal Famine — General policy — Umbra Indica — Sir Kichard Temple — Sir "William Muir — Lord Napier of Mag- dala — Colonel Dillon — Mr C. U. Aitchison — Mr Chapman, &c, . 60 CHAPTER VIII. SIMLA AS A SANITARIUM. Commencement of Simla — Lord Dalhousie — Population — Advantages and defects of the climate — A starting-point for the Himalaya — "No supplies" — -Central Asian routes from Simla,. . . 80 CHAPTER DL MY HIMALAYAN OUTFIT. Tents — Lord Napier's tent — Furniture — Supplies on the way — Game — No eggs — Baltistan apricots — Preserved provisions — Potables — Stimulants unnecessary — Servants — My attendants — Means of carriage, ........ 86 CHAPTER X. SIMLA TO THE SUTLEJ. The Great Hindusthan and Tibet Road — Fatal accidents — Feelings on going over a precipice — The dandi — Bumping — Divisions of the road — View from Narkanda — Kotgarh and its Mission — Colonel Moore — The gloomy Sutlej valley, . . . .99 CONTENTS. XIX CHAPTER XL KOTGARH TO CHIN I. The Rajah of Bussahir — Death of a hillman — Scenery of the Sutlej Valley — Sentient nature of plants — Himalayan pines — The Deodar — Chini — View of the Raldang Kailas, .... 109 CHAPTER XII. A HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL. End of the cut road — The Morang Kailas — Rarang — Foam-cascades — Granite avalanches — Turning a corner — Jangi — A praying mill — Lippe — Author's illness — Poisoning in India, . . . 117 CHAPTER XIII. THE RUHANG PASS. Height of the pass^-The yak or ox of Tibet — Its grunting— A yak's saddle — Rsomo de KoriSs — Tibetan grammars and dictionaries — Summit of the Pass — Suffering of the dandiwallahs, . . 126 CHAPTER XIV. SLATE PRECIPICES. Sugnam — Shaso — The Chokra — The boy Nurdass — Shaso to Pu— The worst path in Bussahir — The gorge of the Sutlej — Schwester Pagell, ... .... 135 CHAPTER XV. THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW OP DEATH. Companions in my illness — Sand-flies— Scorpions — Serpents — Tibetan mastiffs — Chinese Tartars — A snow-bear — Ground too dear for burial — Cor scorpionis, . . . .143 CHAPTER XVI. JUNCTION OP THE SUTLEJ AND SPITI RIVERS. The Moravian Mission— The people of PA— Start for Chinese Tibet— Dabling and Ddbling— Sang-po and Sang-pa— Mural precipices— Khalb— Extraordinary junction of the Lee and Spiti rivers— Geo- l ay Himalayan valleys — Cataclysms — Names for rivers, . 151 b XX CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVII. THE GREAT KUNG-MA PASS INTO CHINESE TIBET. The Oopsung Gorge — Namgoa fields — Camp on tie pass — The great mountain Lio Porgydl — 'Extraordinary scene by moonlight — Chota Khan's wrath — Power of the sun — An awful scene — Cross the Chinese frontier — Summit of the pass— The rolling hills of Tar- tary — Descent to Shipki, ....•• 160 CHAPTER XVIII. STOPPED BY TARTARS. Arrival at Shipki— An unexpected difficulty— Tartar young women- Supplies and carriage refused — Remonstrance useless — Reasons assigned for refusing to let us pass— Englishmen suspected— Chi- nese wiliness — A disagreeable character — The Tzong-pon of D'zab- rung — My further plans — The country beyond Shipki — Firing into one's stomach — "Pull, pull," .... 168 CHAPTER XIX. TIBET AND ITS SECLUSION. Frightful tortures — Sealing on horseback — Reasons assigned for ex- cluding Europeans — More probable reasons — The gold of Tibet — Other minerals and gems — Geography of Tibet, . . .181 CHAPTER XX. THE PEOPLE OF SHIPKI. A Tartar beauty — Flirtation in Shipki — Dress and appearance — Posi- tion and products of Shipki — Departure — Instance of Tartar fero- city — " Still meat " — A pap for infants— -Chinese aversion to milk — Marches to Shipki, ...... 189 CHAPTER XXI. OVER Lfo PORGYDL, The upper valley route — A jhula or twig-bridge — Lord Elgin's death — Chota Khan's terror — An intrepid dame — Farewell to the Sutlej — Gyumtir — The hereditary executioner — Tashigong monastery — Budhisni — Shoulder of the great mountain — Marches to Nako, . 196 CONTENTS. XXI CHAPTER XXII. NAKO AND THE NAKOWALLAH. A mountain pool — Pleasures of camp-life — A strange feeling — Incle- ment weather— Food— Tibetan appetites— Houses— A wonderful dog— A reincarnation— Part from Bruder Pagell— Chango— Spiti minstrels— Leave Kunawar— Its eharacteristics^-Its paths, . 205 CHAPTER XXIII. CHINESE TIBET AGAIN. A habitationless district— A Tibetan mastiff— Chaddaldok and To-tzo rivers— Necessary violence— Chtimurti door into Tibet— Origin of Tibetan exclusiveness — Turner's embassy— Bogle and Manning — The Tibetan question, ...... 215 CHAPTER XXIV. TIBETAN POLYANDRY. Polyandry explained— Polygyny— Extent— Six husbands— The AbbS Desgodins — Tibetan and Scotch immorality — Tartar temperament — Lama nuns — A holy man — Tibetan marriages — Origin of poly- andry — Its advantages — Ingenious apologies, . . 224 CHAPTER XXV. SPITI. Open caves— Lari and Po — Rope - bridges— Extraordinary ravines — Dankar — Insolence — Seclusion of Spiti — Ugly women— Dress — Products — Gay nuns — history, . ... 237 CHAPTER XXVI. UPPEB SPITI. A novel route — "Very possible" — Kazeh — Ki monastery — Naked girls — Morang — Singular precipices — Architectural effects — Kiotro — Losar — Tent-life — Further route — Preparations for a difficult journey — Routes from Nako, ..... 247 XXU CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXVII. THE VALLEY OF GLACIERS. The Kanzam Pass— The L Peaks— Enormous glaciers— Shigri or Glacier Valley— Storm and snow— A night scene— Crossing a glacier— Incredible performances of a ghunt — Spiti ponies — Pall of a mountain — Glacier flowers— Fording streams— A fall— Djeola— Tibetan dogs— Silver, ....•■ 256 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE ALPS AND HIMALAYA. Living glacier flowers — Subterranean glaciers — Alps and Himalaya contrasted— Savage grandeur of the Himalaya — Shattered peaks — The Alpine and Himalayan people, .... 272 CHAPTER XXIX. THE HIMALAYA. Extreme length of Himalaya— " The Stony Girdle of the Earth"— "The Roof of the "World"— Meaning of "the Abode of Snow" — Latin, Greek, and Slav cognates — Abode of the Gods — German .Hiinmel— Milton's Imaus— Place in Hindu mythology— Personified as Siva — Line of perpetual snow in Himalaya, Andes, and Alps — Dryness of atmosphere — Effect of solar rays — Temperature of day and night — Altitude and longevity, . . . .278 CHAPTER XXX. THE MORAVIANS IN LAHAUL. Characteristics of Lahaul — An ancient language — Magnificent ava- lanches — The Moravian Mission — A howling wilderness — Lahaulese disorderliness — Routes from Kaelang to Kashmir — The Zanskar route — -Flowery maidans — "A little difficult" — Alarmed servants — Sad fate of a policeman, . . . . .286 CHAPTER XXXI. THE GBEAT SCHINKAL PASS, OR SCHINGO LA. The valley of stone avalanches — A Hindu devotee— The Dread Mother — Ramjakplik — Col of the Schinkal — Height of the pass — Highest ascents — The region of perpetual snow — Trouble with coolies — The Wild Horseman of the Glacier — A snowstorm, . 295 CONTENTS. XX1U CHAPTER XXXII. MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS. The scene at midnight — Flaming stars — Immensity of the univorse — Snowy peaks and starlit spaces — Perfection of organic existence —Misery of sentient life— The Hardwar tigress — The African continent — Opinion of Eastern sages — Even Christian doctrine — "Wordsworth — Goethe's Das Gottliche— John Foster — Monads- Practical conclusion, ...... 305 CHAPTER XXXIII. THE TSARAP LINGTI VALLEYS. The Kharjak valley — Tremendous series of glaciers — Gigantic pyramid — Perplexing mountains — "Wonderful colours — Fatigue of the journey — Kharjak village — Its Talukdar— Thesur — Junction of the Kharjak Chu and Tsarap Lingti — Pune monastery — Char — ■ Burdun monastery — Arrive at Padam, .... 315 CHAPTER XXXIV. ZANSKAR. Camping-ground — Padam — Seclusion of Zanskar — Its people — Area — Elevation — Valleys — A curious theory, .... 322 CHAPTER XXXV. OM MANI PADME HAUN. Choten — Mani — Inscribed and sculptured stones — Praying stones, flags, "wheels, and mills — Koeppen on' the universal prayer — Meaning of Om mani padme haun — Its Sanscrit origin, . . 327 CHAPTER XXXVI. SNOWED UP IN ZANSKAR. A great snowstorm — Phe — Take refuge in a Tibetan house — Descrip- tion of the house — An open roof — A winter in Phe — Two delightful children — The grandmother — Features of the men — Hebrew-looking Baltis, ...... 333 XXIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SNOWY PENSE LA. After the storm — A lovely scene— Night in the waste — Bears— Glacier and deep snow — Col of the pass— Dangerous riding— Effect of the sun — Dazzling whiteness— Ser and Mer peaks— Hiouen Tsang's description — Descent — The Chiling Pass — Description of the Ring- dom monastery — Marches, ...... 341 CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE OMBA PASS. Difficulty of descending on Kashmir — Kartse— Sanku. — Omba— A big hill — Fugitive coolies — Snow blindness — Height of the pass — A dilemma — A double pass — Darkness — Another pony- — An awful . - . . . . . . .351 CHAPTER XXXIX. THE ZOJI PASS AND SIND VALLEY. Dras — The source of snow — Mataan — The Wuzeer's Wuzeer administer- ing the stick — The Yarkand envoy's retinue — The Zoji La- Curious- road — Baltal — Beauty of the Panjtarne valley — Demon lovers — The Sind valley — Splendid trees — Reach Srinagar, . 361 CHAPTER XL. THE VALLEY OP KOSES. Kashmir and surrounding countries — Climate — General characteristics — Union of summer and winter — Encircling snows — Waters — Vegetation — Srinagar — Apple-tree canal— Dal or city lake — Floating islands — The lotus — Shalimar Bagh — Nishat Bagh — The Emperor Jehangir and the Light of the Woi Id, . . . 371 CHAPTER XLI. KASHMIR PEOPLE AND APFAIBS. Regrets in Kashmir— Unfortunate state of the people — Their bad reputation — Ill-treatment of them — Kashmiri beauties — Suspi- cious deaths — Lieutenant Thorpe — Dr Elmslie — Mr Hayward — Books on Kashmir, ....... 381 CONTENTS. XXV CHAPTER XLII. THE MAHARAJA AND THE RESIDENT. Interview with Ranbir Singh — His father u, fish — Transmigration — The Maharaja's alleged misrule — His improvements — Sericulture — Shawls — Col. Gardiner — Nights at the Residency — An Afghan Abdiel — Character of Le Poer Wynne — His early death — The abhorred shears — The true consolation of fame, . . .394 CHAPTER XLIH. THE UPPER JHELAM. Kashmir boats — Pandrathan — Hunting-dogs — Bijbehara — Analysis of its population — Population of Kashmir — Fish — Islamabad — Crocus plants — Jehangir's humour — A Khiva horse — Bhumjii caves- General Cunningham's duty, ..... 404 CHAPTER XLIV. HYDASPES : FONS ET ORIGO. Kashmir formerly a lake — The monster Yaldeo — The saint Kashaf — Hindu argument for polytheism — Euins of Martand — Their anti- quity — Sketch of Kashmir early history— Serpents— Achibal and Vernag — The schoolboy's Hydaspes, .... 414 CHAPTER XLV. KASHMIR TO THE HAZARA. The Manas and Wtilar lakes — Beautiful mirrored scenes — Suggestions of the under- world — The middle Jhelam valley — Mozafarabad — Farewell to tents — The Hazara district — Abbotabad and its society, . ...... 424 CHAPTER XLVI. THE FIGHTING VILLAGE OF KUBBUL. Dangers of the Afghan border — Sending fingers in official letters — Torbela — The hero of a night attack — Visit a fighting Afghan village — Afghan affection for murderers — Use of the knife — The Sitana fanatics— The river Indus, ..... 436 XXVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER XLVII. THE BASE OF THE HINDtf KltSH. Crossing the Indus — A picturesque scene — Men in chain-armour — The rock of Pihur— The Hindu Kush— Swabi— Afghan Khans— A blood-horse — Across the border — The ruins of Ranigat — Identi- fied with Aornos — Antiquities of Yusufzai district, . ■ 446 CHAPTER XLVIII. THE AFGHAN CHARACTER. Swat and its Akoond— The Mullah of Topi — Ethnology of the Afghans — Their dreadful history — Their puzzling character — Influence of fatalistic Mohammedanism — Afghan songs of love and war, . 454 CHAPTER XLIX. HOTI MARDAN AND THE KHTBER PASS. Captain Hutchinson — Advantages of residing at Hoti Mardan — Tem- perature — Hawking — Assassinations — The Panjab Guides and their exploits — Our true policy in India — General John Nicholson — The Panjab in the Mutiny — Peshawar and its officials — The Khyber Pass —Conclusion, .... . 462 Appendix— Note on the temperature of Pu, . . . .474 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTER I. PERSONAL. MODERN TRAVEL INFLUENCE OP THE HIMALAYA. I have heard of an American backwoodsman who, on finding some people camping about twenty miles from his log cabin, rushed back in consternation to his wife and exclaimed, "Pack thee up, Martha — pack thee up! it's getting altogether too crowded hereabouts." The annoyance which this worthy complained of is very generally felt at present; and, go almost where he may, the lover of peace and solitude will soon have reason to complain that the country round him is be- coming " altogether too crowded." As for the enter- prising and exploring traveller who desires to make a reputation for himself by his explorations, his case is even worse. Kafiristan, Chinese Tibet, and the very centre of Africa, indeed remain for him; but, wherever he may go, he cannot escape the painful conviction that his track will ere long be trodden A 2 THE ABODE OF SNOW. ground, and that the special correspondent, the trained reporter, will soon try to obliterate his footsteps. It was not so in older times. The man who went out to see a strange country, if he were fortunate enough to return to his friends alive, became an authority on that country to the day of his death, and continued so for generations afterwards if he had only used his wits well. An accurate description of a country usually stood good for a century or two at least, and for that period there was no one to dispute it ; but the Khiva of 1872 is fundamentally different from the Khiva of 1875 ; and could we stand to-day where Burton, half-blinded, first beheld Lake Tanganyika, or where Speke stood sublimely alone a few years ago at Murchison Falls, when he was accomplishing the heroic feat of passing (for the first time in authentic history) from Zanzibar to Cairo, through the ground where the Nile unques- tionably takes its rise, we should probably see an English steamboat, with Colonel Gordon, or one of his officers, on board, moving over the waters of Central Africa. For the change in the relations of one country with another, which has been effected by steam as a means of propulsion, is of a most radical kind ; and it proceeds so rapidly, that by the time the little girls at our knees are grandmothers, and have been fired with that noble ambition to see the world which possesses the old ladies of our own day, it will be only a ques- tion of money and choice with them as to having a cruise upon the lakes of Central Africa, or going to reason with the Grand Lama of Tibet upon the subject of polyandry. Such a process, however, will always leave room for books of travel by those who are specially qualified PERSONAL. 3 either to understand nature or describe mankind ; and there are regions of the world, the natural conformation of which will continue to exclude ordinary travellers until we have overcome the difficulty of flying through the air. Especially are such regions to be found in the Himalaya — which, according to the Sanscrit, lit- erally means "The Abode of Snow" — and indeed in the whole of that enormous mass of mountains which really stretches across Asia and Europe, from the China Sea to the Atlantic, and to which Arab geogra- phers have given the expressive title of " The Stony Girdle of the Earth." It is to the loftiest valleys and almost the highest peaks of that range that I would conduct my readers from the burning plains of India, in the year 1873, in the hope of finding themes of interest, if not many matters of absolute novelty. I have had the privilege of discoursing from and on many mountains — mountains in Switzerland and Beloochistan, China and Japan — and would now speak " Of vales more wild and mountains more sublime." Often, of late years, when thinking of again describing new scenes, the lines have recurred to me with painful force which the dying Magician of the North wrote in pencil by Tweedside : — " How shall the warped and broken board Endure to bear the painter's dye ? The harp with strained and tuneless chord, How to the minstrel's skill reply ? " But the grandest mountains of the world, which have restored something of former strength, may perhaps suggest thoughts of interest, despite the past death-in- life of an invalid in the tropics. There is a lily (F. cordala) which rarely blossoms in India, unless watered 4 THE ABODE OF SNOW. with ice-water, which restores its vigour and makes it flower. So the Englishman, whose frame withers and strength departs in the golden sunlight, but oppres- sive ,air, of India, finds new vigour and fresh thought and feeling among the snows and glaciers of the Him- alaya. If the reader will come with me there, and rest under the lofty deodar tree, I promise him he will find no enemy but winter and rough weather, and perhaps we may discourse not altogether unprofitably under the shadow of those lofty snowy peaks, which still continue "By the flight Of sad mortality's earth-sully ing wing, Unswept, unstained." BOMBAY TO ALLAHABAD. CHAPTER II. BOMBAY TO ALLAHABAD. INDIAN TRAVEL BOMBAY — WESTERN GHAUTS PARALLELISM BE- TWEEN THE GHAUTS AND HIMALAYA TAPTI VALLEY— SATPURA AND V1NDHYA RANGES NARBADA VALLEY JABALPUR THE MARBLE ROCKS — SCENE BY MOONLIGHT — ALLAHABAD. The change in modern travel has brought the most interesting, and even the wildest, parts of India within easy reach for our countrymen. Bishop Heber men- tions in his Journal that he knew of only two English- men — Lord Valencia and Mr Hyde — who had visited India from motives of science or curiosity, since the country came into our possession. Even thirty years ago such visits were unknown ; and the present Lord Derby was about the first young Englishman who made our Indian empire a part of the grand tour correspond- ing to that which, with our forefathers, extended only to France, Italy, and the German Spas. Nowadays, old ladies of seventy, who had scarcely ever left Britain before, are to be met with on the spurs of the Hima- laya ; and we are conveyed rapidly and easily over vast stretches of burning land, which, a few years ago, pre- sented formidable obstacles to even the most eager traveller. On the great routes over the vast plains of 6 THE ABODE OP SNOW. Hindiisthan there is no necessity now for riding twenty miles a-day from bungalow to bungalow, or rolling tediously in a palki gharri over the interminable Grand Trunk Eoad. Even in a well-cushioned com- fortable railway compartment it is somewhat trying to shoot through the blinding sunlight and golden dust of an Indian plain ; and knowing ones are to be seen in such circumstances expending their ice and soda-water upon the towels which they have wrapped round their heads. But we are compelled to have recourse to such measures only in the trying transition periods between the hot and cold seasons ; because, when the heat is at its greatest, artificially-cooled carriages are provided for first-class passengers. Three days from Bombay and twenty pounds conveyance expenses will land the tra- veller at Masiiri (Mussooree) on the outer range of the Himalaya ; and yet, if he chooses to halt at various places by the way, a single step almost will take him into some of the wildest jungle and mountain scenery of India, among the most primitive tribes, and to the haunts of wild animals of the most unamiable kind. India, indeed, is one of the greatest, the richest, and the most varied of the countries of the world. It pre- sents every variety of climate from the dry and singu- larly bracing cold of the snowy slopes of the Himalaya to the humid tropical heat of the Concan and of the Coromandel coast. It possesses every variety of scenery from peaks of ice to reefs of coral ; from treeless, burn- ing plains to thick tangled jungle and almost impene- trable forests. Its two hundred millions of people are not a homogeneous race like the Chinese, presenting everywhere the same appearance, and following the same customs ; but are divided and separated from BOMBAY TO ALLAHABAD. 7 each other so as almost to defy classification. There is no uniformity in India, and the varied wildness of the country is equalled by the varied picturesqueness of its inhabitants. There is no doubt that the Indian climate is some- what dangerous for Europeans, and it is absurd to deny or ignore the fact, as some people seem inclined to do. The most perilous part of the year is the month of Oc- tober and the commencement of November, when the country is drying up after the great rains of the south- west monsoon. At that time the climate is very damp and hot, and poisonous miasmas arise from the swampy ground, and from the immense quantities of decaying vegetation. But yet, if the European visitor is to see India in its most striking aspect, he must not shirk the trying month of October ; for the country is then ap- parelled in green and gold. Vast plains which, a month or two later, appear almost like tracts of desert, are clothed with verdure ; the tropical luxuriance of leaf and flower is in its fullest ; and all day the land is flooded with rich golden sunlight. From that period, on to the beginning of March, the climate is delightful, though, except on the mountains, it is not very favourable to human activity ; but it is a great mistake to suppose that this pleasant season is altogether safe.. On the plains at least it is not so cold as to allow of clothing being worn of sufficient thickness to guard effectually against the extremely rapid radiation of heat from the human body, especially at the fall of eve ; the chills thus arising are frequently immediate or exciting causes of fever and dysentery ; the traveller has often to pass suddenly from ovenlike places into cold winds, and mal- aria is still rife. It is extremely dangerous to enter some « THE ABODE OF SNOW. of the most interesting parts of India, such as the Terai and the lion-haunted jungle of the Gfr, until the very height of the hot season, when the air is like fire, and all the vegetation is withered. Only at that seasbn is it easy to find the fiercer of the wild beasts, because water is then so scarce that they are certain to be found at the pools which are left by the great drought. Hence it is desirable to spend a portion of the hot season in the wilder parts of Hindiisthan, or in the thick forest of the Terai ; but, before the commencement of the south-west monsoon, the traveller should betake him- self to the Himalaya, and place snowy ranges between himself and the great rains. The Suez Canal has created many facilities for getting to the East, and has made Bombay the great point of disembarkation. Had the bishop-poet lived now he might have sung, with much more truth than he did fifty years ago — " Thy towers, they say, gleam fair, Bombay, Across the dark-blue sea ; " for the schemes of Sir Bartle Frere, energetically carried out by his successor, Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, have given that city the most imposing public buildings to be found in the East — if we except some of the Moham- medan mosques, with the palaces and tombs (for these, too, are public buildings) of the Mogul emperors — and in other ways, also, have made it worthy of its natural situation, and a splendid gate of entrance to our Indian empire. But half Europeanised as the capital of Western India is, within ten miles of it, in the island of Salsette, at the little-visited Biidhist caves of Kanhari, the traveller will find not only a long series of ancient richly- sculptured cave-temples and monastic retreats, but also _ .- . . BOMBAY TO ALLAHABAD. 9 the most savage specimens of animal and vegetable life, in a thick jungle which often seems alive with monkeys, and where, "if he only remains over night, he would have a very good" chance of attracting the attention of the most ferocious denizen of the Indian forest. Though the locomotive bears him swiftly and smoothly up the .inclines of the Thull Ghaut, instead of his having to cross the Sahyadri range by a bridle-path, or be dragged painfully by tortured bullocks at the rate of half a mile an hour, as was the case only a few years ago ; yet he has only to stop at the picturesquely-situated bungalow at Igatpuri (Egutpoora), and wander a little way along the edge of the great bounding wall of the Deccan, in Order to look down immense precipices of columnar basalt, and see huge rock-snakes sunning themselves upon the bastions of old Maratha forts, and be startled by the booming cry of the Entellus monkey, or by coming on the footprints of a leopard or a tiger. And it may not be amiss, when writing of the Western Ghauts, to point out the remarkable parallel- ism, which has not before been noted, between these mountains and the Himalaya, for it may serve to make the contour of both ranges easily intelligible. Both are immense bounding walls ; the one to the elevated plains of the Deccan, and the other, to the still more elevated table-land of Central Asia. Carrying out this parallel, the Narbada (Nerbudda) will be found to occupy very much the same position as the Indus, the Sut- lej as the Tapti, and the Godaveri as the Brahmapiitra. All have their rise high up on their respective table- lands ; some branches of the Godaveri rise close to the sources of the Narbada, just as the Indus and the Brahmapiitra have their origin somewhere about Lake 10 THE ABODE OP SNOW. Manasarowar ; and yet the former rivers fall into the sea on opposite sides of the Indian peninsula just as the two latter do. So, in like manner, the Tdpti has its origin near that of the Narbada, as the Sutlej rises close to the Indus ; and if we can trust the Sind tradi- tion, which represents the upper part of the Arabian Sea as having once been dryland, there may have been a time within the human era when the T&pti flowed into the Narbada, as the Sutlej does into the Indus some way above the sea. There is no mountain group in the highlands of Central India where the three southern rivers rise quite so close together as do the three northern rivers from the lofty and inaccessible Tibetan Kailas, but still there is a great similarity in their relative positions ; and it is only when we think of the Sahy^dri and Himalaya as bounding walls that we can understand their relations to the table -land behind them, and their terrific fall to the low-lying land in front. But there is no snow on the SahyMri mountains, so we must hurry on past Nasik, where there is a holy city scarcely less sacred than Benares in the estimation of the Hindus ; so holy is it that the mere mention of the river on which it stands is supposed to procure the forgiveness of sins ; and the banks of this river are covered by as picturesque ghauts and temples as those of the Gangetic city. No traveller should omit stop- ping at N&ndgaum, in order to pay a visit to the im- mense series of carved hills, of rock -temples and sculptured caves, which make Ellora by far the most wonderful and instructive place in India. If we have to diverge from the railway line again into the upper Tapti valley, we shall find that the basins of rich and BOMBAY TO ALLAHABAD. 11 once cultivated soil are covered by dense jungle of grass and bamboo, full of tiger, bear, bison, sambar and spotted deer, and inhabited, here and there, by Kurkies and other aboriginal tribes, but having a deadly climate during great part of the year. Ap- proaching Khandwa, on the railway, we see the ancient and famous fort of Asirghar in the distance rising 850 feet above the plain, and 2300 feet above the sea ; and Khandwa itself, which has been built with the stones from an old Jain town, is important now as a place where the whole traffic of Central India to Bombay meets, and as one terminus of a branch line of rail which takes into a great native state of India, and the capital of the famous Holkar. Here we enter into the Narbada valley, and are soon between two notable ranges of mountains, the S&tpiira and the Vindhya. Ten years ago the Central Pro- vinces were described as "for the most part a terra incognita;" and, though now well known, the high- lands of Central India present abundance of the densest jungle, full of the wildest animals and the most primi- tive of men. In the early dawn, as the railway train rushes along through the cool but mild air, are seen to the right an irregular line of picturesque mountains covered with thick jungle to their summits ; and the Englishman unaccustomed to India, who leaves the railway and goes' into them, will find himself as much out of his reckoning as if he threw himself overboard a Eed Sea steamer and made for the Arabian coast. The Narbada, which is the boundary between the Deccan and Hindiisthan proper, rises at Amartank, at the height of 5000 feet, in the dominions of the painted Rajah of Eewa, who was certainly the most pictur- 12 THE ABODE OF SNOW. esque figure in the great Bombay durbar two and a half years ago ; and who, more recently, being in bad health and unfit for the cares of rule, has shown his great good sense by asking the British Government to undertake the tutelage of his state and of his son tmtil that son attains his majority. It enters the Gulf of Bombay at the cotton town of Bharuch or Broach, and to the English merchant is almost the most important of the Indian rivers. It is supposed that, in pre- historic times, its valley must have been a series of great lakes, which are now filled by alluvial deposits of a recent epoch ; and the discovery of flint imple- ments in its alluvium, by the late Lieutenant Downing Sweeney, has indicated it as an important field for the researches of the archaeologist. Though its upper course is tumultuous enough, in deep clefts through marble rock, and falling in cascades over high ledges, it soon reaches a rich broad valley, containing iron and coal, which is one of the largest granaries and is the greatest cotton-field of India. Through that valley it runs, a broad yellow strip of sand and shingle ; and it has altogether a course of about 800 miles, chiefly on a basalt bed, through a series of rocky clefts and valley-basins. If the traveller has come straight from Bombay, he will feel inclined to halt at Jabalpiir (Jubbulpore) after his ride of twenty-six hours ; but if his stay there be only for a day, he will do well, after seeing the novelty of a Thug school of industry, to hire a horse-carriage, and drive on about ten miles to the famous and won- derful Marble Kocks, where I found a beautifully- situated bungalow for travellers, and an old but by no means worn-out Khansamah, who cooked for me a less BOMBAY TO ALLAHABAD. 13 pretentious but probably as good a dinner as I could have got in the hotels of Jabalpiir. The place I speak of presents one of those enchanting scenes which re- main for ever vivid in the memory. The Narbada there becomes pent up among rocks, and falls over a ledge about thirty feet high, and then flows for about two miles through a deep chasm below the surface of the surrounding country, cut through basalt and marble, but chiefly through the latter. The stream above its fall has a breadth of 100 yards, but in the chasm of only about 20 yards ; and the glittering cliffs of white marble which rise above it are from 80 to 120 feet high, and are composed of adolomite and magnesian limestone. Such, briefly stated, are the constituents of the scene, but they are insufficient to explain its weird charm. I went up between the Marble Eocks in the early morning in a boat, by moonlight, and floated down in sunlight ; and as we moved slowly up that romantic chasm, the drip of water from the paddles, and the wash of the stream, only showed how deep the silence was. A tiger had been doing some devastation in the neighbourhood, and one of the boatmen whispered that we might have a chance of seeing it come down to drink at the entrance of the cleft, or moving along the rocks above, which of course made the position more interesting. The marble walls on one side, which sparkled like silver in the moonlight, reflected so white a radiance as almost to illumine the shadow of the opposite cliffs ; but the stream itself lay in deeper shadow, with here and there shafts of dazzling light falling upon it ; and above, the moonbeams had woven in the air a silvery veil, through which even the largest 14 THE ABODE OF SNOW. stars shone only dimly. It did not look at all like a scene on earth, but rather as if we were entering the portals of another world. Coming down in the brilliant sunlight the chasm appeared less weird but hardly less extraordinary. Large fish began to leap at the dragon -flies which skimmed over the surface of the water ; monkeys ran along the banks above, and chattered angrily at us ; many peacocks also appeared above, uttering their harsh cries; and the large bees' nests which hung every here and there from the Marble Rocks, began to show unpleasant symptoms of life. Let every visitor to this place beware how he disturbs these ferocious and reck- less insects. They are very large ; their sting is very poisonous, and they display a fury and determination in resenting any interference, which makes them most formidable enemies. Two Englishmen, I was told, were once floating through the chasm, when a ball, which one of them had fired at a peacock, slanted off from the rock and unfortunately happened to hit one of these nests. The consequence was that the bees immediately swarmed about the boat, and stung one of its occupants, who was unable to swim, so severely that he died from the effects. His companion leaped into the stream and floated down with it; but even then a cloud of bees folio wed. him for a long way, watching his movements, and immediately attacked his face and every portion of his body which appeared for an instant above the surface of the water. Allahabad, the capital of the North-West Provinces, has become one of the most important places in India from its position at the junction of two mighty rivers, and as the centre of the railway communication be- BOMBAY TO ALLAHABAD. 15 tween Bombay, Calcutta, and the Panjab. It possesses a newspaper, the ' Pioneer,' which obtained great popu- larity all over India from the humour of its late editor, the Eev. Julian Eobinson ; and while its past is inter- esting from its connection with the Indian Mutiny and the stemming of the tide of mutiny, the archseologist will find in it remains which are of great importance for the elucidation of Indian antiquity. It was also well known to English travellers as the residence of Mr Eivett-Carnac, then the cotton commissioner, who has distinguished himself by his great efforts to enable India to meet the demands of Great Britain for its products, by his activity in collecting, information of all kinds, and his extreme readiness in imparting it to those who are happy enough to come in contact with him. 16 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTEK III. HIMALAYAN PEAKS AND SANITARIUMS. AGRA- AND DELHI THE INDIAN MUTINY D1.RJILING MOUNT EVEREST KANCHINJANGA SIKKIM NEPAL NAINI TAL ALMORA RA.NIKHET MASURI DHABAMSALA DALHOUSIE — MARRI — THE HINDU KUSH — SIMLA." But we must proceed towards the Himalaya ; and in order to do so at once, I shall say nothing here of Cawnpore and Lucknow,* Delhi and Agra. They have been admirably described by several modern writers, but no description can give an adequate idea of the mournful interest excited by a visit to the two former, or of the dazzling beauty of the Taj Mahal and the Pearl Mosque of Agra. I shall only remark that those who visit the scenes of the Indian Mutiny may do well to inquire for themselves into the true history of that dreadful outbreak, and not allow them- selves to be deceived by the palliating veil which such amiable writers as the late Dr Norman Macleod have drawn over it. That history has never been written ; and I was assured by one of the special com- missioners who went up with the first relieving force * These are two names, the spelling of which should have been left unaltered, even according to the Government's own views. HIMALAYAN PEAKS AND SANITARIUMS. 17 from Allahabad, that the Government interfered to prevent his publishing an account of his own experi- ence of it as drawn from what he had seen, and from the sworn depositions which had been made before him. It is right that the Angel of Mercy should bend over the well at Cawupore, and flowers spring from the shattered walls of the Residency at Lucknow ; but the lessons of the Mutiny are likely to be in great part lost, if its unprovoked atrocities are to be entirely con- cealed in the darkness to which every humane heart must desire to relegate them. Here, in the valley of the Ganges, we may be said to be at the base of the Himalaya, though even from near points of view they are not visible through the golden-dust haze of an Indian . March. This valley runs parallel with the Stony Girdle for 1200 miles, itself varying from 80 miles in breadth at Monghir, to 200 at Agra ; and is so flat as to suggest rather an immensely long strip of plain than anything like a valley. Those who do not think of venturing into the high and interior Himalaya, but yet wish to have something like a near view of the highest and grandest mountains in the world, will of course direct their steps to one or more of the hill-stations on its southern or south-western front, and each of the more important of these is a place of departure for the wilder and more inaccessible country behind. A brief glance at these latter will serve to expose the points from which the most interesting parts of the Himalaya are accessible. To begin from the east, Darjiling (Darjeeling) is the great sanitarium for Bengal, and is usually the resi- dence, for some portion of the year, of the Lieutenant- B THE ABODE OF SNOW. Governor of that province, and of his chief officers. A railway is in course of construction, or is to be constructed, which will greatly facilitate access to it. As it is, we have to go eleven hours by rail from Calcutta, four hours in a river steamboat, 124 miles in a dale gharri, bullock shigram, or mail-cart, then fourteen miles on horseback or in a palanquin to the foot of the hills, and by similar means of carriage up to the top of them, in order to reach DaYjiling. In the rains this is a horrible journey to make ; and, except in the very hot season, the miasma of the Terai or jungle forest between Siligari and Pankabarri is so deadly that the traveller is always advised to pass it by daylight — a proposal which in all proba- bility he will be glad to accede to, unless familiarity with tigers and wild elephants has bred in him a due contempt for such road-fellows. This makes Darjiling not a very easy place to get at, and it has the addi- tional disadvantage of being exceedingly wet and cold during the south-west monsoon — that is to say, from any time in the end of June till the beginning of October ; but, notwithstanding these drawbacks, it recommends itself to the tourist who does not care to attempt tent-life in the mountains, on account of its magnificent view of the Himalaya, and its vicinity to the very highest peaks of that mighty range. Gaurisankar, or Mount Everest, the culminating point of the earth's surface, and which rises to the height of 29,002 feet above the level of the sea, is in Nepal, and is not visible from the hill-station we speak of ; but it can be seen, when weather allows, from an elevation only a day or two's journey from Darjiling. Kanchinjanga in Sikkim, however, which is the second HIMALAYAN PEAKS AND SANITARIUMS. 19 highest peak in the world, and rises to the height of 28,150 feet, is visible from D&rjiling; and no general view of the Himalaya is finer, more characteristic, or more impressive, than that which we may have from the Katcherri hill at D&rjiling, looking over dark range after range of hills up to the eternal snows of Kanchin- janga, and the long line of its attendant monarchs of mountains. Unfortunately Gaurisankar, the loftiest mountain of all, is out of the reach of nearly all trav- ellers, owing to our weakness in allowing Nepal to ex- clude Englishmen from its territory ; but if any one is very anxious to try Chinese Tibet, he will find one of the doors into it by going up from DaYjiling through the protected state of Sikkim ; but whether the door will open at his request is quite another matter, and if he kicks at it he is likely to find himself suddenly going down the mountains considerably faster than he went up them. Verbum sat sapientibus ; but if one could only get through this door, it is a very short way from it to Lassa, the capital of Tibet, and the residence of the Grand Lama, which, possibly, is the reason why it is kept so strictly guarded. Gaurisankar, and the highest peaks of the Himalaya, are on the border between Nepal and Tibet, and form a group somewhat obtruding from the line of the main range. It is provokingthat the weak foreigu policy of the Indian Government — a policy, however, which has been very much forced upon it from home — should allow the Nepalese to exclude English travellers from their ter- ritory, while at the same time we treat the former as friendly allies, and heap honours upon Jung Bahadur. To take such a line is always regarded in the East as a proof of weakness, which indeed it is ; and the best com- 20 THE ABODE OF SNOW. mentary upon its effects is the belief, everywhere preva- lent in India, that the Nana Sahib is, or for long has been, the protected guest of the Court of Katmandu^ This policy places about 500 miles of the Himalaya out of the reach of the English traveller, though these 500 miles contain the culminating point of the whole range, the most splendid jewel in the Stony Girdle of the earth. There is another stretch of 500 miles to the east of Nepal, occupied by Bhotan, in which also no European can travel, owing to the character of the inhabitants and of the Government ; so that it is only in the little nar- rowed strip of Sikkim that one can get up at all to the main range of the eastern Himalaya ; and thus we are practically shut out from a thousand miles of the Hima- laya — from a thousand miles of the noblest mountains in the world, overlooking the Ganjetic valley and the conquered provinces of British India. It follows from this that the traveller who wishes to enter among these giant mountains, and is not content with a view of them such as we have of the Oberland Alps from the summit of the Righi, must of necessity betake himself to the Western Himalaya. It is true he may go up the Sikkim valley from Ddxjiling to the foot of Kanchin- janga, but he is then confined to the narrow gorges of the Testa and the Ranjit. Moreover, it is only in sum- mer that one can travel among the higher ranges, and in summer Sikkim is exposed to almost the full force of the Indian monsoon, which rages up to the snows of Kanchinjanga with a saturated atmosphere and the densest fogs. Pedestrianism and tent- travelling in such circumstances are almost out of the question ; and as it is only when the traveller can get a snowy range HIMALAYAN PEAKS AND SANITARIUMS. 21 between himself and the Indian monsoon that he can travel with any comfort, or even with safety, among the Himalaya in summer, he must perforce betake himself to their western section, if he desires to make acquaint- ance with the interior and higher portions of that mighty range. Passing, then, over the 500 miles of Nepal, and casting one longing look in the direction of Gauri- sankar, we come to Naini Tal or Nyni Tal, which is the sanitarium of the North-West Provinces, as Darjil- ing is of JBengal, and is visited every year by their Lieutenant-Governor, and a large portion of Allahabad society. It is a charming spot, with a beautiful little lake surrounded by wooded mountains ; but it is not in proximity to any high peaks, nor does it command views of the snowy ranges. It does not afford easy access to any of the points of special interest in the higher mountains, and we do not recommend the Himalayan tourist to pay.it a visit, for the time which it would occupy might be much better bestowed in other directions ; but it has the advantage of having two outposts of civilisation between it and the snowy mountains, — namely, Almora, from which a long route by the base of Nanda Kut (22,536 feet high) will take up to another door into Chinese Tartary ; and K&nikhet, to which the late Lord Mayo had some thought of re- moving the summer seat of the Supreme Government from Simla, because it has abundance of wood and water, and is one of the very few places in the Himalaya where there is a little level ground. The next sanitarium is Masiiri, or Mussooree, which can be reached, through the Sewalik range and the beautiful valley of the Dehra Doon, in a long day 22 THE ABODE OP SNOW. from Sahdrunpur on the railway. It is not visited ■ by any Government in particular ; there is nobody to look after people's morals in that aerial retreat ; and the result is, that though Masiiri has much quiet fam- ily life, and is not much given to balls or large gay parties, it yet has the character of being the fastest of all the hill-stations, and the one where grass widows combine to allow themselves the greatest liberty. This is scandal, however — not exact science; and as I have something special to say about both Mastiri and Simla, I shall only remark here that they present by far the best points of departure for a tour in the interior Himalaya; but it should be noted that it is almost impossible to cross the outer snowy range from the former station during July, August, and September, when the monsoon is piling snow upon it, and beneath the snow-line the rivers are flooded. The younger hill-stations of Dharamsala and Dal- housie are a long way to the .north-west of Simla, and are so far from the line of railway to Lahore and from any carriage-roads, that they are not likely to be sought, in the first instance, by any tourist, however enter- prising. But it may be remarked that they are con- venient depots of the products of civilisation ; that Dalhousie is a good starting-point for Kashmir; and that Dharamsala, where the houses stand at elevations of from about 4000 to 7000 feet high, rises out of the Kangra valley, which Lord Canning held .to be the most beautiful district in India, with the exception of Kashmir, and which combines the advantages of tropical with Alpine climate and vegetation. Very far beyond these, at a height of about 7000 feet, we have Marri (Muree, which is the hill-station for the HIMALAYAN PEAKS AND SANITARIUMS. 23 Panjab and its Lieutenant-Governor, and the great point of departure for Kashmir. It is only 40 miles distant from the Grand Trunk Road at Rawal Pindi, and can be reached in hill-carts, so that it is really more accessible to the English tourist than some of the hill- stations which geographically may appear much nearer ; but it is not in immediate proximity to any very high ranges, though sometimes a glimpse can be got from its neighbourhood of the wonderful peak of Nangha Parbat, which is 26,629 feet high. Close to the Indus, where the Himalaya have changed into the Hindu - Kiish, there is Abbottabad, which, though a military station and little over 4000 feet, is one of the points which command Kashmir ; and it has beside it the sanitarium of Tandali, or Tundiani, which presents more extensive views from the height of 9000 feet. And here our line of sanitariums comes to an end ; for though the plain of our trans-Indus possession is bounded by the most tempting mountains — the lower ranges of the Hindu" Kiish — yet if the tourist makes even the slightest attempt to scale these, he will find ' that between the Akoond of Swat, the Amir of Kaubul, and the officers of the British Government, he will have an uncommonly bad time of it, and may consider himself fortunate if he is only brought back neck and crop to Peshawar (Peshawur) and put under surveillance or ordered out of the district. Simla, as I have indicated, is the best starting-point for the inner Himalaya, besides being an interesting place in itself, as usually the summer residence of the Viceroy and the other chiefs of the Supreme Government of India, though this year they have been detained in Calcutta by the Bengal famine. But Masiiri is more 24 THE ABODE OP SNOW. easy of access ; that place, or rather the closely adjacent military station of Landaur (Landour^, commands a finer view of snowy peaks ; and it is not necessary to descend from Masuri to the burning plains in order to reach Simla, as a good bridle-road, passing through the new military station of Chakraota, connects the two places, and can be traversed in fourteen easy marches, which afford very good preliminary experience for a tour in the Himalaya. rtJeki, hard war, and the tbrai. 25 CHAPTEE IV. RURKI, HARDWAR, AND THE TERAI. SAHARUNPUR COLLECTIONS DE JAMIESON MAJOR LANG LOSING ONE'S HEAD RURKI ENGINEERING COLLEGE HARDWAR THE GREAT MELA JUNGLE FIRES THE TERAI — A HIMALAYAN HUNTER MR HAYWARD FOSSILS OF THE SEWALIK — THE DEHRA DOON INDIAN TEA LOCALITIES OF THE PLANTATIONS. In April of 1873 Masiiri was the first elevation I made for, and eagerly did I seek its cool breezes after the intense heat of Agra and Delhi. Anglo-Indians are very hospitable towards English travellers ; and as the thoughtful kindness of Sir William Muir, the then Lieutenant-Governor of the North- West Provinces, had furnished me with some letters of introduction, I could not but accede to his wish that I should go to Rurki (Eoorkee) and see the Engineering College there, the workshops, and the works of the Ganges Canal. At Saharunpur, the railway station for Eiirki, there is a botanical garden, and a valuable collection of fossils, under the charge, and created by the labours, of Dr Jamieson, of the Forest Department, a relative and pupil of the well-known mineralogist, and one of the founders of the science of geology, who for fifty years occupied the post of Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh. Kiirki is famous for its 26 THE ABODE OP SNOW. Engineering College, and for its invaluable canal, which has done so much to prevent famine in the North- West Provinces. I was fortunate enough there to be the guest of Major Lang, the very able Principal of the Thomason Engineering College, who had formerly been engaged in the construction of " the Great Hindiisthan and Tibet Road," which runs from Simla towards Chinese Tartary; and any doubts as to where I was bound for were soon entirely dissipated by the Principal's descrip- tions of Chini and Pangay, the Indian Kailas, and the Parang La. He warned me, indeed, not to attempt Chinese Tibet, lest the fate of the unfortunate Adolph Schlagintweit might befall me, and a paragraph should appear in the Indian papers announcing that a native traveller from Gartok had observed a head adorning the pole of a Tartar's tent, which head, there was only too much reason to fear from his description of it, must have been that of the enterprising traveller who lately penetrated into Chinese Tibet by way of Shipki. But then it was not necessary to cross the border in order to see Chini and the Kailas; and even his children kindled with enthusiastic delight as they cried out " Pangay ! Pangay ! " This Engineering College was founded in 1848 by Mr James Thomason, the then Lieutenant-Governor of the North- West Provinces, an Indian civilian of great ability and influence, and it was organised by Colonel Maclagan, R.E. The number of students has steadily increased, until it is now about 300 ; and the various classes are composed of officers, non-commissioned officers, privates in the army, civil Englishmen and natives. The commissioned officers who go there are prepared for the Public Works Department, and have RURKI, HARD WAR, AND THE TERAI. 27 to go through a very severe course of study. The civil Englishmen are young men, between 18 and 22 years of age, who have been educated in India or at home, and, before admission, are required to pass an exam- ination in English literature and composition, Latin, French or German, Physical Science, Algebra, Geo- metry, Plane Trigonometry, &c. Of this section of the College, Colonel Medley, a recent Principal, said — " It forms the most valuable provision at present ex- tant for the sons of the many respectable servants of Government who cannot afford them the cost of an English career. Many of these young men are gentle- men in manners and tone — others are not at all so ; but they are all treated as such, and the increasing admixture of students from England is a great advan- tage in this respect." The non-commissioned officers and soldiers are trained up to be overseers and sub- overseers in the P.W. Department. There is another college of the same kind in Western India at Poona, and both establishments aim at training up officers and civil students to be engineers of the first class ; to pro- vide an opening for deserving soldiers and others of the lower grades; and, more generally, to afford opportunity and encouragement to the people of India to qualify themselves for being their own engineers. An institu- tion of this kind is better for the natives than classes which foster the Indian tendency to indulge to excess in the subtleties of speculation and the niceties of literature ; but though the Indians get on well enough with engineering, so far as it consists in drawing plans and making calculations in a room, they do not succeed so well with field work, for their early marriages, peculiar diet and habits of life, do not fit them for 28 ' THE ABODE OF SNOW. combining physical with intellectual exertions. At Kiirki there are six scholarships of 50 rupees per men- sem for native students. This is a great bonus for people like the Hindus, with whom 50 rupees goes so long a way ; but it is only very lately that it has in- duced young men of the kind intended to come forward at all; and, at a recent examination, even a Lieut- Governor so partial to them as Sir William Muir, was " sorry to say that the class has not answered the ex- pectations of its founder." There is a printing-press attached to this college, and many valuable publica- tions have issued from it — handbooks on engineering, and the periodical "Professional Papers on Indian Engineering." It was pleasing to notice that much care was devoted by the Principal, in his private capacity, to promote the moral and social development of the students under his charge. As the greatest religious fair of the Hindus was being held at this time at Hard war (Hurdwar), where the Ganges is supposed to issue from the Himalaya, I went over there to see that extraordinary scene, and was fortunate enough to hit upon the auspicious day for bathing. Hardwar, or, more correctly, Haridwar, means the Gate of Hari * or Vishnu, and it is also called Hari- Pairi, or the Stairs of Vishnu. By the Hindus it is called the source of the sacred Ganges, and is at least the point where that sacred river issues from the moun- tains upon the plains. With that inconsequence which * This Hari must be distinguished from Hara, a name of Mahadeva or Siva. Indian mythology is rather a troublesome study. You are con- stantly coming across new and strange gods in it, and a little examination proves that you have only got hold of another name, or another incarna- tion, of our old friends Vishnu or Siva. RURKI, HARDWAR, AND THE TERAI. 29 characterises later Hindtiism or Brahmanism, Siva is the proper deity of the Ganges, because he is the lord of the Himalaya ; and when Ganga was unable to pour her flood over India, she obtained the consent of Siva to pour herself over his head, which she did in such an impetuous manner, that " the god grew angry, and locked up her struggling floods amid his labyrinthine hair." In this legend we may see the immense value which was necessarily attached to the fertilising power of the Ganges by the people of India, and the use to which that was turned when Hinduism became a priestly system. The commencement of the yearly melting of the snow on the Himalaya was probably the reason why this particular season was chosen for the yearly pilgrimage to Hardwar, when the sun is in Pisces and enters Aries ; but I know not why a particular value should be attached to the pilgrimage every twelfth year, when Jupiter is in Aquarius at the time of the sun entering Aries. These are the periods specially chosen for the pilgrimage, and high religious merit is ascribed to it, as also, more particu- larly, to bathing in the water at the " auspicious moment," which is calculated by the astrologers and Brahmins, when the sun enters Aries. It is a mistake to suppose that Hinduism is not believed in by the people of India, however little relationship it may now have to true religion. On this occasion there were about 100,000 people collected at Hardwar, of all ages, and in every stage of physical strength. The bathing was not confined to the aus- picious moment. The water, as also the morning wind, was very cold ; and delicate young women, children, and old shrivelled granddames shivered in 30 THE ABODE OP SNOW. the stream, but really looked as if they were fulfilling a sacred duty, and enjoying an inestimable privilege. Of indecency at the bathing there was not a trace, though, likely enough, in the vast crowd of people camped in the neighbourhood, curious things went on, as they would in any similar crowd in any country ; and in no other country that I know of, would a crowd of the same magnitude have presented so much out- ward propriety of behaviour, whether at the bathing- place or in their encampments. The puerility of the whole affair was more striking than any other feature of it. There is scarcely now the enthusiasm which this pilgrimage used to call forth, and British regula- tions have interfered to prevent the occurrences which redeemed it frqm commonplace, and must have made the pilgrims feel that they were accomplishing some- thing wonderful. The Gosains and Bairagis — rival sects of Hindu devotees — are not allowed now to fight as they used to do, and as in 1760, when 18,000 of the latter are said to have been killed at this Hard- war mela. The steps leading down to the river are crowded, enough ; but care is taken to prevent such scenes as occurred in 1819, when, at the auspicious hour for bathing, 430 persons were crushed to death, including some of the British sepoys who were placed to preserve order. So careful even are the sanitary arrangements, that there is little chance of cholera breaking out in the camp and spreading its poison all over India as it did on one occasion ten years ago. The doctors at Hardwar, when I was there, were very careful. A youthful pilgrim died, as it turned out, of chest disease, and his relatives, anxious to avoid a medical examination, concealed the death, and had the RBRKI, HARDWAR, AND THE TERAI. 31 body carried off secretly ; but the medical authorities got wind of the occurrence, and hunted down the corpse ten miles off. Business is combined with religion at this great gathering. Fruits come from Kaubul, Kandahar, Kashmir ; turbans, ivory, and metal ornaments are displayed, as also sarsnets, arms of various kinds, and European goods. There are also large numbers of camels, mules, aud horses for sale. A number of officers of Panjabi regiments had come to Hardwar in order to purchase horses ; and, in the evening, we all assembled for dinner at the bungalow of Mr Jenkinson, the energetic collector of the district, whose hands were pretty full with all he had to look after. I was indebted to him for the use of an elephant which took me through the fair and all about the place ; and the way in which that elephant went up and down steps and over walls which seemed almost impossible for so unwieldy-looking an animal, left a very distinct and lively impression on my mind as to the utter hopeless- ness of my ever attempting to escape from a wild one. Many and interesting were the stories which the Pan- jabi officers had to tell of past times ; and if the pious Hindus enjoyed themselves — as they appeared to do, whether in the water or out of it — not less did the company of unpolytheistic Englishmen. The spectacle of the bathing was curious, but not very interesting or exciting ; and I do not wonder that the Brahmins have announced, by way of getting up a new sensation, that the auspicious properties are about to be transferred from the Ganges to the Jumna. At night the scene was rendered striking by most magnificent fires in the jungle of the surrounding hills. Some of these blazed 32 THE ABODE OP SNOW. in circles, some in long lines, and conveyed the idea of enormous fiery dragons moving on the hillsides ; but even these fires did not scare the abundant tigers from the neighbourhood. Eound the bungalow and tents of the bronzed English officers were picketed elephants, horses, and camels ; beyond that a low, many- voiced murmur rose from the encampment of the vast multi- tude of Indians ; above and around that, the serpent- like forest-fires gleamed brightly ; while, in the thick coverts beyond, there were great powerful forms of beauty and terror, with their cruel hungry eyes " Burning bright In the jungles of the night." From Hardwar I proceeded in a dUli along a jungle- path through the Terai to the Dehra Doon and Masiiri. This was my first experience of the Himalaya. In vain had I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse of their snowy summits through the golden haze which filled the hot air. Though visible from Kurki and many other places in the plains at certain seasons, they are not so in April ; but here, at least, was the outermost circle of them — the Terai, or, literally, the " wet land," the " belt of death," the thick jungle swarming with wild beasts, which runs along their southern base. It is not so thick or so deadly here between the Ganges and the Jumna, as it is farther to the east, on the other side of the former river, and all the way from the Ganges to the Brahmaputra, constituting, I sup- pose, the longest as well as the deadliest strip of jungle- forest in the world. The greater cold in winter in this north-western portion, and its greater distance from the main range, prevent its trees attaining quite such pro- portions as they do farther east ; but still it has suffi- RtfRKI, HARD WAR, AND THE TERAI. 33 cient heat and moisture, and sufficiently little circula- tion of air, to make it even here a suffocating hothouse, into which the wind does not penetrate to dissipate the moisture transpired by the vegetation ; and where, besides the most gigantic Indian trees and plants — as the sissu, the saul tree, with its shining leaves and thick clusters of flowers, and the most extraordinary interlacing of enormous creepers — we have, strange to say, a number of trees and other plants properly be- longing to far-distant and intensely tropical parts of the earth, such as the Cassia alata of Burmah, the Marlea hegonifolea of Java, the Deeringia celosioides of Papua, and the Nerium odorum of Africa. This natural conservatory is a special haunt for wild ani- mals, and for enormous snakes such as the python. The rhinoceros exists in the Terai, though not beyond the Ganges; but in the part we now are> — that between the Ganges and the Jumna — there are wild elephants, and abundance of tiger, leopard, panther, bear, antelope, and deer of various kinds. My Bombay servant had heard so many stories at Hard war about the inhabitants of this jungle, that he entered into it with fear and trembling. If the word hatti (elephant) was uttered once by our coolies, it was uttered a hundred times in the course of the morning. Before we had gone very far, my diili was suddenly placed on the ground, and my servant informed me that there were some wild elephants close by. Now, the idea of being in a canvas palanquin when an ele- phant comes up to trample on it is by no means a pleasant one; so I gathered myself out slowly and deliberately, but with an alacrity which I could hardly have believed possible. Surely enough the heads and 34 THE ABODE OP SNOW. backs of a couple of large elephants were visible in the bush ; and as they had no howdahs or cloths upon them, the inference was fair that they were wild animals. But a little observation served to show that there were men beside them. They turned out to be tame ele- phants belonging to a well-known Himalayan charac- ter, who was hunting in the Terai, and who seems to have been met by every traveller to Masiiri for the last twenty years. I did not see him at this time, but afterwards made his passing acquaintance in the hotel at Masiiri, and again in Bombay. It will give some idea of the abundance of game in this part of the Terai to mention, that on this shooting excursion, which lasted only for a very few days, he bagged two tigers, besides wounding another which was lost in the jungle, three panthers, and about thirty deer. He has been called the " Banger of the Himalaya," and his history is a curious one. About thirty years ago he wandered up to these mountains on foot from Calcutta with his gun, being a sort of superior " European loafer." There his skill as a hunter enabled him to earn more than a live- lihood, by preserving and sending to Calcutta the skins of the golden pheasant and other valuable birds. This traffic soon developed to such proportions that he employed many paharris to procure for him the skins of birds and animals, so that his returns were not solely dependent on the skill of his own hand. He married a native mountain lady, who possessed some land, a few days' marches from Masiiri ; and finally, by a fortunate contract for supplying Indian railways with sleepers from the woods of the Himalaya, he had made so much money that it was currently believed at'Masuri when I was there that he was worth more than £150,000. RURKI, HARDWAK, AND THE TEEAI. 35 I was interested in his account of the passes leading towards Yarkand and Kashmir, with some of which he had made personal acquaintance. I may mention, also, that he spoke in very high terms of the capacities, as an explorer, of the late Mr Hayward, the agent of the Geographical Society of London, who was cruelly murdered on the border of Yassin, on his way to the Pamir Steppe, the famous " Roof of the World." It has been rumoured that Mr Hayward was in the habit of ill-treating the people of the countries through which he passed; but the Eanger, who travelled with him for some time, and is himself a great favourite with the mountaineers, repelled this supposition, and said he had met with no one so well fitted as this unfor- tunate agent of the Geographical Society for making •his way in difficult countries. I do not think that the least importance should be attached to accusations of the kind which have been brought against Mr Hay- ward, or rather against his memory. The truth is, it is so absolutely necessary at times in High Asia to carry matters with a high, hand — so necessary for the preservation, not only of the traveller's own life, but also of the lives of his attendants — that there is hardly a European traveller in that region against whom, if his mouth were only closed with the dust of the grave, and there was any reason for getting up a case against him, it could not be proved, in a sort of way, that it was his ill-treatment of the natives which had led to his being murdered. I am sure such a case could have been made out against myself on more than one occasion ; and an officer on the staff of the Com- mander-in-Chief in India told me that the people of Spiti had complained to him that a Sahib, who knew 36 THE ABODE OF SNOW. neither Hindiisthani nor English, much less their own Tibetan dialect, had been beating them because. they could not understand him. This was Dr Stoliczka, a mild, gentlemanly member of the late Yarkand Mis- sion ; and the cause of his energy in Spiti was that, shortly before, in Lahaul, several of his coolies had perished from cold, owing to disobedience of his orders, and, being a humane man, he was anxious to guard against the recurrence of such an event. But when treating of Kashmir I shall speak more openly about the story of Hayward's death, and only wish to note here the testimony in his favour which was borne by the experienced " Banger of the Himalaya," who has become almost one in feeling with the people among whom he dwells. In the centre of this Terai, there is an expensively built police chowki, in which I took refuge from the extreme heat of the day ; but what police have to do there, unless to apprehend tigers, does not appear at first sight. It is quite conceivable, however, that the conservatory might become a convenient place of refuge for wild and lawless men, as well as for wild plants and wild beasts. Hence the presence in its midst of these representatives of law and order, who hailed the visit of a Sahib with genuine delight. The delay here prevented me reaching the cultivated valley of the Dehra. Doon till midnight, so torches were lit long before we left the thicker part of the Terai ; their red light made the wild jungle look wilder than ever, and it was with a feeling of relief that we came upon the first gardens and tea-plantations. There is no place in India, unless perhaps the plateaus of the Blue Mountains, which reminds one so much of England EUBKI, HARDWAR, AND THE TERAI. 37 as the little valley of the Dehra Doon; and Sir George Campbell has well observed that no district has been so happily designed by nature for the capital of an Anglo-Indian empire. It lies between the Sewalik or sub-Himalayan range and the Himalaya itself. This former low line of hills, which is composed from the debris of the greater range, has its strata dipping towards the latter in a north-easterly direction, and consists of a few parallel ridges which are high towards the plains, but sloping in the direction of the Himalaya where there is any interval between. It contains an immense collection of the fossil bones of the horse, bear, camel, hyena, ape, rhinoceros, ele- phant, crocodile, hippopotamus, and also of the siva- therium, the megatherium, and other enormous animals not now found alive. At some places it rests upon the Himalaya, and at others is separated from them by raised valleys. The Dehra Doon is one of those elevated valleys, with the Upper Ganges and Jumna flowing through it on opposite sides, and is about seventy miles in length, and nearly twenty in breadth. It is sometimes spoken of, by enthusiasts for colonisa- tion in India, as if the whole Anglo-Saxon race might find room to establish themselves there; but it is really a very small district, with most of the available land cultivated ; and from Masiiri we see the whole of it lying at our feet and bounded by the two shining rivers. It is a very pleasant place, however. Being so far north, just about 30° of latitude, and at an eleva- tion of a little over 2000 feet, it enjoys a beautiful climate. Even in the hot season the nights and morn- ings are quite cool, which is the great thing in a hot country ; the fall of rain is not so great as in the plains 38- THE ABODE OF SNOW. below or in the hills immediately above ; and in the cold season the temperature is delightful, and at times bracing. I saw roses in the Dehra Doon growing under bamboos and mango-trees, and beds of fine European vegetables side by side with fields of the tea-shrub. In one plantation which I examined particularly, the whole process of preparing the tea was shown to me. It was under the superintendence of a Celestial, and the process did not differ much from that followed in China, but the plants were smaller than those usually seen in the Flowery Land. After having been for long a rather unprofitable speculation, the cultivation of tea on the slopes of the Himalaya is now a decided mone- tary success ; and the only difficulty is to meet the demand for Indian tea which exists not only in India and Europe, but also in Central Asia. Dr Jamieson of Saharunpur, who has interested himself much in the growth of tea in India, and pressed it on when almost everybody despaired of its ever coming to anything, was kind enough to give me a map showing the tea districts of the Western Himalaya ; and I see from it that they begin close to the Nepale3e frontier at Pe- thoragurh in Kumaon. A number of them are to be found from a little below Naini Tal northwards up to Almora and Ranikhet. Besides those in the Dehra Doon, there are some in its neighbourhood immediately below Masiiri, and to the east of that hill - station. Next we have those at Kalka on the way to Simla from Ambala (Umballa), at or rather just below Simla itself, at Kotgarh in the valley of the Sutlej, and in the Krihi valley, so famed for the beauty and immorality of its women. And lastly, there is a group at Dharam- RtiKKl, HARDWAR, AND THE TERAI. 39 sala, and in the Kangra valley and its neighbourhood. The cultivation of tea does not seem to get on in the Himalaya above the height of 6000 feet, and it flourishes from that height down to about 2000 feet, or perhaps lower. Some people are very fond of Indian tea, and declare it to be equal, if not superior, to that of the Middle Kingdom ; but I do not agree with them at all. "When my supplies ran out in High Asia, tea was for some time my only artificial beverage, though that, too, failed me at last, and I was obliged to have recourse to roasted barley, from which really very fair coffee can be made, and coffee quite as good as the liquid to be had under that name in half the cafes of Europe. It is in such circumstances that one can really test tea, when we are so dependent on it for its refreshing and invigorating effects ; and I found that none of the Indian tea which I had with me — not even that of Kangra, which is the best of all — was to be com- pared for a moment, either in its effects or in the pleasantness of its taste, with the tea of two small packages from Canton, which were given me by a friend just as I was starting from Simla. The latter, as compared with the Himalayan tea, was as sparkling hock to home-brewed ale, and yet it was only a fair specimen of the ordinary better-class teas of the Pearl river. 40 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTER V. FIRST VIEWS OF THE HIMALAYA. GOITRE MASURI CLIMATE INTERIOE ROUTES VIEW OF SNOWY PEAKS THE ABODE OP THE GODS ROAD TO SIMLA — APPEAR- ANCE OF SIMLA LINES ON THE HIMALAYA. Looking from Raj pur at the foot of the hills up to Masiiri, that settlement has a very curious appearance. Many of its houses are distinctly visible along the ridges ; but they are so very high up, and so immedi- ately above one, as to suggest that we are in for some- thing "like the labours and the experience of Jack on the bean-stalk. In the bazaar at Raj pur, I was reminded of the Alps by noticing several cases of goitre : and I afterwards saw instances of this disease at Masiiri ; at Kalka, at the foot of the Simla hills ; at Simla ; at Nirth, a very hot place near Rampiir in the Sutlej valley ; at Lippe, a cool place, above 9000 feet high, in Upper Kanawur, with abundance of good water ; at Kaelang in Lahaul, a similar place, but still higher ; at the Ringdom Monastery in Zanskar, about 12,000 feet high ; in the great open valley of Kashmir ; and at Peshawar in the low-lying trans-Indus plain. These cases do not all fit into any particular theory which has been advanced regarding the cause of this FIRST VIEWS OP THE HIMALAYA. 41 hideous disease; and Dr Bramley has mentioned in the Transactions of the Medical Society of Calcutta, that in Nepal he found goitre was more prevalent on the crests of high mountains than in the valleys. The steep ride to Masiiri up the vast masses of mountain, which formed only the first and comparatively insigni- ficant spurs of the Himalaya, gave a slight foretaste of what is to be experienced among' 1 their giant central ranges. Masiiri, though striking enough, is by no means a picturesque place. It wants the magnificent deodar and other trees of the Simla ridge, and, except from the extreme end of the settlement, it has no view of the Snowy Mountains, though it affords a splendid outlook over the Dehra Doon, the Sewaliks, and the Indian plains beyond. The " Himalayan Hotel " there is the best hotel I have met with in India ; and there are also a club-house and a good subscription reading- room and library. Not a few of its English inhabitants live there all the year round, in houses many of which are placed in little shelves scooped out of the precipi- tous sides of the mountain. The ridges on which it rests afford only about five miles of riding-paths in all, and no table-land. Its height is about 7000 feet — almost all the houses being between 6400 and 7200 feet above the level of the sea. But this insures a European climate ; for on the southern face of the Himalaya the average yearly temperature of London is found at a height of about 8000 feet. The chief recommendation of Masiiri is its equality of tempera- ture, both from summer to winter and from day to night; and in most other respects its disadvantages are rather glaring. In April I found the thermometer 42 THE ABODE OF SNOW. in a shaded place in the open air ranged from 60° Fahr. at daybreak, to 71° between two and three o'clock in the afternoon ; and the rise and fall of the mercury- were very gradual and regular indeed, though there was a good deal of rain. The coldest month is January, which has a mean temperature of about 42° 45' ; and the hottest is July, which has 67° 35'. The transition to the rainy season appears to make very little differ- ence ; but while the months of October and November are delightful, with a clear and serene sky, and an average temperature of 54°, the rainy season must be horrible, exposed as Masuri is, without an intervening rock or tree,- to the full force. of the Indian south-west monsoon. The Baron Carl Htigel mentions that when he was there in 1835, the rain lasted for .eighty-five days, with an intermission of only a few hours. It cannot always be so bad as that at Masiiri in summer, but still the place must be exceedingly wet, cold, and disagreeable during the period of the monsoon ; and it is no wonder that, at such a season, the ^residents of the Dehra Doon much prefer their warmer and more protected little valley below. Notwithstanding the attractions of the " Himalayan Hotel," I would recommend the visitors to Masiiri to get out of it as soon as possible, and to follow the example of the American who said to me after forty- eight hours he could stand it no longer, and that he wanted " to hear them panthers growling about my tent." The two great excursions from this place are to the Jumnotri and the Gangotri peaks, where the sacred rivers, Jumna and Ganges, may be said to take their rise respectively. These journeys involve tent-life, and the usual concomitants of Himalayan travel, but they FIRST VIEWS OF THE HIMALAYA. 43 are well worth making ; for the southern side of the sunny Himalaya in this neighbourhood is grand indeed. It is only fifteen marches from Masiiri to the glacier from which the Ganges is said to issue, though, in reality, a branch of it? descends from much further up among the mountains ; and these marches are quite easy except for nine miles near to the glacier, where there is " a very bad road over ladders, scaffolds, Sec." It is of importance to the tourist to bear in mind that, in order to pursue his pleasure in the Himalaya, it is not necessary for him to descend from Masiiri to the burning plains. The hill-road to Simla I have already spoken of. There is also a direct route from Masiiri to Wangtii Bridge, in the Sutlej valley, over the Burand Pass, which is 15,180 feet high, and involving only two marches on which there are no villages to afford supplies. This route to Wangtii Bridge is only four- teen marches, and that place is so near to Chini and the : Indian Kailas that the tourist might visit these latter in a few days from it, thus seeing some of the finest; scenery in the snowy Himalaya ; and he could afterwards proceed to Simla from Wangtii in eleven marches along the cut portion of the Hindiisthan and Tibet road. There is another and still more interest- ing route from Masiiri to the valley of the Sutlej over the Nila or Nilung Pass, and then down the wild Buspa valley ; but that pass is an exceedingly difficult one, and is somewhere about 18,000 feet high, so no one should attempt it without some previous experience of the high Himalaya ; and it is quite impassable when the monsoon is raging, as indeed the Burand Pass may be said to be also. The neophyte may also do well to remember that tigers go up to the snow on the south 44 THE ABODE OP SNOW. side of the Himalaya ; and that, at the foot of Jumnotri and Gangotri peaks, besides " them panthers," and a tiger or two, he is likely enough to have snow bears growling about his tent at night. I had been unfortunate in not having obtained even a single glimpse of the snowy Himalaya from the plains, or from any point of my journey to Masiiri, and I learned there that they were only visible in the early morning at that season. Accordingly I ascended one morning at daybreak to the neighbouring military station of Landaur, and there saw these giant moun- tains for the first time. Sir Alexander Burnes wrote in his ' Travels into Bokhara/ &c. — " I felt a nervous sensation of joy as I first gazed on the Himalaya." When Bishop Heber saw them he "felt intense delight and awe in looking on them." Even in these anti- enthusiastic times I fancy most people experience some emotion on first beholding those lofty pinnacles of unstained snow, among which the gods of Hindusthan are believed to dwell. From Landaur a sea of mist stretched from my feet, veiling, but not altogether concealing, ridge upon ridge of dark mountains, and even covering the lower portions of the distant great wall of snow. No sunlight as yet fell upon this dark yet transparent mist, in which the mountainous sur- face of the earth, with its black abysses, seemed sunk as in a gloomy ocean, bounded by a huge coral-reef. But above this, dazzling and glorious in the sunlight, high up in the deep blue heavens, there rose a white shining line of gigantic " icy summits reared in air." Nothing could have been more peculiar and striking than the contrast between the wild mountainous country below — visible, but darkened as in an eclipse FIRST VIEWS OF THE HIMALAYA. 45 — and these lofty domes and pinnacles of eternal ice and n$v$. No cloud or fleck of mist marred their surpass- ing radiance. Every glacier, snow-wall, icy aiguille, and smooth-rounded snow-field, gleamed with marvel- lous distinctness in the morning light, though here and there the sunbeams drew out a more overpowering brightness. These were the Jumnotri and Gangotri peaks, the peaks of Badrinath and of the Hindu Kailas ; the source of mighty sacred rivers ; the very centre of the Himalaya ; the Himmel, or heaven, of the Teuton Aryans as well as of Hindu mythology. Mount Meru itself may be regarded as raising there its golden front against the sapphire sky ; the Kailas, or " Seat of Happiness," is the ccelus of the Latins ; and there is the fitting, unapproachable abode of Brahma and of his attendant gods, Gandharvas and Bishis. But I now felt determined to make a closer acquaint- ance with these wondrous peaks — to move among them, upon them, and behind them — so I hurried from Masiiri to Simla by the shortest route, that of the carriage-road from the foot of the hills through the Sewaliks to Saharunpur ; by rail from thence to Am- bala, by carriage to Kalka, and from Kalka to Simla in njhanpan, by the old road, which, however, is not the shortest way for that last section, because a mail-cart now runs along the new road. Ambala, and the roads from thence to Simla, present a very lively scene in April, when the Governor-General, the Commander-in- Chief, the heads of the Supreme Government, their baggage and attendants, and the clerks of the different departments, are on their way up to the summer retreat of the Government of India. It is highly expedient for the traveller to avoid the days of the 46 THE ABODE OF SNOW. great rush, when it is impossible for him to find con- veyance of any kind at any price — and I did so ; but even coming in among the ragtag and bobtail, — if deputy commissioners and colonels commanding regi- ments — men so tremendous in their own spheres — may be thus profanely spoken of, — there was some difficulty in procuring carriage and bungalow accommodation ; and there was plenty of amusing company, — from the ton -weight of the post-office official, who required twenty groaning coolies to carry him, to the dapper little lieutenant or assistant deputy commissioner who cantered lightly along parapetless roads skirting pre- cipices ; and from the heavy-browed sultana of some Gangetic station, whose stern look palpably interrogates the amount of your monthly paggdr, to the more lily- like young Anglo-Indian dame or damsel, who darts at you a Parthian yet gentle glance, though shown "more in the eyelids than the eyes," as she trips from her jhanpan or Bareilly dandi into the travellers' bungalow. In the neighbourhood of Simla there is quite a col- lection of sanitariums, which are passed, or seen, by the visitors to that more famous place. The first of these, and usually the first stopping-place for the night of those who go by the old bridle-road from Kalka, is Kus- sowli, famous for its Himalayan beer, which is not unlike the ordinary beer of Munich. It is more rainy than Simla, more windy, and rather warmer, though not so high, and is chiefly occupied as a depot for the con- valescents of European regiments. Close to it rises the barren hill of Sonawar, where there is the (Sir Henry) Lawrence Asylum, for boys and girls of Euro- pean or mixed parentage, between 400 and 500 being FIEST VIEWS OP THE HIMALAYA. 47 usually supported and educated there at the expense of Government. Two other sanitariums, Dagshai (Dug- shaie) and Subathu (Subathoo), are also military depots ; the latter having large barracks, and houses with fine gardens and orchards. The British soldier improves greatly in strength and appearance on these heights ; but it is said he does not appreciate the advantages of being placed upon them. He does not like having to do so much for himself as falls to his lot when he is sent to the mountains. He misses the Indian camp- followers, who treat him below as a Chota Lord Sahib ; and, above all, he misses the varied life of the plains, and the amusement of the bazaar. I am afraid, too, mountains fail to afford him much gratification after his first burst of pleasure on finding himself among and upon them. " Sure, and I've been three times round that big hill to-day, and not another blessed thing is there to do up here!" I heard an Irish corporal indignantly exclaim. To the officers and their families the hills are a delightful change ; but to the undeveloped mind of Tommy Atkins they soon become exceedingly tire- some, though I believe the soldiers enjoy much being employed in the working parties upon the roads, where they have the opportunity of laying by a little money. The mountains between Kalka and . Simla are wild and picturesque enough, but they give no idea of either the grandeur or the beauty of the Himalaya ; and the traveller should be warned against being disappointed with them. No ranges of eternal snow are in sight ; no forests of lofty deodar ; no thick jungle, like that of the Terai ; no smiling valleys, such as the Dehra Doon. We have only the ascending of steep bare mountain- sides, in order to go down them on the other side, or to 48 THE ABODE OF SNOW. wind along bare mountain -ridges. The hills either rest on each other, or have such narrow gorges between, that there is no room for cultivated valleys ; and their faces are so steep, and so exposed to the action of the Indian rains, that all the soil is swept away from them; and so we have nothing to speak of but red slopes of rock and shingle, with only a few terraced patches of cultivation, and almost no trees at all, except in the immediate vicinity of the military stations. The worst parts of Syria would show to advantage compared with the long approach to Simla. I understand, however, that the actual extent of cultivation is considerably greater than one would readily suppose, and occasion- ally the creeping vine and the cactus do their best to clothe the rocky surface. On ascending the Simla ridge itself, however, a change comes over the scene. Hima- layan cedars and oaks cover the heights and crowd the glades ; rhododendrons, if it be their season of bloom, give quite a glory of colour ; and both white and red roses appear among the brambles and barberries of the thick underwood ; a healthy resinous odour meets one from the forest of mighty pine-trees, mingled with more delicate perfumes ; beds of fern with couches of moss lie along the roadside ; masses of cloud come rolling down the valleys from the rounded, thickly-wooded summit of Jakko ; deep glens, also finely wooded, fall suddenly before our feet : on the one side, over a con- fusion of hills and edifices of Subathu "and Dagshai, we have glimpses of the yellow burning Indian plain ; on the other, through the oak branches and the tower-like stems of deodar, there shines the long white line of eternal snow upon the giant mountains of Chamba, JLulu, and Spiti. It was a matter of life or death for FIBST VIEWS OF THE HIMALAYA. 49 me to reach those snowy solitudes, and 1 found the words of Mignon's song in ' Wilhelm Meister ' flitting' across my brain, and taking a new meaning :-r- " Know'st thou the land where towering cedars rise In graceful majesty to cloudless skies ; Where keenest winds from icy summits blow Across the deserts of eternal snow 1 Know'st thou it not ? Oh there ! oh there ! My wearied spirit, let us flee from care ! Know'st thou the tent, its cone of snowy drill Pitch'd on the greensward by the snow-fed rill ; Where whiter peaks than marble rise around, And icy ploughshares pierce the flower-clad ground ? Know'st thou it well ? Oh there ! oh there ! Where pipes the marmot — fiercely growls the bear ! Know'st thou the cliffs above the gorges dread, Where the great yaks with trembling footsteps tread, Beneath the Alp where frolic ibex play, While snow-fields sweep across the perilous way? Know'st thou it thus ? Go there ! go there ! Scale cliffs, and granite avalanches dare ! Know'st thou the land where man scarce knows decay, So nigh the realms of everlasting day ; Where gleam the splendours of unsullied truth, Where Diirga smiles, and blooms eternal youth ? Know'st thou it now ? Oh there ! oh there ! To breathe the sweetness of that heavenly air ! " D 50 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTEE VI. SIMLA SOCIETY. SIMLA MISUNDERSTOOD — AMUSEMENTS MORALS OVERWORK CONVENIENCE OP POSITION — INDIAN SOCIETY. According: to some people, and especially according to the house-proprietors of Calcutta, who view its attrac- tions with natural disfavour, Simla is a very sinful place indeed ; and the residence there, during summer, of the Viceroy and his members of Council, ought to be discouraged by a paternal Secretary of State for India. The "Capua of India" is one of the terms which are applied to it ; we hear sometimes of " the revels upon Olympus ; " and one of the papers seemed to imagine that to describe any official as "a malin- gerer at Simla " was sufficient to blast his future life. Even the roses and the rhododendrons, the strawberries and the peaches, of that " Circean retreat," come in for their share of moral condemnation, as contributing to the undeserved happiness of a thoughtless and volup- tuous community. For this view there is some show of justification. Simla has no open law courts to speak of, or shipping, or mercantile business, or any of the thousand incidents which furnish so much matter to the newspapers of a great city. The large amount of SIMLA SOCIETY. 51 important governmental business which is transacted there is seldom immediately made known, and is usu- ally first communicated to the public in other places. Hence there is little for the newspaper correspondents to write about except the gaieties of the place ; and so the balls and picnics, the croquet and badminton parties, the flirtations and rumoured engagements, are given an importance which they do not actually possess, and assume an appearance as if the residents of Simla had nothing to do but to enjoy themselves and " to chase the glowing hours with flying feet." But, in reality, the dissipation of Simla is not to be compared with the dissipation of a London season ; and if the doings of any English provincial town or large watering-place in its season were as elaborately . chronicled and looked up to and magnified, maliciously or otherwise, as those of the Indian Capua are, the record would be of a much more scandalous and more impos- ing kind. Indeed, unless society is to be put down alto- gether, or conducted on Quaker principles, it is difficult to see how the Anglo-Indians, when they go to the hills, could conduct themselves much otherwise than as they do; and probably more in Simla than anywhere else, there exists the feeling that life would be tolerable were it not for its amusements. After a hard day's office work, or after a picnic which involved a dozen miles' slow ride and a descent on foot for a thousand feet or so into a hot valley like that of Mashobra, it is not by any means pleasant to don full dress, to put waterproofs over that, and to go on horseback or be carried in an uncomfortable jhanpan for three or four miles, and in a raging storm of wind, thunder, and rain, out to a hurra khana, or big dinner, which is sue- 52 THE ABODE OF SNOW. ceeded in the same or in some other house by a larger evening party. Combinations such as this turn social enjoyment into a stern duty ; and as society expects that every woman shall do her duty, the ladies of Simla endure their amusements with the courage and spirit of Englishwomen who, for the sake of their sons and brothers and husbands, even more than their own sakes, are not going to be left behind in sacrificing aux convenances. But no one who knows what European society is will accuse Simla, of the present and preced- ing Viceroyships at least, of being an abode of dissipa- tion or of light morality. Wherever youth and beauty meet, there will, no doubt, be a certain amount of flirtation, even though the youth may be rather shaky from long years of hard work in the hot plains of India, or from that intangible malady which a friend styles as " too much East," and though the beauty be often pallid and passS; but anything beyond that hardly exists at Simla at all, and has the scantiest opportunity for developing itself. Over-worked secre- taries to Government, and elderly members of Council, are not given either to indulge in levity of conduct or to wink at it in others ; the same may be said of their ladies : and the young officers and civilians who go up to Simla for their leave are usually far-seeing young men who have an eye to good appointments, and, whatever their real character may be, are not likely to spoil their chances of success by attracting attention to themselves as very gay Lotharios. Moreover, at Simla, as almost everywhere in India, people live under glass cases ; everything they do is known to their native servants and to the native community, who readily communicate their knowledge of such matters to Euro- SIMLA SOCIETY. 53 peans. Before the Mutiny, and perhaps for some time after it, matters were somewhat different. From what- ever cause, the natives, though they saw the doings of the English in India, were as if they saw not, and, as a rule, communicated their knowledge on the subject only to each other. Now, they not only see, but speak freely enough ; and no immorality can be carried on in an Indian station without its being known all over the station, except, perhaps, in cases where the offend- ers are exceedingly popular with the natives, or are in very high powerful positions, or the party sinned against is very much disliked. Some sneers have been indulged in of late, even in Parliament, at the alleged industry of members of the Supreme Council and other officials to be found at Simla, as if a certain amount of hospitality and of mingling in society were incompatible with leading a laborious life. But if we except the soldiers and regi- mental officers, it will be found that most of the Eng- lish in India, be they civilians, staff officers, education- alists, surgeons, merchants, missionaries, or editors, are compelled to live very laborious days, whether they may scorn delights or not. A late Indian Gover- nor, accustomed to parliamentary and ministerial life in England, used to declare that he had never been required to work so hard in London as he was in his comparatively unimportant Presidency town. " Every one is overworked in India," was remarked to me by an Oudh Director of Public Instruction, who was him- self a notable instance of the assertion ; and I have often had occasion to notice how much overtasked Indian officials of the higher grades are, and that in a country where the mind works a good deal more reluc- 54 THE ABODE OE SNOW. tantly and slowly than in Europe, and where' there is very little pleasure in activity. of any kind for its own sake. It is absurd to suppose that the immense task of Indian government can be accomplished by the hand- ful of Englishmen there, without the greatest strain upon their individual energies. Not only have they to do all the ordinary work of a European Government — they have also themselves to fill the greater number of j udicial, revenue, and educational appointments, to con- struct public works, to direct the police, to accomplish great part of the work of governing which, in this country, is performed by hundreds of thousands of county gentlemen and city magnates ; and, over and above all that, it is expected that they shall save the Indian people from the consequences of famine, and be able to show every year that they have elevated that people in the scale of humanity. The supervision of all this arduous labour — the performance of a certain share of its details — the sitting in judgment on numer- ous appeal cases of the most various and complicated kind — the management of our relationships with great native States both within and without the Indian pen- insula — the settlement of important questions of the most difficult kind — and by far the greater share of the immense responsibility of governing an alien empire of nearly two hundred millions of people, — all this, and much more, falls upon the Supreme Government, whether it be located at Calcutta or at Simla ; and to compel it to remain nearly all the year in the unhealthy delta of the Ganges, would be to burden it with a good deal more than the straw which breaks the camel's back. It is obvious at Simla that the Supreme Government has selected for its summer residence about the best SIMLA SOCIETY. 55 place to be found among the outer Himalaya. The duties of the Government of India will not allow that Government to bury itself in the interior of the great mountains, where much more healthy spots are to be found, or to select any place of residence far distant from railway communication. As it is, the Viceroy, with his staff, and all the members of Council, and the secretaries to Government, could be at Ambala, on the great railway-line, in about twelve hours after leaving Simla, or even less on a push ; and fifty hours by rail would take them to Calcutta, or sixty hours to Bombay. They are in close proximity to the Panj&b, and have the railway from Ambala to Lahore and Miiltan, with steamers from the latter place down the Indus to its mouth or to Kotri, from whence there is a short line of railway to the port of Karachi. Delhi, Agra, and all the great cities of the north-west are within easy reach. They are in much closer proximity to any cities and districts likely to be dangerous than they would be at Calcutta, and are also much nearer to the places which give rise to difficult questions of policy. In old times it was different ; but now, with the rail and telegraph going over the land, it is of little importance in which of a hundred places the Indian Government may be situated ; but it is of great importance that its mem- bers should not be unnecessarily exposed to the depress- ing and destroying influence of the Indian hot season and rains. It only remains to remove the headquarters of Government from Calcutta to some more central position, such as Agra or Allahabad ; and I fancy only financial considerations stand in the way of that being done, for it would involve the erection of a number of new Government buildings. 56 THE ABODE OF SNOW. Society everywhere in India labours under very great disadvantages, and varies very much according to the character of its ever-changing leaders. Sir Emerson Tennent has observed that it is " unhappily the ten- dency of small sections of society to decompose when separated from the great vital mass, as pools stagnate and putrefy when cut off from the invigorating flow of the sea;" and he adds that the process is variable, so that a colonial society which is repulsive to-day may be attractive to-morrow, or a contrary change may take place with one or two departures or new arrivals. The same holds good in India ; and though Indian society can boast of some superiority to colonial (a superiority which is amusingly asserted on board mail- steamers), it has very great defects of its own, and in certain circumstances degenerates into the intolerable. One tendencv of life in India is to create an immense amount of conceit, and to make men assume airs of superiority, not because of any superiority of mind or character, or on account of great services rendered to the State, but simply because long residence in the country, or in some particular district of it, has given them high appointments, or the advantage as regards local knowledge. Then, though military society has many good points, "discipline must be observed;" and it was in perfect good faith, and expressing his own opinion as well as that which he believed to be generally entertained, that an old Indian remarked to me, " We don't think much of any one's opinions here until he is a lieutenant-colonel at least." Of course in all countries opinions are often measured by the posi- tion of the spokesman ; but in Europe that is not so much the case as in India, and in our happier climes SIMLA SOCIETY. 57 it is easy to shun the society of snobs, whether social or intellectual, without becoming a social pariah. This social tendency is not corrected, but developed rather than otherwise, by a close bureaucracy such as the Indian Civil Service — and there is no other element in the community sufficiently strong to correct it ; while it is almost justified by the extraordinary effect India has in rapidly producing intense conceit and insufferable presumption among Europeans of a low order of mind and character, whatever classes of the community they may belong to. Nothing struck me more in that country than the contrast between its elevating and even ennobling effects on those Europeans whose minds were above a certain level, and its exactly contrary effects on almost all those who were below that level. What, then, Indian society has specially to struggle against are two apparently opposite tendencies, — a slavish respect for mere position, and for exceptional power and knowledge in particular directions ; and, on the other hand, excessive individual conceit and pre- sumption. But these evil tendencies (which, curiously enough, belong also to the Indian native character) are not opposed in any such way as to counteract each other. On the contrary, they are apt to foster and inflame each other; because the old Indian justly sees that he has opposed to him an immense deal of ignorant presumption which ought to be severely re- pressed, while the democrat and the griffin instinct- ively feel that they are oppressed by an amount of tyrannical old-fogyism which would not be allowed to exist in any other country. A great deal of harm arises, also, from the scarcity of those little agreeable details of life which make the time pass pleasantly in 58 THE ABODE OF SNOW.. this country. Here we trouble ourselves little about our neighbours ; but in India if a man is not friendly with his neighbour, or even if he does not know him, he is apt to begin hating him. The more acute English travellers see a little of this state of matters ; but everything is made as pleasant as possible to trav- ellers in India with good introductions ; and it is ne- cessary to reside for some time in the country in order to see these defects, and to understand what an abso- lute nonentity a man is in himself, and how entirely his importance, his accomplishments, his character, his value, and his very raison d'Stre, depend on the appointment which he holds. I do not at all wonder at that old sergeant in a very out-of-the-way place in the jungle, who, on being asked what he did there, answered, with some surprise, " Why, sir, I fills the sitivation." In Anglo-India you not only fill the sit- uation, it is the situation that fills you, and makes you what you are, and without which you would immedi- ately collapse. These observations are necessary to explain the great superiority of Simla society, when I knew it, over the society to be found in nearly all other places in India. That superiority would not be accounted for merely by the number of high officers collected there whom a pro- cess of selection had brought to the front. In a com- munity such as that of India, the two strong evil ten- dencies which I have just noticed as specially existing there, are most effectually kept in check when the highest appointments are held by men of high intellect and good disposition, using the latter phrase so as to exclude alike the pharisee and the prodigal. Whenever the leaders of society are essentially commonplace men, SIMLA SOCIETY. 59 whose only claim to distinction is that they fill the situation, society degrades to a state which is almost inconceivable in Europe. Everything is lost sight of except the cunning faculty of serving the incompetent ruling powers so as to secure good appointments from their hands. Then rises supreme an incompetent, un- intellectual, yet unscrupulous and overbearing element, which has no sympathetic relationship to the great sacri- fices, the difficulties, and the future of our position in India ; where true gentlemanliness disappears, intellect is undervalued, and genius is regarded as something like a stray panther or tiger. It is then, that while the people of India are treated with excessive and inexcus- able arrogance, at the same time the most necessary safeguards against mutiny and rebellion are carelessly neglected ; and when popular commotions do appear, they are allowed to gather head and to reach a danger- ous height before anything like effective attempts are made to deal with them. 60 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTER YIL SIMLA CELEBRITIES. LORD NOETHBROOK THE BENGAL FAMINE GENERAL POLICY UM- BRA INDICA — SIR RICHARD TEMPLE SIR WILLIAM MUIR LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA COLONEL DILLON — MR C. U. AITCHISON MR CHAPMAN, ETC. In Simla, last year, the state of matters was very differ- ent from that which I have just described. In both the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief India had the good fortune to possess able and experienced noblemen, who thoroughly understood and rose to the level of the higher responsibilities of their position. This alone was sufficient to elevate the whole tone of the society about them, in a community which so readily answers to the guidance of its official leaders ; and they had around them a considerable number of able, conscien- tious, and high-minded Englishmen. I was only at Simla during the month of May, but had sufficient .opportunity of observing that Lord Northbrook might be compared not unfavourably with many of the greater Governor-Generals of India ; and that the instinct of the people of the country, which had led them to esteem and trust him almost from the commencement of his Viceroyship, was by no means an erroneous one. They SIMLA CELEBRITIES. 61 are extremely acute, and wonderfully just judges of character, though in such a case I cannot attach much importance to their judgment ; and I knew that their opinion on this subject was shared by many of the Englishmen who were best acquainted with India and most devoted to its interests. If the new Viceroy did not equal Lord Mayo in charm of personal manner, and in power of setting every one around him to work energetically on their own lines, he possessed, what is more specially needed at present, more than Lord Mayo's power of holding his great officers in hand, and of refusing to allow their specialties and crotchets being run to excess and developed to the detriment of India and of the imperial interests of Great Britain. If he had not all Lord Elgin's experience and large- minded dealing with the outlying questions of Eng- lish policy, he brought to bear upon them the caution, the trained habits, the ceaseless thoughtful energy of an English statesman, in a manner which colonial and Indian officials have little opportunity of prac- tising themselves in. If the insinuations of some of the newspaper correspondents be true, he may be defi- cient in Lord William Bentinck's aristocratic calmness under criticism and judicial appreciation of the value of the Indian press. But it is certain that India has in him a Governor-General of high character and of pure- minded unselfish disposition, which it can greatly trust. I could not but be struck during my stay at Simla with his genuineness of character, his clearness of vision, and his unaffected kindness and consideration. Even in two mistakes which, as it seemed to me, he has made, his errors were almost redeemed by his manner of commit- ting them. I allude to his approval of the conduct of 62 THE ABODE OP SNOW. the Panjab officials towards Mr Downes of the Church Mission, who made an attempt to reach Kafiristan through the Kaubul territory ; and to a social question which arose between Government House and Major Fenwick of the ' Civil and Military Gazette : ' but in both these cases Lord Northbrook acted in an open manner, which excited the respect even of some who most differed from his conclusions. And though he is not infallible and is hasty, many errors of judgment are not to be expected from him, and are more likely to arise from his strenuously carrying out a mistaken policy which he may think he is not called on to ques- tion or consider, and from a supposed necessity of back- ing up the action of his subordinates, than where he himself originates the action. For there is a white light in his mind which illuminates every object on which it shines — a searching light, proceeding from the Viceroy's own mind, and not from the mere focussing of other rays. This power which he possesses of lighting up a subject is the more remarkable as existing in conjunc- tion with his precise business habits. It struck me there was a tendency in his Excellency's mind to draw rather too decided straight lines even where conflicting interests interlap ; but, truly, if he were to begin pondering over matters as a many-sided Coleridge might do, the public business of India would come to a dead lock within twenty-four hours. If he had once formed an opinion on any subject, I doubt if it would be easy for him to renounce or modify it — though those who know his Excellency well say that he is always ready to do so whenever new facts relating to the matter come before him : but this rather supports my view ; because in most great questions the difficulty is not so much to get at SIMLA CELEBRITIES. 63 the facts as to perceive their relationships, and to take these latter into one comprehensive judicial view. The amount of business which he goes through is remark- able ; and more than Lord Amherst was, he is entitled to say, with some surprise, " The Emperor of China and I govern half the human race, and yet we find time to breakfast ; " for he is exceedingly regardful of the courtesies, and of even something more than the cour- tesies, of his trying and responsible position. We do not hear so much of Lord Northbrook's feats on horse- back as we did of those of his predecessor ; but they are not less remarkable. It is only about fifty-two miles from Simla to Kotgarh ; but the nature of the bridle- road is such, and it runs along the top of so many pre- cipices, that it is rather a feat to ride over it in less than a day ; and I have also heard of his lordship riding from Chini to Narkanda in a dangerously short period. I may also note the Viceroy's habit of walking about unguarded, accompanied by a single friend ; and have heard of his being seen alone with his son, or some other youth, after dark, close to the Ganges, near Barrackpore. This may be thought unwise courage : but, though un- doubtedly courage, I am not sure that it is unwise ; for really life is not worth having on the condition of its being constantly guarded. The class of men who violently assassinate in India admire this kind of cour- age so much that they will not readily strike at it ; and most cases of assassination which have occurred in that country have been committed in spite of the close pro- tection of guards. It is doubtful, however, if it be wise to have Simla so unprotected as it appears to be. I do not remember seeing a single European soldier there, unless the Governor-General's band be accounted as 64 THE ABODE OF SNOW. such. The only representatives of law and order visible were two European police-officers, a few native police- men, and the Govenor-General's native body-guard. It would not have been difficult to have extinguished the whole Government of India in one night ; and a danger of that sort, however remote and unlikely, ought to be guarded against. Nothing in India was held to be more unlikely than the Mutiny — until it occurred, and even after it had commenced. At the close of the Parliament of 1874 her Majesty acknowledged the great services of Lord Northbrook, in connection with the Bengal famine, in a manner which could scarcely have come from a Ministry opposed to that which appointed him, unless his "strenuous exertions" had really merited very "high approbation." It is now seen by the public generally that he has met the great and disturbing disaster of the famine in a masterly manner. When he was exert- ing himself to the utmost, it was inexpedient for the Viceroy to speak of the measures he was taking to meet the coming calamity, and advantage was taken of his mouth being sealed, and of his having wisely refused to prohibit the export of rice, to criticise and assail him. Whether intentionally or not, an impres- sion was created that the Viceroy did not see the magnitude of the danger, and would not of himself take energetic and sufficient steps to meet it. Highly sensational telegrams and articles to this effect appeared in rapid succession ; and it was left out of mind, that on the very first report of danger, Lord Northbrook hurried down from Simla to Calcutta before the con- clusion of the uhhealthiest month of the year, and at once brought all his great energy to bear on the subject SIMLA CELEBRITIES. 65 of the famine. He could not proclaim from the house- tops any intention of buying up millions on millions of tons of rice, and, if necessary, of feeding two and a half millions of people for an indefinite period ; because, to have done so would have vastly increased the difficulty by making the bunnias throughout India buy and store up rice right and left, and by creating a great movement into the famine districts of people desirous of partici- pating in the bounty of Government. Also, as the event has shown, while making perfectly sufficient arrangements to meet the coming famine, the Viceroy refused, on sound economic grounds, to interfere with and check private trade by prohibiting the export of rice from Bengal; and this was immediately seized upon as a proof that he did not understand the magni- tude of the coming crisis. It was most fortunate for India that at this crisis a thoughtful statesman was at the head of affairs, and one of sufficient force of char- acter to' disregard the outcry which was raised against him. An excellent authority on the spot, as quoted by the Calcutta correspondent of the ' Times,' has well said : " It will not be denied that had it not been for the action taken by Government, the mortality would have been very great. But I am convinced that it is equally true that had Government action been of a nature to check private trade to any extent, the result would also have been calamitous. ... I firmly believe that had Government, last November, pro- claimed to the world that they intended to rely solely on their own unaided efforts to save the people from starvation, the result would have been deplorable, both financially and in respect to the loss of life which would have ensued." This is another very important 66 THE ABODE OF SXOW. view of the matter, and is by no means opposed to what I have said about the bunnias ; because they would have bought and stored grain in order to sell it to the Government, rather than with a view to the diffi- cult and risky operation of conveying it into the famine districts. The Viceroy had also to guard against the danger of inviting or allowing the people within the famine circle to rely too much on Government aid, which the natives of India are always most ready to do. The Bengal famine of 1874 has now become a matter of history, and it is difficult to know whether to admire most the manner in which Lord Northbrook and Sir Kichard Temple have dealt with it so as to prevent almost any loss of life, or their success in managing the relief operations so as to avoid pauperising, or other- wise demoralising, the people, and so as to bring them readily back to their ordinary industrial operations. The first of these feats was entirely new in the history of India : the second was still more difficult of accom- plishment ; its success presents both rulers and ruled in the most pleasing light, and is a new illustration of the readiness of the people of India to appreciate and conjoin with action on the part of Englishmen, which is at once sympathetic and decided. Large powers are necessary to deal with them in a satisfactory manner, and, to that end, these powers must be exercised with knowledge of the necessities and wishes of the people, and yet with a confidence and decision which are only accepted and only tolerable when springing from a just conviction that the action undertaken and insisted upon is in accordance with the highest intelligence and morality. SIMLA CELEBRITIES. 67 But, though unwilling to enter here on the general subject of Indian policy, I must guard against appear- ing, even for a moment, to support the limited view which some of Lord Northbrook's admirers and critics take of the course which is marked out for him as Governor-General of our great Eastern empire, and must make a few general remarks which, though brief, are of cardinal moment. According to that view, the only matter of essential importance for India is to re- duce its expenditure, and to keep that steadily within the limits of the revenue which may be afforded by the present recognised and understood taxation. It is as- sumed, that if that only be done, everything will go well — there will be no disaffection in India ; and a grateful populace will ornament us with garlands of yellow flowers, feast us upon pan stipdri, and shower blessings upon our honoured heads. I believe that a greater mistake could not be made, and that this would be only another side of Lord Lawrence's policy of " masterly imbecility," which has thrown Central Asia into the hands of Eussia. Economy and strict financial management are very necessary in India, and the Vice- roy has clearly seen that, and has addressed himself to the task with extraordinary skill, energy, self-abnega- tion, and success. But if there is a matter on which the people of India are likely to overvalue his services and urge him to excess, it is on that of financial econ- omy. No one admires more than I do their many admirable qualities, but among these financial wisdom cannot be reckoned. They have no objections to a native prince levying the most enormous and oppres- sive taxation in very hurtful time-honoured ways, and spending it in the most reckless, useless, and debauch- 68 THE ABODE OF SNOW. ing manner. He may take half the produce of their fields, and lavish it on dancing-girls, devotees, beggars, and in support of degrading superstitions, and they are perfectly satisfied ; but let the English Government incur a productive new expenditure, or impose a new tax of the least hurtful kind, and they are the most oppressed and afflicted beings in the world. We hear a great deal about India being a poor country — and that is a statement which should be taken with much qualifi- cation, for the concealed or hoarded treasure of India must be something enormous ; but in so far as India is a poor country, how and why is it poor ? It is poor, not from any sterility of its soil or scantiness of its products, or from any incapacity of labouring or acquir- ing knowledge among its people : in these respects it is one of the most favoured lands on earth. It is poor because it loves to lie down and dream rather than to rise up and work ; because it hoards its wealth — buries it in the ground or sits upon it — in preference to turn- ing it to profitable use ; because, except where the pride of noble families produces female infanticide, it not only exercises no restraint upon the increase of population, but even, in accordance with its religious ideas, regards any increase, however reckless, as par- taking of the merit of a religious act ; and because it is absolutely eaten up by non-productive classes of .people ■ — priests, devotees, beggars, retainers, family depend- ants, and princes and nobles of many fallen dynasties. The most energetic and the richest country in the world could not stand what India not only bears but welcomes, without bringing itself to poverty; and if all the English Eaj is to do for India is to add another class of unfortunates to it in the "shape of overworked SIMLA CELEBRITIES. 69 and underpaid European officials, with their descend- ants, then I can only say that the English Eaj is extremely likely to have soon to make way for that of Russia or Germany. The essential consideration has been lost sight of, that either we ought to be in India as a nation, in our imperial capacity, or ought not to be there at" all. A spurious philanthropy (the real motive of which has too often been the difficulty the civilians have had in dealing with the independency of character of outside Englishmen, and with their some- times irrational and brutal humours) has only resulted in pushing forward a class of natives who exercise no influence over the people, are entirely mistrusted by them, and who cannot but ^regard us with hatred. At the same time we have ignored the primary duty of pro- viding that the work of governing and elevating India shall not be ruinous to those who are engaged in it, or to their descendants. Hence the creation of a large and ever- increasing class of poor whites and half-castes, who are a scandal to the Christian name and the white race, having been forced by circumstances to depths of misery and depravity unknown among the jungle tribes ; and hence the painful fact that the large towns of India contain a number of respectable, fairly edu- cated English and Eurasian people who are at their wits' end how to live. The financial question is chiefly a negative one, meaning the suppression of jobbery and folly. The lasting reputation of a Governor-General will depend on the services he has rendered in saving India from itself, in developing its grand capacities, and in making it an integral and valuable constituent of the British empire. A good deal of the economy which has been pursued in India of late years is anal- 70 THE ABODE OP SNOW. ogous to that which is described in the British sailor's forcible but homely phrase of " losing a ship to save a halfpenny worth of tar." Our Indian policy is fraught with extreme danger ; and if persisted in, it may involve not only a terrible catastrophe, but even the ruin of an empire. I am entitled to say so, and to refrain from saying any more on the subject; because, on a previous visit to India, when quite a young man, I foretold the impending catastrophe of the Mutiny, and only got laughed at for my pains. I shall only say, on one point, that it can only end in hideous ruin to go on providing for famines, without also effectually discouraging the reckless increase of population in India. The famine has also vindicated the character of a high officer who last year was looked upon with not a little disfavour. Chiefly owing to his connection with the income-tax, no one was more unpopular in India than Sir Kichard Temple, then the financial member of Council, but now the Lieutenant-Governor of Ben- gal ; and if he were the popularity-hunter which some people fancy him to be, he would have taken care not to associate himself with so obnoxious a tax. In vari- ous appointments, but especially as Secretary to the Panjab Government and as Commissioner of the Cen- tral Provinces, Sir Eichard had proved himself to be an officer of very great ability and of the rarest energy. In the Central Provinces, development, which was forced on by circumstances, and which might well have occupied a century, had to be provided for and regulated within a few years ; and this was admirably effected by the Commissioner, so as to gain for him the very highest repute as an organiser and adminis- SIMLA CELEBRITIES. 7l trator. It is sometimes said that he has great powers of using other men's brains ; but that is really one of the most important qualities for a high Indian official, as for all leaders of mankind, and I never heard the slightest complaint made on that score by the men whose brains he had used. On the contrary, they said he had made a legitimate and the best use of their work, and was always ready to advance the fortunes of those who served under him — a generosity which is seldom, if ever, displayed by humbugs and men of small calibre. I thoroughly believe that the income- tax was a most unsuitable tax for India, and that Lord Northbrook rendered a great service by putting an end to it, let me hope, for all time; because it brought in an insignificant sum (to the Government), did not touch the really wealthy classes, and caused an im- mense deal of oppression and irritation : and I should doubt the legislative capacity and higher statesman- ship of any one who upheld the income-tax in India, and do not think Sir Eichard Temple showed to ad- vantage as a financier and member of Council; but the Bengal famine has happily served to display his great powers. One of his invaluable qualities as an admin- istrator is his extraordinary and almost instinctive knowledge of character. He is said — and I can well believe it — never to make a mistake in choosing his agents, almost never to overlook a man of ability who comes within his sphere, or to set men to unsuitable work. One of the correspondents of the home press, seeing Sir Eichard at work in the famine districts, well remarked that nature seemed to have intended him for the command of a great army. His reticence and almost taciturnity struck me as a very agreeable 72 THE ABODE OE SNOW. variety from the pomposity of certain Bombay officials, who turned up the whites of their eyes and really appeared to become ill when any one whom they imagined did not stand upon their own fancied level spoke to them consecutively for half a minute. Sir Richard does not imagine that wisdom of every kind, or even a knowledge of India, is confined to his own bosom, and is more anxious to learn the opinions of others than to volunteer his own. This is a very fre- quent characteristic of great men of action ; and an- other impression which they leave, and one he conveys, is that of possessing a large fund of reserve power. I may add that, like Lord Northbrook, he practises as an amateur painter, besides having time to take his breakfast; and some of his sketches struck me as showing a very remarkable power of understanding and artistically reproducing the life of trees. He has also done much to promote archaeological research in India, and almost every kind of intellectual develop- ment. The present financial member of Council is Sir "William Muir, whom I have already alluded to in his former position as Governor of the North- West Pro- vinces. No member of the Civil Service is more generally respected, or could be more valuable in the consultative department of the Indian Government. An accomplished oriental scholar, especially in Mo- hammedan literature and history, he is equally distin- guished as an administrator. Though Sir William is cautious, and what is called " a safe man," yet as a Lieutenant-Governor he showed that, when his ripe judgment was convinced, he could take a course of his own in direct opposition to the strong tendencies of SIMLA CELEBRITIES. 73 the Supreme Government. Notably this was the case in regard to the income-tax, to the oppressive work- ing of which he called attention in the most effec- tive manner, at a time when the higher powers were determined that it should appear only in a roseate light. In the North-West Provinces, however, while per- sonally liked, much animosity was excited, especially among non - official Englishmen, by what was consi- dered to be his undue favouritism towards what are called the educated natives. I was somewhat sur- prised at the depth and fierceness of the resentment which had thus been excited. One man, in a respon- sible position, went so far as to say that the next rebellion in India would be on the part of the Euro- peans and Eurasians, and that, when such a movement arose, every English soldier who had been six months in the country would be on their side. This may appear very absurd to Indian officials, who know little of the passions raging in the hearts of the people round them, whether natives or Europeans ; but I think there is something in it, and that it correctly enough indicates the existence of feelings which are not without some ground. Another remark of this man, who was educated, shrewd, and had a wide and varied experience of the world, is worth noting, with- out attaching to it more importance than it deserves. He said : " The civilians think that India was made for themselves and the natives alone, and it is becoming every day more impossible for non-official Englishmen to live in the country ; but the natives are discovering that the civilians are quite unnecessary also, and it will end in our all having to go together— the English- "74 THE ABODE OF SNOW. men to England, and the natives to massacre, famine, and pestilence." Of the Commander-in-Chief in India, Lord Napier of Magdala, it would be difficult to write in terms of too high praise. His capacities as a soldier are well known, having been abundantly proved in India, Abyssinia, and China ; and his thoughtful care for the wellbeing of the troops under his command, and great consideration for the most of those with whom he comes in contact, have made him hosts of friends. I say " the most " advisedly ; for Lord Napier" has the character of being a good hater. As Lord Northbrook also, he has a very keen sense in detecting humbug in any one — perhaps too keen a sense for the present state of human development — and is apt to act upon it occasionally in a manner unpleasant to the person in whom he detects it ; but that is only after he has made up his mind against a man. I had come across his Excellency before, on the march to Peking, and was struck by his vivid recollection, after so many years, of the China Englishmen who accompanied the Peking exhibition, and by his happy manner of sketch- ing off their peculiarities. One man was " always producing dead birds out of his innumerable pockets ;" another " had a way of disappearing for days among the Chinese, and throwing the whole expedition into anxiety for his safety," — and so on. Notwithstanding his long and laborious services in India, there seemed no failing either of mental power or physical endurance in the Commander-in-Chief ; and the officers at Simla said he could easily take the field again, as his conduct at the camps of exercise sufficiently proved. ■ He has the eagle eye of a great soldier, and when he retires SIMLA CELEBRITIES. 75 from India, he may render great services to the State in connection with the English army and its organisa- tion. I should think no commander ever was a greater favourite with his troops, or knew them better, or knew better how to manage them, or devoted himself to their welfare in a more persistent or more enlight- ened manner. At the dinner given to Lord Napier by the Anglo-Indians in London, on the occasion of his having been created a peer, he said, in effect, and almost in these words, — " I landed in India a young officer of Engineers, with only my sword, and now it has come to this." There was a simplicity and an honest healthy pride in the remark, which had nothing of vanity in it. I have met men who thought that, as peerages go, he had got his peerage rather easily by the Abyssinian war ; but I never heard any even of these critics grudge it to him in the least. It is true that the China war of 1860 was scarcely less" difficult or brilliant, and was productive of more important results ; and the fact that Sir Hope Grant got no high reward for his skilful and humane conduct of it goes some way to prove that Sir Robert Napier was fortunate in the time and circumstances of his Abyssinian cam- paign ; but he was under a great temptation to enter on that campaign without the means necessary to carry it to a successful conclusion. Many an officer would have snatched . at the opportunity without stip- ulating for all the requisite means ; and, even as it was, the most skilful use of them was necessary to accomplish the end which the expedition had in view, if not to save it from absolute ruin. It should be borne in mind, also, that Lord Napier's command in Abyssinia was only the last of a series of brilliant and valuable 76 THE ABODE OF SNOW. services which had commenced almost from his landing at Calcutta, fresh from Addiscombe, forty -six years ago. In the battles and sieges of the Panjab ; as chief engineer of that province, when so much had* to be done upon its transfer to English rule; as chief en- gineer of Lord Clyde's army during the Mutiny ; in the pursuit of Tantia Topee; in China, where _ he planned the capture of the Taku Forts, and was second in command of the expedition; and in Bombay as Commander-in-Chief, — the officer of whom I write had rendered services which might have made half-a-dozen great reputations ; so that, even as peerages go, his was fully due by the time he had taken the heights of Magdala. I was much indebted to his Excellency and his military secretary, Colonel Dillon, for maps, ad- vice, &c, in regard to my Tibetan journey ; and their genuine kindness of disposition at once established confidence and gave a charm to all intercourse with them. The relationship between these two distin- guished officers has been a long and close one. Colonel Dillon's popularity is somewhat diminished by the fact that devotion to his work hardly allows of his going into society ; but his value to the Commander- in-Chief and to the Indian army is very great. Of the other Simla celebrities whom I had the plea- sure to meet with I can only write briefly. Mr C. U. Aitchison, the Foreign Secretary, has more of the Euro- pean statesman about him than almost any other Indian civilian ; and one cannot fail to see that he has a great deal of weight of brain, and of that quality which is most easily described by the phrase "long-headedness." He was one of the very first of the competition wallahs. Some very excellent men came forward at first under SIMLA CELEBRITIES. 77 the competition system, and continue to do so occasion- ally ; but of late the system has become one of cram, and the best men from the universities and elsewhere are chary of entering into a competition in which suc- cess can only be hoped for by disregarding the aims and methods of a liberal education, and putting one's self under a system of mental development analogous to the physical training which Strasburg geese are com- pelled to undergo. Lord Dalhousie, who had a keen eye for young men of ability, selected Mr Aitchison as his private secretary at an early period of the latter's career, and few positions can afford so wide and com- plete a view of the methods and results of the Indian Government. The heavy crushing work of the Foreign Office has been borne by Mr Aitchison in a manner which proves his tenacity of purpose and strength of constitution ; but there is too much reason to believe that its overwhelming demands had undermined the strength of Mr Le Poer Wynne, one of the most accom- plished and promising of the younger Indian officials, whose sudden death a year ago deprived Mr Aitchison of one of the most useful and valued of his associates in the Foreign Office. Mr Chapman, the Financial Secretary, is a fine specimen of the bluff, independent English gentleman, who will take his own way wher- ever possible, and fearlessly avow and carry out his opinions. He also upheld the unhappy income-tax ; but in other questions his usually sound judgment and independence of character have proved most useful, especially in the stand he has made against the Eitual- i s t s — or Anglo-Catholics, as they prefer to be called — who had become more daring and triumphant in India than they had ever been in England. Mr Forsyth, 78 THE ABODE OP SNOW. when I was at Simla, was preparing for his second Yar- kand mission, and I did no more than make his acquaint- ance, but was struck by a certain lofty protesting man- ner he had ; for he was still under the cloud of the Kuka executions, and of the sentence of removal from his com- missionership, and of general disapproval of his conduct in connection with the Kukas, passed upon him by the Government of India, when its ruling spirit was Sir John Strachey, in the period between the Viceroyships of Lord Mayo and Lord Northbrook. The ex-commis- sioner, however, has now performed his pilgrimage ; he has washed away his sins, real or alleged, in the sacred waters of the Yangi Hissar, and, as Sir Thomas For- syth, clothed in the garments of a Knight of the Star of India, he can move again freely in the arena of Indian politics. I saw a good deal more of the la- mented Dr Stoliczka, and well remember his saying, in a common foreign idiom, " I am awfully glad that I have been allowed to go to Yarkand." He was destined never to return from the sterile regions of Central Asia ; but perhaps, as human life goes, even that was a reason for being glad. I was surprised to find so youthful a figure in the vir sapiens, doctissimus, Dr W. W. Hunter, who has been harassing the souls of Indian officials and editors by his system of spelling? which, however, is his only in that he has modified a long-existent system, practically applied it, and carried it out for the Gov- ernment. This gentleman is as agreeable in society as in his charming books, and it is only to be regretted that he does not trust more entirely to his culture and talents for both social and official success. Major Fen- wick, the journalist, who makes Simla his headquarters, is a man of bold, independent spirit, with an immense SIMLA CELEBRITIES. 79 amount of humour, a lively imagination, and great lit- erary knowledge. In the Eev. John Fordyce of the Union Church I found an old friend, who had created a high reputation for himself by his combination of prudence and zeal. Nor can I omit to make mention of Mr Edmund Downs, whose courageous attempt to reach Kafiristan in disguise had brought him into pub- lic notice ; and of two Bombay officers, Colonels Ker and Farquharson, who did a great deal to make my stay at Simla agreeable. 80 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTER VIII. SIMLA AS A SANITARIUM. COMMENCEMENT OF SIMLA — LORD DALHOUSIE POPULATION ADVAN- TAGES AND DEFECTS OF THE CLIMATE A STARTING-POINT FOR THE HIMALAYA " NO SUPPLIES " CENTRAL ASIAN ROUTES FROM SIMLA. The hill on which Simla is situated was first made known by the visit to it in 1 8 1 7 of the brothers Gerard, two Scotch officers who were engaged in the survey of the Sutlej valley ; and the first house was built upon it in 1822 by the political agent of the district. About that latter year it was purchased, by exchange, by the British Government, from the Rana of Keonthul, and made into a regular sanitarium. The first Governor- General who visited it was Lord Amherst, in 1827. Jacquemont described it as having sixty houses for Europeans in 1831 ; and Lord Auckland was the first Governor-General to spend a summer there — that of 1841. The annexation of the Panjdb gave a great impetus to the development of this hill-station. Lord Dalhousie liked to establish the headquarters of his government there in summer, because that allowed him to reside much during the rains in the drier region of Chini, which suited his health. Lord Lawrence ac- SIMLA AS A SANITARIUM. 81 cepted the Viceroyship on the express condition that he should be allowed to spend the summer on the hills, Simla being the most convenient spot ; and thus the arrangement has continued, except that the exigencies of the Bengal famine led the Supreme Government to remain in Calcutta this year. In the height of the season Simla has now usually a population of about fifteen hundred Europeans, and as many thousand natives. In a former chapter I have briefly described its general appearance and surrounding scenery. One of its drawbacks is a deficiency in the supply of water ; but this might easily be remedied, at some expense, and probably would be if the house-proprietors were assured that the Supreme Government intended to con- tinue its summer residence there ; though I do not quite see how that doubt should be allowed to have so much influence, because many of them argue that the example of Masiiri has shown that Simla might flourish even if it were unvisited by any Government, and might thus secure a less uncertain income. The permanent residents of the place are enthusias- tic in their praises of its winter climate, and that is really the only season of the year in which Simla is calculated to do much positive good to invalids, the cold then not being extreme, though it has been known to fall ten degrees below freezing-point, while the air is still, dry, and both invigorating and exhilarating ; but it is as a retreat in the hot weather of April and May, and of the rains, that it is most used^ and I do not know that much can be said in its praise as a sanitarium dur- ing that long season. Of course it is a great thing to escape from the fiery heat of the Indian plains in April and May, and from their muggy oppressive warmth F 82 THE ABODE OP SNOW. during the five succeeding months ; but that is about the extent of the sanitary advantages of Simla in sum- mer, and the climate then has serious drawbacks of its own. I derived no benefit from it, nor did any of the invalids there with whom I was acquainted ; and its effects upon some of them were such that they had to leave before the stay they had marked out for them- selves had been accomplished. In May the climate was • exceedingly changeable, being sometimes oppressively hot, but for the most part cold and damp, with thick mists and fierce storms of thunder and rain. And when the great rains of the south-west monsoon set in upon Simla, there must be few invalids indeed for whom it can be a suitable place of residence ; and I should think at that season, or for nearly four months of the year, a state of almost robust health must be necessary in order to derive benefit or enjoyment from a stay there. It would be well if more invalids at that season followed the example of the great Lord Dalhousie and went up to Chini, or to some other place, where they are close to eternal snow, and are protected by a snowy range from the Indian monsoon. Whether the traveller be in search of health, or sport, or sublime scenery, there is no other place from which he can have such convenient access as Simla to the in- terior of the Himalaya, and to the dry elevated plains of Central Asia. Eoutes proceed from it up to Chinese Tibet on the east ; to Ladak and the upper Indus valley ; beyond L&dak to the Karakorum Mountains and Yarkand ; to Spiti, Lahaul, Zanskar, and all the elevated provinces of the Western Himalaya ; to Chamba and all the other hill states to the north-west ; and to Kashmir, Little Tibet, G-ilgit Yassin, and the SIMLA AS A SANITARIUM. • 83 " Eoof of the World " itself. Indeed, now that the Russians have established a post-office at Kashgar, it would be quite possible, and tolerably safe, to walk from Simla to St Petersburg, or to the mouth of the Amur on the Pacific coast. Those who wish particu- larly to know what can be done from Simla will do well to examine the " Route Map for the Western Himalayas, Kashmir, Panjdb, and Northern India," compiled by Major Montgomerie of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. In the appendix to this map he gives no less than sixty-three routes, almost all of which either proceed from Simla or are connected with it by intervening routes. It will soon be seen, from the Major's remarks on these various routes, that the travel- ler in the Himalaya must lay aside his ordinary ideas as to roads and house accommodation. Such refer- ences as the following to the roads and halting-places for the night, occur with a frequency which is rather alarming to the uninitiated : " No supplies ; " " ditto, and no fuel ; " " cross three miles of glacier ; " " very bad road ; " " ditto, and no supplies ; " " road impass- able, for ponies;" "rope-bridge;" "cross the river twice — very difficult to ford ; " " Kirghiz summer camp — yaks, &c, supplied ; " " site of a deserted village ; " " muddy water only can be got by digging holes ; " "grass doubtful, no fuel; " "ford river, water up to waist ■; " " cross river on mussaks ; " " generally a Tartar or Boti camp;" "cross the Tagalank Pass, 18,042 feet ; " and " cross several torrents." The great routes from Simla are those which -lead to Chinese Tibet, to Ladak, and to Kashmir, and run from north-east to north-west. The road towards Chinese Tibet, at least as far as Chini and Pangay in the Sutlej 84 ■ THE ABODE OP SNOW. valley, is that which is most affected by tourists, because it is a cut road on which a jhanpan can be carried, and because it has bungalows which were con- structed for the road engineers, and are available for all European travellers. Shipki in Chinese Tibet is only about eight marches beyond Pangay, but the road is so dreadful that few travellers care to go beyond the latter place ; and those who do, avoid the Chinese border and turn northward towards Leh in L&dak by Hango, Lio, the Parangla Pass, and the Tsho Morari Lake. There is a more direct route from Simla to Leh, along a cut road or bridle-path, through the Ktilii valley, over the Eotang Pass, and then through Lahaul, and over the Barra Lacha Pass. The directest route from Simla to Kashmir is that by way of Belaspur, Kangra, Badrawar, and the Braribal Pass, and occu- pies only about thirty-one marches ; but it is rather uninteresting, and enterprising travellers prefer to go round by Leh, or to follow some of the many ways there are of passing through the sublimer scenery of the Himalaya. It is comparatively easy to go from Simla direct, either to Chinese Tibet or to Kashmir ; but to take in both these termini in one journey is a more difficult problem. That was what I wished to accomplish ; and to have come down again from the Chinese border towards Simla, and then gone up to Kashmir by one of the directer routes, would have brought me into the region of the Indian monsoon at a season when it was at its -height, and when it would have rendered hill travelling almost impossible for me. What then seemed the proper thing for me to do, after touching the ter- ritory of the Grand Lama, was to keep as high up as SIMLA AS A SANITARIUM. 85 "possible among the inner Himalaya, and to see if I could reach Kashmir in that way, without descending either into hot or rainy regions. I could not get any information as to considerable portions of my proposed march ; but, as it turned out, I was able to go all the way from Shipki in Chinese Tibet to the Sind valley in upper Kashmir, along the whole line of the Western Himalaya — if not exactly over the tops of them, yet something very like that — through a series of elevated valleys, for the most part about 12,000 feet high, with passes ranging up to 18,000 feet. Thus, passing through Hangrang, Spiti, Lahaul, Zanskar, Suru, and Dras, I never required to descend below 10,000 feet, and very seldom below 12,000; and, though travelling in the months of the Indian monsoon, I met with hardly any rain, and enjoyed a most bracing and ex- hilarating climate, together with the great privilege of beholding the wildest, sublimest scenery of the Hima- laya, and making acquaintance with the most secluded and primitive of its people. 86 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTEK IX. MY HIMALAYAN OUTFIT. TENTS — LOHD NAPIER'S TENT FURNITURE SUPPLIES ON THE WAT GAME — NO EGGS BALTISTAN APRICOTS PRESERVED PROVISIONS POTABLES STIMULANTS UNNECESSARY SERVANTS MT ATTEN- DANTS — MEANS OP CARRIAGE. I must hurry on, however, to the events of my own journey ; but before treating of them it may be Well, in order to make these events intelligible, to say some- thing about what is necessary for travellers in the Himalaya. Journeying among these giant mountains is a somewhat serious business, and yet it is not so serious as it probably appears to those who have had no experience of it. In Switzerland, when essaying icy peaks and crossing snowy passes, we never get farther off than a day or two from some grand hotel, where all the comforts, and many of the luxuries, of civilisation are • to be found ; and even then consider- able preparations have to be made for remaining two or three days beyond human habitations, and for sleep- ing in a cave or hollow of the rock. But for a journey like mine, in the inner and upper Himalaya, extending over months, the preparations which have to be made are of rather an alarming kind. House, furniture, MY HIMALAYAN OUTFIT. 87 kitchen, cooking-pots, bed, bedding, a certain propor- tion of our food, and all our potables, except water, have to be carried with us, for the most of the way on the shoulders of men or women ; and, in my case, the affair was complicated by my having to be carried also ; for, at starting, I was unable to walk a hundred yards, or to mount a horse. Almost no bungalows were to be met with beyond the first fourteen marches up to Pan gay; in a considerable portion of the country to be traversed the people will not allow Europeans to occupy their houses — and even if they did, motives of comfort and health would dictate a tent, except in very severe weather ; for the houses are extremely dirty and ill-ventilated, and the mountaineers are covered with vermin. Of course, too, one is far more independent in a tent ; and there is no comparison between the open camp, under trees, or the protection of some great rock, and a low-roofed, dark, unventilated, dirty room alive with insects. A tent, then, is the first necessity to look after, and that matter is much simplified by the fact that, there being almost no level ground in the Himalaya, it is ■useless taking any tent but one of very small dimen- sions. The tremendous slopes and precipices of these mountains were not made for the large canvas houses which Indian officials carry about with them on the plains. I have travelled for a whole day before finding a piece of level ground the size of an ordinary drawing-room, and have had to pitch my tent in such a place, that two steps from my own door would have carried me over a precipice — a position evidently un- suited for somnambulists, and for travellers of a very convivial turn of mind. Fortunately, when I told oo . THE ABODE OF SNOW. Lord Napier of Magddla of my intended journey, he said to me, " Have you got a tent yet ? No. Then don't get one till you see the tent which I used in Abyssinia." This historical tent he kindly had pitched for me, and I got a fac-simile of it made in Simla at the exceedingly reasonable price of 70 rupees (about £7), my butler being a great hand at making bargains. It was made of American drill, with a double fly, which was invaluable for keeping off rain and heat. Its floor, and up to where the roof began to slope, at three feet from the ground, was about eleven feet by nine, and its extreme height between seven and eight feet. It was supported by two upright bamboos, and a bamboo across them fitting on iron spikes. Properly speaking it had no walls, but ropes attached to the outside of the inner fly, about three feet from the ground, gave it a perpendicular fall of that height. It had not a pyramidal, but a very blunt wedge-like form ; and the cloth of both front and back opened completely from the top to the ground, or could be kept quite closed by means of small hooks, while in both back and front there was a small upper window with a flap to cover it. This habitation was so light that one man could carry it and the bamboos, while its iron pegs were not a sufficient load for one coolie ; and it was wonderfully roomy — more so than tents of much greater dimensions and of more imposing appear- ance. It was a convenience, as well 'as a source of safety, to be able to get in and out of it at both sides without stooping down ; and its coolness, and its use as a protection from the sun, were greatly enhanced by its allowing of either or both ends being thrown en- tirely open. I never fell in with any tent, except the MY HIMALAYAN OUTFIT. 89 model on which it was made, to be compared with it for combined lightness and comfort, and I have seldom found so pleasant a habitation. It is necessary to have iron pegs for such a tent, owing to the nature of the ground and the scarcity of wood in the high moun- tains ; and a double supply of bamboos should also be taken. A good thick piece of carpet, about three and a half feet long by two and a half broad, is a great comfort, especially on snow. All gimcrack articles are ut- terly useless for the Himalaya, because everything gets knocked about in a fearful manner; and as a good night's rest is of the utmost importance, I got Messrs Cotton and Morris of Simla to make for me specially one of their travelling- cots which take to pieces. It was composed of two short and two long poles of strong wood, which went into sockets in four thick strong wooden legs. When this was set up, a piece of strong carpet was stretched over it tightly in a peculiar way, which I need not describe. My table, which could also be taken to pieces, weighed only a few pounds ; and I took with me a light cane chair, which could always be mended with string, twigs, or something or other ; but a folding Kashmir chair would have been much better. These things, with washing apparatus, a couple of resais or padded quilts, a plaid, and a waterproof sheet, were quite sufficient to start me in Himalayan life so far as my residence was con- cerned. Some travellers take portable iron stoves with them for their tents, but I rather think the heat thus obtained unfits one for bearing the cold to which we are necessarily exposed. My tent allowed of a fire being kindled close to the entrance, when wood could 90 / THE ABODE OP SNOW. / be" had, and I found it was only the damp cold of re- 'gions with plenty of wood that was injurious. For my servants I had a good rauti of thick- lined cloth, which kept them quite comfortable ; and I cut down their supply of cooking-pots and personal luggage as far as was at all compatible with their comfort and mine. As regards provisions in the inner and higher Hima- laya, the traveller will find that there are juniper-ber- ries growing nearly as high as he is likely to camp, edible pines up to about 12,000 feet, and apricots nearly to 10,000. "Wherever there are villages, milk, mutton, and coarse flour of various kinds are to be had ; but that practically exhausts the list of Hima- layan supplies, except for the sportsman ; and, on a long journey, human stomachs desiderate a greater variety. The junipers are of immense size and power- ful flavour ; but most people prefer to have their juni- pers by way of Holland or Geneva. There is prime mutton to be had in all parts of the mountains, not to speak of shaggy sheep about the size of reindeer ; but the acute hillmen are by no means fond of parting with it, and are apt to insist that they have nothing else to offer you, either for love or money, except a fleshless lamb — evidently destined, even by nature, to an early doom — or an ancient ram which has been used for years as a carrier of burdens. As to milk, it is an innocent and excellent article of food ; and those whose stomachs dislike it when sweet, can follow the example of milk-drinking nations, and take it when it is sour and curdled, thus saving their stomachs a good deal of trouble ; but it takes at least six quarts of milk daily to afford very scanty sustenance to a full-grown man, and by the time the traveller begins upon the fourth MY HIMALAYAN OUTFIT. 91 # bottle lie is apt to wish that it were something else ; and I suspect that, in these circumstances, and when seated on a bank of snow, even the sternest teetotaller would not be averse to mingling a little rum with his milk. The flour to be had is often very bad, being ill ground and mixed with dirt ; so it is expedient both to have some fine European flour, and when we meet with good mountain flour, to take some of it on with us for the next few stages. Perhaps the best article of this kind to be~ got is the roasted barley flour which the hillmen take with them on their journeys, and which, with the aid of only a little salt and cold water, they make into a very eatable dough called suttti. The sportsman, however, can supply his pot with many tempting edibles. I know of no flesh equal to that of the ibex ; and the navo, a species of gigantic antelope of Chinese Tibet, with the barra-singh, a red deer of Kashmir, are nearly equally good. Though these animals are difficult to get at, yet portions of them can sometimes be obtained from native shikarries; and my Bombay servant, with his gun, supplied me with many pheasants and partridges — of which the Hima- laya can boast the most splendid variety — and with any quantity of large, fat, blue pigeons, of which there are great flocks wherever there is a village with grain- fields round it. All the way from Kotgarh, four or five marches from Simla, to Chinese Tibet, and from thence to Siirii, a dependency of Kashmir, I did not find a single domestic fowl, and felt much the want of eggs. Colonel Moore and Captain de Roebeck, whom I met at Kotgarh on their way back from Spiti, spoke of having made the acquaintance, in that province, of some very bony fowls, which required to be pounded 92 THE ABODE OF SNOW. with rocks in order to make them eatable; but I believe these gentlemen must have eaten up all the fowls of Spiti, and put an end to the breed. Both the Hindu Kunaits and the Lama Budhists object on religious grounds to supplying travellers with eggs and fowls ; so it is not till one gets to Mohammedan Kash- mir that these useful articles of diet are to be met with. Also till near Kashmir the streams are far too muddy, rapid, and difficult of approach, to afford fish, though one traveller in a hundred may have some offered to him. A species of turnip is to be found at some vil- lages, and potatoes and various vegetables are grown by the Moravian missionaries at Kaelang in Lahaul, and Pii in Upper Kunawar ; but practically, as I have said, the traveller will find that he has nothing to depend upon except milk, mutton, coarse flour, edible pines, apricots, and junipers. The want of vegetables is most severely felt, owing to the acids which they supply; but I found that dried apricots were an ex- cellent substitute for them, especially the dried apricots of Baltistan, which are highly valued by the hillmen, and may be purchased from parties of Baltis, or from the wealthier zemindars. The kernels of their seeds also are quite eatable, and, taken with the dried flesh of the apricot, make a combination not unlike that of almonds and raisins. It is well, however, to take a certain amount of com- pressed vegetables on a long journey into the Himalaya, and tins of soup containing vegetables will be found useful. Hotch-potch especially is of the greatest service, because by itself it affords a sufficient and comfortable meal, and it stood me in good stead when my people were all too much fatigued to have prepared MY HIMALAYAN OUTFIT. 93 any more elaborate dinner. There is, in fact, nothing like hotch-potch for the Himalayan traveller ; the only objections to it are its weight and bulk, when tins have to be carried by coolies for months. This diffi- culty I partially met by taking with me a quantity of the soupe d Vognon au gras of MM. Usines Chollet et Cie. of Paris. This soup which, as its name indicates, is composed of onions and rich meat, is in small oblong tins about the cubic capacity of an ordinary soup tin of one pound weight. Each tin contains thirty portions of soup in tablets, which only require to have boiling water poured upon them in order to make a nourishing and very palatable soup. I scarcely think one portion will make a sufficient basin of soup as one' takes soup on a journey, but one and a half will ; so that a single tin, which might be carried in an outer pocket, provides a single traveller with abundance of soup for his dinner for twenty days ; and I had one tin open for thirty-six days in August and September, when it had to go through a good deal of heat, with- out the last tablet used being in the least spoiled. Onion-soup, I may mention, has been found of great use by Arctic expeditions in the extreme cold to which they are exposed. The few tins of preserved meat I took with me were of little use, for one wants more particularly to supplement the local supplies with light articles of diet ; but an exception should be made in favour of tins of half-boiled bacon, which are ex- ceedingly acceptable in high cold regions. Tins of salmon are a great stand-by, being invaluable for affording a substantial cold breakfast at the mid-day halt, when the traveller is as hungry as a hunter, and when, if he gives way to his inclinations, a pound 94 THE ABODE OF SNOW. tin will disappear before him in a few minutes. Tins of fresh white fish, and of any uncompressed vegetables, except, perhaps, peas, are of no use ; but Finnan or Findon haddocks are, with boiled fowl and small tins of potted meat, and • of sar- dines preserved in butter. But it is .evident that we are thus in danger of running up a train of fifty coolies, at least at starting, and it was only by the greatest care both in choosing and in using these sup- plies that I was able to start with little more than two coolies' load of tins, and yet to keep coming and going on them for months. Skill of this kind can only be obtained by experience in travel ; and it is essential, in order to make the supplies go any distance, peremp- torily to forbid one's servants to open a single tin without express permission. As twenty full quart-bottles are about a coolie's load, it is advisable to be as discriminating in the selection and use of potables as of edibles on a Hima- layan journey. Wine, to any extent, and beer, are out of the question ; for it must be remembered that it is sometimes difficult to get even the dozen coolies which are required to carry one's tent and other necessaries ; and the duty of bigdr, or carriage, presses so heavily at times on the villages of the Himalaya that it is but right for the humane trav- eller to avail himself of it as lightly as he can. Those who usually conform to the ordinary habits of civilised life, which are very well adapted for brain- work and for sedentary habits, will be surprised to find how easily they can conform to a simpler regime in the Himalaya ; for in the keen stimulating air of these mountains there is not only very little MY HIMALAYAN OUTFIT. 95 need for alcoholic stimulants, but also very little desire for them. However perfect our other arrangements may be, there will be little comfort on a long mountain journey without exceptionally good servants, who will enter somewhat into the spirit of the journey ; and it is exceedingly difficult to get Indian servants who will do anything of the kind. As a rule they do not like travel- ling, unless it be in the comfort and state of a commis- sioner's or collector's camp; and they have a great dread of cold regions in general, and of snowy mountains in particular. The consequence is, it is difficult to get respectable servants to go up into the mountains ; and Simla is famous for its bad servants, though I noticed that almost every station I came to deemed itself more unfortunate in that respect than its neighbours. The plague of servants, everywhere considerable, has now become very serious in India. There has been no legis- lation of late years on this subject adapted to the cir- cumstances of the country ; and old arbitrary practices for keeping servants in order can be very rarely resorted to, and are not in themselves desirable. There has been too little care taken in valuing good servants, and too little trouble in having bad ones punished. The native Indian journals have some reason on their side when they argue that, if we are afflicted with very bad servants the fault is much our own, inasmuch as we have made them what they are. I notice, however,- that the earliest accounts of Anglo-Indian life speak of two quite different types of servants, very much corre- sponding to the two great types of the present day. The misfortune is that, since the Mutiny, the number of servants of the good type has decreased, principally 96 THE ABODE OF SNOW. owing to our lessened family interest in India ; while the bad servants have found increased immunity under the almost necessary but overdone protection of legal equality with their masters, and. with the greater op- portunities which they now possess of moving from station to station, and of employing each other's, or forged, certificates. But there are very good servants to be had still in India, and care should be taken not to confound them with the rascals, or to treat them with „ harshness and distrust. On this Himalayan journey I was singularly fortu- nate. About a year before, after having been afflicted with some of the worst servants to be found anywhere — men whose conduct would really have justified homi- cide — I found a treasure at Nasik, in the person of Silas Cornelius, a native Christian, but a Maratha from the Nizam's dominions, who had been brought up in the schools of the Church Mission near Nasik. In steadi- ness, in honesty, in truthfulness, in faithful service, in devotion to the interests of his employer, and in amia- bility of disposition, I never knew of any servant who surpassed or almost equalled Silas Cornelius ; and his good conduct on my mountain journey was the more remarkable, as he had been led into it step by step, as I myself had been, and would never have left Bombay on any such undertaking. " Very hard journey this, sir! very hard journey!" was his only remonstrance in even the worst circumstances ; and it was accom- panied by a screwing of the mouth, which was half pathetic, half comical. Not that Silas was without his foibles. When he found himself in the mountains with a gun slung behind his back, and was made the shikdr of the expedition, as well as my butler, this mild and MY HIMALAYAS OUTFIT. 97 amiable individual assumed a most warlike appearance and air ; lie tied up his moustache in Marri,tha fashion, and made the other servants call him Jemadar. He also became fond of too promptly ordering the coolies about, but as the hillmen paid very little attention to this, it did not much matter. The value of this butler was equalled by that of a very bright, intelligent, little Kunait boy about fifteen, called Nurdass, whom I picked up at Shaso, close to the Chinese frontier, and who, as he spoke Tibetan and Hindiisthani, as well as his native Kunawari, served me as interpreter on great part of my journey, besides being useful in a hundred different ways. These were the two gems of my small entour- age. A Kun^war Munshi called Phiileyram, who went with me from Kotgarh as far as Kashmir, was chiefly of use in getting my tent and bed put up. The only other regular attendant I had was an Afghan cook called Chota Khan, or the " Little Chief," — a man of great size and weight, of rather bullying propensities, though very useful on a journey, who kept everybody except myself in awe, and who was afraid of nothing except of crossing ajMla or twig bridge. Whenever a young lamb or ancient ram was brought to us for sale, the way in which Chota Khan bellowed out thunders of abuse (chiefly with an eye to the satisfaction of his own capacious stomach) was exceedingly useful, and really frightened the astonished lambadars. It was a great pleasure to everybody when we came to a jMla, because then the giant died, the hero broke down utterly, and had to be silent for the rest of the day, — until in the evening, among his pots and pans, and after cutting the throat of a sheep in orthodox Mohammedan fashion, with an exclamation which sounded much more like a G 98 THE ABODE OF SNOW. curse than a blessing, he became himself again. All the other people I required, whether coolies, guides, or yakmen, were had from village to village* At Simla I engaged eight jhanpanwallahs to carry me in a dandi ; but after five days this agreement was ended by mutual consent, and I depended entirely on people taken from stage to stage, and on gMnts and yaks. Thus it may be understood with what appliances of travel I started from Simla in the commencement of June ; but it was not until after the experience of a few days' journey, and I got to Kotgarh, that I managed to bring things into order, and was able to cut down the twenty-eight coolies with which I started to about twelve (or double that number of boys and women at half-pay), exclusive of those I might or might not need for my own carriage. SIMLA TO THE SUTLEJ. 99 CHAPTER X. SIMLA TO THE SUTLEJ. THE GREAT HINDUSTHAN AND TIBET ROAD FATAL ACCIDENTS PEEL- INGS ON GOING OVER A PRECIPICE THE DANDI BUMPING DIVISIONS OP THE ROAD VIEW FROM NARKANDA KOTGARH AND ITS MISSION — COLONEL MOORE — THE GLOOMY SUTLEJ VALLET. The cut bridle-path, which has been dignified by the name of " The Great Hindiisthan and Tibet Eoad," that leads along the sides of the hills from Simla to the Narkanda G-haut, and from Narkanda up the valley of the Sutlej to Chini and Pangay, is by no means so exasperating as the native paths of the inner Himalaya. It does not require one to dismount every five minutes ; and though it does go down into some terrific gorges, at the bottom of which there is quite a tropical climate in summer, yet, on the whole, it is pretty level, and never compels one (as the other roads too often and too sadly do) to go up a mile of perpendicular height in the morning, only to go down a mile of perpendicular depth in the afternoon. Its wooden bridges can be traversed on horseback; it is not much exposed to falling rocks; it is free from avalanches, either of snow or granite ; and it never compels one to endure the almost infuriating misery of 100 THE ABODE OF SNOW. having every now and then to cross miles of rugged blocks of stone, across which no ragged rascal that ever lived could possibly run. Nevertheless, the cut road, running as it often does without any parapet, or with none to speak of, and only seven or eight feet broad, across the face of enor- mous precipices and nearly precipitous slopes, is even more dangerous for equestrians than are the rude native paths. Almost every year some fatal accident happens upon it, and the wonder only is that people who set any value upon their lives are so foolhardy as to ride upon it at all. A gentleman of the Forest Department, resident at Nachar, remarked to me that it was strange that, though he bad been a cavalry officer, he never mounted a horse in the course of his mountain journeys ; but it struck me, though he might not have reasoned out the matter, it was just because he had been a cavalry officer, and knew the nature of horses, that he never rode on such paths as he had to traverse in Kunawar. No animal is so easily startled as a horse, or so readily becomes restive : it will shy at an oyster-shell, though doing so may dash it to pieces over a precipice ; and one can easily guess what danger, its rider incurs on a narrow parapetless road above a precipice where there are monkeys and falling rocks to startle it, and where there are obstinate hill- men who will salaam the rider, say what he may, and who take the inner side of the road, in order to prop their burdens against the rock, and to have a good look at him as he passes. One of the saddest of the accidents which have thus happened was that which befell a very young lady, a daughter of the Rev. Mr Eebsch, the missionary at SIMLA TO THE SUTLEJ. 101 Kotgarh. She was riding across the tremendous Rogi cliffs, and, though a wooden railing has since been put up at the place, there was nothing between her and the precipice, when her pony shied and carried her over to instant death. In another case, the victim, a Mr Leith, was on his marriage trip, and his newly- married wife was close beside him, and had just ex- changed horses with him, when, in trying to cure his steed of a habit it had of rubbing against the rock wall, it backed towards the precipice, and its hind feet get- ting over, both horse and rider were dashed to pieces. This happened between Serahan and Taranda, near the spot where the road gave way under Sir Alexander Law- rence, a nephew of Lord Lawrence, the then Governor- General. Sir Alexander was riding a heavy Australian horse, and the part of the road which gave way was wooden planking, supported out from the face of the precipice by iron stanchions. I made my coolies throw over a large log of wood where he went down ; and, as it struck the rocks in its fall, it sent out showers of white splinters, so that the solid wood was reduced to half its original size before it reached a resting-place. In the case of the wife of General Brind, that lady was quietly making a sketch on horseback, from the road between Theog and Muttiana, and her syce was holding the horse, when it was startled by some falling stones, and all three went over and were destroyed. Not very long after I went up this lethal road, a Calcutta judge, of one of the subordinate courts, went over it and was killed in the presence of some ladies with whom he was riding, owing simply to his horse becoming restive. An eyewitness of another of these frightful accidents told me that when the horse's hind foot got off the 102 THE ABODE OF SNOW. road, it struggled for about half a minute in that position, and the rider had plenty of time to dismount safely, and might easily have done so, but a species of paralysis seemed to come over him ; his face turned deadly white, and he sat on the horse without making the least effort to save himself, until they both went over backwards. The sufferer is usually a little too late in attempting to dismount. Theoretically, it may seem easy enough to disengage one's self from a horse when it is struggling on the brink of a precipice ; but let my reader try the experiment, and he will see the mistake. The worst danger on these cut roads is that of the horse backing towards the precipice ; and when danger presents itself, there is a curious tendency on the part of the rider to pull his horse's head away from the precipice towards the rock wall, which is about the worst thing he can do. The few seconds (of which I had some experience farther on) in which you find yourself fairly going, are particularly interesting, and send an electric thrill through the entire system. I rode almost every mile of the way, on which it was at all possible to ride, from Chinese Tartary to the Kyber Pass, on anything which turned up — yaks, zo-pos, cows, Spiti ponies, a Khiva horse, and blood- horses. On getting to Kashmir I purchased a horse, but did not do so before, as it is impossible to take any such animal over rope and twig bridges, and the rivers are too rapid and furious to allow of a horse being swum across these latter obstacles. The traveller in the Himalaya, however, ought always to take a saddle with him ; for the native saddles, though well adapted for riding down nearly perpendicular slopes, are ex- tremely uncomfortable, and the safety which they SIMLA TO THE SUTLEJ. 103 might afford is considerably decreased by the fact that their straps are often in a rotten condition, and exceed- ingly apt to give way just at a critical moment. An English saddle will do perfectly well if it has a crupper to it, but that is absolutely necessary. Some places are so steep that, when riding down them, I was obliged to have a rope put round my chest and held by two men above, in order to prevent me going over the pony's head, or throwing it off its balance. But on the Hin- diisthan and Tibet road I had to be carried in a dandi, which is the only kind of conveyance that can be taken over the Himalaya. The dandi is unknown in Europe, and is not very easily described, as there is no other means of con- veyance which can afford the faintest idea of it. The nearest approach to travelling in a dandi I can think of, is sitting in a half-reefed top-sail in a storm, with the head and shoulders above the yard. It consists of a single bamboo, about 9 or 10 feet long, with two pieces of carpet slung from it — one for the support of the body, and the other for the feet. You rest on these pieces of carpet, not in line with the bamboo, but at right angles to it, with your head and shoulders raised as high above it as possible ; and each end of the pole rests on the shoulders of one or of two bearers. The dandi is quite a pleasant conveyance when one gets used to it, when the path is tolerably level and the bearers are up to their work. The only drawbacks then are that, when a rock comes bowling across the road like a cannon-shot, you cannot disen- gage yourself from the carpets in time to do anything yourself towards getting out of the way ; and that, when the road is narrow, and, in consequence, your 104 THE ABODE OF SNOW. feet are dangling over a precipice, it is difficult for a candid mind to avoid concluding that the bearers would be quite justified in throwing the whole concern over, and so getting rid of their unwelcome and painful task. But when the path is covered with pieces of rock, as usually happens to be the case, and the coolies are not well up to their work, which they almost never are, the man in the dandi is not allowed much leisure for medi- tations of any kind, or even for admiring the scenery around ; for, unless he confines his attention pretty closely to the rocks with which he is liable to come into collision, he will soon have all the breath knocked out of his body. On consulting a Continental savan, who had been in the inner Himalaya, as to whether I could get people there to carry me in a dandi, he said, " Zey vill carry you, no doubt ; but zey vill bomp you." And bump me they did, until they bumped me out of adherence to that mode of travel. Indeed they hated and feared having to carry me so much, that I often wondered at their.never adopting the precipice alterna- tive. But in the Himalayan states the villagers have to furnish the traveller, and especially the English traveller, with the carriage which he requires, and at a certain fixed rate. This is what is called the right of higar, and without the exercise of it, travelling would be almost impossible among the mountains. I also had a special jpurwannah, which would have entitled me, in case of necessity, to seize what I required ; but this I kept in the background. The stages from Simla to Pangay, along the cut bridle-path, are as follows, according to miles : — Fagtf, . . 10 miles. Theog, . . 6 „ Muttiana, . 11 miles. Narkanda, . 12 ,, SIMLA TO THE SUTLEJ. 105 Kotgarh, 10 miles. Nachar, . 7 miles Nirth, . 12 )> Wangtii, 10 „ Bampiir, 12 19 Oorni, 5 „ Gaura, . 9 » Eogi, . 10 „ Serahan, . 13 1) Chini, 3 „ Taranda, 15 JJ Pangay, . 7 „ Poynda, . 5 )> This road, however, has four great divisions, each with marked characteristics of its own. To Narkanda it winds along the sides of not very interesting moun- tains, and about the same level as Simla, till at the Narkanda Ghaut it rises nearly to 9000 feet, and affords a gloomy view into the Sutlej valley, and a splendid view of the snowy ranges beyond. In the second division it descends into the burning Sutlej valley, and follows near to the course of that river, on the left bank, until, after passing Rampur, the capital of the state of Bussahir, it rises on the mountain-sides again up to Gaura. Thirdly, it continues along the mountain- sides, for the most part between 6000 and 7000 feet high, and through the most magnificent forests of deodar, till it descends again to the Sutlej, crosses that river at Wangtu Bridge, and ascends to Oorni. Lastly, it runs from Oorni to Pangay, at a height of nearly 9000 feet, on the right bank of the Sutlej, and sheltered from the Indian monsoon by the 20,000 feet high snowy peaks of the Kailas, which rise abruptly on the opposite side of the river. The view of the mountains from Narkanda is won- derful indeed, and well there might the spirit " Take flight ;— inherit Alps or Andes — they are thine ! With the morning's roseate spirit Sweep the length of snowy line." 106 THE ABODE OE SNOW. There is a large bungalow at this Ghaut ; but all the rooms are apt to be occupied, as it is a terminus for parties from Simla who go out to see the snowy ranges. No one can claim to occupy a room for more than three days, if any one else requires it ; but some people, after staying the allotted time at this place, go down to Kotgarh for a night, and so establish a claim for other three days. Narkanda is nearly 9000 feet high, so that it is cold even in the hot season; and from the peak of Hatto beside it, which is more than 2000 feet higher, and has a peak-like surface on the top covered with magnificent trees, there is a splendid view extending up to the Kailas. The road down to Kotgarh, which is only 6700 feet high, passes through a fine forest of deodar and other trees, through the branches of which the snowy mountains of Kulii are visible. A road takes off it, on the right, which keeps along at a high level, and meets the Hindusthan and Tibet road near Serahan ; but, when I passed up the Sutlej, this road was out of repair, and was declared wholly impassable at certain points. When it can be used at all, it is a great advantage to the traveller, as it saves him from descending, for two days' journey, into the burning valley of the Sutlej. Kotgarh is usually called Griikot by the hillmen, which means the residence of the Guni, or saint, and affords a good instance of a transposition of letters not uncommon in some parts of India. There is a station of the Church Mission there under charge of the Eev. W. Eebsch. This Mission was founded in 1840, with the view of affecting all the surrounding country ; but missionary operations do not seem to have been com- menced till 1843, shortly after which they were con- SIMLA TO THE SUTLEJ. 107 ducted for long by Mr Kebsch's father-in-law, the Rev. Dr Prochnow. The native Christian community, when I visited Kotgarh, consisted of forty-six members ; but many more persons were believed to be favourably dis- posed towards Christianity, though afraid to make any open avowal of it. Industrial operations are carried on by the converts ; and, besides the schools at Kotgarh itself, a number of schools have been established at various places in the surrounding country. Medicine also is largely distributed by Mr Rebsch, accompanied by medical advice, and the intellectual activity of the torpid people around is stimulated. Besides Mr Rebsch, the Mission employed Mr Beutel a European teacher, a native Christian teacher, and three native Scripture readers. The native congregation consisted of 46 per- sons, 24 of whom were communicants; and during that and the preceding two years, there had been 18 bap- tisms, 6 of which were of adults. The view down into the valley of the Sutlej, both from Narkanda and Kotgarh, is exceedingly gloomy and oppressive ; and on seeing it, I could not help thinking of " the valley of the shadow of death." The same idea had struck Lieut.-Colonel Moore, the interpreter to the Commander-in-Chief, whom I met at Kotgarh, a little lower down, along with Captain De Roebeck, one of the Governor-General's aides-de-camp. No description could give an adequate idea of the tat- tered, dilapidated, sun-burnt, and woe-begone appear- ance of these two officers as they rode up to Kotgarh after their experience of the snows of Spiti. Colonel Moore's appearance, especially, would have made his fortune on the stage. There was nothing woful, how- ever, in his spirit, and he kept me up half the night 108 THE ABODE OF SNOW. laughing at his most humorous accounts of Spiti, its animals and its ponies ; but even this genial officer's sense of enjoyment seemed to desert him when he spoke of his experience of the hot Sutlej valley from Gaura to Kotgarh, and he said, emphatically, " It is the valley of the shadow of death." I was struck by this coincidence with my own idea, because it was essential for me to get up into high regions of pure air, and, ill as I was, I could not but dread the journey up the Sutlej valley, with its vegetation, its confined at- mosphere, its rock-heat, and its gloomy gorges. I had a sort of precognition that some special danger was before me, and was even alarmed by an old man, whose parting benediction to us was, " Take care of the bridges beyond Nachar." This was something like, " Beware the pine-tree's withered branch," and I began to have gloomy doubts about my capacity for getting high enough. Mr Eebsch, the amiable and talented head of the Kotgarh Mission, gave me all the encouragement which could be derived from his earnest prayers for my safety among the hohe Gebirge. There were two clever German young ladies, too, visiting at Kotgarh, who seemed to think it was quite unneces- sary for me to go up into the high mountains ; so that, altogether, 1 began to wish that I was out of the valley before I had got well into it, and to feel something like a fated pilgrim who was going to some unknown doom. Excelsior, however, was my unalterable motto, as I immediately endeavoured to prove by descending some thousand feet into the hot Sutlej valley, in spite of all the attractions of Kotgarh. KOTGAKH TO CHINI. 109 CHAPTER XL KOTGARH TO CHINI. THE RAJAH OP BUSSAHIR DEATH OP A HILLMAN SCENERY OP THE SUTLEJ VALLEY SENTIENT NATURE OP PLANTS — HIMA- LAYAN PINES THE DEODAR CHINI VIEW OP THE RALDANG KAILAS. I shall say very little about the journey up to Chini, as it is so often undertaken, but may mention two in- cidents which occurred upon it. Between Nirth and Rampiir the heat was so intense, close, and suffocating, that I travelled by night, with torches ; and stopping to rest a little, about midnight, I was accosted by a native gentleman, who came out of the darkness, seated himself behind me, and said in English, " Who are you ? " I had a suspicion who my friend was, but put a similar question to him ; on which he replied, not without a certain dignity, " I am the Rajah of Bussa- hir." This Bussahir, which includes Kunawar, and extends up the Sutlej valley to Chinese Tibet, is the state in which I was travelling. Its products are opium, grain, and woollen manufactures, and it has a popu- lation of 90,000, and a nominal revenue of 50,000 rupees; but the sums drawn from it in one way or another, by Government officers, must considerably 110 THE ABODE OP SNOW. exceed that amount. Its rajah, was exceedingly affable ; and his convivial habits are so well known, and have been so often alluded to, that I hope there is no harm in saying that on this occasion he was not untrue to his character. I found him, however, to be a very agreeable man, and he is extremely well-mean- ing — so much so, as to be desirous of laying down his sovereignty if only the British Government would be good enough to accept it from him, and give him a pension instead. But there are much worse governed states than Bussahir, notwithstanding the effects on its amiable and intelligent rajah of a partial and ill-ad- justed English education, in which undue importance was assigned to the use of brandy. He caused some alarm among my people by insisting on handling my revolver, which was loaded ; but he soon showed that he knew how to use it with extraordinary skill ; for, on a lighted candle being put up for him to fire at, about 30 paces off, though he could scarcely stand by this time, yet he managed, somehow or other, to prop him- self up against a tree, and snuffed out the candle at the first shot. On the whole, the rajah made a very favourable impression upon me, despite his peculiarity, if such it may be called ; and my nocturnal interview with him, under huge trees, in the middle of a dark wet night, remains a very curious and pleasant recol- lection. The other incident was of a more serious character, and illustrated a danger which every year carries off a certain number of the hillmen. Standing below the bungalow at Serahan, I noticed some men, who were ascending to their village, racing against each other on the grassy brow of a precipice that rose KOTGARH TO CHINI. Ill above the road leading to Gaura. One of them unfor- tunately lost his footing, slipped a little on the edge, and then went over the precipice, striking the road below with a tremendous thud, after an almost clear fall of hundreds of feet, and then rebounding from off the road, and falling about a hundred feet into a ravine below. I had to go round a ravine some way in order to reach him, so that when I did so he was not only dead, but nearly cold. The curious thing is, that there was no external bruise about him. The mouth and nostrils were filled with clotted blood, but otherwise there was no indication even of the cause of his death. The rapidity of his descent through the air must have made him so far insensible as to prevent that contraction of the muscles which is the great cause of bones being broken ; and then the tremendous concussion when he struck the road must have knocked every particle of life out of him. This man's brother — his polyandric brother, as it turned out, though polyandry only com- mences at Serahan, being a Lama and not a Hindu" in- stitution, but the two religions are mixed up a little at the point of contact — reached the body about the same time as I did, and threw himself upon it, weeping and lamenting. I wished to try the effect of some very strong ammonia, but the brother objected to this, be- cause, while probably it would have been of no use, it would have defiled the dead, according to his religious ideas. The only other sympathy I could display was the rather coarse one of paying the people of Serahan, who showed no indications of giving assistance, for carrying the corpse up to its village ; but the brother, who understood Hindiisthani, preferred to take the money himself, in order to purchase wood for the 112 THE ABODE OF SNOW. funeral pyre. He was a large strong man, whereas the deceased was little and slight, so he wrapped the dead body in his plaid, and slung it over his shoulders. There was something almost comic, as well as exceed- ingly pathetic, in the way in which he toiled up the mountain with his sad burden, wailing and weeping over it whenever he stopped to rest, and kissing the cold face. The road up to Chini is almost trodden ground, and so does not call for special description ; but it is pic- turesque in the highest degree, and presents wonderful combinations of beauty and grandeur. It certainly has sublime heights above, and not less extraordinary depths below. Now we catch a glimpse of a snowy peak 20,000 feet high rising close above us, and the next minute we look down into a dark precipitous gorge thousands of feet deep. Then we have, below the snowy peaks, Himalayan hamlets, with their flat roofs, placed on ridges of rock or on green sloping meadows ; enormous deodars, clothed with veils of white flower- ing clematis ; grey streaks of water below, from whence comes the thundering sound of the imprisoned Sutlej — the classic Hesudrus ; almost precipitous slopes of shingle, and ridges of mountain fragments. Above, there are green alps, with splendid trees traced out against the sky ; the intense blue of the sky, and the dark overshadowing precipices. Anon the path de- scends into almost tropical shade at the bottom of the great ravines, with ice-cold water falling round the dark roots of the vegetation, and an almost ice-cold air fan- ning the great leafy branches. The trees which meet us almost at every step in this upper Sutlej valley are worthy of the sublime scenery by which they are sur- KOTGARH TO CHINI. 113 rounded, and are well fitted to remind us, ere we pass into the snowy regions of unsullied truth untouched by- organic life, that the struggling and half-developed vegetable world aspires towards heaven, and has not been unworthy of the grand design. Even beneath the deep blue dome, the cloven precipices and the sky- pointing snowy peaks, the gigantic deodars (which cluster most richly about Nachar) may well strike with awe by their wonderful union of grandeur and perfect beauty. In the dog and the elephant we often see a devotion so touching, and the stirring of an intellect* so great and earnest as compared with its cruel nar- row bounds, that we are drawn towards them as to something almost surpassing human nature in con- fiding simplicity and faithful tenderness. No active feeling of this kind can be called forth by the innumer- able forms of beauty which rise around us from the vegetable world. They adorn our gardens and clothe our hillsides, giving joy to the simplest maiden, yet directing the winds and rains, and purifying the great expanses of air. So far as humanity, so dependent upon them, is concerned, they are silent ; no means of communication exist between us ; and silently, unre- monstrantly, they answer to our care or indifference for them, by reproducing, in apparently careless abun- dance, their more beautiful or noxious forms. But we cannot say that they are not sentient, or even con- scious, beings. The expanding of flowers to the light, and the contraction of some to the touch, indicate a highly sentient nature ; and in the slow, cruel action of carnivorous plants, there is something approaching to the fierce instincts of the brute world. Wordsworth, than whom no poet more profoundly understood H 114 THE ABODE OP SNOW. the life of nature, touched on this subject when he said — '•' Through primrose turfs, in that sweet bower, The periwinkle trail'd its wreaths ; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. The budding twigs spread out their fan, To catch the breezy air ; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there." If anything of this kind exists, how great and grave must be the sentient feeling of the mighty pines and cedars of the Himalaya ! There is a considerable variety of them, — as the Pinus excelsa, or the " weep- ing fir," which, though beautiful, is hardly deserving of its aspiring name ; the Pinus longifolia, or Cheel tree, the most abundant of all ; the Pinus Khutrow, or Picea Morinda, which almost rivals the deodars in height ; and the Pinus Morinda, or Abies Pindrow, the " silver fir," which attains the greatest height of all. But, ex- celling all these, is the Cedrus deodara, the Deodar or Kedron tree. There was something very grand about these cedars of the Sutlej valley, sometimes forty feet in circumference, and -rising almost to two hundred feet, or half the height of St Paul's, on nearly precipi- tous slopes, and on the scantiest soil, yet losing no line of beauty in their stems and their graceful pendant branches, and with their tapering stems and green arrowy spikes covered by a clinging trellis-work of Virginia creepers and clematis still in white bloom. These silent giants of a world which is not our own, but which we carelessly use as our urgent wants de- mand, had owed nothing to the cultivating care of man. Fed by the snow-rills, and by the dead lichens KOTGAEH TO CHINI. 115 and strong grass which once found life on the debris of gneiss and mica-slate, undisturbed by the grubbing of wild animals, and as undesirable in their tough green wood when young as unavailable in their fuller growth for the use of the puny race of mankind which grew up around them, they were free, for countless centuries, to seek air and light and moisture, and to attain the per- fect stature which they now present, but which is un- likely to be continued now that they are exposed to the axes of human beings who can turn them " to use." If, as the Singalese assert, the cocoa-nut palm withers away when beyond the reach of the human voice, it is easy to conceive how the majestic deodar must delight in being beyond our babblement. Had Camoens seen this cedar he might have said of it, even more appro- priately than he has done of the cypress, that it may be a " Preacher to the wise, Lessening from earth her spiral honours rise, Till, as a spear-point rear'd, the topmost spray, Points to the Eden of eternal day." The deodar is found in the Himalaya between 5000 and 9000 feet high, and, except in the higher regions, where it wants heat, it prefers the shady northern and eastern slopes of the mountains. The cedar forests of the Sutlej are the most extensive and valuable of India ; but they are to be found along the whole line of the Western Himalaya, and afford a most valuable wood for building and railway purposes. The conservancy of these forests has engaged the attention of the Forest Department, and they are well cared for in British India ; but in Kashmir and some other of the native states they are recklessly destroyed, so as to leave no provision for the propagation of the trees. The deodar 116 THE ABODE OP SNOW. is believed to be of the same species as the cedar of Lebanon, and a good many young specimens of it are now to be found in this country ; but they are not planted here on steep hillsides, which afford their usual habitat in the Himalaya. I found several young deo- dars in the valley of the Thames in the garden of the author of 'Alice Lorraine/ and he informs me that they are liable to suffer much from frost in this country. The view from Chini and Pangay of the Ealdang Kailas, one portion of the great Indian Kailas, or Abode of the Gods, is very magnificent ; but I shall speak of that when treating generally of the various groups of the higher Himalaya. The bungalow of Chini which Lord Dalhousie occupied is still there, and was under repair; but at all times it is reserved, and travellers are expected to go on from Rogi to Pangay. Chini has about a hundred acres of nearly level ground, and that is its distinguishing feature ; but it is also famous for its grapes. At Pangay there is a large good bunga- low ; and the Hindiisthan and Tibet road there comes to an end, so far as it is a cut road, or, indeed, a path on which paid labour of any kind is expended. It is entirely protected by the Kailas from the Indian mon- soon ; and I found a portion of it occupied by Captain and Mrs Henderson, who wisely preferred a stay there to one in the more exposed and unhealthy hill stations, though it was so far from society, and from most of the comforts of life. A HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL. 11 7 CHAPTEE XII. A HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL. END OP THE CUT ROAD — THE MORANG KAILAS RARANG FOAM-CAS- CADES GRANITE AVALANCHES — TURNING A CORNER JANGI — A PRAYING-MILL — LIPPE — AUTHOR'S TLLNESS POISONING IN INDIA. The easiest way from Pangay to Lippe is over the Werung Pass, 12,400 feet; but Captain Henderson, on his returning from a shooting excursion, reported so much snow upon it that I determined to go up the valley of the Sutlej, winding along the sides of the steep but still pine-covered mountains on its right bank. So, on the 28th June, after a delay of a few days in order to recruit and prepare, I bade adieu to civilisation, as represented in the persons of the kind occupants of the bungalow at Pangay, and fairly started for tent-life. A very short experience of the " road " was sufficient to stagger one, and to make me cease to wonder at the retreat of two young cavalry officers I met, a few days before, on their way back to- Simla, and who had started from Pangay with some intention of going to Shipki, but gave up the attempt after two miles' experience of the hard road they would have to travel. The great Hindusthan and Tibet affair was bad enough, but what was this I had come to 1 For a 118 THE ABODE OP SNOW. few miles it had once been a cut road, but years and grief had made it worse than the ordinary native paths. At some places it was impassable even for hill ponies, and to be carried in a dandi over a considerable part of it was out of the question. But the aggravation thus caused, was more than compensated for by the magnifi- cent view of snowy peaks which soon appeared in front, and which, though they belonged to the Kailas group, were more striking than the Kailas as it appears from Chini or Pangay. Those enormous masses of snow and ice rose into the clouds above us to such a height, and apparently so near, that it seemed as if their fall would overwhelm the whole Sutlej valley in our neighbourhood, and they suggested that I was entering into the wildest and sublimest region of the earth. These peaks had the appearance of being on our side of the Sutlej, but they lie between that river and Chinese Tartary, in the bend which it makes when it turns north at Buspa; they are in the almost habita- tionless district of Morang, and are all over 20,000 feet high. My coolies called them the Shurang peaks ; and it is well worth while for all visitors to Pangay to go up a few miles from that place in order to get a glimpse of the terrific Alpine sublimity which is thus disclosed, and which has all the more effect as it is seen ere vegetation ceases, and through the branches of splendid and beautiful trees. At Earang, which made a half-day's journey, the ex- treme violence of the Himalayan wind, which blows usually throughout the day, but most fortunately dies away at night, led me to camp in a sheltered and beau- tiful spot, on a terraced field, under walnut and apricot trees, and with the Kailas rising before my tent on the A HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL. 119 other side of the Sutlej. Every now and then in the afternoon, and when the morning sun began to warm its snows, avalanches shot down the scarred sides of the Kailas; and when their roar ceased, and the wind died away a little, I could hear the soft sound of the waving cascades of white foam — some of which must have rivalled the Staubbach in height — that diversified its lower surface, but which became silent and unseen as the cold of evening locked up their sources in the glaciers and snow above. Where we were, at the height of about 9000 feet, the thermometer was as high as 70° Fahrenheit at sunset ; but at sunrise it was at 57°, and everything was frozen up on the grand mountains opposite. Though deodars and edible pines were still found on the way to Jangi, that road was even worse than its pre- decessor, and Silas and Chota Khan several times looked at me with hopeless despair. In particular, I made my first experience here of what a granite avalanche means, but should require the pen of Bunyan in order to do justice to its discouraging effects on the pilgrim. When Alexander Gerard passed along this road fifty-six years before, he found it covered by the remains of a granite avalanche. Whether the same avalanche has remained there ever since, or, as my coolies averred, granite avalanches are in the habit of coming down on that particular piece of road, I cannot say ; but either ex- planation is quite sufficient to account for the result. The whole mountain-side was covered for a long way with huge blocks of gneiss and granite, over which we had to scramble as best we could, inspired by the con- viction that where these came from there might be more in reserve. At one point we had to wind round the 120 THE ABODE OF SNOW. corner of a precipice on two long poles which rested on a niche at the corner of the precipice which had to bo turned, and which there met two corresponding poles from the opposite side. This could only have been avoided by making a detour of some hours over the granite blocks, so we were all glad to risk it ; and the only dangerous part of the operation was getting round the corner and passing from the first two poles to the second two, which were on a lower level. As these two movements had to be performed simultaneously, and could only be accomplished by hugging the rock as closely as possible, the passage there was really ticklish ; and even the sure-footed and experienced hillmen had to take our baggage round it in the smallest possible instalments. At Jangi there was a beautiful camping-place, be- tween some great rocks and under some very fine walnut and gnew (edible pine) trees. The village close by, though small, had all the marks of moderate affluence, and had a Hindu as well as a Lama temple, the former religion hardly extending any further into the Hima- laya, though one or two outlying villages beyond belong to it. Both at Pangay and Earang I had found the ordinary prayer-wheel used — a brass or bronze cylinder, about six inches long, and two or three in diameter, con- taining a long scroll of paper, on which were written innumerable reduplications of the Lama prayer — " Om mani pad me haun " — and which is turned from left to right in the monk's hand by means of an axle which passes through its centre. But in the Lama temple at Jangi I found a still more powerful piece of devotional machinery, in the shape of a gigantic prayer-mill made of bronze, about seven or eight feet in diameter, and A HARD ROAD TO 'TRAVEL. 121 which might be turned either by the hand or by a rill of water which could be made to fall upon it when water was in abundance. This prayer contained I am afraid to say how many millions of repetitions of the great Lama prayer ; and the pious Eitualists of Jangi were justly proud of it, and of the eternal advantages which it gave them over their carnal and spiritually indifferent neighbours. The neophyte who showed the prayer-mill to me turned it with ease, and allowed me to send up a million prayers. In describing Zanskar, ■ I shall give a fuller account of these prayer- wheels and mills. The temple at Jangi, with its Tibetan inscrip- tions and paintings of Chinese devils, told me that I was leaving the region of Hinduism. At Lippe, where I stopped next day, all the people appeared to be Tibe- tan ; and beyond that I found only two small isolated communities of Hindu Kunaits, the one at Shaso and the other at Namgea. The gneio tree, or edible pine (Pinus Gerardina), under some of which I camped at Jangi, extends higher up than does the deodar. I saw some specimens of it opposite Pii at about 12,000 feet. The edible portion is the almond-shaped seeds, which are to be found within the cells of the cone, and which contain a sweet whitish pulp that is not un- pleasant to the taste. This tree is similar to the Italian Pinus pinea ; and varieties of it are found in Califor- nia, and in Japan where it is called the ginko. The road to Lippe, though bad and fatiguing, pre- sented nothing of the dangers of the preceding clay, and took us away from the Sutlej valley up the right bank of the Pijar, also called Teti, river. In colder weather, when the streams are either frozen or very low, the nearest way from Jangi to Shipki is to go all 122 THE ABODE OF SNOW. the way up the Sutlej valley to Pii ; but in summer that is impossible, from the size and violence of the streams, which are swollen by the melting snows. At this large village a woman was brought to me who had been struck on the head by a falling rock about a year before. It was a very extraordinary case, and showed the good effects of mountain air and diet, because a piece of the skull had been broken off altogether at the top of her head, leaving more than a square inch of the brain exposed, with only a thin membrane over it. The throbbing of the brain was distinctly perceptible under this membrane ; and yet the woman was in perfect health, and seemed quite intelligent. I once saw a Chinaman's skull in a similar state, after he had been beaten by some Tartar troops, but he was quite unconscious and never recovered ; whereas this young woman was not only well but cheerful, and I recom- mended her to go to Simla and get a metallic plate pu^ in, as that was the only thing which could be done for her, and her case might be interesting to the surgeons there. But at Lippe it became clear to me that, while the mountain air had its advantages, the mountain water, or something of the kind, was not always to be relied upon, for I found myself suffering from an attack of acute dysentery of the malignant type. As to the primary origin of this attack I was not without grave suspicions, though far from being sure on the subject. At Pangay one day I congratulated myself on the improved state of my health as I sat down to lunch, which consisted of a stew ; and half an hour afterwards I began to suffer severely from symptoms correspondent to those caused by irritant metallic poisoning. I spoke A HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL. 123 to my servants about this, and had not the remotest suspicion of Silas ; but it struck me that another of them showed a certain amount of shamefacedness when he suggested bad water as the cause ; and though Cap- tain and Mrs Henderson had been living for a month at Pangay, they had found nothing to complain of in the water. It is very unpleasant when suspicions of this kind arise, because it is almost impossible to dis- prove them ; and yet one feels that the harbouring of them may be doing cruel injustice to worthy men. But, some time before, I had become convinced, from a variety of circumstances, that drugging, which the people of India have always had a good deal of recourse to among themselves, is now brought to bear occasion- ally upon Anglo-Indians also, when there is any motive for its use, and where covering circumstances exist. It may seem easy to people who have never tried it, and have never had any reason to do so, to determine whether or not poisonous drugs have been administered to them ; but they will find that just as difficult as to dismount from a horse when it is going over a preci- pice. Such is the fact even where the poison is one which can be detected, but that is not always the case ; and, in particular, there is a plant which grows in almost every compound in India, a decoction of the seeds of one variety of which will produce delirium and death without leaving any trace of its presence behind. The pounded seeds themselves are sometimes given in curry with similar effect, but these can be detected, and it is a decoction from them which is specially dangerous. Entertaining such views, it appeared to me quite possible that some of the people about me might be disposed not so much to poison me as to 124 THE ABODE OF SNOW. arrest my journey by means of drugs, whether to put an end. to what had become to them a trying and hate- ful journey, or in answer to the bribery of agents of the Lassa Government, whose business it is to prevent Europeans passing the border. I don't suppose any one who started with me from Simla, or saw me start, expected that I should get up very far among the mountains ; and, indeed, Major Fen wick politely told me that I should get eaten up. A nice little trip along a cut road, stopping a week at a bungalow here and another bungalow there, was all very well ; but this going straight up, heaven knew where, into the face of stupendous snowy mountains, up and down precipices, and among a Tartar people, was more than was ever seriously bargained for.* I could not, then, in the least wonder, or think it unlikely, that when it was found I was going beyond Pangay, some attempt might be made to disable me a little, though without any intention of doing serious injury. However, I cannot speak with any certainty on that subject. If the illness which I had at Pangay was not the producing cause of the dysentery, it at least prepared the way for it. What was certain at Lippe was, that I had to meet a violent attack of one of the most dangerous and distressing of diseases. Unfortunately, also, I had no medicine suited for it except a little morphia, taken in case of an accident. Somehow, it had never occurred to me that there was any chance of my suffering from true dysentery among the mountains ; and all the cases I have been able to hear of there, were those of people who had brought it * The above passage was written and published in ' Maga ' before I knew anything about the attempt to poison Colonel Phayre at Baroda. A HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL. 125 up with them from the plains. I was determined not to go back — not to turn on my journey, whatever I did ; and it occurred to me that Mr Pagell, the Mora- vian missionary stationed at Pii, near the Chinese border, and to whom I had a letter of introduction from Mr Chapman, would be likely to have the medi- cines which were all I required in order to treat myself effectually. But Pii was several days' journey off, more or less, according to the more or less bad road which might be followed ; and the difficulty was how to get there alive, so rapidly did the dysentery develop itself, and so essential is complete repose in order to deal with it under even the most favourable circumstances. The morphia did not check it in the least. Chlorodyne I was afraid to touch, owing to its irritant quality ; and I notice that Mr Henry Stanley found not the least use from treating himself with it when suffering from dysentery in Africa, though it is often very good for diarrhoea. 126 THE ABODE OP SKOW. CHAPTER XIII. THE RUHANG PASS. HEIGHT OF THE PASS THE YAK OR OX OP TIBET ITS GRUNTING A YAK'S SADDLE — KSOMO DE KOROS — TIBETAN GRAMMARS AND DICTIONARIES SUMMIT OF THE PASS — SUFFERING OF THE DANDI- WALLAHS. The next day's journey, from Lippe to Sugnam, would have been no joke even for an Alpine Clubsman. It is usually made in two days' journey ; but by sending forward in advance, and having coolies from Labrang and Kanam ready for us half-way, we managed to ac- complish it in one day of twelve hours' almost con- tinuous work. The path went over the Euhang or Roonang Pass, which is 14,354 feet high; and as Lippe and Sugnam are about 9000 feet high, that would give an ascent and descent of about 5300 feet each. But there are two considerable descents to be made on the way from Lippe to the summit of the pass, and a smaller descent before reaching Stfgnam, so that the Ruhang Pass really involves an ascent of over 8000 feet, and a descent of the same number. Here, for the first time, I saw and made use of the yak or wild ox of Tibet, the Bos grunniens, or grunt- ing ox — the Bos poephagus and the Trotyayos of Arrian. THE RtJHANG PASS. 127 It- certainly is a magnificent animal, and one of the finest creatures of the bovine species. In the zoologi- cal gardens at Schonbrunn, near Vienna, there are some - specimens of yaks from Siberia ; but they are small, and are not to be compared with the great yak of the Himalaya, the back of which is more like an elephant's than anything else. The shortness of its legs takes away somewhat from its stature ; and so does its thick covering of fine black and white hair, but that adds greatly to its beauty. Indeed it is the shaggy hair and savage eye of the yak which make its appearance so striking, for the head is not large, and the horns are poor. The tail is a splendid feature, and the white tails of yaks are valuable as articles of com- merce. The zo-po, on which I often rode, is a hybrid between the yak and the female Bos indicus, or com- mon Indian cow. It is considered more docile than the yak, and its appearance is often very beautiful. Curiously enough, when the yak and the zo-po are taken to the plains of India, or even to the Kiilu valley, which is over 3000 feet high, they die of liver- disease ; and they can flourish only in cold snowy regions. I was not fortunate enough to see any of the wild yaks which are said to exist on the plains of the upper Sutlej in Chinese Tibet, and in some parts of Ladak. I heard, however, of their being shot, and that the way this was accomplished was by two holes in the ground, communicating with each other beneath, being prepared for the hunter in some place where these animals are likely to pass. If the wild yak is only wounded, it rushes, in its fury, to the hole from whence the shot came, on which the hunter raises his head and gun out of the other hole and fires again. 128 THE ABODE OF SNOW. This rather ignoble game may go on for some time, and the yak is described as being in a frenzy of rage, trampling in the sides of the holes and tearing at them with its horns. Even the yaks of burden, which have been domesticated, or rather half domesticated, for generations, are exceedingly wild, and the only ' way they can be managed is by a rope attached by a ring through the nose. I had scarcely had time at Lippe to admire the yak which was brought for my use, than, the man in charge having dropped this rope, it made a furious charge at me ; and I found afterwards that yaks invariably did this whenever they got a chance. I cannot say whether this was done because I was evi- dently a stranger, or because they regarded me as the cause of all their woes ; but certainly, as we went up that terrible and apparently endless Kuhang Pass, with one man pulling at the yak's nose-ring in front, and another progging it behind with the iron shod of my alpenstock, the Bos grwmiens had an uncommonly hard time of it, especially when he tried to stop ; he did not keep grunting without good reason therefor ; and I could not help thinking that my Poephagus had been perfectly justified in his attempt to demolish me before starting. If my reader wants to get an idea of the comfort of riding upon a yak, let him fasten two Prussian spiked helmets close together along the back of a great bull and seat himself between them. This is the nearest idea I can give of a yak's saddle, only it must be understood that the helmets are connected on each side by ribs of particularly hard wood. The sure-footedness and the steady though slow ascent of these animals up the most difficult passes are very remarkable. They THE RIJHAKG PASS. 129 never rest upon a leg until they are sure they have got a fair footing for it ; and, heavy as they appear, they will carry burdens up places which even the ponies and mules of the Alps would not attempt. There is a cer- tain sense of safety in being on the back of a yak among these mountains, such as one has in riding on an elephant in a tiger-hunt ; you feel that nothing but a very large rock, or the fall of half a mountain, or something of that kind, will make it lose its foQting ; but it does require some time for the physical man to get accustomed to its saddle, to its broad back, and to its deliberate motion when its rider is upon it and not in a position to be charged at. So up I went on a yak along a most curious path- way which slanted across the face of an immense slate precipice. From below it appeared impossible for any man or animal to pass along it, and sometimes I had to dismount, and even the saddle had to be taken off my bulky steed, in order that it might find room to pass. From the top of this precipice there was a de- scent of about 800 feet, and then a tremendous pull up to what I fancied was the top of the pass, but which was far from being anything of the kind. The path then ran along a ridge of slate at an elevation of about 13,000 feet, affording most splendid views both of the Morang Kailas and of the great mountains within the Lassa territory. After a gradual descent we came upon an alp or grassy slope, where we were met by people from Labrang and Kanam, all in their best attire, to conduct us the remainder of the way to Sugnam. These mountaineers, some of whom were rather good- looking women, tendered their assistance rather as an act of hospitality than as a paid service ; and the I 130 THE ABODE OP SNOW. money they were to receive could hardly compensate them for the labour of the journey. There is a Lama monastery at Kanam, in which the Hungarian Csomo de Koros lived for a long time when he commenced his studies of the Tibetan language and literature. It is well known now that the Maggyars are a Tartar race, and that their language is a Tartar language ; but thirty years ago that was only beginning to appear, so Csomo de Koros wandered eastward in search of the congeners of his countrymen. At that time Central Asia was more open to Europeans than it has been of late years ; so he came by way of Kaubul, and, on entering the inner Himalaya, found so many affinities between the Tibetan language and that of his country- men, that he concluded he had discovered the original stem of the Maggyar race. Years were passed by him at Kanam, and at the still more secluded monastery of Kingdom, where I found he was well remembered ; and he made himself a master of the Lama religion and of the Tibetan language, besides preparing a number of manuscripts regarding the Tibetan literature. But this did not content him, for he was anxious to penetrate into Chinese Tibet as far as Lassa ; and finding all his efforts to do so from Kun&war were frustrated, he went down into India, and ascended the Himalaya again at Daljiling, with the intention of penetrating into Tibet from that point in disguise. At Daljiling, however, he died suddenly — whether from the effects of passing through the Terai, or from poison, or from what cause, no one can say, nor have I been able to learn what be- came of his manuscripts. I suppose nobody at Darjil- ing knew anything about him ; and Dr Stoliczka told me he had met some Hungarians who had come to THE UNHANG PASS. 131 India in search of their lost relative Csomo, and it was only by some accident he was able to tell them where the Hungarian they sought was buried. Csomo de Koros published at Calcutta a Tibetan Grammar in English, and also a Tibetan-English Dic- tionary : but he had so far been anticipated by Father Georgi, who published a Tibetan Grammar at Rome in 1762, founded on the manuscripts of Father De la Penna, one of the missionaries who went from Peking to Lassa in the first half of the eighteenth century ; and by J. J. Schmidt, who issued at Leipsic, in 1841, a ' Tibetisch-Deutsches Worterbuch, nebst Deutschem Wortregister.' This Schmidt was a merchant in Eussia, at Sarepta, near the Volga, where he learned the Mongolian language, and then, from the Mongolian Lamas, acquired the Tibetan, after which the Russian Government called him to St Petersburg, where he published Mongolian and Tibetan Grammars. A small but convenient lithographed Tibetan Grammar in English, and a Tibetan-English Vocabulary, were pre- pared some years ago by the Eev. Mr Jaschke, of the Moravian Mission at Kaelang, in Lahoul ; but the latter of these will ere long be superseded by the elaborate and most valuable Tibetan- German and Tibetan - English Dictionaries, with registers, which this gentleman is now preparing and passing through the press from his present residence at Herrnhut, in Saxony, the original and central settlement of the Moravian Brethren. I had the pleasure of meeting with Herr Jaschke at Herrnhut a short time ago, and found him far advanced with his dictionaries ; and may mention that sheets of them, so far as they have been printed, are to be found in the East India Office Library. 132 THE ABODE OF SNOW. But we are not at Herrnhut just now, but on a cold windy plateau 13,000 feet high, with a gradual descent before us to some white granite and mica-slate preci- pices, which have to be painfully climbed up ; while beyond, a steep and terribly long ascent leads up to a great bank of snow, which must be crossed before it is possible to commence the 5500 feet of descent upon Siignam. Feeling myself becoming weaker every hour, I must confess that my heart almost failed me at this prospect ; but to have remained at that altitude in the state I was in would have been death ; so, after hastily drinking some milk, which the pretty Kanam ' women had been considerate enough to bring with them, we pushed on. No yaks could go up the white precipice, and there was nothing for it there but climb- ing with such aid as ropes could give. High as we were, the heat and glare of the sun on these rocks was frightful ; but as we got up the long slope beyond and approached the bank of snow, the sky darkened, and an intensely cold and violent wind swept over the summit of the pass from the fields of ice and snow around. There was no difficulty in passing the bank of snow, which turned out to be only patches of snow with a bare path between them ; but at that height of 14,354 feet, or nearly as high as the summit of Mont Blanc, with its rarefied air, the effect of the violent icy wind was almost killing, and we could not halt for a moment on the summit of the pass or till we got hundreds of feet below it. Hitherto I had been able to make little use of my dandi, but now I could do little more than stick to it. This was very hard on the bearers, who were totally unused to the work. One poor man, after a little THE RtJhANG PASS. 133 experience, of carrying me, actually roared and cried, the tears ploughing through the dirt of ages upon his cheeks (for these people never wash), like mountain torrents down slopes of dried mud. He seemed so much distressed that I allowed him to carry one of the kiltas instead ; on which the other men told him that he would have to be content with two annas (threepence) instead of four, which each bearer was to receive. To this he replied that they might keep all the four annas to themselves, for not forty times four would reconcile him to the work of carrying the dandi. But the other men bore up most manfully under an infliction which they must have regarded as sent to them by the very devil of devils. They were zemindars, too, or small proprietors, well off in the world, with flocks and herds of their own ; and yet, for sixpence, they had to carry me (suspended from a long bamboo, which tortured their unaccustomed shoulders, and knocked them off their footing every now and then) down a height of between 5000 and 6000 feet along a steep corkscrew track over shingle and blocks of granite. How trifling these charges are, though the work is so much more severe, compared with the six francs a-day we have to give to a Swiss portatina or chaise a porteur, with three francs for back fare, and the six or eight francs for a guide on ordinary excursions. Meanwhile, the individual sus- pended from the bamboo was in scarcely a happier plight. I could not help remembering a prediction of Lieutenant-Colonel Moore's, that if I ever did reach Kashmir, or anywhere, it would be suspended by the heels and neck from a bamboo, with tongue hanging out of my mouth, and eyes starting from their sockets. 134 THE ABODE OF SNOW. Things certainly had an unpleasant appearance of com- ing to that pass, and this reflection enabled me to endure the suffering of the dandiwallahs with some equanimity. Fortunately, till we got near to Siignam, there was no precipice for them to drop me over ; and when we at last reached one, and had to pass along the edge of it, I got out and walked as well as I could, for I felt convinced that outraged human nature could not have resisted the temptation ; and I also took the precaution of keeping the most valuable-looking man of the party in front of me with my hand resting on his shoulder. SLATE PRECIPICES. 135 CHAPTER XIV. SLATE PRECIPICES. SltGNAM SHASO THE CHOKEA THE BOY NURDASS SHASO TO Ptf THE WOEST PATH IN BUSSAHIE THE GOBGE OF THE SUTLEJ SCHWESTER PAGELL. There is a route from Siignam to Pu, by Llo and Hango, which takes over two 14,000 feet passes, and probably would have been the best for me; but we had had enough of 14,000 feet for the time being, and so I chose another route by Shaso, which was repre- sented as shorter, but hard. It was a very small day's journey from Sugnam (which is a large and wealthy village, inhabited by Tartars) to Shaso, and the road was not particularly bad, though I had to be carried across precipitous slopes where there was scarcely footing for the dandiwallahs. My servants had not recovered the Riihang Pass, however ; and I was so ill that I also was glad to rest the next day at this strange little village in order to prepare for the formidable day's journey to Pii. Shaso consists of only a few houses and narrow terraced fields on the left bank of the Darbiing Liing-pa, with gigantic and almost precipitous mountains shading it on either side of the stream. My tent was pitched on a narrow strip 136 THE ABODE OF SNOW. of grass amid large willow-trees, apricot-trees, and vines, which promised to bear a plentiful crop of large purple grapes. It was here I engaged the services of the youth Nurdass, who proved so useful to me on my further journey. A boy, to be generally useful, had been engaged at Kotgarh; and as no one except himself could pronounce his name or anything like it, he was dubbed " the Chokra," or simply boy. Of all things in the world, he offered himself as a dhobi or washer- man, for certainly his washing did not begin at home ; and he disappeared mysteriously the morning after his first attempt in that line, and after we had gone only six marches. Some clothes were given him to wash at Nachar ; and whether it was the contemplation of these clothes after he had washed them — a process which he prolonged far into the night — or that he found the journey and his work too much for him, or, as some one said, he had seen a creditor to whom he owed five rupees, — at all events, when we started in the morning no Chokra was visible, and the only information about him we could get was that he was udhur gya — " gone there," our informant pointing up to a wilderness of forest, rock, and snow. Nurdass was a very different and much superior sort of youth. His father — or at least his surviving father, for, though inhabited by an outlying colony of Hindu Kunaits, polyandry flourishes in Shaso — was a doctor as well as a small proprietor, and his son had received such education as could be got among the mountains. The youth, or boy as he looked though fifteen years old, spoke Hindiisthani very well, as also Kunawari, and yet was never at a loss with any of the Tibetan dialect SLATE PRECIPICES. 137 we came to. He could go up mountains like a wild cat, was not afraid to mount any horse, and though he had never even seen a wheeled carriage until we got to the plains of India, yet amid the bustle and confu- sion of the railway stations he was cool and collected as possible, and learned immediately what to do there. He was equally at home in a small boat on a rough day in Bombay harbour; and, after seeing three steamers, compared them as critically with one another as if he had been brought up to the iron trade, though there was nothing of the conceited nil admirari of the Chinaman about him, and he was full of wonder and admiration. It was really a bold thing for a little mountain youth of this kind to commit himself to an indefinitely long journey with people whom, with the exception of Phuleyram, he had never seen before. His motive for doing so was a desire to see the world and a hope of bettering his condition in it, for there was no necessity for him to leave Shaso. There was great lamentation when he left ; his mother and sisters caressing him, and weeping over him, and beseeching us to take good care of him. The original idea was that Nurdass should return to the Sutlej valley along with Phuleyram, when that caste-man of his should leave us, whether in Spiti or Kashmir. But in Chinese Tibet Phuleyram pulled the little fellow's ears one night, and, in defence of this, most gratuitously accused him of being tipsy, when, if anybody had been indulging, it was only the munshi himself. This made me doubtful about sending him back the long way from Kashmir to the Sutlej in company with Phuley- ram alone ; and on speaking to him on the subject, I found that he was quite frightened at the prospect, and 138 THE ABODE OF SNOW. was not only willing but eager to go with me to Bombay, — both because he wished to see a place of which he had heard so much, and because the season was so far advanced he was afraid he might not be able to reach his own home before spring. So Nurdass came on with me to Bombay, where he excited much interest by his intelligence and open disposition ; and I might have taken him on farther with me had he been inclined to go ; but he said that, though he was not afraid of the kala pani, or dark water, yet he would rather not go with . me then, because he had made a long enough journey from his own country, and seen enough wonders, for the first time. Several distin- guished persons on our way down wished to take him into their employment ; but one day he came to me crying, with his hand upon his heart, saying, that there was something there which made him ill, and that he would die unless he got back to his own pahar, or mountains. He could not have heard of the heimweh of the Swiss, and I was struck by his reference to the mountains in particular. There was evidently no affectation in the feelings he expressed ; so, knowing his wonderful cleverness as a traveller, but taking various precautions for his safety, which Was likely to be endangered by his confidence in mankind, I sent him back from Bombay alone to the Himalaya, and have been glad to hear of his having reached Kotgarh, without any mishap, where, I am sure, the kind-hearted Mr Eebsch would see that he was safely convoyed to his little village high up among the great mountains. Thus reinforced by a small but mighty man, we started from Shaso at five in the morning of the 4th July, and I managed to reach Pu at seven that night, SLATE PRECIPICES. 139 more dead than alive. The distance was only fourteen miles, and the first two and the last two were so easy that I was carried over them in my dandi ; but the intervening ten were killing to one in my condition, for the dandi was of no use upon them, and I had to trust entirely to my own hands and feet. These ten miles took me exactly twelve hours, with only half an hour's rest. The fastest of my party took nine hours to the whole distance, so that I must have gone won- derfully fast considering that I had rheumatism besides dysentery, and could take nothing except a very little milk, either before starting or on the way. The track — for it could not be called a path, and even goats could hardly have got along many parts of it — ran across the face of tremendous slate precipices, which rose up thousands of feet from the foaming and thun- dering Sutlej. Some rough survey of these dhung or cliffs was made, when it was proposed to continue the Hindiisthan and Tibet road beyond Pangay, a project which has never been carried out ; and Mr Cregeen, executive engineer, says of them, in No. CLXVI. of the " Professional Papers on Indian Engineering," " in the fifth march to Spool,* the road must be taken across the cliffs which here line the right bank of the Sutlej in magnificent wildness. The native track across these cliffs, about 1500 feet above the crossing for the Hindiisthan and Tibet road, is considered the worst footpath in Bussahir. This march will, I think, be the most expensive on the road ; the whole of the * Pii is the name of this place, but the natives sometimes call it Piii, the i being added merely for the sake of euphony, as the Chinese some- times change Shu, water, into Shui. In the Trigonometrical Survey map it has been transformed into Spuch. Where the Survey and Mr Cregeen found their versions of it I cannot imagine. 140 THE ABODE OF SKOW. cutting will be through, hard rock." Any one who has had some experience of the footpaths in Bussahir may conceive what the worst of them is likely to be, but still he may be unable to comprehend how it is pos- sible, to get along faces of hard rock, thousands of feet above their base, when there has been no cutting or blasting either. It must be remembered, however, that though the precipices of the Himalaya look almost per- pendicular from points where their entire gigantic pro- portions can be seen, yet, on a closer examination, it turns out that they are not quite perpendicular, and have many ledges which can be taken advantage of by the traveller. In this case the weather had worn away the softer parts of the slate, leaving the harder ends sticking out; and I declare that these, with the addition of a few ropes of juniper-branches, were the only aids we had along many parts of these precipices when I crossed them. Where the protruding ends of slate were close together, long slabs of slate were laid across them, forming a sort of footpath such as might suit a chamois- hunter ; when they were not sufficiently in line, or were too far distant from each other, to allow of slabs being placed, we worked our way from one protruding end of slate to another as best we could ; and where a long interval of twenty or thirty feet did not allow of this latter method of progress, ropes of twisted juniper- branches had been stretched from one protruding end to another, and slabs of slate had been placed on these, with their inner ends resting on any crevices which could be found in the precipice wall, thus forming a " footpath " with great gaps in it, through which we could look down sometimes a long distance, and which SLATE PHECIPICES. 141 bent and shook beneath our feet, allowing the slabs every now and then to drop out and fall towards the Sutlej, till shattered into innumerable fragments. It was useless attempting to rely on a rope at many of these places, for the men who would have had to hold the rope could hardly have found a position from which to stand the least strain. Indeed, the worst danger I met with was from a man officiously trying to help me on one of these juniper-bridges, with the result of nearly bringing the whole concern down. And if slabs of slate went out from underneath our feet, not less did slabs of slate come crashing down over and between our heads occasionally ; for it seemed to me that the whole of that precipice had got into the habit of detaching itself in fragments into the river beneath. I may add, that having sent my servants on in front — to set up my tent and make other preparations in case of Mr Pagell being away, of which I had heard a rumour — I was entirely in the hands of the Siignam bigarris, of whose Tebarskad I hardly understood a word ; and that the July sun beat upon the slate, so that every breath from the rock was sickening. Beneath there were dark jagged precipices and an almost sun- less torrent — so deeply is the Sutlej here sunk in its gorge — foaming along at the rate of about twenty miles an hour ; above there were frowning precipices and a cloudless sky, across which some eagle or huge raven-like Himalayan crow occasionally flitted. I saw this footpath in an exceptionally bad state — for it is only used in winter when, the higher roads are impassable from snow ; and after all the damage of winter and spring it is not repaired until the begin- ning of winter. But no repairing, short of blasting 142 THE ABODE OV SNOW. out galleries in the face of the rock, could make much improvement in it. It was not, however, the danger of this path which made it frightful to me ; that only- made it interesting, and served as a stimulus. The mischief was that, in my disabled and weak state, I had to exert myself almost continuously on it for twelve hours in a burning sun. The Siignam men did all in their power to assist me, and I could not but admire, and be deeply grateful for, their patience and kindness. But the longest day has an end, as Damiens said when he was taken out to be tortured ; and we . reached Pu at last, my bearers, as they approached it, sending up sounds not unlike the Swiss jodel, which were replied to in similar fashion by their companions who had reached the place before them. Pu* is a large village, situated about a thousand feet above the bed of the Sutlej, on the slope of a high, steep mountain. I found that my tent had been pitched on a long terraced field, well shaded with apricot-trees, on the outskirts of the village, and that Mr Pagell, the Mora- vian missionary, was absent on a long journey he was making in Spiti. Mrs Pagell, it appeared, was living with some native Christians near by, in a house guarded by ferocious dogs ; but as she spoke neither English nor Hindusthani, only German and Tibetan, Silas had been unable to communicate with her, and the use of Nurdass as an interpreter had not then been discovered. This was serious news for a man in my condition ; but I was in too deathlike a state to do anything, and lying down in my tent, did not make any attempt to leave it until the day after next. THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW OP DEATH. 143 CHAPTEE XV. THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW OP DEATH. COMPANIONS IN MY ILLNESS SAND-FLIES SCORPIONS SERPENTS TIBETAN MASTIFFS CHINESE TARTARS A SNOW-BEAR GROUND TOO DEAR FOR BURIAL COR SCORPIONIS. So soon as able, I staggered up to Mrs Pagell's resi- dence, and explained the position I was in. She at once gave me access to her husband's store of medi- cines, where I found all I required to treat myself with — calomel, steel, chalk, Dover's powder, and, above all, pure ipecacuanha, which nauseous medicine was to me like a spring of living water in a dry and thirsty land, for I knew well that it was the only drug to be relied on for dysentery. This good Moravian sister was dis- tressed at having no proper accommodation in her house for me ; but, otherwise, she placed all its re- sources at my disposal, and soon sent off a letter to be forwarded from village to village in search of her hus- band. Considering that, in ten years, Mrs Pagell had seldom seen a European, it was only to be expected that she should be a little flustered, and at a loss what to do ; but her kindness was genuine, and I was greatly indebted to her. I had hoped, by this time, to be leaving the Valley 144 THE ABODE OF SNOW. of the Shadow of Death, its rock heat and its ever-roar- ing torrent, but had to remain in it for a month longer, lying on my back. I reached Pu on the 4th July, and Mr Pagell did not arrive until the 25th of the month ; so that for three weeks, and during the critical period of the disease, I had to be my own doctor, and almost my own sick-nurse. Only those who have experienced acute dysentery can know how dreadfully trying and harassing it is ; and the servants of the heroic Living- stone have told how, in the latter stages of it, he could do nothing but groan day and night. Then the ipe- cacuanha, which I had to take in enormous doses before I could contrive to turn the disease, kept me in a state of the greatest feebleness and sickness. The apricot- trees afforded grateful shade, but they harboured hosts of sand -flies, which tormented me all night, while swarms of the common black fly kept me from sleeping during the day. There were numbers of scorpions under the stones around, both the grey scorpion and the large black scorpion with its deadly sting, of the effects of which Vambe'ry has given such a painful account. Curiously, too, this was the only place in the Himalaya where I ever heard of there being serpents ; but long serpents there were — six feet long — gliding before my open tent at night. This was no dream of delirium, for one was killed quite close to it and brought to me for examination ; and a few weeks after, Mr Pagell killed another in his verandah. I was far too ill to examine whether my serpent had poison-fangs or not, and was fain to be content with an assurance that the people of Pii were not afraid of these long snakes ; but the Moravian found that the one he killed had fangs, and at all events it was not pleasant, even for a half- THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 145 dead man, either to see them in moonlight, or hear them in darkness, gliding about his tent. One end of the field in front of me touched on a small forest, which ran up a steep valley and was likely to harbour wild beasts. The position was lonely, also, for I had to make my servants camp a little way off, on the side away from the forest, in order not to be disturbed by their talking and disputing, or by their visitors ; and so, weak as I was, they were barely within call even when awake. But 1 was much disturbed by the singing and howling of a number of Chinese Tartars who had come over the border on a pilgrimage to the Lama temple in Pu. These pious persons were silent all day till about two or three in the afternoon, when they commenced their infernal revels, and (with the aid of potent liquor, I was told) kept up their singing and dancing for several nights till morning. In addition to all this, huge savage Tibetan dogs used to come down the mountain-sides from a Lama nunnery and other houses above, and prowl round my tent, or poke into it, in search of what they could find ; and the let- ting them loose at all was highly improper conduct on the part of the virtuous sisterhood. One splendid red dog came down regularly, with long leaps, which I could hear distinctly ; and I had quite an affection for him, until, one night, I was awakened from an uneasy slumber by finding his mouth fumbling at my throat, in order to see if I was cold enough for his purposes. This was a little too much, so I told Silas to watch for it and pepper it with small shot from a distance ; but, either accidentally or by design, he shot it in the side from close quarters, killing it on the spot, its life issu- ing out of it in one grand, hoarse, indignant roar. K 146 THE ABODE OF SNOW. Possibly it occurred to my servant that the small shot from a distance might be a rather unsafe proceeding. As if these things were not enough, I had a visitor of another kind, one night, who puzzled me not a little at first. I was lying awake, exhausted by one of the paroxysms of my illness, when a large strange-looking figure stepped into the moonlight just before my tent, and moved about there with the unsteady swaying motion of a drunken man, and with its back towards me. My first idea was that this was one of the Chinese Tartars encamped beside the temple, who had come in his sheepskin coat to treat me to a war-dance, or to see what he could pick up ; and so I let my hand fall noiselessly over the side of the couch, upon the box which held my revolver. It was only natural that I should think so, because it is very rarely that any ani- mal, except homo sapiens, moves erect upon its hind- legs, or, I may add, gets drunk. But still there was something not human in the movements of this crea- ture, and when it began slowly to climb up one of the apricot-trees in a curious fashion, I could not help ex- claiming aloud, " Good heavens ! what have we got now 1 " On this it turned round its long head and gave a ferocious growl, enabling me both to see and hear that it was one of the great snow-bears which infest the high mountains, but enter seldom and only by stealth the villages. I thought it prudent to make no more remarks ; and after another warning growl, evidently intended to intimate that it was not going to be balked of its supper, the bear continued up the tree, and commenced feasting on the apricots. As may be supposed, I watched somewhat anxiously for its descent; and as it came down the trunk, the THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 147 thought seemed to strike it that a base advantage might be taken of its position, for it halted for an instant, and then gave another warning growl. It repeated this manoeuvre as it passed my tent, on its four legs this time, but otherwise took no notice of me ; and there was a curious sense of perilous wrong-doing about the creature, as if it were conscious that the temptation of the apricots had led it into a place where it ought not to have been. I did not mention this circumstance to Silas, for he was extremely anxious to have a shot at a bear, and I was just as anxious that he should not, because he had no sufficient qualification for such dangerous sport, and to have wounded a bear would only have resulted in its killing him, and per- haps some more of us. After that, however, though never troubled with another visit of the kind, I had a sort of barricade made at night with my table and other articles in front of the tent, so that I might not be taken unawares ; for my visitor was not a little Indian black bear, or even an ordinary Tibetan bear, but a formidable specimen of the yellow or snow bear (Ursus isabellinus), which usually keeps above the snow -line, is highly carnivorous in its habits, and often kills the yaks of Pu, and of other vil- lages, when they are sent to graze in summer upon the high alp. Shortly after this I discovered that the way to deal with the horrible irritation of the sand-flies was to have my tent closed at night, and to smoke them out with burning fagots, which almost entirely freed me from their annoyance, and was an immense relief, though the plan had some disadvantages of its own, because I did not like to strike a light for fear of attracting the sand-flies ; and so the moving of crea- 148 THE ABODE OF SNOW. tures about and inside my tent became doubly un- pleasant when there was little or no moon, for, in the darkness, I could not tell what they might be. It was in this way that I spent the month of July, when I had hoped to be travelling in Chinese Tibet. Trying as this combination of horrors was, I think it did me good rather than harm, for it made life more desirable than it might otherwise have appeared, and so prevented me succumbing to the disease which had got all but a fatal hold of me. Moreover, the one visitor neutralised the effect of the other : vou cease to care about scorpions when you see long snakes moving about you at night, and Tibetan mastiffs are insigni- ficant after the visit of an Ursus isabellinus. During this trying period Mrs Pagell paid me a short visit every day or two, and did all in her power to afford medical comforts. My servants also were anxious to do all they could, but they did not know what to do ; and I was scarcely able to direct them to do more than weigh out medicines and to leave me as undisturbed as possible, complete repose being almost essential -to recovery. I could only lie there, remembering the lines — " So lie bent not a muscle, but hung there, As, caught in his pangs And waiting his change, the king-serpent All heavily hangs, Far away from his kind, in the pine, Till deliverance come." After I had recovered, and we were away from Pu, Mr Pagell told me, with a. slightly humorous twinkle in his eye, and being guilty of a little conjugal infidelity, that one great cause of his wife's anxiety on my account was that she did not know where I was -to be buried. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 149 or how a coffin was to be made for me. About the 10th and 12th of July it looked very like as if the time had come for arrangements of that kind being made ; and poor Mrs Pagell was, naturally enough, greatly at a loss what to do in the absence of her hus- band. Ground is very valuable at Pii, and difficult to be had, being entirely artificial, and terraced up on the mountain-side. For a stranger to occupy any portion of it in perpetuity would have been a serious and ex- pensive matter ; and Moravian feeling revolted at the idea of growing vegetables or buckwheat over my grave. Then, as everything should be done decently and in order, the question as to a coffin was very per- plexing. Had the practical missionary himself been there, he could at least have supervised the construc- tion of one by the Pii carpenters ; but his wife felt quite unequal to that, and was much distressed in con- sequence. Had I known of this anxiety, I could have put her mind at rest, because it never occurred to me that, in the circumstances, the responsibility of making arrangements would fall upon any one except myself. Death never appeared to myself so near as the people beside me believed it to be ; and my determination was, if it became inevitable, to make arrangements to have my body carried up, without a coffin, high up the mountains above the snow-line. I had fully con- sidered how this could have been insured, and have always had a fancy, nay, something more than a fancy, to be so disposed of, far away from men and their ways. There are wishes of this kind which, I believe, have a real relationship to the future, though the con- nection may be too subtle to be clearly traced. There is a twofold idea in death, by virtue of which man still 150 THE ABODE OF SNOW. attaches himself to the earth while his spirit may look forward to brighter worlds ; and for me it was a real consolation to think of myself resting up there among the high peaks — " There, watched by silence and by night, And folded in the strong embrace Of the great mountains, with the light Of the sweet heavens upon my face." But it had not come to that. By day I watched the sunbeams slanting through the apricot-trees, or looked up longingly to the green slopes and white snows of the " Windy Peak " of Gerard's map. Eve after eve I saw the sunlight receding up the wild precipices and fading on the snowy summits. Night after night the most baleful of the constellations drew its horrid length across a space of open sky between the trees, and its red star, Cor Scorpionis, glared down upon my sick- bed like a malignant eye in heaven. And while the crash of falling rocks and the movements of stealthy wild creatures were occasionally heard, night and day there ever rose from beneath the dull thunderous sound of the Sutlej, to remind me, if that were needed, that I was still in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. JUNCTION OF THE SUTLEJ AND SPITI RIVERS. 151 CHAPTER XVI. JUNCTION OF THE SUTLEJ AND SPITI RIVERS. THE MORAVIAN MISSION THE PEOPLE OF PU STAET FOE CHINESE TIBET DABLING AND DUBLING — SANG-PO AND SAN G-PA— MURAL PRECIPICES KHALB EXTRAORDINARY JUNCTION OP THE LEE AND SPITI RIVERS GEOLOGY HIMALAYAN VALLEYS CATA- CLYSMS — NAMES FOR RIVERS. Just after I had managed to get the better of my ill- ness, but was still in danger from it, and confined to my cot, Mr Pagell arrived, having been recalled from a place in Spiti, ten days' journey off, by the letter which his wife forwarded to him. I found the Mora- vian missionary to be a strong, active, and cheerful man ; no great scholar, perhaps, but with a consid- erable knowledge of English, able to speak Tibetan fluently, acquainted with the Lama religion, well liked by the people of the country, and versed in the arts which were so necessary for a man in his isolated and trying position. He had been established, with Mrs Pagell, at Pii for about ten years; and, before that, had spent some years in the Moravian mission at Kaelang, in Lahaul, where also Tibetan is spoken. The house he had constructed for himself, or, at least, had supervised the construction of, was small, but- it was strongly built, the thick beams having been brought 152 THE ABODE OF SNOW. from a distance, and was well fitted to keep out the cold of winter, though not so agreeable as a summer residence. There was a small chapel in his compound, in which service was conducted on Sundays for. the benefit of the few Christians, and of any strangers or people of the place who might choose to attend. Christianity has not made much progress at Pu, but this is to be attributed to the entire contentment of the people with their own religion, rather than to any want of zeal or ability on the part of the missionary. Besides himself and his wife, two or three men, with their families, constituted the entire Christian com- munity ; and of these one was the hereditary execu- tioner of KunaVar, the office having been abolished during the lifetime of his father ; while of another, a true Tibetan, who acted as a house servant, Mrs Pagell said that he was a schande, or scandal, to the Christian name, from his habits of begging and borrowing money right and left. The good lady's opinion of the people among whom she dwelt, whether Christians or Bud- hists, was lower than that of her husband ; and, in par- ticular, she accused them of being very ungrateful. I saw a little to show me that they were so — and even Mr Pagell admitted that ; but, as a rule, he was in- clined to take their part, to regard them in a kindly manner, and to find excuses for their faults — even for their polyandry — in the circumstances of their life. A youth, christened Benjamin, who accompanied us for some days on our further journey, seemed the best of the Christians, and I think he was glad to get away for a time in order to escape from the hateful practice which Mrs Pagell compelled him to undergo, of wash- ing his hands and face every morning. In language, JUNCTION OF THE SUTLEJ AND SPITI RIVERS. 153 dress, religion, and manners, the people are thoroughly Tibetan ; and though they are nominally subject to the Kajah of Bussahir, yet their village is so difficult of access that they pay little regard to his commands. Mr Pagell estimated the population at about 600, but I should have thought there were more, and perhaps he meant .families. There is so much cultivation at Pii that the place must be tolerably wealthy. During my stay there most of the men were away trading in Chinese Tibet and Ladak, and I could not but admire the wonderful industry of the women. There were some fields before my tent in which they worked literally day and night, in order to lose no time in getting the grain cut, and in preparing the ground for a second crop, one of buckwheat. Besides labouring at this the whole day, they returned to their fields after dinner in the evening, and worked there, with the aid of torches of resinous pine- wood, until one or two in the morning. The enormous flocks of blue pigeons must have caused great loss in the grain harvest. There are vines at Pii, and very good tobacco, but when pre- pared for smoking it is not properly dried, and remains of a green colour. I found that this tobacco when well sieved, so as to free it from the dust and pieces of stalk, afforded capital smoking material, and I prefer it to Turkish tobacco. Mr Pagell's society assisted me in recovery, and I was soon able to sit up during the day in front of my tent in an easy-chair, with which he furnished me ; and on the 30th of July I was able to visit his house. But I knew that my recovery would go on much more rapidly if I could get up to some of the heights above the Sutlej valley. Though Pii is about 10,000 feet 154 THE ABODE OE SNOW. high, it is in the Sutlej valley, and has not a very- healthy climate in August, so I was anxious to leave it as soon as at all possible. Seeing my weak state, Mr Pagell kindly offered to accompany me for a few days, and I was glad to have his companionship. On the afternoon of the 5th August, we set off for Shipki, in Chinese Tibet, with the design of reaching it in four easy stages. Three hours and a half took us to our first camping-place, on some level ground beyond Dabling, and underneath the village of Dublin g — places the names of which have been transposed by the Trigo- nometrical Survey. To reach this, we had to descend from Pii to the Sutlej, and cross that river upon a sangpa, or very peculiar kind of wooden bridge. The Sutlej itself is here known to the Tibetans usually by the name of Sang-po, or " the river ; " and I notice that travellers and map-makers are apt to get confused about these words, sometimes setting down a bridge as "the Sang-pa bridge," and a river as "the Sang-po river." Even our most accomplished geographers write of the upper portion of the Brahmaputra as the " Tsang-po river," that being the same as Sang-po, and meaning simply "the river," or the great river of the district. I have called the Namtii bridge, as it is named, beneath Pii peculiar; because, though about 80 feet above the stream, which is there over 100 feet across, it is only about three or four feet broad in the middle, is very shaky, and has no railing of any kind to prevent one going over it, and being lost in the foaming torrent below. A Piii yak once survived a fall from this bridge, . being swept into a backwater there is a little way down the stream; but that was a mere chance, and the Bos grunniens can stand a great deal of knocking about. JUNCTION OF THE SUTLEJ AND SPITI RIVERS. 155 These bridges are constructed by large strong beams being pushed over one another, from both sides, until they approach sufficiently to allow of the topmast beams being connected by long planks. So rapid is the river below the bridge that Gerard was unable to fathom it with a 10-lb lead. The path from this bridge towards the Chinese fron- tier kept up the left bank of the Sutlej, and not far above it, over tolerably level ground. The pieces of rock in the way were unpleasant for dandi-travelling ; but it would take little labour to make a good road from beneath Pu to opposite the junction of the Sutlej and the Spiti river, there being a kind of broad ledge all the way along the left bank of the former stream, but, for the most part, a few hundred feet above it. Though easier for travelling, yet the Sutlej valley be- came wilder than ever as we advanced up it, though not so chaotic as lower down. On the side opposite to us there were almost perpendicular precipices thou- sands of feet in height, and the clay and mica-schist strata (interspersed here and there with granite) were twisted in the most grotesque manner. Shortly before, a Pii hunter had been killed by falling over these cliffs when in search of ibex. Above this precipice- wall high peaks were occasionally visible, but in our neighbour- hood there was nothing but rocks and precipices, the foaming river, mountain torrents crossing the path, and a few edible pines, junipers, and tufts of fragrant thyme. On the next day to Khalb, a short journey of four hours, the Sutlej gorge appeared still deeper and nar- rower. Quartz-rock became more plentiful, and, curi- ously enough, we passed a vein of very soft limestone. 156 THE ABODE OP SNOW. Some of the mountain streams were rather difficult to pass, and one of them had to be crossed on two poles thrown over it, though to have fallen into the torrent would have been' utter destruction. At Khalb there is a most picturesque camping-ground, amid huge granite boulders, and well shaded by pines and junipers. It is opposite and immediately above one of the most extraordinary scenes in the world — the junction of the Sutlej, and the Lee or Spiti river. You cannot get near the junction at all, and there are few points from which you can even see it, so deeply is it sunk between close mural precipices ; but you can look down towards it and see that the junction must be there. These two rivers have all the appearance of having cut their way down through hundreds of feet of solid rock strata. Even below the great precipices they seem to have eaten down their way and made deep chasms. I do not venture to say positively that such has been the case ; but the phenomena presented are well worthy of the special attention of geologists ; because, if these rivers have cut the passages which they appear to have cut, then a good deal more effect may be reasonably ascribed than is usually allowed to the action of water in giving the surface of our globe its present shape. But, though not positive, I am inclined to believe that the Lee and the Sutlej have cut a perpendicular gorge for themselves from a little below Khalb down to the present level of their waters — a distance, roughly speak- ing, of about 1200 feet, and this becomes more credible on considering the structure of the rock. Gerard fell into the mistake (pardonable in his day) of calling this rock "stratified granite." Across the Chinese border the mountains are rolling plains of JUNCTION OF THE STJTLEJ AND SPIT1 RIVERS. 157 quartz and whitish granite, and probably contain great gold deposits ; but at the confluence of the Spiti river and the Sutlej, the rock is slate and schist strata con- taining veins and detached blocks of granite and quartz, and also various zeolites. These slates and schists are for the most part rather soft, and the whole strata have been so much disturbed by the process of elevation that they are peculiarly open to the action of disinte- grating influences. The weather has broken it down greatly wherever there is an exposed surface, and ex- tremely rapid rivers might eat their way down into it with considerable ease. Even the veins and blocks of solid granite and quartz which are interspersed among the strata, are calculated to aid rather than to hinder such a process. Though the Himalaya are at once the highest and the most extensive mountains in the world, yet there is some reason to believe that they are among the youngest ; and this explains the present state of their narrow deep valleys. Their rivers carry out from them an immense amount of solid matter every year, but the process has not continued long enough to allow of the formation of broad valleys. Hence we have little more in the Himalaya than immense ravines or gorges. A valley there is something like the interior of the letter V, only the farther down you go, the more nearly perpendicular are its sides, while above 12,000 feet there is some chance of finding open, rounded, grassy slopes. There are also some comparatively open or flat valleys to be found above 12,000 feet; for at that height, where everything is frozen up during great part of the year, there are no large rivers, and no great action of water in any way. At this junction of the two rivers there is an out- 158 THE ABODE OF SNOW. standing end of rock wall, which is pretty sure in course of time to cause a cataclysm similar to what occurred on the Sutlej in the year 1762 below Kundwar province, when a shoulder of a mountain gave way and fell into the gorge, damming up the stream to a height of 400 feet above its normal level. Similar events have occurred in the upper Indus valley, but these were caused by avalanches of snow or ice. In the case to which I allude, and as will be the case at the junction of the Lee and Sutlej, the fall' of a portion of the mountain itself caused the cataclysm ; and when the obstruction gave way, which it did suddenly, villages and towns were destroyed by the tremendous rush of water. The Lee is almost as inaccessible and furious as the Sutlej, but it has calm pools, and its: water is of a pleasant greenish hue, which contrasts favourably with the turbid, whitish-yellow of the latter stream. I may mention that I have written of the Spiti river as the Lee, or Li, because it has got by that name into the maps ; but it is not so called by the people of the country, and the name has probably arisen from a confused localising of it with the village of Li, or Lio, which is to be found a short way above the confluence. On both sides of the Chinese border they call the Spiti river the Mapzja Jzazholmo. The former of these words means a peacock, but what the connection is I do not know. It must be admitted, however, that Mapzja Jzazholmo are not sounds well fitted to make their way with the general public, so I shall continue to speak of the Lee or Spiti river. I may also be excused from calling the Sutlej the Lang- chhenkhabad, or " elephant - mouth - fed " river, which JUNCTION OF THE SDTLEJ AND SP1TI RIVERS. 159 General Cunningham asserts is the Tibetan name for the Sutlej ; though all the Tibetans I questioned on the subject spoke of it either as the Sang-po, or as the Singi Sang-po. In fact there seem to be numerous local names for the rivers in that part of the world, and it would be hazardous to insist on any one in particular. 1G0 THE ABODE OE SNOW. CHAPTER XVII. THE GREAT KUNG-MA PASS INTO CHINESE TIBET. THE OOPSUNG GORGE NAMGEA FIELDS— CAMP ON THE PASS THE GREAT MOUNTAIN LIO PORGYtfL EXTRAORDINARY SCENE BY MOONLIGHT CHOTA KHAN'S WRATH POWER OF THE SUN — AN AWFUL SCENE — CROSS THE CHINESE FRONTIER — SUMMIT OF THE PASS — THE ROLLING HILLS OF TARTARY DESCENT TO SHIPKI. From Khalb there are two ways of getting to Shipki ; the one over the Kiing-ma Pass, which is 16,000 feet high, and the other up the gorge of the Sutlej, across the face of its precipitous cliffs, and over the dreaded Oopsung Gorge. The latter road is never used when the snow will at all allow of the high pass being crossed; and, judging from what I saw of it afterwards, from the mountain Lio Porgyul on the opposite side of the river, it must be nearly as bad as the path from Shaso to Pu. The cliffs, however, on which the path runs, must be interesting to the geologist. They are often of a bluish and of a purple colour ; they present a bril- liant and dazzling appearance from the zeolites with which they abound, and probably have other and rarer minerals. But the Kung-ma Pass, above the height of Mont Blanc though it be, is the only tolerable way of crossing into Chinese Tibet from Pii; and to toil over a 16,000 feet pass in one day is not desirable for THE GREAT KUNG-MA PASS. 161 an invalid, even though starting from a height of *about 10,000 feet. So, after procuring yaks and coolies, for the passage into Tartary, from the villagesof Khalb and Namgea, we resolved to camp some way up on the pass and to take two days to the business. This can easily be done, because at the height of about 12,500 feet there are a few terraced fields belonging to Namgea, and called Namgea Bizhing, with sufficient room to pitch a small tent upon, and with plenty of water and bushes fit for firewood. At this height the air was very pure and exhilarating, but the sun beat upon our tents in the afternoon so as to raise the thermometer within them to 82° Fahr- enheit ; but, almost immediately after the sun sank behind the Spiti mountains, the thermometer fell to 60°. I do not think it got much lower, however, for at daybreak it was 54°. Evening brought also a perfect calm, which was most welcome after the violent wind of the day ; but the wind rose again during the night, which fortunately does not usually happen in the Himalaya, otherwise existence there in tents would be almost insupportable. From the little shelf on which we camped, as also, to some extent, from Khalb and Namgea beneath, the view was savage and grand beyond description. There was a mountain before us, visible in all its terrific majesty. The view up the Spiti valley had a wild beauty of its own, and ended in blue peaks, at this season nearly free from snow ; but the surprising scene before us was on the left bank of the Spiti river, and on the right of the Sutlej, or that opposite to which we were. A mountain rose there almost sheer up from the Sutlej, or from 9000 feet to the height of L 162 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 22,183 feet, in gigantic walls, towers, and aiguilles of cream-coloured granite and quartz, which had all the appearance of marble. At various places a stone might have rolled from the summit of it down into the river, a descent of over 13,000 feet. In appearance it was something like Milan Cathedral divested of its loftiest spire, and magnified many million times, until it reached the height of 12,000 feet; and I either noticed or heard several great falls of rock down its precipitous sides, during the eight days I was on it or in its immediate neighbourhood. Here and there the white rock was streaked with snow, and it was capped by an enormous citadel with small beds of ndve" ; but there was very little snow upon the gigantic mass of rock, because the furious winds which for ever beat and howl around it allow but little snow to find a resting-place there. At Shipki they told us that even in winter Lio Por- gyiil, as this mountain is called, presents much the same appearance as it had when we saw it. Half of it rests on Chinese Tartary, and the other half on Hangrang, a province which was ceded by the Chinese less than a century ago to the Eajah of Bussahir ; so that Llo Porgyiil might well be regarded as a great fortress between Iran and Turan, between the dominions of the Aryan and the Tartar race. Even more remarkably than the Kailas, this gigantic mountain suggested an inaccessible dwelling-place of the gods; a fortress shaped by hands, but not by human hands. And if the scene was impressive by day, it was absolutely overpowering at night, when the orb of night was slowly rising behind the dark preci- pices on which we midway stood. While itself unseen, the moon's white light illuminated the deep gorges of THE GREAT KtJnG-MA PASS. 163 the Spiti river, and threw a silvery splendour on the marble-like towers and battlements of Lio Porgyul. It did not at all appear as if any external light were falling, but rather as if this great castle of the gods, being transparent as alabaster, were lighted up from within, and shone in its own radiance, throwing its supernatural light on the savage scenes around. The word ma in Chinese means a horse, and it is possible that the Kiing-ma may mean the Horse Pass, in contradistinction to the path across the cliffs of the Sutlej along which horses cannot go ; but I am by no means sure of this derivation. Be that as it may, horses or some animals are needed on the stiff pull up to the top of it, in a highly rarefied air. Here we found the immense advantage of our yaks, and " the comfort " of riding upon them. They grunted at almost every step, and moved slowly enough, but on they went steadily, seldom stopping to rest. Chota Khan, who had not been provided with a yak, was^ extremely in- dignant at the exertion which his large body had to make, and I regretted not having been more liberal towards him. As we got up towards the 16,000 feet summit, the effect of the rarefied air compelled him to pause at every step, and quite bewildered him. He and one or two other of our people, also, began bleed- ing at the nose. These phenomena, together with the novel sight of a glacier hanging above us near the top of the pass, had such an effect upon the bold Afghan, that at one point he sat down and cried, lamenting his fate and cursing everybody and everything in general, the word Sheitan, or " devil," being especially conspicuous in his language. That was only a mo- mentary weakness, however ; for on getting to the 164 THE ABODE OF SNOW. Chinese side of the pass he quite recovered his spirits ; he went down rollicking and singing, and was the first to enter the dreaded Shipki, where some Tartar young women speedily brought him to his bearings and threw him into a state of great perplexity. It took us nearly ten hours to reach Shipki from Namgea fields, and we started at four in the morning in order to escape the full effect of the sun's rays when ascending the pass, which involved no rock-climbing, but a continuous and very steep ascent up a cork-screw path, which was the best I had seen since leaving Pan- gay. Though the air, generally speaking, is quite cool and invigorating at these great elevations, yet the re- flected and radiating rock-heat is sometimes exceedingly oppressive ; and so powerful are the rays of the sun in summer, that exposure to them, or even to a good re- flection of them, will destroy the skin of the hands or face of a Europeon in five minutes or even less. We were all a little ill after crossing this pass, and I ascribe that not so much to the exertion it required, or to the rarefied air, as to the tremendous heat and glare of the sun on the south-east slope down to Shipki, which involves rather more than a mile of perpendicular descent. A short way before reaching the extreme summit of the pass, we rested for a little on an open brow of the mountain covered with grass and flowers. The view over the Spiti ranges to the north-west was very ex- tensive and striking ; for, though it was a land of de- solation on which we gazed, it was under an intensely dark-blue sky. It was beautifully coloured with snow and cloud and variegated rock, and presented vast ranges of picturesquely-shaped peaks, between two of THE GREAT KUNG-MA PASS. 165 ■which the 18,000 feet Manerung Pass could easily be discerned. "Westward, over sections of the Sutlej valley, near Earang and Pangay, the great peaks and snows of the Indian Kailas mingled with the clouds of the Indian monsoon, which were arrested on its south- ern side. Behind us, and overhanging us, were glaciers and snowy peaks. Then came the summit of the Kung-ma Pass ; and to the north-east the vast citadel of Lio Porgyul. Though the view was limited on one side, yet it was much more extensive than any I have seen from any other Himalayan pass, — even from the Shinkal, which is at least 2000 feet higher. An enormous semicircle was visible of grand precipices, high moun- tain-peaks, and snowy summits over 20,000 feet high. Besting on the grass, looking on that beautiful yet awful scene — on the boundless wild of serrated ridges, rock - needles, mountain battlements, storm - scathed precipices, silvery domes, icy peaks, and snowy spires — and breathing the pure, keen, exhilarating air, — it almost seemed as if, during my illness at Pii, I had indeed passed from the torturing life of earth, and had now alighted upon a more glorious world. But the Namgea women dispelled the illusion by bringing me blue Alpine flowers, reminding me that I was still upon the sad star, the loveliness of which is marred by the dark shadow which hangs over all its sentient and conscious beings. " Our life is crowned with dark- ness ; " and it becomes not those who aspire to be worthy of that crown to seek it prematurely, while those the inclination of whose natures must draw them from the purgatory of earth to a lower and darker world, if their existence is to be continued at all, in- stinctively cling to the happiest life they can hope to 166 THE ABODE OF SNOW. know. But even earthly life, under certain conditions, has its intense enjoyments. It was an immense relief for me, after the Sutlej valley and its shadow of death, to feel my feet on the springy turf of rounded slopes — to find that I had room to move and breathe — and to see the lights and shadows chasing each other over the flowery grass. Before the last ascent, we passed, beneath a consid- erable glacier, into a small but deep ravine, just above which there was a camping-place for travellers, but no wood and no water visible, though a stream from the glacier might be heard moving underneath the ground. This camping-place marks the boundary between Kuna- war and the Chinese territory ; and from there a gentle ascent, difficult only from the great rarity of the air, took us up to the extreme summit of the Kung-ma Pass, where there are the ruins of a Tartar guard- house, at which formerly travellers attempting to cross the Chinese frontier used to be stopped ; but as a Euro- pean traveller makes his appearance at this gate of entrance only once in ten or fifteen years, it was obvi- ously quite unnecessary to keep a permanent guard up there at the inconvenient height of 16,000 feet — and so the congenial business of stopping his advance has been deputed to the people of the large village of Shipki, which lies immediately, but nearly 6000 feet, below. Fortunately there was hardly any wind ; for at these great heights exposure to a high wind for a few minutes may be fatal, so rapidly does it make the body inanimate. From this guard -house the view towards Tartary was perfectly unclouded and clear. It presented to our view a great expanse of bare and rounded but smooth-looking hills fading away into the THE GREAT KGNG-MA PASS. 167 elevated rolling plains beyond. The appearance of Tartary is quite different from that of Kundwar and Spiti, and of the Western Himalaya in general. Ex- cept down at Shipki not a tree was visible, and there were no high peaks or abrupt precipices. No snow was visible in Tartary beyond Lio Porgyiil, though the Shtrang mountain, over which the road to Gartop goes, must be about 18,000 feet high. The furze on these mountain plains was here and there of a dark-brown colour ; and when Alexander Gerard, a native of Aber- deenshire, saw it from a neighbouring pass in 1818, he was at once struck by the resemblance of the furze to Scotch heather. Even " Caledonia stern and wild," however, has no scenes which could afford any notion of the wild sterility of these Tartar plains, or of the tremendous mass of Lio Porgyiil which flanked them on the immediate left. There is no descent in Scot- land either to compare in utter wearisomeness to that of the 6000 feet from the top of the Kiing-ma down to the great village of Shipki, though, to do the Chinese justice, they must have expended not a little labour on the rude path which connects the two points. This path was too steep for riding down comfortably on a yak; and even Chota Khan, despite his bleeding at the nose, declined the offer which I made him of the use of mine. So I had to endure more than the usual amount of bumping, in my dandi, and of being let fall suddenly and violently on the stony ground, owing to the two coolies in front occasionally coming down by the run. I did, however, manage to get carried down, there being literally no help for it; but the dandi- wallahs came to Mr Pagell next day and pathetically showed that gentleman the state of their shoulders. 168 THE ABODE OP SNOW. CHAPTER XVIII. STOPPED BY TABTABS. ARRIVAL AT SHIPKI AN UNEXPECTED DIFFICULTY TARTAR YOUNG WOMEN — SUPPLIES AND CARRIAGE REFUSED REMONSTRANCE USELESS REASONS ASSIGNED FOR REFUSING TO LET US PASS — ENGLISHMEN SUSPECTED CHINESE WILINESS A DISAGREEABLE CHARACTER THE TZONG-PON OF D'zABRUNG MY FURTHER PLANS THE COUNTRY BEYOND SHIPKI FIRING INTO ONE'S STOMACH — " PULL, PULL." Chota Khan and one or two more of our servants had gone on in advance to Shipki, with some of the coolies, in order to have the little mountain-tents ready for us on our arrival ; but that was not to be accomplished so easily as they expected. Instead of tents, a most amusing scene presented itself when we at last got down. But, in order to understand it, the reader must bear in mind that Shipki is situated on the very steep slope of a hill above a foaming river, and that it is by no means a place abundant in level ground. In fact there is no level ground at Shipki except the roofs of the houses, which are usually on a level with the streets, and the narrow terraced fields, the entrances to which are guarded by prickly hedges or stone walls, or chevaux-de-frise of Avithered gooseberry branches. You cannot pitch a tent on a slope, covered with big STOPPED BY TAETAES. 169 stones, at an angle of about 45°. Neither were the roofs of the houses desirable, because on the roof of every house there was a ferocious Tibetan mastiff, roused to the highest pitch of excitement by our arri- val, and desiring nothing better than that some stranger should intrude upon his domain. Consequently the terraced fields presented the only available places for our tents, and they were clearly available, many of them being in stubble, while there was no immediate intention of digging up the ground. Of course a terraced field was the place, but here was the difficulty which threw Chota Khan into a state of amazement, perplexity, and wrath. A band of handsome and very powerful young Tartar women — clad in red or black tunics, loose trousers, and immense cloth boots, into which a child of five years old might easily have been stuffed — had constituted themselves the guardians of these terraced fields, and whenever Chota Khan or any of his companions at- tempted to enter, they not only placed their bulky persons in the way, but even showed determined fight. Woman to man, I believe these guardian angels could have given our people a sound thrashing ; and I after- wards found it to be a most useful goad for lagging coolies to remark that one Shipki woman could beat two men of Spiti or Lahaul, as the case might be. These angels in big boots were very good-humoured, and seemed to enjoy their little game immensely ; but not the less on that account were they pertinacious, and even ferocious, when any attempt was made to get past them. If catching a Tartar be a difficult operation, I should like to know what catching a Tartar young woman must be. When we arrived, Mr Pagell reasoned 170 THE ABODE OF SNOW. with them eloquently in fluent Tibetan, and they allowed the force of his argument to the extent of admitting that there was no spot for us at Shipki on which to pitch our tents, except a terraced field ; but they parried the obvious conclusion by reminding him that there was a very nice little piece of camping- ground about half-way up the six thousand feet we had just come down, and that it was little past the middle of the day. I myself tried gently to pass between them, with the most admiring smiles and affectionate demeanour I could summon up for the occasion, and in the circumstances ; but though this seemed to amuse them much, it did not at all induce them to allow me to pass; and when we tried other fields, either the same women or a fresh band opposed our entrance. Meanwhile, groups of men, on the roofs of houses and elsewhere, watched the operations without interfering. It really looked as if the intention was to compel us to go back from Shipki without allowing us to stay there even for a night. There was much ingenuity in this plan of setting the Tartar damsels to prevent our camping. Had we used force towards these young persons, there would have been a fair reason for the men of the place falling upon us in a murderous manner; and Mr M'Nab, the superintendent of the Hill States, had told me that one of his predecessors in office who tried either to camp at Shipki, or to go farther, very nearly lost his life there. Had I been alone I do not know what might have happened, for, in my weak state, I was beginning to get irritated ; and it was fortunate I was accompanied by Mr Pagell, who took the matter quite easily, and said it would be necessary to respect the wishes of the people of the STOPPED BY TARTARS. 171 country. Fortunately, too, at this juncture, he recog- nised a Lama, for whom he had formerly done some medical service, and the Lama not only took our part generally, but also offered us a narrow field of his own on which to pitch our tents. There was a disposition on the part of the young Tartars to resist this also, but they were a little too late in making up their minds to do so ; for whenever the priest showed my friend the wall which was at the end of his field, our servants and coolies, appreciating the exigency of the occasion, made a rush over it and took immediate possession. We remained at Shipki that afternoon, the whole of the next day, and the greater part of the day after, making unavailing attempts to provide for further progress into Chinese Tibet. We should have been glad to go very lightly burdened, but none of the coolies or yakmen from Kun^war would accompany us a step further. They said that their duty to their own State had compelled them to take us across the frontier to Shipki, at great inconvenience to themselves, for it was their season of harvest, and many of the men of their villages were away travelling on commercial ventures ; but that there was no duty resting on them to take us any further, and they were afraid to do so, be- cause they well knew that if they persisted in advancing with us, the Tartars would either fall upon them and kill them then, or do so on some future occasion when their business might take them across the frontier. We had no hold upon the Kunawar people for a further journey ; it would have been most cruel and unjustifi- able to have attempted to force them to accompany us, and they would listen to no offers of increased mone- tary recompense. The Tartars, on the other hand, 172 THE ABODE OF SNOW. were still more impracticable. They openly derided the idea of our going on into their country, and would not give us any supplies either of carriage or of food. On the whole, the Shipki people were anything but civil, and at times it looked as if they only wanted a pretext for falling upon us ; but at other times they condescended to reason on the matter. They said that they were under express orders from the Lassa Government not to allow any Europeans to pass, and that it would be as much as their possessions and their heads were worth to allow us to do so. Death itself would not be the worst which might befall them, as there were certain dreadful modes of death, which I shall presently describe, to which they might be sub- jected. On my referring to the Treaty of Tientsin, which gives British subjects a right to travel within the dominions of the Celestial Emperor, and mention- ing that I had travelled a great deal in China itself, they first said that they had no information of any such treaty having been concluded ; and then they in- geniously argued that, though it might allow foreign- ers to travel in China Proper, yet it did not apply to Tibet, which was no part of China, and only loosely connected with that country. When we pressed them for the reasons of this ex- clusive policy, they answered that they were not bound to give reasons, having simply to obey orders ; but that one obvious reason was, that wherever Eng- lishmen had been allowed entrance into a country they had ended in making a conquest of it. We had landed peaceably on the coast of India, and immedi- ately proceeded to conquer the coast. We then took a little more and a little more, always pretending, in STOPPED BY TARTARS. 17.3 the first instance, to be peaceable travellers and mer- chants, until we got up to the country of Ranjit Singh, and the next thing heard there was that we had taken Ranjit Singh's dominions. Now we wanted to travel in the country of the Sacred Religion (Lama- ism) ; but the Tibetans knew better than that, and that the only safe course for them, if they wished to preserve their country to themselves, was to keep us out of it altogether. On this we remarked that China had brought trouble on itself by attempting to exclude Europeans, whereas matters had gone smoothly after admitting them, and referred to Japan as an instance of a long-secluded country which had found advantage (I am not sure very much) from admitting Europeans ; but they seemed to interpret this as a threat, and re- plied boisterously, that they might as well be killed fighting us as be killed for letting us pass — there would be some amusement in that ; and if ever war came upon them, they were quite willing to engage in war, because, having the true religion, they were cer- tain to conquer. This argument struck the Moravian missionary as especially ridiculous, and in another way it might have done so to an artillery officer, for a couple of mountain-guns could easily destroy Shipki from the Kiing-ma Pass ; but it was not ridiculous in the mouths of these wild Tartar mountaineers, who firmly believed in their extraordinary religion, and whose only experience of warfare has been matchlock- skirmishing on their lofty frontiers with the men of* Kunawar, for whom they have the greatest contempt. It was curious to find these rude men reasoning thus ingeniously, and it struck me forcibly that though the voice was the voice of the rough Tartar 174 THE ABODE OE SNOW. Esau, yet the words were the words of the wily Chinese Jacob. There was something peculiarly Chinese-like also, and far from Tartar, in the way in which they shirked responsibility. Personally, they were not at all afraid of being uncivil ; but when it came to the question as to who was who, and on whose responsibility they acted, then they became as evasive as possible. Thus, in the matter of supplies, though they at first refused point-blank to let us have any, yet, after a little, they adopted different and still more unpleasant tactics. They said they would let us have a sheep — a small one — for five rupees, which was about double its value. On our agreeing to give five, no sheep appeared ; and on our inquiring after it, a message was sent back that we might have it for six rupees. On six being agreed to, the price was raised to seven, and so on, until it became too apparent that they were only amusing themselves with us. And whenever we reasoned on this subject with an ugly monster who had been put forward — and had put him- self forward with a great profession of desire for our comfort — as the official corresponding to the milkea or lambadar, who looks after the wants of travellers, — he promptly disclaimed all pretensions to having any- thing to do with such a function, and pointed to an- other man as the veritable mtikea to whom we ought to apply. This other man said it was true he was a relative of that functionary, and he would be happy to do anything for us if the headman of the village would authorise it, but the veritable mukea was up with the sheep on the Kung-ma, and if we found him there on our way back he would, no doubt, supply all our wants. In this way we were bandied about from STOPPED BY TARTARS. 175 pillar to post "without getting satisfaction, or finding responsibility acknowledged anywhere. On the matter being pressed, we were told that the headmen of Shipki were deliberating upon our case ; but it was impossible to get any one to acknowledge that he was a headman, or to find out who and where they were. I think they did supply us with some firewood, and they sold a lamb to Phuleyram and Nurdass, that these Kunaits might have it killed as their religion requires, not by having the throat cut, but the head cut or hacked off from above, at the neck-joint. That was all they would do, however ; and they impounded one of our yaks, on a doubtful charge of trespassing, and only released it on payment of a small sum. I was particularly anxious to find some official to deal with ; but though there were Tartar soldiers about, one of whom we came upon by surprise, it was impos- sible to get any one to acknowledge that he was an official, or to unearth one anywhere. In an unguarded moment some of the villagers told us that they were ordered by the Tzong-pon, or " commander of the fort " (tzong meaning a fort, and pon a general or chief*) not to let us pass ; but no fort was visible, or general either ; and when we inquired further about this officer, they affected not to know what we were talking about. But the Tzong-pon at Shipki means the Tzong-pon of D'zabrung, the governor of the district. (This place is the Chaprang of Montgomerie's map ; it has a fort, and is said to be about eight marches distant from Shipki.) But no one would undertake to forward a letter to the * So also mdk-pon, a general of troops ; det-pon, the commander of a boat ; tsik-pon, an architect : chir-pon, a superintendent of stables ; and zol-pon, a head-cook. 176 THE ABODE OF SNOW. «* Tzong-pon, or produce any authority from him for refusing to allow us to proceed further. For all this I was in a manner prepared, because several attempts had previously been made in vain to enter Chinese Tibet by this door. My object in going to Shipki was simply to see for myself how the frontier matter stood, and to have a look at Chinese Tartary and Tartars. -I never supposed for a moment that, on a first experience of Himalayan travel, and without a basis of operations near the frontier, I could penetrate for any distance into Chinese Tibet ; and at the utmost contemplated only the possibility of making a few days' journey across the frontier, though I should have been quite ready to go on all the three months' journey from Shipki to Lassa had the way been at all open. It struck me there was a chance of getting over the frontier difficulty by going back to Kunawar, purchas- ing yaks there, and then recrossing the Kung-ma and passing Shipki by night ; but the time I could have afforded for this experiment had been consumed during the month of my illness at Pii, and I had the alterna- tive before me of either not making such an attempt, or of relinquishing all hope of reaching Kashmir before it was closed for the season, or even of seeing much of the Himalaya. I had no hesitation in preferring to go on to Kashmir. It was not as if I were going back in doing so. In point of fact, to" go to the Valley of Flowers by the route I selected and followed out, was to plunge into a still more interesting stretch of mountain country, and into remote Tibetan provinces, such as Zanskar, situated at what may fairly be called the very " back of beyont," and practically as secluded from the world and as unknown to the public as the dominion of the Grand Lama itself. A STOPPED BY TAETARS. 177 It was also very doubtful how far it would be pos- sible to advance into Chinese Tibet by having -yaks of one's own and passing Shipki by night, because a few miles beyond that village the road crosses the Sutlej, and the only way of passing that river there is over a bridge which is guarded by Tartar troops. The Kun- awar men told us of this, and they know the country well ; for the objection to the entrance of Europeans does not apply to themselves, and in summer they are in the habit of trading some way into the interior of Chinese Tibet with blankets, sugar, tobacco, and wool, bringing back rock-salt, shawl-wool, and borax. They also mentioned that- a few days' journey beyond the frontier they were exposed to much danger from mounted robbers, there being hardly any villages or houses until they get to D'zabrung, or to Gartop, except a small village within sight of Shipki ; and one of them showed us deep sears upon his head, which had been severely cut by these robbers. In travelling among the Himalaya, one must necessarily keep to the roads, such as they are, and the only way of crossing the deep-cut furious rivers is by the bridges which have been thrown across them ; so that a bridge with a guard of soldiers would in all probability be an im- passable obstacle, except to an armed force. But, once past the Sutlej and on the rolling hills of Tartary, it would be possible to wander about freely in many directions. The Shipki people told us that if we persisted in going on without their assistance, they would use force to prevent us, defending this by their favourite argu- ment that they might as well be killed fighting us as be killed letting us pass. Could we have procured M 1^8 THE ABODE OF SNOW. even very limited means of conveyance, I, for my part, should have tested this ; but I was scarcely able at the time to walk at all ; and I have not the least doubt, from their demeanour, that they would have carried out their threat, and would even have been delighted to do so ; for it more than once looked as if they only wanted the slightest pretext in order to fall upon us, and were chiefly prevented from doing so by their respect for Mr Pagell as a teacher of religion and a dispenser of medicines. We might safely conclude, then, that the soldiers at the bridge would be equally intractable ; and it is difficult to say what one might meet with in the country beyond — how soon one might be robbed of everything, and find one's head adorning the pole of a nomad's tent. The Abbe Desgodins, who lived for some time in the Lassa territory towards the Chinese frontier, asserts that the Tartar of that country takes great pleasure, when he has an enemy, in persuading that enemy that he is quite reconciled to him, in asking him to a generous dinner, and in sud- denly firing a bullet into his enemy's stomach, when that deluded individual is supposed to have reached the moment of repletion. If such be the way in which the inhabitants of the country of the Sacred Eeligion treat their friends, it can easily be imagined that, when they fell in with a stranger, they would not even be at the expense of providing a good dinner for him, unless that were absolutely necessary to throw him off his guard. No doubt it is only a portion of the population which are in the habit of indulging in such hospitality ; but the difficulty would be to distinguish between that portion and the more respectable inhabitants. Two or three years ago the tribute which is annually sent up STOPPED BY TARTARS. 179 from Nepal to Lassa, was seized and appropriated by Tartars on the way ; and on their being told that it was for the Lassa Government, they replied that they did not care for any government. Possibly such rovers might be afraid to meddle with Europeans, but that could not be relied on ; and it would be almost impos- sible for one or two travellers to secure themselves against a night attack. Hence, if the explorer gets beyond Shipki, and be- yond the bridge over the Sutlej, it does not necessarily follow that he will reach D'zabrung or anywhere else ; but I expect the bridge will be his main difficulty, and I have heard of an amusing story connected with a bridge, of an officer who attempted to enter Chinese Tibet at some other point. He managed to give the guard on the frontier the slip at night, and was happily pursuing his way next morning, congratulating himself on having entered into the forbidden land, when he was overtaken by a portion of the guard, who politely intimated that, since they saw he was determined to go, they would make no more objection to his doing so, only they would accompany him, in order to protect him from robbers. This arrangement worked very well for a few hours, until they came to a deep-sunk river and a rope-bridge — one of those bridges in which you are placed in a basket, which is slung from a rope, and and so pulled. along that rope by another and a double rope, which allows of the basket being worked from either side. Over this river some of the Tartars passed first, in order to show that the conveyance was war- ranted not to break down ; and then our traveller him- self got into the basket, and was pulled along. So far everything had gone on well; but, when he had got 180 THE ABODE OF SNOW. half-way across the river, his protectors ceased to pull, sat down, lighted their pipes, and looked at him as they might at an interesting object which had been provided for their contemplation. " Pull ! " he cried out — "pull !" on which they nodded their heads approvingly, but sat still and smoked their pipes. " D n it, pull, will you? pull!" he cried out again, becoming weary of the basket ; and then he tried all the equivalents for " pull " in all the Eastern languages he knew ; but the more he cried out, the more the Tartars smoked their silver pipes and nodded their heads, like Chinese porce- lain mandarins. They interfered, however, to prevent his pulling himself one way or another; and, after keeping him suspended in the basket till night, and he was almost frozen to death, they made an agreement, through a Tibetan-speaking attendant, that they would pull him. back if he would promise to recross the frontier. TIBET AND ITS SECLUSION. 181 CHAPTER XIX. TIBET AND ITS SECLUSION. FRIGHTFUL TORTURES SEALING ON HORSEBACK REASONS ASSIGNED FOR EXCLUDING EUROPEANS MORE PROBABLE REASONS THE GOLD OF TIBET OTHER MINERALS AND GEMS — GEOGRAPHY OF TIBET. If half the stories be true which Mr Pagell has heard from Lamas of the punishments inflicted in Chinese Tibet, it is no wonder that the people of that country are extremely afraid of disobeying the orders of the Government wherever they are so situated as to be within the reach of Government officers. Crucifying, ripping open the body, pressing and cutting out the eyes, are by no means the worst of these punishments. One mode of putting to death, which is sometimes inflicted, struck me as about the most frightful instance of diabolical cruelty I had ever heard of, and worse than anything portrayed in the old chamber of horrors at Canton. The criminal is buried in the ground up to the neck, and the ground is trampled on round him suffi- ciently to prevent him moving hand or foot, though not so as to prevent him breathing with tolerable freedom. His mouth is then forced open, and an iron or wooden spike sharpened at both ends, is carefully placed in it so that he cannot close his mouth again. Nor is the 182 THE ABODE OF SNOW. torture confined to leaving him to perish in that mis- erable condition. Ants, beetles, and other insects are collected and driven to take refuge in his mouth, nos- trils, ears, and eyes. Can the imagination conceive of anything more dreadful? Even the writhing caused by pain, which affords some relief, is here impossible except just at the neck ; and a guard being placed over the victim, he is left to be thus tortured by insects until he expires. The frame of mind which can devise and execute such atrocities is almost inconceivable to the European ; and we must hope that a punishment of this kind is held in terrorem over the Tibetans, rather than actually inflicted. But I am afraid it is put in force ; and we know too much of Chinese and Tartar cruelties to think there is any improbability in its being so. It is certain that the Turanian race is remarkably obtuse-nerved and insensible to pain, which goes some way to account for the cruelty of its punish- ments ; but that cannot justify them. In other ways, also, Tartar discipline must be very rigorous. Gerard was told that where there is a regular horse-post — as between Lassa and Gartop — " the bundle is sealed fast to the rider, who is again sealed to his horse ; and no inconvenience, however great, admits of his dismount- ing until he reaches the relief-stage, where the seal is examined ! " I heard something about men being sealed up this way for a ride of twenty-four hours ; and if that be true, the horses must have as much endurance as the men. The question arises why it is that the Lassa authori- ties are so extremely anxious to keep all Europeans out of their country. The Tibetans lay the blame of this on the Chinese Mandarins, and the Mandarins on Lamas TIBET AND ITS SECLUSION. 183 and the people of Tibet ; but they appear all to com- bine in insuring the result. This is the more remark- able, because the Lama country is not one with which Europeans are in contact, or one which they are press- ing on in any way. It is pretty well dS/endu naturally, owing to the almost impassable deserts and great moun- tains by which it is surrounded ; and it has by no means such an amount of fertile land as to make it a desirable object of conquest as a revenue-bearing pro- vince. The reason assigned by letter, in 1870, to the Abbe Desgodins, by the two legates at Lassa — the one representing the Emperor of China, and the other the Grand Lama — for refusing to allow him to enter Tibet, was as follows : " Les contre*es thibe'taines sont con- sacre'es aux supplications et aux prieres ; la religion jaune est fondee sur la justice et la droite raison ; elle est adoptee depuis un grand nombre de siecles ; on ne doit done pas precher dans ces contre"es une religion e"trangere ; nos peuples ne doivent avoir aucun rapport aux les hommes des autres roya'umes." This, however, is evasive ; and, though they may be different in the east of Tibet, the Lamas at Shipki made not the least objection to Mr Pagell preaching as much as he liked ; they argued with him in quite an amicable manner, and afforded us protection. Is it possible that the golcl — or, to speak more gener- ally, the mineral— deposits in Tibet may have some- thing to do with the extreme anxiety of the Chinese to keep us out of that country ? They must know that, without some attraction of the kind, only a few adven- turous missionaries and travellers would think of going into so sterile a country, which can yield but little trade, and which is in many parts infested by bands of hardy 184 THE ABODE OE SNOW. and marauding horsemen. , But the Mandarins have quite enough information to be well aware that if it were known in Europe and America that large gold- fields existed in Tibet, and that the auri sacra fames might there, for a time at least, be partially appeased, no supplications, or prayers either, would suffice to pre- vent a rush into it of occidental rowdies ; and that thus an energetic and boisterous white community might soon be established to the west of the Flowery Land, and would give infinite trouble, both by enforcing the right of passage through China, and by threatening it directly. That there is gold in Chinese Tibet does not admit of a doubt ; and in all probability it could be procured there in large quantities were the knowledge and appli- ances of California and Australia set to work in search of it. In the Sutlej valley, it is at the Chinese border that the clay-slates, mica-schists, and gneiss give way to quartz and exceedingly quartzose granite — the rocks which most abound in gold. The rolling hills across the frontier are similar in structure to those which lead to the Californian Sierra Nevada, and are probably com- posed of granite gravel. In our Himalaya, and in that of the native states tributary to us, there is not much granite or quartz, and gneiss is the predominant rock of the higher peaks and ranges. But granite (and, to a less degree, trap) has been the elevating power. There has been a considerable outburst of granite at Gangotrl and Kiddernath, and the consequence is that gold is found, though in small quantities, in the streams be- neath. Among this great range of mountains there are various rivers, " Whose foam is amber and their gravel goW." TIBET AND ITS SECLUSION. 185 The district of Gunjarat in the Hindu Kiish, north-east of the Chittral valley, is named on account of its gold. Kafiristan, in the same direction, produces gold, which is made into ornaments and utensils. Badakshan is celebrated for its veins of the precious metal, as well as for its rubies and lapis lazuli. Also at Fauladut, near Bamian, and in the hills of Istalif north of Kau- bul, gold is found. It is washed out of the upper bed of the Indus in certain parts where that bed is accessible, and also from the sands of the Indus immediately after it emerges at Torbela on to the Panjab plain. We have it, too, in the bed of the Chayok river. Gold is also washed out of the bed of the Sutlej, a little below Kotgarh, where the people can get down to that bed. Now, where does that latter gold come from % We may go a long way up the Sutlej before finding rocks likely to produce any of that metal, unless in the minutest quantities ; but advance up that river to the Chinese frontier and we come upon a stretch of country which is extremely likely to be the matrix of vast gold deposits. Great quantities of gold may be washed out of that region by the Sutlej, and yet not much of it finds its way below Kotgarh, because so heavy a metal soon sinks into the bed of the stream. Nor does this supposition depend entirely upon my unsupported geological conjecture; because it is well known to the Kunawar people that gold is found in Tibet, not very far from Shipki. The largest of these gold-fields are at Shok Jalung, the Thok Jalung of Major Montgomerie, which is in lat. 32° 24 v , and long. 81° 37', at a height described as about 16,000 feet. But there are many more of them, especially about Damu, near the Sutlej, not far from its source, and at 186 THE ABODE OF SNOW. Gartop, close to the Indus. The fact that not only gold- washings but even gold-mines are reported to exist in that part of the country between the two rivers, affords pretty conclusive proof, when taken in connection with the geological aspect of the hills, so far as can be seen from the Kung-ma Pass, that the western part at least of Chinese Tibet has important gold-fields. Of course the people there have no means of working their mines effectually, and the Lama religion does not encourage the search for precious metals ; but it would be very different if the appliances of civilisation were brought to bear on the matter. Besides gold, Chinese Tibet possesses silver, mercury, iron, cinnabar, nitre, lapis lazuli, borax, and rock-salt. The quantity of turquoises which it can turn out appears to be almost unlimited, and the women of all the Himalaya richly orname'nt their hair and dress with these gems — those about the size of a hazel-nut being the most common. It is doubtful, however, whether the metals enumerated above are to be found in the country to any great ex- tent, though there is no reason to suppose that some of them may not be so. A most serious want is that of fuel. It is quite unlikely that there is any coal, and wood is extremely scarce. On the east side there are great forests here and there ; but, on the elevated plains of the west, the Tartars have to depend for their fires almost entirely on furze and the droppings of their flocks. This must create a serious obstacle in the way of working mines, and of a mining population existing at such a height ; but if only gold exists up there in great abundance, it is an obstacle which might be profitably overcome by the resources of modern science. There is no less reason to believe that Eastern Tibet TIBET AND ITS SECLUSION. 187 abounds in the precious metals. The Abbe Desgodins writes that " le sable d'or se trouves dans toutes les riv- ieres et meme dans les petits ruisseaux du Thibet orien- tal ; "* and he mentions that in the town of Bathan, or Batan, with which he was personally acquainted, about twenty persons were regularly occupied in secretly wash- ing for gold, contrary to the severe laws of the country. At other places many hundreds engaged in the same occupation. He also mentions five gold-mines and three silver-mines as worked in the Tchong-tien province in the upper Yang-tse valley ; and in the valley of the May-kong river there are seven mines of gold, eight of silver, and several more of other metals. He also men- tions a large number of other districts, in each of which there is quite a number of gold and silver mines, besides mines of mercury, iron, and copper. It is no wonder, then, that a Chinese proverb speaks of Tibet as being at once the most elevated and the richest country in the world, and that the Mandarins are so anxious to keep Europeans out of it. If the richest mineral treasures in the world lie there, as we have so much reason to sup- pose, there is abundant reason why strangers should be kept out of it, and why it should be kept sacred for the Yellow Eeligion, for supplications and prayers. The area of Tibet is partly a matter of conjecture, and the best geographers set it down as between six and seven hundred thousand square miles, with a very conjectural population of ten millions. With Mongolia on the north ; Turkestan, Kunawar, and the mountain- ous dependencies of Kashmir on the west ; Nepal, Sik- kim, and Bhotan, with their Himalaya, on the south ; and the mountainous Chinese province of Yunnan on * La Mission du Tibet de 1855 a 1870. Verdun, 1872. 188 THE ABODE OF SNOW. the east, — it is about as well lifted out of .and defended from the world as any country could be ; and although Lassa is about the same latitude as Cairo and New Orleans, yet the great elevation of the whole country (which may be roughly called a table -land of from 15,000 to 16,000 feet high) gives it almost an arctic climate. The great cluster of mountains called the Tibetan Kailas (the height of which remains unascer- tained, and some of the peaks of which may be even higher than Gaurisankar) well deserves to be called the centre of the world. It is, at least, the greatest centre of elevation, and the point from whence flow the Sutlej, the Indus, and the Brahmaputra ; while to Tibet, mean- ing by that word the whole country in which Tibetan is spoken, we may ascribe most of the rivers of the Panjab, and also the Jumna, the Ganges, the Irrawaddi, the Yang-tse, and even the Hoang-Ho, or great Yellow Eiver. The pass at Shipki, over which "I crossed, is one of the lowest of the passes into Chinese Tibet. There is another and more difficult pass close to it, about 12,500 feet high ; but the others are of great height, and the Mana Pass, between Tibet and Gurwhal, is 18,570 feet. Though Lassa is the capital of the whole country, Teshu Lambu, said to have a population of about 50,000, is the capital of the western division of Chinese Tibet, and is the residence of the Bogda Lama, the highest spirit- ual authority after the Grand Lama. THE PEOPLE OF SHIPKI. 189 CHAPTEE XX. THE PEOPLE OF SHIPKI. A TARTAR BEAUTY — FLIRTATION IN SHIPKI DRESS AND APPEARANCE - — POSITION AND PRODUCTS OP SHIPKI DEPARTURE INSTANCE OF TARTAR FEROCITY " STILL MEAT '' — A PAP FOR INFANTS CHINESE AVERSION TO MILK MARCHES TO SHIPKI. The young persons of Shipki had none of the shame- facedness of the women of India. They would come and sit down before our tents and laugh at us, or talk with us. It was quite evident that we were a source of great amusement to them. They were certainly rather robust than beautiful ; but one girl, who had come from the other side of Lassa, would have been very good- looking had she been well washed. This Tartar beauty had a well-formed head, regular features, and a reddish- brown complexion. She was expensively adorned, and was probably the relative of some official who thought it best to keep in the background. In fact, she was very handsome indeed, lively and good-humoured ; but there was the slight drawback that her face had never been washed since the day of her birth. Another young girl belonging to Shipki tempted some of our Namgea men into a mild flirtation ; but whenever they offered to touch her it was a matter of tooth and nails 190 THE ABODE OF SNOW. at once. Mr Pagell's conversation with the people on the subject of religion was well enough received, though his statements were not allowed to go uncontroverted, and his medical advice was much preferred. In talk- ing with us, the men were rather rude in their manner, and, after staying for a little, they would suddenly go away, laughing, and slapping their persons in a way that was far from respectful. Both men and women wore long tunics and loose trousers, a reddish colour being predominant, and also large cloth Tartar boots ; but during the heat of the day many of both sexes dispensed with the boots, and some of the men appeared with the upper part of their bodies entirely naked. All the men had pigtails, and they wore caps like the ordinary Chinese skull-caps, though, from dirt and perspiration, the original colour and ornamentation were scarcely distinguishable. The women had some pigtails, some plaits, and were richly ornamented with turquoises, opals, pieces of amber, shells (often made into immense bracelets), corals, and gold and silver amulets; while the men had metal pipes, knives, and ornamented daggers stuck in their girdles. The oblique eye and prominent cheek-bones were noticeable, though not in very marked develop- ment ; and though the noses were thick and muscular, they were sometimes straight or aquiline. The bodies were well developed, large and strong ; but the men struck me as disproportionally taller than the women. They have not exactly the typical Tartar countenance, though with clearly-marked Tartar characteristics, and there were two or three strangers among them whose features were purely Turanian. The people of Shipki have a striking resemblance to the country Chinese of THE PEOPLE OP SHIPKI. 191 the province of Shantung, and they were large, able- bodied, and rather brutal in their manners, — not a trace of Chinese formality or politeness being apparent. The weather being warm, hardly any one appeared in sheepskins, and most of their garments were of thick woollen stuff, though the girl from beyond Lassa wore a tunic of the ordinary thick, glazed, black, Chinese- made flaxen cloth. We did not obtain permission to enter any of their houses, which were strongly built and roofed of stone, but saw sufficient to indicate that these were dark uncleanly habitations, almost devoid of furniture. Shipki is a large village in the sub-district of Eong- chiing, with a number of terraced fields, apricot-trees, apple-trees, and gooseberry-bushes. It is watered by streams artificially led to it from the glaciers and snow- beds to the south-west of the Kung-ma Pass, where there are great walls of snow and snowy peaks about 20,000 feet high. Twenty-four of its zemindars, or proprietors of land, pay a tax amounting to £5 yearly to the Government, and the remainder pay smaller sums. The population numbers about 2000, and the village is separated into several divisions ; the houses are not close together, and the steep paths between them are execrable, being little more than stairs of rock with huge steps. The gooseberry-bushes, however, gave a pleasant appearance to the place, and the unripe berries promised to reach a considerable size. Of course the whole district is almost perfectly rainless, and the air is so dry as to crack the skin of Europeans. It must get very little sun in winter, and be excessively cold at that season ; but in summer the climate is mild, and hottish during the day. The thermometer outside 192 THE ABODE OF SNOW. my tent was 56° at sunrise; but it was 84° Fahr. at 2 p.m. inside the tent, with a breeze blowing through. The bed of the Sutlej near Shipki is about 9500 feet high, which is a remarkable elevation for so large a river. Finding it hopeless to pass Shipki, at all events with- out going back to Kunawar and purchasing yaks of my own, I determined to proceed to Kashmir, high up along the whole line of the Western Himalaya ; and indeed I did not manage to reach that country a day too soon, for I narrowly escaped being snowed up for the winter in the almost unknown province of Zanskar. Mr Pagell also acknowledged the hopelessness of at- tempting to proceed farther into the dominions of the Grand Lama, so we left Shipki on the afternoon of the 1 0th August ; and though the thermometer had been at 82° in our tents shortly before starting, we camped that night with it at 57° before sunset in a pure brac- ing atmosphere at the Shipki Rizhing, or Shipki Fields, about 2500 feet higher up on the Kung-ma Pass, but on the eastern side of it, and still within the Chinese border. Here we had a remarkable example of the courage and ferocity of the Tartars. On leaving the outskirts of Ship- ki, our coolies had plucked and taken away with them some unripe apples ; and at the Shipki Rizhing, where there are no houses, only an empty unroofed hut or two for herdsmen, a solitary Tartar made his appearance, and observing the apples, declared that they were his, and, abusing the coolies for taking them, straightway fell upon the man in possession of them, tore that indi- vidual's hair, and knocked him about in the most sav- age manner. Though there were over twenty of the Kunawar men looking on, and several of them were THE PEOPLE OP SHIPKI. 193 implicated in the theft, if such it might be called, yet none of them ventured to interfere; and their com- panion might have received serious injury, had not Chota Khan, who was always ready for a fray of the kind, gone in and separated the two. Now this was between two and three thousand feet above the village, and I doubt if there were any other Tartars about the spot, except one other man who had come to see us off the premises. Neither I nor Mr Pagell saw this affair, but I can quite rely on the account Silas gave me of it. Ferocity is much admired in Chinese Tibet ; and in order to create it, the people are fond of eating what they ironically call " still meat," or meat with maggots in it. We heard also that, to the same end, they give a very curious pap to their infants. Meat, cut into thin slices, is dried in the sun and ground into powder ; it is then mixed with fresh blood and put into a cotton cloth, and so given to the enfant terrible to suck. Mixtures such as this, combined with half-raw flesh, sun-dried flesh, and, where there is cultivation, with girdle-cakes of wheat, buckwheat, and barley, must make a pretty strong diet even for the seniors, and one well fitted to produce endurance and courage. It is to be hoped the milk (of mares and other animals) which the nomad Tartars so largely imbibe, may have some effect in mollifying the ferocity of their spirits. It is very extraordinary that the Chinese, who are a Tartar people, and must have descended at one time from the " Land of Grass," should so entirely eschew the use of milk in every shape. For long there was a difficulty in getting even a sufficiency of that liquid for the use of the foreigners at the open ports in China ; and I have heard of a ship captain at Whampoa, on blowing N 194 THE ABODE OF SNOW. up his comprador for not having brought him any milk, receiving the indignant answer, — " That pig hab killo, that dog hab weillo (run away), that woman hab catchee cheillo — how then can catchee milk 1 " A Lama at Kaelang, on being spoken to on this subject, admitted that he had observed that even at Lassa the pure Chinese did not take any milk ; and he said the reason they gave for not doing so was, that milk makes people stupid. I fancy there is some truth in that assertion ; but possibly the Chinese may have got the idea from the fact that the Tartars, who are necessarily milk-drinkers and eaters of dried milk and buttermilk, are a very stupid people. Sir Alexander Burnes men- tions a similar opinion as existing in Sind in regard to the effects of fish. There, a fish diet is believed to destroy the mind; and in palliation of ignorance or stupidity in any one, it is often pleaded that " he is but a fish-eater." Yet this diet, more than any other, if our modern savants can be trusted, supplies the brain with phosphorus and thought, so it is calculated to make people the reverse of stupid. The next day we started before daylight, and camped again at Namgea Fields. The view over Tartary, from the summit of the pass, was somewhat obscured by the rising sun, which cast on it a confusing roseate light ; but the great outlines of the rolling hills and windy steppes were visible. I should be glad to try Chinese Tibet again, and in a more serious way ; but meanwhile I had all the Western Himalaya before me, from Lio Porgyttl to the 26,000 feet peak of Nanga Parbat, besides the Afghan border, and I had satisfied my immediate purpose by seeing some of the primitive Turanians, and looking on their wild, high mountain home. THE PEOPLE OP SHIPKI. 195 It is difficult, and not of much use, to set down the marches from Pangay (where the cut road ends) to Shipki by miles, so I shall estimate them by time, cal- culating at the rate which loaded hill coolies and a fair ordinary pedestrian would take : — ■ Hours. Pangay to Earang, . 3 Earang to Jangi, . . . . .4 Jangi to Lippe, ..... 6 Lippe to Siignam(over the Eiihang Pass, 14,345 feet), 12 Siignam to Shaso, . . . . .3 Shaso to Pii (more or less, according to state of path), 9 PutoKhalb, . . . . . 6 Khalb to Namgea Fields (on Eiihang Pass, ahout 13,000 feet), ..... 4 Eamgea Fields to Shipki (over Eiihang Pass, 16,002 feet), . . . . . .10 At all these places there are villages, except at Nam- gea Fields. At these Fields and at Shipki no supplies are to be had, and Shaso is too small a place to provide coolies. Lippe, Sugnam, and Pii are large villages. 196 THE ABODE OF SNOW. OHAPTEE XXI. OVER Lfo PORGYUL. THE UPPER VALLEY ROUTE — .A JHULA OR TWIG-BRIDGE — LORD ELGIN'S DEATH CHOTA KHAN'S TERROR — AN INTREPID DAME — FAREWELL TO THE SUTLEJ GYUMUR THE HEREDITARY EXECUTIONER TASHIGONG MONASTERY BUDHISM SHOULDER OE THE GREAT MOUNTAIN — MARCHES TO NAKO. Qn turning north-westward from Chinese Tibet I set myself to the task of traversing the whole line of the Western Himalaya, from Lio Porgyiil to Kashmir and the Hindi! Kush, in the interior of its ranges, at a height usually about 12,000 feet, and through the provinces of Hangrang, Spiti, Lahaul, Zanskar, Siirii, and Dras. About half of this line of journey is not to be found in Montgomerie's Routes, and it involves more than one passage of several days over high and difficult ground, where there are no villages, no houses, and scarcely even any wood. Nevertheless, it com- mends itself as a summer and autumn journey to the traveller, from its great elevation, which keeps him above the tremendous heat of the gorges — from its singularly pure and bracing air — from the protection which more than one snowy range affords against the Indian monsoon — from the awful sublimity of the OVER LfO POftGYUX. 197 scenery — and from the exceedingly primitive and essen- tially Turanian and Lamaistic character of the people among whom he has to sojourn. It is possible to hit upon this line of journey without essaying the arduous task of visiting Pu and Shipki, because there is a path from Sugnam to Nako, in Hangrang, by way of Lio and Hango, which, though it goes over the Hangrang Pass at an altitude of 14,530 feet, is comparatively easy. But from Namgea Eizhing or Fields I had to reach Nako by crossing the Sutlej and passing over a shoulder of the great mountain Llo Porgyul ; so, on the 12th August, we made the steep ascent to the village of Namgea,and from there to a very unpleasant jhula which crosses the foaming torrent of the Sutlej. In this part of the Himalaya, and, indeed, on to Kashmir, these bridges are constructed of twigs, chiefly from birch trees or bushes, twisted together. Two thick ropes of these twigs, about the size of a man's thigh, or a little larger, are stretched across the river, at a distance of about six to four feet from each other, and a similar rope runs between them, three or four feet lower, being connected with the upper ropes by more slender ropes, also usually of birch twigs twisted to- gether, but sometimes of grass, and occurring at an interval of about five feet from each other. The un- pleasantness of a jhula is that the passenger has no proper hold of the upper ropes, which are too thick and rough to be grasped by the hand ; and that, at the ex- tremities, they are so far apart that it is difficult to have any hold of both at the same time ; while the danger is increased by the bend or hang of the jhula, which is much lower in the, middle than at its ends. He has also to stoop painfully in order to move along it ; and 198 THE ABODE OP SNOW. it is seldom safe for him to rest his. feet on the lower rope, except where it is supported from the upper ropes by the transverse' ones. To fall into the raging torrent underneath would be almost certain destruction. The high wind which usually prevails in the Himalaya dur- ing the day, makes the whole structure swing about frightfully. In the middle of the bridge there is a cross- bar of wood (to keep the two upper ropes separate) which has to be stepped over ; and it is not customary to repair a jhula until some one falls through it, and so gives practical demonstration that it is in rather a rot- ten state. One of these bridges — at Kokser on the Chandra river, but now superseded by a wooden bridge — accelerated the death of Lord Elgin on his way up to Dharamsala. When crossing over it his coat was caught on the birch twigs ; and his progress being thus arrested, he was unable to go over it with that continu- ous, but not too rapid motion, which is the safest way of dealing with such a passage. To delay on a bridge of this kind, swinging in the wind, is trying to the strongest nerves ; and I know, on excellent authority, that the position in which he was thus placed had some effect in aggravating the heart disease from which this Governor-General died not many days afterwards. This bridge below Namgea, which is nearly 100 feet in length, is a particularly bad one, because there is so little traffic over it that it is almost never repaired ; and Mr Pagell told me that the Namgea people were at some loss to know how I was to be got across in my weak and disabled state. A discussion arose amongst them as to whether the jhula would bear the weight of one or two men to assist me over it, on hearing of which I could not help laughing quietly, because, however unfit OVER LfO PORGYtiL. 199 for prolonged muscular exertion, any short dangerous piece of work was just what I liked. Accordingly, to the wonder and admiration of the mountaineers, who could not distinguish between incapacity for walking up 6000 feet and weakness of nerve, I took the jhiila whenever I came to it, without stopping to think of it, or looking either to the right or the left until I found myself safe on the rocks on the other side. Silas fol- lowed my example, and, with his lithe Maratha frame, got over it in splendid style ; but the heavy Chota Khan nearly stuck in the middle, at the cross-bar, and reached terra firma in a state of great agitation. Among the people who carried our things, there was the comely wife of a zemindar, who came with us for a curious reason. Two of her servants had been detailed off to take part in the carriage of our effects, and it occurred to this buxom dame that it would not do to let her servants go and receive money on their own account ; so she came also, and carried a mere nominal burden, having been over with us at Shipki. A senti- mental and perfectly virtuous friendship had sprung up between this lady and my Afghan cook ; and Chota Khan's admiration of her reached the culminating point when he saw his fat friend cross and recross the jhiila without the least hesitation or trepidation. All our baggage got across safely, which cannot be calculated upon at this particular bridge, and nobody fell through, though such a result did not appear at all unlikely from the rotten state of the birch ropes. I have gone over worse j hulas than this; but it was my first, and im- " pressed me with a feeling that the fewer we met with on our way the better. Any bridge, however, and even the hair-like bridge 200 THE ABODE OF SNOW. of Chinavad itself,* with hell flaming beneath, would have been welcome to me at this time, so long as it took me across the Sutlej, and away from its furnace- like valley. I experienced an intense feeling of relief on finding that I had no more Sutlej, but only the long line of the Western Himalaya before me. It may appear very absurd to hate a river, and regard it as a personal enemy and special agent of the powers of evil ; but that was the frame of mind into which I had got as regards this stream. " Go to," I said, " you uneasy, yellowish-white, foaming, thundering river. Go and choke yourself in the sands of the Panj&b. You may be called Langchhenkhabad, and be fed by the mouths of elephants or demons ; you may be richly laden with gold-dust, and may worm your way into the bowels of the earth, until, in sunless caverns, you pollute the waters of Alph, the sacred river ; but you shall have none of my dust to grind against the walls of your rock-prison." In order to reach Nako, where Mr Pagell was to part from me, we had to cross Lio Porgyiil at a height of about 14,000 feet, the lower path having become impassable ; but that could not be done in a day, so we camped at a very charming spot called Gyumiir, on the Sutlej side of the great mountain, at the height of about 12,000 feet. This was a place corresponding to Namgea and Shipki Eizhing, having a few terraced fields, and also a few huts ; but it was more level than these other outlying stations, and had willow-trees with rills of pure water running through meads * The bridge over which, according to the Zoroastrians, souls destined for heaven pass. OVER LIO PORGYUL. 201 of soft, thick, green grass. A spot like this has a peculiar charm after days of barren rock, and it was all the more pleasant because Lio Porgyiil shaded the sun from off us by 3 p.m., and left a long, cool, pleasant afternoon. Mr Pagell's convert, whose father had been heredi- tary executioner at KunaVar, came out very great on this occasion. All along he had shown a disposition to talk without measure, and without much regard as to whether any one was listening to him or not. It seemed as if having been denied the privilege of cut- ting off human heads, and so stopping human breath, he had a special claim to use his own throat and his own breath to an unlimited extent. Mr Pagell, with his kind and philosophical view of human frailty, excused his follower on the ground that it was the man's nature so to act ; and clearly it was so. If the Hereditary Executioner had somewhat restrained his conversational powers at Shipki, as a place where there was some danger of conversation being cut short by the removal of the conversing head, he fully made up for the deprivation at Gyumiir. He talked, with- out ceasing, to his Moravian brother and to me, to my servants, to the Namgea big&rris, to the willow- trees, to the rills, to the huts, and to the stones. It did not in the least matter that no one understood much of what he said, for his dialect of Lower Kunawar was not rendered more intelligible to the people about him by the mispronounced Tibetan words which he mixed up with it out of his bronchial tubes. That was a matter of no consequence to the Hereditary Exe- cutioner, who talked without waiting for replies, and 202 THE ABODE OP SNOW. did us excellent service all the while ; but I could not help thinking that a few days more of him might have produced a strong temptation to exercise his own hereditary art upon his own person. Close to Gyumtir there is the monastery of Tashi- gong, which affords a very secluded position for Lamas of a retiring and contemplative turn of mind as all Lamas ought to be. We were indebted to them for yaks, or rather zo-pos, but had hardly any communi- cation with them, and they did not seem disposed to cultivate our acquaintance. They have a beautifully secluded position for a monastery, among the preci- pices of a mountain which no one dreams of ascend- ing, and away from villages and trade-routes. This tendency of Budhists to seclude themselves from the world, has interfered with Budhism being a great power in the world. Even in China, where the numerous and well-built monasteries, with large gar- dens and plantations attached, sufficiently prove that Budhism must, at one time, have had a great attrac- tion for the Black-haired Bace, — this religion has long ceased to be an important element in the national life. It is forced to give way even before such a religion as Hinduism and a negative positivism such as Confu- cianism, whenever mankind reaches a certain stage of complicated social arrangements, or, as we call it, civil- isation ; but there is a stage before that, though after the period of tribal fighting, when a religion like Budhism naturally flourishes. Now Tibet is still in that position at the present day, and so Budhism (in the shape of Lamaism) is still supreme in it, > though it has almost entirely disappeared from India, and has so little power in China. OVER LIO PORGYUL. 203 Starting about four in the morning, as was our wont, we had a very pleasant journey over the mountain to Nako. There were some vestiges of a path. The ascent was so steep, that great part of the way it looked as if the mountains were overhanging us, and some small stone avalanches came down uncomfortably near ; but that was the character only of the first section. On reaching the highest part of the mountain which we attained — a height of about 14,000 feet — we found ourselves on the turn of its ridge, and wound for some way along the top of terrific precipices, which rose up almost perpendicularly to the height of about 5000 feet above the river Lee. It is more interesting, and a great deal more pleasant, being at the top of this gorge than at the bottom of it, where there is no path ; and the largest pieces of rock we could roll over were dissi- pated into fragments, too small to be seen by us, long before they reached the river. The Gerards made several attempts to ascend one of the lower peaks of Lio Porgyul, and believed they got up as high as 19,411 feet; but most of their instru- ments were destroyed in the effort, and they suffered much from intense cold, though there was very little wind. They never before " saw such a horrid-looking place ; it seemed the wreck of some towering peak, burst asunder by severe frost." The ascent completely debil- itated them, and caused severe headache and pain in the ears, the thermometer being sometimes 22° below freezing-point. A plant, with leaves like sage, was found to the height of 17,000 feet, beyond which there was no soil. Overtaken by night, and obliged to camp at 13,724 feet, they seem to have kept themselves alive only by drinking large quantities of punch. 204 THE ABODE OP SNOW. The marches from Shipki to Nako are : — Hours. Shipki to Shipki Fields, .... 4 7 Shipki Fields to Namgea Fields, Namgea Fields to Gyumiir, . . .7 Gyumiir to Nako (over shoulder of Lio Porgyiil, about 16,000 feet), .... 8 NAKQ AND THE NAKOWALLAH. 205 CHAPTEE XXII. NAKO AND THE NAKOWALLAH. A MOUNTAIN POOL PLEASURES OF CAMP-LIPE — A STRANGE FEELING INCLEMENT WEATHER — FOOD — TIBETAN APPETITES HOUSES A WONDERFUL DOG A REINCARNATION PART FROM BRUDER PAGELL CHANGO 8PITI MINSTRELS LEAVE KUNAWAR — ITS CHARACTERISTICS ITS PATHS. At Nako we camped close to the village, on the grassy bank of a small lake. The other side of this lake was lined with large poplar and willow trees, and in so des- olate a region the place appeared exceedingly beautiful. Elsewhere it might not have appeared so striking ; but there is nothing like slow difficult travelling and tent- life, or camping out, for enabling one to appreciate the scenery. I particularly felt this to be the case in the upper parts of Kashmir, where not only the scene of each night's encampment, but even every turn of the beautiful wooded valleys, was deeply impressed upon my memory. Nako is a little over 12,000 feet high ; and though I had already slept at higher altitudes on the Kung-ma Pass, the weather had become colder, and I here, for the first time, experienced a sensation which the head of the Yarkand expedition had warned me not to be afraid of. It consisted in being suddenly 206 THE ABODE OF SNOW. awakened at night by an overpowering feeling of suffo- cation and faintness, which one unaccustomed to it, or not warned about it, might readily mistake for the im- mediate approach of death. It is a very curious feeling — just as if the spirit were about to flit from the body ; but a few more days of travelling along the line of 12,000 feet enabled me to get rid of it altogether. At Nako we stayed two nights, and must have been in much need of a rest, for we enjoyed our stay there immensely in spite of the exceedingly inclement weather. It is in an almost rainless district, but it is occasionally visited by rain or snow, and we happened to hit on the time of one of these storms. Soon after our arrival about mid-day the thermometer sank to 50°, and next morning was at 47°, and rain fell, or chill raw mists swept over us. Occasionally the clouds would clear away, showing the mountain above us white with new- fallen snow down to within a few hundred feet of our tent ; and this sort of weather continued during the period of our stay at this highly elevated village. At night it was intensely cold ; the wind carried the rain into our frail abodes wherever it could find admission ; and though the canvas of our tents did not admit the wet exactly, yet it was in a very damp state, which added to the coolness of the interior. Nevertheless we felt quite at home, and our servants also enjoyed themselves much. They amused them- selves with various athletic games ; and, to my aston- ishment, I found Silas, who had spent all his life within the tropics, swimming across the lake, which was a most dangerous thing to do, owing to the almost icy coldness of the water and the number of tangled weeds which it contained. This, and our general NAKO AND THE NAKOWALLAH. 207 cheerfulness, said a great deal for the beneficial effects of high mountain air, and of a nourishing diet of milk, mutton, game, and wheat or barley flour, so superior to the rice, curries, vegetables, and pulse, with which the people of India delight to stuff themselves. The piles of chuppattis, or girdle-cakes, which my servants baked for themselves, were enormous; so were their draughts of milk ; and I supplied them with a great deal of mutton, which they did not undervalue. The people of all the Tibetan- speaking countries also eat enormously. They always had something before starting, however early the hour might be ; and whenever we halted for a little on the way, they took out their suttti, or roasted barley flour, and if there happened to be any water accessible, kneaded this flour into large balls about the size of a cricket-ball, and so ate it with great gusto. On halting for the day, which was most usually about three in the after- noon, while the men assisted us in pitching the tents and making other arrangements, the women immedi- ately fell to work in making chuppattis and preparing great pots of tea-broth, into which they put salt, but- ter, flour, sometimes even meat, and, in fact, almost anything eatable which turned up. After they had done with this, the whole of their afternoons and even- ings appeared to be spent in eating and supping, varied occasionally by singing or a wild dance. Some- times they prolonged their feasting late into the night; and it was a mystery to me where all the flesh they consumed came from, until I observed that the Hima- laya are very rich in the carcasses of sheep and goats which have been killed by exposure or by falling rocks. All this eating enables the Tibetans to carry 208 THE ABODE OP SNOW. enormous burdens, and to make long marches up and down their terrible mountains. Among the rice-eating Kashmirians I noticed that large-bodied, strong enough looking young men were grievously oppressed, and soon knocked up, by burdens which Tibetan women could have carried gaily along far more difficult paths, and which their husbands would have thought nothing of. But even in Tibet the heaviest burden did not always go to the strongest bearer. A very common way was for my bigarris to engage in a game of chance the night before starting, and so settle the order of selecting packages. Occasionally the strong- est men used their strength in order to reserve for themselves the lightest burdens. I noticed also, as an invariable rule, that the worst carriers, those who had the most need of husbanding their breath, were always the most talkative and querulous, while the best were either silent or indulged only in brief occasional ex- clamations. The houses I had met with hitherto had all slated roofs ; but at Nako, as all through Spiti, and also in Zanskar, thorn bushes were thickly piled on the roofs, and in some cases actually constituted the only roofs there were except beams. This is done to preserve the wood below, and it probably does, from the effects of the sun in so dry a climate ; and it must also assist in keeping out the cold ; but it gives the houses a peculiar furzy look, and denies the people the great privilege of using the top of the house beneath their own as an addendum to their own abode. I purchased at this village a pretty large shaggy white dog, of a breed which is common all over China. We called it Nako, or the Nakowallah, after the place of its birth ; and NAKO AND THE NAKOWALLAH. "209 never did poor animal show such attachment to its native village. It could only be managed for some days by a long stick which was fastened to its collar, as it did not do to let it come into close contact with us because of its teeth. In this vile durance, and even after it had got accustomed to us, and could be led by a chain, it was continually sighing, whining, howling, growling, and looking piteously in the direction in which it supposed its birthplace to be. Even when we were hundreds of miles away from Nako, it no sooner found its chain loose than it immediately turned on its footsteps and made along the path we had just traversed, being apparently under the impres- sion that it was only a day's journey from its beloved village. It had the utmost dread of running water, and had to be carried or forced across all bridges and fords. No dog, of whatever size, could stand against it in fight, for our Chinese friend had peculiar tactics of its own which took its opponents completely by surprise. When it saw another dog, and was un- chained, it immediately rushed straight at the other ■ dog, butted it over and seized it by the throat or some equally tender place before the enemy could gather itself together. Yet Nako became a most affectionate animal, and was an admirable watch. It never uttered a sound at night when any stranger came near it, but ' quietly pinned him by the calf of the leg, and held on there in silence until some one it could trust came to the relief. The Nakowallah was a most curious mix- ture of simplicity, ferocity, and affectionateness. I left him with a lady at Peshawar, to whose little girls he took at once, in a gentle and playful manner; but when I said " Good-bye, Nako," he divined at once o 210 THE ABODE OP SNOW. that I was going to desert him; he leaped on his chain and howled and wailed. I should not at all wonder if a good many dogs were to be met with in heaven, while as many human beings were made to re- appear as pariahs on the plains of India. Above Nako there is a small Lama monastery, and all the way up to it — a height of about 600 feet — there are terraced fields in which are grown wheat, barley, a kind of turnip, and pulse. Thus the cultivation rises here to almost 13,000 feet, and the crops are said to be very good indeed. There is some nearly level pasture-ground about the place, and yaks and ponies are bred in it for the trade into Chinese Tibet. The people are all Tibetans, and distinctly Tartar in fea- ture. They are called Diikpas, and seem to be of rather a religious turn. Accordingly they had recently been favoured by the incarnation, in a boy of their village, of the Teshii Lama, who resides at Teshii Lambu, the capital of Western Tibet, and who, in the Lama hierarchy, is second only to the Dalai or Grand Lama, and a similar event seems to have occur- red in the same village more than half a century ago. At Nako I bade farewell to my kind friend Mr Pagell, to whom I had been so much indebted. On all the rest of my journey I was accompanied only by ■my native servants and by porters of the country, and only twice, shortly after parting with the Mora- vian, did 1 meet European travellers. These were two Indian officers who were crossing from Ladak to the Sutlej valley ; and another officer, a captain from Gwalior, who had gone into Spiti by the Babeh route, and whom I passed a few hours after parting with Mr Pagell. My first day's journey to Chango was NAKO AND THE NAKO WALL AH. 211 easy, over tolerably level ground, which seldom required me to dismount from my zo-po, and on a gentle level, descending about 2000 feet to Chango. That place has a large extent of cultivated nearly level ground, and it may be called the capital of Hangrang, a province which formerly belonged to China, and of which the other large villages are Nako, Hango, and Lio. The whole population of this little province numbers only about 3000 souls, and they seem to be terribly hard worked in autumn; but then during long months of the year they have little to do except to enjoy themselves. In the afternoon two bands of wandering Spiti minstrels made their appearance, and performed before my tent. The attraction of the larger of them was a. handsome woman (two of whose husbands were among the minstrels — there being more at home) who danced and sang after the manner of Indian nautch girls, but with more vigour and less impropriety. The senior husband of this lady ingeniously remarked that I could not think of giving him less than a rupee, as he was going to sing my praise over the whole country- side. Chango was the last village I saw in the dominions of the Eajah of Bussahir, which include upper and lower Kunawar and the Tartar province of Hangrang. Everywhere there, except to a slight extent at Chango, the people had been exceedingly civil and pleasant, and had readily furnished me with all the carriage I required, though they must often have done so at great inconvenience to themselves, owing to the harvest operations which were going on. In lower Kunawar they seemed to be a gentle and rather timid people, speaking an Aryan language ; and though the Tartars 212 . THE ABODE OP SNOW. of the upper portion of Bussahir were of rougher and stronger character, yet they were quiet and friendly enough. As to the roads of these provinces, they are exactly in the same state as when Gerard traversed them, and I prefer to quote here his account of them rather than to give any more descriptions of my own. " The roads in general," he says, " consist of narrow footpaths skirt- ing precipices, with often here and there rocks, that would seem to come down with a puff of wind, pro- jecting over the head ; to avoid which it is necessary sometimes to bend yourself double. The way often leads over smooth stones steeply inclined to a frightful abyss, with small niches cut or worn, barely sufficient to admit the point of the foot ; or it lies upon heaps of gigantic angular fragments of granite or gneiss, almost piercing the shoes, and piled upon one another in the most horrid disorder. Where the rocks are. constantly hurled from above there is not the slightest trace of a path, and cairns of stones are erected within sight of each other, to guide the traveller. There are often deep chasms between the rocks, and it requires a considerable degree of agility to clear them, and no small degree of caution to avoid overturning the stones, which now and then shake under you. . . . The most difficult part I saw was where ropes were used to raise and lower the baggage ; and this did not arise from the path having given way. Now and then flights of stone steps occur, notched trees and spars from rock to rock, rude scaffolding along the perpen- dicular face of a mountain, formed of horizontal stakes driven into the crevices, with boards above, and the outer ends resting on trees or slanting posts projecting NAKO AND THE NAKOW ALLAH. 213 from the clefts of the rock below. The most extra- ordinary one of this kind I ever saw was in the valley of Teedong. It is called Kapua, and the scaffolding continued for 150 feet. It was constructed like the other, with this difference, that six posts were driven horizontally into the cracks of the rocks, and secured by a great many wedges ; there was no support on the outer side, and the river, which undermined it, rushed with incredible fury and a clamorous uproar beneath. The shaking of the scaffolding, together with the stupefying noise of the torrent, combined to give the traveller an uncertain idea of his safety."* To this it may be added, that though several bridges — sang-pa such as the one beneath Pu, which I have already described — have been built of late in Bussahir, almost every part of that province is crossed by un- bridged mountain torrents, which are by no means easy to pass in summer during the day, when they are swollen by the melting snows and glaciers above. Bungalows for Europeans are to be found only on the Hindusthan and Tibet road ; and as the people, being affected by Hindu caste notions, will not allow a European to occupy their houses, a tent is necessary for making much acquaintance with this most moun- tainous and formidable country. Bussahir is only one of a large number of Hill States which acknowledge Great Britain as their para- mount power ; and the following information regarding these States, which has been kindly placed at my disposal by the Indian Foreign Office, will be accep- table to the statistical reader : — * Account of Koonawur, &c, &c, by the late Capt. Alexander Gerard. Edited by George Lloyd. London, 1841. 214 THE ABODE OP SNOW. Hill States. Area in Annual Name of State. sq. miles. Population. Produce. revenue. Es. Sirmur or Nahun, ... 90,000 Opium and grains 210,000 Kuhlor or Belaspur, ... 60,000 do. 100,000 Hindur orNalagurh, ... 70,000 do. 90,000 Bussahir, ... 90,000 Opium, grains, and woollen manu- factures 50,000 Keonthul, . ... 50,000 Opium and grains 60,000 Baghul, ... 22,000 do. 60,000 Jubul, . ... 40,000 do. 30,000 Bhuji, . 19,000 do. 23,000 Kuniharsein, ... 10,000 do. 10,000 Kothar, ... 4,000 do. 5,000 Dhanii, ... 5,500 do. 8,000 Bughat, . , 10,000 do. 8,000 Bulsun, 6,000 do. 7,000 Mylog, ... 9,000 do. 10,000 Bijah, . ... ,800 Opium, grains, and ginger 1,000 Turoch, 10,000 Opium and grains 6,000 Kiinhiar, ...» 2,500 do. 4,000 Mungul, ... 800 do. 700 Durkoti, ■ •• 700 do. 600 Mundi, 108,200 135,000 Iron and salt mines, timber, and grains 375,000 Siikait, 42,000 44,966 Timber and drugs 63,400 Sangri, ... 700 Opium and grains 1,000 Kotkhai (British ... ... ... territory), Man! Majra, . ... • •> ... ... Simla (British ter- 18 33,995 ... ritory), . Subathii (British ... ...' territory), Chamba, 321,600 110,000 Slate-quarries near Dalhousie, tim- ber, grains, nuts, wax, honey, and lime 185,500 Note. — Total area of the. Feudatory States attached to the Panjab amounts approximately to 104,000 square miles. CHINESE TIBET AGAIN. 215 CHAPTER XXIII. CHINESE TIBET AGAIN. A HABITATIONLESS DISTRICT— A TIBETAN MASTIFF — CHADDALDOK AND TO-TZO RIVERS NECESSART VIOLENCE CHUMURTI DOOR INTO TIBET — ORIGIN OF TIBETAN EXCLUSIVENESS TURNER'S EMBASSY — BOGLE AND MANNING THE TIBETAN QUESTION. On the next two days I had the first and shortest of those stretches over ground without villages and houses to which I have already alluded ; and my route took me again, for a day's journey and a night's encamp- ment, into the inhospitable region of Chinese Tibet, but into a section of that country where I saw no Tartar young women or human inhabitants of any kind. From Chango a path leads into Spiti across the river Lee, by the fort of Shealkar, over the Lepcha Pass and along the right bank of the Lee ; but that route is said to be extremely difficult, and I selected a path (which surely cannot possibly be much better) that takes northward up the left side of the Lee, but at some distance from it, into the Chinese province of Chumurti, and, after a day's journey there, crosses the boundary of Spiti, and continues, still on the same bank of the river, on to Dankar, the capital of Spiti. A long steep ascent from Chango took me again on 216 THE ABODE OP SNOW. to the priceless 12,000 and 13,000 feet level. The early morning was most delicious, being clear and bright, without wind, and exhilarating in the highest degree, while nothing could be more striking than the lighting up by the sun of the snowy peaks around. One starts on these early mountain journeys in great spirits, after drinking about a quart of fresh milk ; but after three or four hours, when the rays of the sun have begun to make themselves felt, and there has been a certain amount of going down into perpendicular gorges and climbing painfully up the other side of them, our spirits begin to flag, and, unless' there has been a long rest and a good breakfast in the middle of the day, feelings of exasperation are in the ascendant before the camping-ground is reached. Early on this day's journey I met the finest Tibetan mastiff which I saw in all the Himalaya. It was a sheep-dog, of a dark colour, and much longer and larger than any of the ferocious guardians of Shipki. While we were talking to the shepherd who owned it, this magnificent creature sat watching us, growling and showing its teeth, evidently ready to fly at our throats at a moment's notice ; but whenever I spoke of pur- chase, it at once put a mile of hill between us, and no calls of its master would induce it to come back. It seemed at once to understand that it was being bar- gained for, and so took steps to preserve its own liberty ; but it need not have been so alarmed, for the shepherd refused to part with it on any terms. After passing the Chaddaldok Po by a narrow slated wooden bridge, we reached the top of the left bank of the To-tzo or Para river, which divides Hangrang from Chinese Tibet. The descent to the stream is about CHINESE TIBET AGAIN. 217 1500 feet, and a short way down there are some hot springs, with grass and willow-trees round them, and the shelter of great rocks. This would be by far the best place for camping ; but, for some reason or other, the Chango people had determined that we should do so on the Chinese side of the river. On getting down there, with some difficulty, and crossing the sang-pa, I found there was no protection whatever from the sun's rays, which beat into the valley fiercely, and were re- flected, in an overpowering manner, from the white stones and rocks around, while the noise of the furious river was "quite deafening. Here I had to remain without shelter and without food for nearly three hours, getting more and more exasperated as time passed on. After this, I usually kept two coolies within reach of me, with sufficient supplies to meet any emefgency, and clothing sufficient to enable me to camp out if neces- sary ; but I had now to learn the wisdom of such an arrangement. My servants had not got on well with the Chango people, and the latter had left us only a little way before we reached this river, under pretence of taking a short cut. I could not feel that the former were properly in my hands until I got past Dankar, for they might invent some scheme for forcing me to go down from that place to the Sutlej valley, through the Babeh Pass. As to the Chango bigdrris, I could not say what their motive might be for delay ; but it was clear to me, now that I was alone, that it would be necessary to check this sort of thing at the outset, and I felt a certain advantage for doing so being upon Chinese ground. So, when the parties did come in at last, I made my wrath appear to be even greater than it was ; 218 THE ABODE OP SNOW. and seeing that one of them was a shikari, and had a matchlock gun and a hunting-knife with him, I thought there could be nothing cowardly in making an example of him, so I fell upon him, and frightened one or two more. This was what the French call a necessary act, and it by no means interfered with the friendly terms on which I usually stood with my coolies; but I need scarcely say that such things should not be encouraged, and that everything depends upon why and how they are done. No formal rules can touch this subject effect- ually. Some men will travel through a country without being guilty of an act of violence, or even of uttering an angry word, and yet they leave behind a feeling of bitter hatred not only towards themselves but 'also towards the race and government to which they belong. Other men produce similar results by unnecessary, stupid, and cowardly acts of violence. It is curious that sometimes a Briton, who is so wildly benevolent in theory towards weak and uncivilised races, no sooner finds himself among them than he tramples on their toes unmercifully, and is ready to treat them in a ruth- less manner. Therefore I must guard against the sup- position that I go in for violent treatment in any part of the world, though just as little do I. hold that it should be entirely avoided in all circumstances. It is the touch of nature that makes the whole world kin, which is the best recommendation of the traveller. An English officer, a great shikari, writing to me from the wilds to the north of Kashmir, mentions that the people of one village (who had been in Kashmir, and had noticed the ways of English officers there) begged him, in the name of God, not to make a map of the country ; CHINESE TIBET AGAIN. 219 and on his asking them the reason why, their reply was : " We do not mind yon coming here, because you talk to us and let us sit down by you ; but other officers will say to us, ' D — n you, go away.' " This often arises simply from fatigue ; but for a traveller to neglect to make friends of the people among whom he sojourns, causes far more dislike to him than any positive acts of violence he is likely to commit ; and such is specially the case in high mountainous countries, where the popu- lation is scanty and travellers are rare, and the people — however poor some of them may be, and however dirty all are — have much natural though not formal polite- ness, and are free from the rude presumption which has become one of the distinguishing characteristics of the lower classes of this country of late years. English- men are far from being the most unconciliatory of travellers, and they would be better liked in India if the Indians had more experience of the harshness of the ordinary German, and the ignorant insolence of the ordinary French traveller. Camped as we were on the Chinese side of the To-tzo river, we might have had a marauding visit from some of the nomad Tartars, dwellers in tents, who are the chief inhabitants of the province of Chumurti ; but, I fancy, the Lassa Government would be as opposed to any unnecessary interference with Englishmen as it is to admitting them into Chinese Tibet, because such inter- ference might be made a handle of by the Indian Gov- ernment. There is another door here at To-tzo into the dominions of the Grand Lama ; but Mr Pagell had told me that he had already tried it, and that on reach- ing the first village he was sent back immediately, without any ceremony, and was scarcely allowed time 220 THE ABODE OF SNOW. to feed his yak or pony. It would, no doubt, be as difficult to communicate with, the Tzong-pon of Cbd- murti as with the Tzong-pon of D'zabrung, and the Chan go people would only go along the path to Spiti. As to the exclusiveness of the Tibetans, I find that Turner* makes mention of a very probable origin of it. He ascribes it not to any dislike to Europeans, but to " that spirit of conquest which forms the common character of all Mohammedan states, and that hostility which their religion enjoins against all who are not its professors." He, indeed, refers more particularly to this cause as having led the people of Bhotan to close the southern entrances to their mountainous country ; but it is extremely likely that it may have been more generally operative, and induced the Tibetans to se- clude the whole dominions of the Grand Lama, while their dread of Europeans and of the gold-mines being coveted, might still have acted afterwards to the same end. Tibet was visited in 1661, from the Chinese side, by the Jesuit missionaries Grueber and Dorville, who not only visited Lassa, but descended from there on India. Two missionaries from Goa are said to have reached Lassa from the Indian side in 1716 ; but some doubt rests on this statement. The most of our knowledge of the country, however, has been afforded by Father Horazio de la Penna, who went from Peking to Lassa in the early part of last century, when the agents of the Chinese Emperor Kang-hi were making a regular survey of the country. This priest remained thirty * An account of an Embassy to the Court of Teshoo Lama in Tibet. By Captain Samuel Turner. London, 1841. CHINESE TIBET AGAIN. 221 years in Tibet, and supplied the information on the subject which has been presented in the maps of D'Anville and the works of Georgi and Du Halde. The visit, in recent times, of Fathers Hue and Gabet to Lassa is well known to the public ; but it has only re- cently been discovered that one Englishman has reached Lassa. That was Thomas Manning, a mathematical tutor of Cambridge and a friend of Charles Lamb, who, after residing for several years in China, went into Tibet from India as a doctor, and in disguise. The Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society has an- nounced that Manning's .journal, which has lately turned up in an Ayrshire country house, " is a personal narrative, containing many incidents of the road, and is specially valuable for its account of Lassa and of the Dalai Lama : but it contains little geographical infor- mation ; and if it had not been for the accounts of Bogle, Turner, and the Pundit of 1865, it would not be easy to make out his route." Bogle's journal had also passed out of sight. Along with Dr Hamilton, he was sent by Warren Hastings into Tibet in 1774, and reached the western capital, Teshu Lambu. These journals, which are now about to be published for the first time, will probably be interesting; but it does not seem that they will add much to our know- ledge of the country. A much more valuable work, that of Captain Turner, has long been before the public, and relates his visit to Teshu Lambu in 1783, besides* presenting, and in a very agreeable style, a good deal of accurate information in regard to Tibet in general. In the close of last century there seems to have been no unwillingness on the part of the Lama Government 222 THE ABODE OF SNOW. to enter into relationships with British India ; for first Mr George Bogle in 1774, and then Captain Turner in 1783, were allowed to visit Teshu Lambu as repre- sentatives of our Government. It is gratifying to find that the Indian Government is again turning its thoughts to Chinese Tibet after the long time which has elapsed since 1783. A formal mission might be sent to Lassa ; or, under the treaty of Tien- tsin, passports might be claimed from the Chinese Foreign Office, allowing Englishmen, in a private or in a semi-official capacity, to traverse Chinese Tibet, the passports being either in the language of the country or accompanied by Tibetan translations given under im- perial authority. As it is, the do-nothing policy of the Indian Government recoils injuriously upon its prestige with its own subjects. It hurts our position in India for the people there to know that there is a country ad- joining our own territory into which Englishmen are systematically refused entrance, while the nations of British India and of its tributary states are allowed to enter freely, and even to settle in large numbers at the capital, Lassa,* as the Kashmiris do. About a year and a half ago the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce addressed the Viceroy and the Secretary of State for India, complaining of the restrictions there were in the way of commerce with Tibet, and received answers which seemed to imply that their prayer would be taken into favourable consideration whenever circumstances would allow. More recently the ' Friend of India' well * In Western Tibet the name of this city is pronounced without an aspirate ; but in the centre and east of the country it is called " Lhassa," which, consequently, is the correct way. CHINESE TIBET AGAIN. 223 remarked that " the day has now come when we may justly ask the Chinese Emperor to take steps for our admittance into Tibet." Certainly the matter might well be brought to a crisis now ; and there would not have been the least difficulty about it if a more active use had been made, within the last few years, of our position in China. 224 THE ABODE OP SNOW. .CHAPTER XXIV. TIBETAN POLYANDRY. POLYANDRY EXPLAINED — POLYGYNY — EXTENT — SIX HUSBANDS — THE ABBE DESGODINS — TIBETAN AND SCOTCH IMMORALITY TARTAR TEMPERAMENT LAMA NUNS A HOLY MAN TIBETAN MAR- RIAGES — ORIGIN OP POLYANDRY ITS ADVANTAGES INGENIOUS APOLOGIES. I have referred more than once in these articles to the polyandry of the people among whom I sojourned ; and though this delicate subject has been alluded to in several publications, it is sufficiently novel to the general reader to call for a little explanation here. Indeed, I find there are many well-educated persons who do not even know what polyandry means. It has a very botanical kind of sound ; and its German equivalent Vielmcinnerei, though coarse and expres- sive, does not throw much light upon the subject. A mistake also has been made in contrasting polyandry with polygamy ; whereas, being the marriage of one woman with two or more men, it is itself a form of polygamy, and ought properly to be contrasted with polygyny, or the marriage of one man to two or more women. But the polyandry of Central Asia must further be limited to the marriage of one woman to TIBETAN POLYANDRY. 225 two or more brothers, for no other form is found there, so far as I could learn. This curious and revolting custom exists all over the country of the Tibetan-speaking people ; that is to say, from China to the dependencies of Kashmir and Afghan- istan, with the exception of Sikkira, and some other of the provinces on the Indian side of the Himalaya, where, though the Tibetan language may in part pre- vail, yet the people are either Aryan in race, or have been much influenced by Aryan ideas. I found poly- andry to exist commonly from Taranda, in the Sutlej valley, a few marches from Simla, up to Chinese Tibet, and from there to Surii, where it disappeared in the polygyny of the Mohammedan Kashmiris. But it is well known to exist, and to be an almost universal custom, all through Chinese Tibet, Ladak, Little Tibet, and nearly all the Tibetan-speaking provinces. It is not confined to that region, however, and is probably the common marriage custom of at least thirty mil- lions of respectable people. It is quite unnecessary to go deeply, into the origin and working of this very peculiar marital arrangement; but it is well worthy of notice, as showing how purely artificial a character such arrangements may assume, and what desperate means are had recourse to, in order to get rid of the pressure caused by the acknowledged law of population. In the most elaborate and valuable compilation there is on Lamaism — ' Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche,' by Carl Friedrich Koeppen — that author, in his brief reference to this subject, clears the religion of Tibet of any responsibility for polyandry, and asserts that it existed in the country before the introduction of Budhism, having arisen from the pressure of popula- P 226 THE ABODE OF SNOW. tion.* In Ceylon, which is a great Budhist country, polyandry also exists, and, at least till very lately, has been legally acknowledged by the British Govern- ment ; but I have not found anything which proves that the religion of the Singalese is any more respon- sible for the custom than is the British Government itself. We know also that polyandry has existed in non-BMhistic countries, and even in Great Britain, along with worse marriage customs, as Csesar testifies in his ' De Bello Gallico ' (lib. v. xiv.), when he says : " Uxores habent deni duodenique inter se communes, et maxime, fratres cum fratribus, et parentes cum liberis." Traces are to be found of it among the ancient Indo- Aryans, as in the Mahabarat, where Dran- padi is represented as married to the, five sons of Pandu ; and in the Bamayana, where the giant Viradha attacks the two divine brothers Bama and Lakshaman, and their wife Sita, saying, " Why do you two devotees remain with one woman \ Why do you, profligate wretches, thus corrupting the devout sages V Even so early as in the Big Veda Sanhita (Mandala I. Hymn 1 1 7, v. .5) there is some trace of the custom in the passage, "Aswins, your admirable (horses) bore the car which you had harnessed (first) to the goal, for the sake of honour ; and the damsel who was the prize came through affection to you and acknowledged your husbandship, saying, ' you are (my) lords.'" I think * " Die Schuld dieser widrigen und unnatiirlichen Einrichtung tragt ubrigens keinesweges der Lamaismus ; der Gebrauch bestand vielmehr bei den Bodpa langst vor ihrer Bekanntschaft mit der Religion des Shakjasohnes und findet seine Erklarung und Entscnuldigung in der ubergrossen Armuth des Schneelandes und in der aus dieser entspring- enden Nothwendigkeit, dem Anwaehsen der Bevblkerung Schranken zu setzen." TIBETAN POLYANDRY. 227 polyandry of a kind is even sanctioned in the laws of Menu. There are many other traces of the existence of polyandry in the ancient world, and it also appears in various countries in our own or in very recent times. As to the Singalese, Sir Emerson Tennent says that " polyandry prevails throughout the interior of Ceylon, chiefly amongst the wealthier classes. ... As a general rule, the husbands are members of the same family, and most frequently brothers." Here there is a slight difference from the polyandry where the hus- bands are always brothers. The Abbe* Desgodins speaks of proches parents, or near relatives in general, being joined in this relationship, as well as brothers, in the east of the country ; but I repeatedly inquired into that point, and on consulting Herr Jaeschke at Herrnhut in regard to it, he said he had never known or heard of any other kind of polyandry in Tibet except fraternal. Polyandry notably exists among the Todas of Southern India, and it has been found in regions very far distant from each other, as among the Kal- mucks, the Tasmanians, and the Iroquois of North America ; but nowhere does it take such a singular form as among the Nairs of the Malabar coast, who are nominally married to girls of their own caste, but never have any intercourse with their wives ; while these latter may have many lovers if they please, if the lovers are Brahmins, or Nairs other than the hus- band. Such arrangements, however, are mere freaks, and are not to be compared with the regular, extensive, and solidified system of Tibetan polyandry. General Cunningham, in his valuable work on Ladak, says that 228 THE ABODE OF SNOW. the system " prevails, of course, only among the poorer classes;" but my experience was that it prevailed among all classes, and was superseded by polygyny only where the people were a good deal in contact with either Hindus or Mohammedans. Turner, who had so much opportunity of seeing Western Tibet, is quite clear on this point as regards that part of the country, for he says (p. 349) — "The number of hus- bands is not, as far as I could learn, defined or restricted within any limits. It sometimes happens that in a small family there is but one male ; and the number may seldom perhaps exceed that which a native of rank, during my residence at Teshoo Loombob, pointed out to me in a family resident in the neighbourhood, in which five brothers were then living together very happily with one female, under the same connubial compact. Nor is this sort of compact confined to the lower ranks of people alone ; it is found also frequently in the most opulent families." I met only one case in which the number of hus- bands exceeded that of the instance mentioned above. It was that of .the family of the mtikea at Pii, in which six brothers were married to one wife, but the young- est of the brothers was quite a boy. The husband I saw must have been over thirty ; and as he had two elder brothers, the arrangement, as a whole, struck one as even more revolting than usual. Instances of three and five husbands were not uncommon ; but, without having gone rigidly into the matter, I should say that the most instances of polyandry were those of two husbands, and that, not because there was any objec- tion to five or six, but simply because no greater num- ber of brothers was usually to be found in a family, as TIBETAN POLYANDRY. 229 might have been expected from such a system, and as also one of the great ends which that system is designed to effect. As to the working of polyandry in Tibet, I noticed no particular evidence of its evil effects, though doubt- less they exist ; and in this respect I am at one with the other European travellers, with the single excep- tion of the Abbe Desgodins, who draws a very fright- ful picture of the state of morals in the eastern part of the country. He says : " Les hommes riches peuvent avoir autant de femmes qu'ils le ddsirent, sans compter que quand ils sont en voyage, et qu'ils sont visite a leurs amis, la politesse veut qu'on leur en prete par- tout, Au Thibet on se prete sa femme comme on se prete une paire de bottes ou un couteau. . . . Les Thibetans n'ont pas non plus le moindre souci de l'honneur de leur filles, celle qui est devenue mere trouve meme plus facilement a se marier, par la rai- son que celui qui l'achete est certain qu'elle n'est pas sterile ; ce deVergondage de mceurs est cause d'une sterilite ge'nerale." * There is probably some exaggera- tion here; t and, making allowance for that, the de- * La Mission du Thibet de 1855 a 1870. Verdun, 1872. t Mr Douglas, the professor of Chinese in King's College, London, supplies the following passage from a Chinese work, which corroborates the Abba's statements ; but accounts by Chinese of other nations than their own are very far indeed from being reliable, as witness the hideous practices they ascribe to Europeans, such as using the blood of Chinese emigrant coolies in the preparation of opium : "The women of the labouring classes [in Tibet] are more robust than the men, and to their lot fall all the heavier kinds of work. As a result of this, it constantly happens that three or four brothers in a household take unto themselves conjointly one wife, whose offspring are divided by choice among her hus- bands. Such wives who succeed in living in harmony with three or four brothers are called ' accomplished,' in recognition of their capacity for governing their households. In addition to labour in the fields, all such 230 THE ABODE OF SNOW. scription "would apply to most semi-civilised races, and need not be charged to the fault of polyandry. The accusation brought by the worthy Abbe" against the young persons of Tibet is precisely the same as that ■which Sir Anthony "Weldon made against the Scotch in the time of James VI., * and can be brought, even at the present day, against a considerable portion of the agricultural and pastoral population of Scotland. It is absurd for Europeans to hold up their hands in holy horror at the immorality which they may observe in ruder and less highly favoured countries, when our own centres of civilisation present, in that respect, such curious results. Fraternal polyandry is not merely opposed both to artificial arrangements and the highest morality, but even to our natural instincts. But there is no sense in charging it with evils which we see existing everywhere. It is more revolting than the prostitution, or unlegalised polyandry, of the West ; but its lesson will be lost if it be viewed other- wise than in the cold white light of reason. It is almost impossible for us to conceive of such a system being in operation, and of its allowing room for affection between relatives ; and so it may be well to note that it exists. This could only happen among a race of a peculiarly placid, unpassionate tempera- work as spinning, weaving, and other domestic duties, are expected of the women, and those who are ignorant of such arts are objects of uni- versal ridicule. Adultery is not considered shameful ; and when a married woman forms a liaison, she frankly informs her husband or hus- bands that such and such a one has become her ' ying-tuh ' or ' gallant bachelor.' The husband or husbands make no objection ; and husbands and wife, ' averting their eyes ' from the doings of each other, con- tentedly follow their own devices." * A Perfect Description of the People and Country of Scotland. Lon- don, 1659. TIBETAN POLYANDRY. 231 ment as the Turanians unquestionably are, except in their fits of demoniacal cruelty. They have no hot blood, in our sense of the phrase, and all interests are subordinate to those of the family. This supreme family feeling prevents any difficulty arising in con- nection with the children, who are regarded as scions of the house rather than of any particular member of it. It has been said that, where there is more than one husband, the paternity of the child is unknown ; but that is doubtful, though all the husbands are held responsible, and there is no noticeable difference in the relationship of a child to his different fathers. All this would be impossible in a race with strong passions, or where the element of individuality is strongly devel- oped ; but it is exactly in these respects that the Tura- nians are most deficient. Of course there is a large number of surplus women under this polyandric system, and they are provided for in the Lama nunneries, where they learn to read and copy the Tibetan scriptures, and to engage in re- ligious services. The nunneries have usually a certain amount of land attached to them, which is cultivated by the occupants, who also hire out their services in the harvest season. I have even had my baggage carried by Lama nuns, when there was a pressure of occupation, and observed nothing particular in their demeanour, except that it was a little more reserved than that of the other women. Of course accidents do happen occasionally ; but the excitement which they cause is a proof that they are not very common. When I was at Pu, a great noise was caused by a Lama nun — the daughter of a wealthy zemindar — having suddenly increased the population of that 232 THE ABODE OF SNOW. village, in defiance of the law of population and her holy vow. About a year before, a visit had been made to Pti by a celebrated Lama from the interior of Chinese Tibet, whose claims to sanctity were so high that the zemindar invited him to stay in his house and expound the Tibetan scriptures. The nun came down to these reunions from her convent, a few hundred feet up the mountain-side, and the con- sequence was the event which I have just noticed. Meanwhile the holy man had meanly, but judiciously, gone back into Chinese Tibet. He was hopelessly be- yond reach ; and the scandal being great, the father, both on his own account and on that of his daughter, had to pay about Rs. 300 in all, to the convent, to the scandalised village, and to the state. Such offences are readily condoned, on a sufficient monetary fine being paid ; but I heard also that the nun would not be reinstated in her former position without under- going penance, and manifesting contrition. Such a sin, however, can hardly tell against her long, if her conduct be correct afterwards ; for the superior of this very monastery had herself an illegitimate daughter, who was enrolled among the sisterhood. Some sects of the Lamas are allowed to marry, but those who do not are considered more holy ; and in no sect are the nuns allowed to marry, and they, as well as most of the monks, take a vow of absolute continence. I am scarcely in a position to have any decided opinion as to how far this vow is observed, but am inclined to believe that it is so usually, notwithstanding the ex- ceptions to the rule. The Lama Church does not concern itself with the marriage union, though ite priests often take part in TIBETAN POLYANDRY. 233 the ceremonies accompanying the bridal, — as, for in- stance, in fixing upon an auspicious day. Marriages are often concluded at a very early age, by the parents of the parties, and sometimes when the latter are children. In such cases the bride and bridegroom often live for years separate, in the houses of their re- spective parents. When the matter has not been pre- viously arranged by his father, the young man who wishes to marry goes to the parents of the girl he has selected with a gift of cliong, a species of beer which is brewed among the mountains, and this he partakes of along with them. A second visit of the same kind follows, and then a third, when he meets with the ob- ject of his choice, and the nuptials are arranged. In some parts of the country more valuable presents, and even gifts of money, are expected, there being a great deal of difference in local usage as to the preliminaries. Women have property in their own right ; and, as a rule, childless women are not regarded in any particu- lar manner. The choice of a wife is the right of the elder brother ; and among the Tibetan-speaking people it universally prevails that the contract he makes is understood to involve a marital contract with all the other brothers, if they choose to avail themselves of it. We have already seen what Koeppen says as to the origin of this hideous polyandry. Herr Jaeschke also assured me that he knew of no polyandric traditions in Tibet, and that the system there must be indefinitely old. The probability is that it has descended from a state of society somewhat similar to that which at pre- sent exists in the Himalaya, but more primitive, ruder, and uninfluenced by the civilisations of India and China; while those who believe that human beings at one time 234 THE ABODE OP SNOW. herded together very much like flocks of animals, see in it a transition from a still more savage past. There is not much use in speculating on the origin of customs when that origin lies concealed in the mist of antiquity. Such speculation takes very much the shape of finding or inventing uses which the custom under discussion might subserve ; but that is a very unsatisfactory region of thought where there are no historical facts to afford guidance. All we can really say on this subject is, that polyandry does subserve certain useful ends. In a pri- mitive and not very settled state of society, when the head of a family is often called away on long mercan- tile journeys, or to attend at court, or for purposes of war, it is a certain advantage that he should be able to leave a relative in his place whose interests are bound up with his own. Mr Talboys Wheeler has suggested that polyandry arose among a pastoral people, whose men were away from their families for months at a time, and where the duty of protecting these families would be undertaken by the brothers in turn. The system certainly answers such an end, and I never knew of a case where apolyandric wife was left without the society of one at least of her husbands. But the great, the notable end which polyandry serves, is that of check- ing the increase of population in regions from which emigration is difficult, and where it is also difficult to increase the means of subsistence. That the Malthusian law, or something very like it, is in operation, is now all but universally admitted by political economists. There is a tendency on the part of population to increase at a greater ratio than its power of producing food ; and few more effectual means to check that tendency could well be devised than the system of Tibetan polyandry TIBETAN POLYANDKY. 235 taken in conjunction with the Lama monasteries and nunneries. Very likely it was never deliberately de- vised to do so, and came down from some very rude state of society ; but, at all events, it must have been found exceedingly serviceable in repressing population among what Koeppen so well calls the snow-lands of Asia. If population had increased there at the rate it has in England during this century, frightful results must have followed either to the Tibetans or to their im- mediate neighbours. As it is, almost every one in the Himalaya has either land and a house of his own, or land and a house in which he has a share, and which provide for his protection and subsistence. The people are hard- worked in summer and autumn, and they are poor in the sense of having small possessions and few luxuries ; but they are not poor in the sense of presenting a very poor class at a loss how to procure subsistence. I was a little surprised to find that one of the Mora- vian missionaries defended the polyandry of the Tibet- ans, not as a thing to be approved of in the abstract or tolerated among Christians, but as good for the heathen of so sterile country. In taking this view, he proceeded on the argument that superabundant population, in an unfertile country, must be a great calamity, and pro- duce " eternal warfare or eternal want." Turner took also a similar view, and he expressly says — " The influ- ence of this custom on the manners of the people, as far as I could trace, has not been unfavourable. ... To the privileges of unbounded^ liberty the wife here adds the character of mistress of the family and companion of her husbands." But, lest so pleasing a picture may delude some of the strong-minded ladies (of America) to get up an agitation for the establishment of polyan- 236 THE ABODE OF SKOW. dry in the West, I must say it struck me that the having many husbands sometimes appeared to be only having many masters and increased toil and trouble. I also am by no means sure that the Tibetans are so chival- rous as to uphold polyandry because they regard " the single possession of one woman as a blessing too great for one individual to aspire to." Nor shall I commit myself to the ingenious opinion that " marriage amongst them seems to be considered rather as an odium — a heavy burden — the weight and obloquy of which a whole family are disposed to lessen by sharing it among them." SPITI. 237 CHAPTER XXV. SPITI. OPEN CAVES — LAEI AND PO — EOPE-BRIDGES EXTRAORDINARY RAVINES DANKAR INSOLENCE SECLUSION OF SPITI UGLY WOMEN DRESS PRODUCTS — GAY NUNS — HISTORY. From the desolate Chinese district of To-tzo I passed into the not less elevated British Himalayan pro- vince of Spiti. The path to Lari, the first village in Spiti, where we camped under a solitary apricot-tree, said to be the only tree of the kind in the whole pro- vince, was very fatiguing, because large portions of it could not be ridden over ; and there were some ticklish faces of smooth, sloping rock to be crossed, which a yak could hardly have got over, but which were managed, when riderless, in a wonderful manner by the shoeless ghilnt, or mountain pony, which I had got at Change The scenery was wild and desolate rather than striking — no house, no tree, and hardly even a bush being visible. There was a great deal of limestone-rock on this journey ; and at some places it was of such a char- acter that it might be called marble. "We passed sev- eral open caverns ; and in one of these, about a third of the way from the To-tzo river, I stopped for break- fast. It was a magnificent open arch, about fifty feet 238 THE ABODE OF SNOW. high in front, and as many in breadth, in the face of a precipice, and afforded cool shade until after mid- day, when the declining sun began to beat into it. But the Karitha river, which occurs immediately after, ought to be passed in the morning, because there is only a two-poled bridge over it, on which even a ghfmt cannot cross ; and the stream was so swollen at mid-day by the melting snow that my pony was nearly lost. The next morning I was delayed at Lari by the in- formation that messengers had arrived at the other side of the river with a letter for me and some money, but were unable to cross the river, ajhtila which formerly existed there having given way. This seemed exceed- ingly improbable, but I went down to inquire. There was a double rope across the stream, and I told the mes- sengers to fasten the letter to it, and so send that across, but to keep the money, and found that both were for the G-walior captain whom I met near Nako, so I ordered the bearers to proceed to Pu in search of him. Where there is no bridge exactly, there is often a double rope of this kind across the deep-sunk rivers of the Himalaya, to enable the villagers on opposite sides of the gorge to communicate with each other ; and the rope is some- times strong enough to allow of a man being slung to it, and so worked across. If only the rope be sound, which cannot always be depended on, this method of progres- sion is preferable to the jhula; because, though it may try the nerves, it does not at the same time call for painful exertion which disturbs the heart's action. I learn from Captain Burton that similar rope-bridges exist in Iceland, and that he usually found the ropes had been spliced more than once. SPITI. 239 Po, or Poi, my next camping-place, was a very pleas- ant village, with little streams running between willow- trees, and with peaks and walls of snow rising over the precipices, and immense steep slopes of shingle immedi- ately around. Another day took me to Dankar, under immense dark precipices, which lined both banks of the river, of slate and shale. It would be well for a prac- tical geologist to examine that part of the Spiti valley, and also the portion between Po and Lari ; for it is pos- sible they may contain coal. For the most part the way to Dankar was tolerably level and good ; but the height of the water of the Lee at this season compelled us to make a difficult detour through probably the most ex- traordinary series of gorges there is in the world. We moved along a dry water-course, between perpendicu- lar tertiary or alluvial strata rising to hundreds and even to thousands of feet above. The floor of these clefts was fifteen or twenty feet broad, and though they must have enlarged considerably at the top, they appeared to do so very little to the eye. It was not rock but soft deposits which rose on both sides of us ; and though there had been every irregularity in the lateral effects of the water, which had cut out the passages in many directions, there had been very little in its perpendicu- lar action, for, in that respect, the water had cut almost straight down. High up, at the edges of these extraor- dinary ravines, the strata had been worn away so as to form towers, spires, turrets, and all sorts of fantastic shapes, which could be- seen by looking up the cross passages and at the turnings. Often high above, and apparently ready to fall at any moment, a huge rock was supported on a long tower or spire of earth and gravel, which (beiiig a little harder than the strata 240 THE ABODE OP SNOW. • , around, or having possibly-'*been compressed by the weight of the rock) had remained standing, while the earth round it had crumbled or been washed away. These threatening phenomena were either on the edge of the clefts or rose up from their sides, and were very similar to the rocks which are to be seen on glaciers sup- ported on pillars of ice. The way was most tortuous, and led into a cul-de-sac, the end of which we had to ascend with difficulty. As the route I speak of involves a considerable detour and some climbing, no traveller will be taken through it if the path along the side -of the Lee be not covered with water ; and I cannot conscientiously recommend every one to go into the labyrinth. True, it is used by the mountaineers when the other path is not passable ; but they are very rarely obliged to have recourse to it, because they can time their journey so as to make the passage of the river when the snows above are frozen up, and consequently the water is low. True, also, no rocks fell during our passage, but the floor was paved with -them ; there were hundreds of rocks which a mere touch would have sent down, and I saw evidence enough to prove that whole sides of the ravines sometimes give way ; so that, unless the traveller had a charmed life, his curiosity would expose him to a very fair chauce of being suddenly knocked on the head by a stone a ton weight, or buried under hundreds of feet of tertiary strata. It is similar strata which afford so extraordinary a position and appearance to Dankar, the capital of Spiti, which is a British Himalayan province, under an assist- ant commissioner who resides iu the warmer and more fruitful Kiilii valley. This town is perched about a SPITI. 241 thousand feet above the Lee, on the ledges and towers of an immense ridge of soft strata which descends towards the river, but breaks off with a sudden fall after affording ground for the fort, houses, and Lama temples of Dankar. Its appearance is very extraordi- nary, but has only its picturesqueness to recommend it, for the interior is as miserable as that of the smallest Himalayan village. This place should properly be spelled "Drankhar," which means "the cold fort." Khar, with an aspirate, signifies a fort, as Dan-kar is, or rather was ; but Tear means white. Hence it has been a de- cided error to call this place Dankar ; but I shall leave the correction of it to Dr W. W. Hunter and his de- partment, for though Spiti does not boast of a post- office, yet it is a British province. The precise height of this village is 12,776 feet, so it may easily be con- ceived that the nights were intensely cold in our light tents, and that there was some little difficulty in rous- ing my people in the morning. The people, being under British rule, have of course a proper contempt for British travellers though so little troubled by them. No one offered to show us where to pitch our tents, or to render any other civility. The milkea was away, and his representative was both inso- lent and exorbitant in his demands. Here was the style which he adopted, and was supported in by the people about him. As was afterwards proved by my making him produce his nerrik, or official list of prices, he began by demanding double price from us for the sheep and grain we wanted ; and when we said quite civilly that he was charging too much, he at once answered impudently, and without the least excuse for doing so — " Oh ! if you want to use force, by all means 242 THE ABODE OP SNOW. take what you want for nothing, and I shall report the matter to the commissioner in Kulii." Fortunately for him there was no Chinese territory near; but, through the medium of the young schoolmaster of Dankar, who understood Hindiisthani, I made him and his friends somewhat ashamed of his conduct ; and it was the more inexcusable because the prices of the nerrik are fixed at a higher rate than those which pre- vail, in order that there may be no hardship in afford- ing travellers the right of purchasing supplies — a right which it is absolutely necessary that they should have, in order to travel at all, in a district of country where there are so few open markets. The valley of Spiti is secluded in such a very formid- able manner from the civilised world that it has very few European visitors ; and though it has frequently been conquered, yet it is difficult to conceive of its being so, or of any one finding it worth while to conquer it. This province is situated in the centre of the Himalaya, with two great snowy ranges (not to speak of minor ones) between it and the plains of India. There are very few parts in Spiti where we can get below 12,000 feet, while it contains innumerable points which are 20,000 feet high, and its great valley has an average elevation of about 12,800 feet. Elevated and secluded though this province be, it is not to be compared in these admirable respects with Zanskar ; but it is toler- ably well raised out of the world. On the east, access can be had to it by the 18,000-feet Manerung Pass, or the difficult To-tzo route. From the south, the only entrance is by the desolate Babeh Pass, which is 15,000 feet high, and closed great part of the year, being par- tially exposed to the Indian monsoon. To the west, SPITI. 243 the direction which I am about to pursue, there are no means of exit or access except over glaciers and an utterly desolate region, which requires days in order to traverse it. To the north there are a few passes like the Parang-la (18,000 feet), which take towards Laddk ; but nobody need go to Ladak in search of civilisation. I did see one solitary apricot-tree at Lari, and some fine willow-trees at Po ; but that about exhausts my arboreal recollections of Spiti, or Piti, as the people of the country more usually call it. There are a good many willow, birch, and thorn bushes ; but still there must be a great scarcity of fuel. Notwithstanding that it is about seventy miles long, with a breadth of fifty miles in its upper portion, its population amounts to only about 2300 persons, whose language is Tibetan, and whose appearance has some Tartar characteristics. The minstrels, to whom I have already alluded, do not hold land, and are called Bedas. Captain Harcourt says : " Many of the men resemble veritable Calmucks ; and with few exceptions fall, as do the women, very far below the European standard of beauty; indeed, for positive hideousness of countenance, the people of Spiti are perhaps pre-eminent in the British empire." For absolute hideousness, so great as to be almost beauty of a kind, I should back a Spiti old woman against the whole human race ; and the production of one in Europe, with her extraordinary ornaments, could scarcely fail to create a great sensation. The dress of both sexes may be described as tunics and trousers of thick woollen stuff, with large boots, partly of leather, partly of blanket, which come up to the knee,, and which they are not fond of taking off at any time. In order to obtain greater warmth they • 244 THE ABODE OF SNOW. often put a quantity of flour into these boots, beside their legs, which I fancy is a practice peculiar to Spiti, but might be introduced elsewhere. The ornaments are very much the same as those of the Chinese Tartars, except that the women have sometimes nose-rings, which adds to their peculiar fascination. Not being affected by caste ideas, as even the Lamaists of Kuna- war are, the people of Spiti make no objection to a European eating with them or entering their houses, unless they happen to be rather ashamed of the in- terior ; but the houses differ very little from those of Zanskar, one of which I shall describe in detail, hav- ing had to spend two days in it during a great snow- storm. There is very little rainfall in Spiti ; from November to April all the streams are frozen up, and it is rather a mystery to me how the people obtain sufficient fuel to support life during that long severe period. In summer the fields are watered by artificial channels leading from the mountain torrents ; and it has often a very lively effect when the waters are let loose around and over a number of fields. The chief crops are wheat, barley, and peas, the latter affording a valuable addi- tion to the traveller's food, but not so readily purchas- able as the grain. One need not look for sugar, fruit, or any other of the luxuries of life, in this exceedingly sterile province. Yaks there are in abundance, along with zo-pos and the common Indian ox ; and the gMnt, or small ponies, are famous for their surefootedness, their sagacity, and their power of carrying their rider safely up and down the most terrible, dangerous, and fatiguing paths. Horse - racing, of a very irregular sort, is indulged in occasionally ; and the blacksmiths SPITI. . 245 of Spiti are famous in High Asia for their manufacture of steel bits and stirrups. The great substitute for paper here, as in all these snow-lands, is the inner bark of the birch-tree, which is of a light yellow colour, and very soft, though of a close texture. It is very good for all wrapping purposes, and could be used for writ- ing on if needed. The people are singularly exempt from disease, being, to all appearance, afflicted only by a few not bad cases of skin disease, which can easily be accounted for by their persistent avoidance of washing. Spiti is Budhistic ; and there are nearly 400 Lamas in the province, most of whom are bound to celibacy, and only about a dozen nuns, — though that must be quite enough, if it be true, as Captain Harcourt, lately the Assistant Commissioner for the three British pro- vinces of Kiilu, Lahaul, and Spiti, alleges, that " there are at times scenes of gross debauchery in the mon- asteries — a state of things which can be believed when Lamas and nuns are living promiscuously together."* As polyandry exists in the province, the surplus women have to remain in the houses of their parents or other relatives ; but there is no reason to consider the Spiti people as immoral, though they indulge in heavy drink- ing on special occasions ; and, like most mountaineers, they are exceedingly enamoured of their own lofty country, treeless and sterile though it be, and are extremely unwilling to go down any of the passes which lead to more genial climes. The poverty of this province, however, has not saved it from more than one conquest. Nearly a thousand years ago, it was * The Himalayan districts of Kooloo, Lahoul, and Spiti. By Captain A. F. P. Harcourt, Assistant Commissioner, Punjab. London, 1871.* 246 THE ABODE OP SNOW. under the Lassa Government ; and two centuries after, it fell under the dominion of Kublai Khan. In more recent times, it was sometimes subject to the Chinese Tartars and sometimes to the chiefs of Baltistan or of Ladak, according to which party happened to have the upper hand in the neighbourhood. It came into our possession about thirty years ago, through an arrange- ment with the Maharajah of Kashmir, into . whose power it had fallen, and was conjoined with Kulu under an assistant commissioner in 1849. UPPER SPIT1. 247 CHAPTER XXVI. UPPER SPITI. A NOVEL ROUTE " VERT POSSIBLE" KAZEH K.i MONASTERY NAKED GIRLS MORANG — SINGULAR PRECIPICES ARCHITECTURAL EFFECTS KIOTRO LOSAR TENT-LIFE FURTHER ROUTE — PRE- PARATIONS FOR A DIFFICULT JOURNEY — ROUTES FROM NAKO. From Dankar, or rather from Kazeh or Kaja, a day's journey beyond, my course was a novel one, almost unknown to Himalayan tourists. When considering, at Simla, how I should best see the Himalaya and keep' out of the reach of the Indian monsoon, I had the ad- vantage of an old edition of Montgomerie's map, in which the mountains and rivers are laid in, but which is now out of print ; and I saw from it that the lie of the Himalaya to the north-west presented a series of rivers and elevated valleys, in the very centre of the ranges, which might enable me to proceed to Kashmir by almost a new route, and one of great interest. I could get no information about this route, further than was conveyed by the admission of a Panjabi captain, who had been in the Himalaya, and who said on my consulting him on the subject — "Well, I should think it would be very possible." It certainly proved to be so, seeing that I got over the ground, and I got some 248 THE ABODE OF SNOW. information regarding it from the Moravian mis- sionaries. What I had to do was to follow up the Lee or Spiti river almost to its source, then to cross the Kanzam Pass into the frightfully desolate Shigri valley, or valley of the Chandra river ; to follow down that river to its junction with the Bhaga ; to follow up the Bhaga for a few marches, and then to cross over the tremendous Shinkal Pass on to the Tsarap Lingti river, and the valleys through which streams flow into the upper Indus. It is the first portion of this journey that I have now to speak of ; and to render it intelligible, it is only necessary for the reader to follow up the Spiti river as far as he can get, to cross the mountains at its source, and then to descend the Chandra river to its junction with the Bhaga. At Kazeh, a day's journey from Dankar, I left the usual track, which goes over the Parang-la Pass to Changchemmo and Leh, and which involves a journey that is on many grounds objectionable. Here I had the choice of two routes, one on the left and one on the right bank of the Lee, but chose the latter ; and as the former was within sight great part of the way, I had the opportunity of observing that it was considerably the worst of the two, though an inexperienced traveller might rashly conclude that nothing could be worse than the one I followed. To Kazeh we kept up the left bank of the Lee, which was no longer sunk in deep gorges, but had a broad open valley, and spreads itself here and there amid a waste of white stones. Here I crossed the river, at a point where the banks drew close together, and on what, by courtesy, might be called a wooden bridge. This sang -pa is very high and UPPER SPITI. 249 shaky, and the central portion of it is composed of three logs, without any parapet, and with loose branches laid across it, which are awkward and dangerous to step upon. Stopping for breakfast at the village of Kharig, I saw the large Lama monastery of Ki on the other side of the river, perched on the top of a hill in a very extraordinary manner. This monastery, accord- ing to Csoma de Koros was established in the eleventh century of the Christian era by a pupil of the well- known Atisha. It is a celebrated place ; but (whether or not it contains any portion of the dozen Spiti nuns) its monks do not seem to exercise much civilising influence in their own neighbourhood, for the people of Kharig were much more like thorough savages than the residents of any other Himalayan village which I entered. It being rather a hot day, the children, and even boys and girls of ten and twelve years old, were entirely naked; and the number of children was far beyond the usual proportion to that of households. Morang, where we camped, is a small village even for these mountains, and is about 13,000 feet high ; but it had an intelligent and exceedingly obliging mukea — the functionary who provides for the wants of travellers — who had been educated by the Moravian brethren in Lahaul, and spoke Hindiisthani. There was a wonderful view from this place both up and down the great valley of the Spiti river, bounded downwards by the Rupa-khago, or the snowy moun- tains of the Manerung Pass, and upwards by a grand 20,000-feet peak, supporting an enormous bed of nev£. Both on this day's journey and on the next, the banks of the river and the mountains above them presented 250 THE ABODE OE SNOW. the most extraordinary castellated forms. In many- parts the bed of the Lee was hundreds of yards broad, and was composed of white shingle, great part of which was uncovered by water. The steep banks above this white bed had been cut by the action of the elements, so that a series of small fortresses, temples, and spires seemed to stand out from them. Above these again, gigantic mural precipices, bastions, towers, castles, citadels, and spires rose up thousands of feet in height, mocking, in their immensity and grandeur, the puny efforts of human art, and yet presenting almost all the shapes and effects which our architecture has been able to devise ; while, yet higher, the domes of pure white snow and glittering spires of ice far sur- passed in perfection, as well as in immensity, all the Moslem musjids and minars. It was passing strange to find the inorganic world thus anticipating, on so gigantic a scale, some of the loftiest efforts of human art; and it is far from unlikely that the builders of the Taj and of the Pearl Mosque at Agra only embodied in marble a dream of the snows of the Himalaya or of the Hindu Kush. After leaving Morang we crossed another shaky sang-pa over the Gyundi river, and another one before reaching Kiotro, where we encamped in a sort of hollow beyond the village. The place seemed shut in on every side ; but that did not preserve us from a frightful wind which blew violently all night, and, with the thermometer at 43°, rendered sleep nearly impossible in my tent. There was a good path on the left bank of the Lee, for my next day's journey from Kiotro to Losar ; and the rock-battlements were more wonderful than ever; but just before reaching that UPPER SPITI. 251 latter place, we had to cross to the right bank of the river by means of a very unpleasant jMla, the side ropes of which were so low as to make walking along it painful. In Losar, instead of using my tent, I occupied a small mud-room which the Government of British India has been good enough to erect for the benefit of travellers. I do not know what the reason may be for this unusual act of generosity. Perhaps it is because Losar is one of the highest villages in the world, though it is inhabited all the year round, being 13,395 feet above the level of the sea. Notwithstand- ing this extreme altitude, it has a good many fields in which various kinds of grain are cultivated, and there is not a little pasture-land in its neighbourhood. The care of a paternal Government had even gone the length of keeping this room clean and free from in- sects ; so it was a pleasant change from my tent, the more so as it began to rain, and rain at 13,395 feet very soon displays a tendency to turn into sleet and snow. A tent is very healthy and delightful up to a certain point ; but it hardly affords any higher temperature than that of the external air ; and on these great alti- tudes at night the air cools down so rapidly, and to such an extent, that it may be a source of danger to some people. There is a safeguard, however, in the purity of the Himalayan air and in our continuously open-air life among the mountains. I have been in- jured by the unusual severity of the winter this year in England ; yet got no harm, but rather positive benefit, from camping on snow for nights together in my thin tent in Zanskar and Suru, and in much more severe weather than we have had here in England. Still, the paternal Government's mud -palace at Losar was 252 THE ABODE OF SNOW. an agreeable change, and afforded me the luxury of a sounder sleep than I had had for several nights. The Nakowallah, however, did not at all appreciate the advantages of having a solid habitation about him. I should have thought it would have been simple enough even for his tastes ; but nothing would satisfy that fleecy dog until he was allowed to lie outside of the door instead of inside, though that latter position exposed him to hostile visits from all the dogs of the village ; and there was a ferocious growling kept up all night outside the door, which, however, was music to me compared with the howling of the wind about my tent, to which I had been exposed for two or three nights previously. At Losar I had to arrange for a very hard journey of five days, over a wild stretch of country where there are no villages, no houses, and scarcely any wood, so that supplies of every kind have to be taken for it. In order to get into Lahaul and hit the junction of the Chandra and Bhaga rivers on the cut road which runs from Simla to Leh, two routes are available from Losar, both involving a stretch of days over a desolate and glacier-covered country. They both pursue the same course for nearly a day's journey, on to the gradual western slope of the Kanzam or Kanzal Pass ; but before crossing it one route takes off to the right, up the highest portion of the valley of the Chandra river, until it strikes the cut road to Leh, near the top of the Barra Lacha Pass (16,221 feet), and then de- scends the Bhaga to the junction of the two rivers, along the cut road and down a valley where there are plenty of villages. This was the road which I wished to follow, because I always preferred keeping as high up UPPEE SPTTI. 253 as possible ; but the people at Losar, who were to fur- nish me with coolies, declared against that route, and implored me not to insist upon going by it. There is a very difficult river to be forded, the water of which is so rapid that the bigdrris, or porters, can only man- age to get through by holding one another's hands and forming a long line. When Sir Douglas Forsyth was Commissioner of the Hill States, he passed over this route, losing two of his bigdrris (women, I think) in this river ; and though he compensated their families, this unfortunate event is advanced to this day as a con- clusive reason against the Barra Lacha route, and will probably be so advanced for centuries, if the world lasts as long. Hence I had to adopt the other route, which proved to be quite elevated and cold enough. It crosses the Kanzam Pass at a height of almost 15,000 feet, and then goes down the Chandra river on its left bank, through what is called by the natives the Shigri valley, until it reaches the cut road to Leh at the foot, and on the north side, of the Eotang Pass, which is 13,000 feet high, and the mountains of which separate Lahaul from the Kulu valley. Immediately after that point, this route crosses the river to the village of Kokser, and proceeds from thence to the junction of the Chan- dra and Bhaga, from whence there are various, but all rather difficult, routes leading to Kashmir. The two routes I have mentioned, which meet at the head of the Chandra-Bhaga — or what is almost equivalent to them, these two rivers before their junction — enclose a large extent of great glaciers and immense snowy mountains, with no habitations, and almost inacces- sible to human beings. An equally high range runs 254 THE ABODE OF SNOW. down the left bank of the Chandra (the route which I followed), throwing out its glaciers down to and almost across the river, so that it may easily be conceived that few portions even of the Himalaya, which are at all accessible, afford such a stretch of desolation and of wild sublimity. It was necessary for me, on this part of the journey, to take sixteen bigdrris, nearly half of whom were women, besides an extra yak to carry wood ; and for my own use I got . a little dark Spiti mare, which looked nothing to speak of, but actually performed marvels. We also took with us a small flock of milch goats, which could pick up subsistence by the way, and one or two live sheep to be made into mutton on the journey. A few miles beyond Losar we came to the end of the Lee or Spiti river, which I had now followed up from its confluence with the Sutlej, through one of the wildest and most singular valleys in the world. Its whole course is 145 miles; but such figures give no idea of the time and immense toil which are required in order to follow it up that short course, in which it has a fall of about 6000 feet. It has an extraordinary end, which has already been de- scribed, and also a curious commencement ; for it begins, so to speak, at once, in a broad white bed of sand and stones, being there created by the junction of two short and (when I saw them) insignificant streams, of about equal size and length ; the Llcbti, which comes from the Kanzam Pass, and the Pitii, which has its rise in the 20,000 snowy peak, Kiii. Earlier in the season, however, just after mid-day, when the snows and glaciers are in full melting order, there must be a UPPER SPITI. 255 magnificent body of water in this upper portion of the Lee raging and foaming along from bank to brae. The marches from Nako in Hangrang, to Kokser in Lahaul, on the cut road to Leh, are : — Nako to Chango, Chango to To-tzo river, To-tzo to Lari, Lari to Poo, . Poo to Dankar, Dankar to Kazeh, Kazeh to Morang, Morang to Kiotro, Kiotro to Losar, . . . Losar to 1st Camp on the Chandra, 1st Camp to 2d Camp, 2d Camp to 3d Camp, 3d Camp to 4th Camp, 4th Camp to Kokser, . Hours. 4 9 10 6 4 6 8 256 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTER XXVII. THE VALLEY OF GLACIERS. THE KANZAM PASS THE L PEAKS ENORMOUS GLACIERS SHIGRI OR GLACIER VALLEY STORM AND SNOW A NIGHT SCENE — CROSSING A GLACIER INCREDIBLE PERFORMANCES OF A GHUNT SPITI PONIES FALL OF A MOUNTAIN GLACIER FLOWERS FORDING STREAMS — A FALL DJE6LA — TIBETAN DOGS SILVER. Startikg from Losar at six on the morning of the 25th August, with the thermometer at 42°, the first part of the journey gave no idea of the desolation which was soon to be encountered. The day was bright and delightful, and the air even purer and more exhilarating than usual, as might be expected above 13,000 feet. After leaving the Spiti river and turn- ing south-west up the Lichii river, we found a beau- tiful valley, full of small willow-trees and bright green grass, though it could have been very little less than 14,000 feet high. It was the most European-looking valley I saw among the Himalaya before reaching Kashmir ; and it was followed by easy grassy slopes, variegated by sunshine and the shade of passing clouds, which slopes led up to the extreme summit of the Kanzam or Kanzal Pass, a height of 14,937 feet: Here there was a very imposing view in front, of im- THE VALLEY OF GLACIERS. 2a7 mense glaciers and snowy peaks, over or about 20,000 feet high, which rose up not far from perpendicularly on the other side of the youthful Chandra river, which raged down, far beneath our feet, in a manner which made it no wonder that the Kokser people were un- willing to encounter its turbid current. These moun- tains are the L peaks of the Topographical Survey; three of them had some resemblance to the Matter- horn, though with more snow, and they rose abruptly from the Chandra, so as in the pure air to appear al- most within a stone's-throw of .the place on which we stood. Great overhanging beds of nev6 fed enormous glaciers, which stretched down to the river like but- tresses of the three nearest peaks. To an unpractised eye, it might have seemed as if the glaciers extended only half-way to the Chandra, because the lower por- tions of them were not only thickly covered with de- bris of rock, but in some places this debris bore living grass. This is a striking phenomenon, which occurs on the Himalayan glaciers ; but I shall return to the subject directly, when I get past the great glaciers of the Shigri valley. There was a steep descent from the top of the Kan- zam Pass to the Chandra river, which we followed down a short way until a camping-ground was found about the height of 14,000 feet, beside a sort of pond formed by a back-flow of a tributary of the Chandra. Looking down the valley immense glaciers were seen flowing down the clefts in the high mural precipices on both sides of the Chandra, and extending from the great beds of snow above, down to, and even into, the river. This was the Abode of Snow, and no mistake ; for nothing else but snow, glaciers, and rocks were to R 258 THE ABODE OF SNOW. be seen, and the great ice-serpents crept over into this dread valley as if they were living monsters. In the local dialect Shigri means a glacier ; but the word is applied to the upper Chandra valley, so that the Shigri valley may be called, both literally and linguistically, the " Valley of Glaciers." But the collection of gla- ciers between the Chandra and Bhaga rivers, and above the left bank of the Chandra, large though it be, is really insignificant compared to the enormous congeries of them to be found on the southern side of Zanskar. There was no sward here of any description ; and I began to realise the force of the Afghan proverb, " When the wood of Jugduluk burns you begin to melt gold." Of this Shigri valley, in which we spent the next four days, it may well be said that — " Bare is it, without house or tract, and destitute Of obvious shelter as a shipless sea." That, however, is by no means the worst of it ; and in the course of the afternoon a fierce storm of wind, rain, and snow added to the savagery of the scene. As I had noticed from the top of the pass, some of the clouds of the monsoon seemed to have been forced over the two ranges of lofty mountains between us and the Indian plains ; and soon the storm-clouds began to roll grandly among the snowy peaks which rose close above us on every side. That spectacle was glorious ; but it was not so pleasant when the clouds suddenly de- scended upon us, hiding the peaks, and discharging themselves in heavy rain where we were, but in snow a few hundred feet above. There was a storm- wind which came — THE VALLEY OP GLACIERS. 259 " Like Auster, whirling to and fro, His force on Caspian foam to try ; Or Boreas, when he scours the snow That skims the plains of Thessaly.'' The thermometer sank at once to 41° from about 65°; and during the night it got down to freezing- point within my tent. Before night the clouds lifted, showing new-fallen snow all round us. In the twilight everything looked white, and assumed a ghastly ap- pearance. The pond was white, and so were the stones around it, the foaming river, and the chalky ground on which our tents were pitched. The sides of the mountains were white with pure new-fallen snow ; the overhanging glaciers were partly covered with it ; the snowy peaks were white, and so were the clouds, faintly illuminated by the setting sun, veiled with white mist. After dark, the clouds cleared away entirely, and, clearly seen in the brilliant starlight, " Above the spectral glaciers shone " beneath the icy peaks ; while, above all, the hosts of heaven gleamed with exceeding brightness in the high pure air. The long shining cloud of the Milky Way slanted across the white valley ; Vega, my star, was past its zenith ; and the Sat Rishi — the seven prophets of the Hindu's, or the seven stars of our Great Bear — were sinking behind the mountains. We had some difficulty in getting off by six next morning, when the thermometer was at 36°, and every one was suffering from the cold. Unfortunately, too, we had to ford several icy-cold streams shortly after leaving camp, for they would have been unfordable further on in the day. There are no bridges on this wild route; and I could not help pitying the poor 260 THE ABODE OF SNOW. women who, on this cold morning, had to wade shiver- ing through the streams, with the rapid water dashing up almost to their waists. Still, on every side there were 20,000-feet snowy peaks and overhanging gla- ciers, while great beds of snow curled over the tops of the mural precipices. After a few miles the Chandra ceased to run from north to south, and turned so as to flow from east to west ; but there was no change in the sublime and terrific character of the scenery. Out of the enormous beds of snow above, whenever there is an opening for them, — " The glaciers creep Like snakes that watch their prey ; from their far fountains Slowly rolling on ; there many a precipice, Frost, and the sun, in scorn of mortal power, Have piled — dome, pyramid, and pinnacle — A city of death, distinct with many a tower, And wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city but a flood of ruin Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky Kolls its perpetual stream." We were soon doomed to make a closer acquaintance with some of these enormous glaciers. Ere long we came to one which stretched down all the way into the river, so there was no flanking it. At first it looked as if we were painfully crossing the huge ridges of a fallen mountain ; but this soon proved to be an im- mense glacier, very thickly covered over with slabs of clay-slate, and with large blocks of granite and gneiss, but with the solid ice underneath exposed here and there, and especially in the surfaces of the large crevasses which went down to unknown depths. Some of these edges must have been two or three hundred feet in height. This glacier, as also others which followed, was THE VALLEY OF GLACIEKS. 261 a frightfully fatiguing and exasperating thing to cross, and occupied us nearly three hours, our guides being rather at a loss in finding a way over. I should have been tbe whole day upon it, but for the astounding performances of my little Spiti mare, which now showed how wise had been the selection of it for this difficult journey. Never had I before fully realised the goat-like agility of these animals, and I almost despair of making her achievements credible. She sprang from block to block of granite, even with my weight upon her, like an ibex. No one who had not seen the performance of a Spiti pony could have believed it possible for any animal of the kind to go over the ground at all, and much less with a rider upon it. But this mare went steadily with me up and down the ridges, over the great rough blocks gf granite and the treacherous slabs of slate. I had to dismount and walk, or rather climb, a little only three or four times, and that not so much from necessity as from pity for the little creature, which was trembling in every limb from the great leaps and other exertions which she had to make. On these occasions she required no one to lead her, but followed us like a dog, and was obedient to the voice of her owner. Shortly before coming to the glacier I thought she was going over a precipice with me, owing to her losing her footing on coming down some. high steps ; but she saved herself by falling on her knees and then making a marvellous side spring. On the glacier, also, though she sometimes lost her footing, yet she always managed to recover it immedi- ately in some extraordinary way. Her great exertions there did not require any goad, and arose from her own spirit and eager determination to overcome the 262 THE ABODE OF SNOW. obstacles which presented themselves, though in or- dinary circumstances she was perfectly placid, and content to jog along as slowly as might be. Even when I was on this mare she would poise herself on the top of a block of granite, with her four feet close together after the manner of a goat, and she leaped across crevasses of unknown depth after having to go down a slippery slope on one side, and when, on the other, she had nothing to jump upon except steeply- inclined blocks of stone. The reader may imagine that I have exaggerated the exploits of this little animal, but I have not done so in the very least, and have only given what I wrote at the time in my note-book. Captain Harcourt says of this glacier : " In the early morning, when the sun has had little ..power to melt the ice, the passage of the glacier is comparatively easy, though I doubt whether it would be ever possible to ride over it, for every step has to be conned over, and, as I counted 3648 of these when I walked over it in 1869, it might be safe to put the width of the Shigri at nearly two miles." I was not in a fit state to cross it on foot, and had no bearers to carry me had that been possible, which it was not. The glacier bore no signs of having diminished in size, and as we wandered about a good deal on it, having difficulty in finding a way, we must have gone over a great deal more than two miles of ground. I could not have got over it except by riding on this pony. The two Losar yaks also, magnificent black creatures with enormous white tails, did wonders; but their indignant grunting was something to hear. They had to be goaded a good deal, and were not so surprising as the slender-legged Spiti mare. Of course the latter THE VALLEY OP GLACIERS. 263 had no shoes ; and it is not usual to shoe the horses of the Himalaya, though they do so sometimes in Kash- mir ; and in Wukhan, to the north of the Oxus, there is the curious compromise of shoeing them with deer's horn, which protects the hoofs, while presenting a sur- face less slippery than iron, and one more congenial to the horse's tender foot. There was something affecting in the interest which this mare and some of the other mountain ponies I had elsewhere, took in surmounting difficulties, and not less so in the eagerness, at stiff places, of the foals which often accompanied us without carrying any burden. Thus in early youth they get accustomed to mountain journeys and to the strenuous exertions which these involve. At the same time, the Himalayan ponies husband their breath very carefully in going up long ascents, and no urging on these occasions will force them to go faster than they think right, or prevent them from stopping every now and then just as long as they think proper. These are matters which must be left entirely to the ponies themselves, and they do not abuse the liberty which they claim. More trying is their fond- ness for trotting or ambling down the steepest ascents on which they can at all preserve their footing ; and they show considerable impatience when restrained from doing so, and have expressive ways of their own of saying to their rider, " Why don't you trust me and let me go down at my own pace ? I shall take you quite safely." This ambling down a precipitous, moun- tain-side is particularly unpleasant when the path is a corkscrew one, with many and sharp turnings, because when the pony rushes down at a turning, it seems as if its impetus must carry it on and over ; but at the 264 THE ABODE OF SNOW. last moment it manages to twist itself round, so that it can proceed in another direction ; and I think these intelligent little creatures, take a pride in making as narrow a shave of the precipice as possible, and - in making their riders feel as uncomfortable as they can. They are also great in wriggling you round delicate points of rock, where the loss of half an inch would send both horse and rider into the abyss. They do positively enjoy these ticklish places ; and the more ticklish the place and the deeper the precipice below, the more do they enjoy it, and the more preternatur- ally sagacious do they become. They sniff at such a place with delight ; get their head and neck round the turning ; experiment carefully to feel that the pressure, of your knee against the rock will not throw the whole concern off its balance, and then they wriggle their bodies round triumphantly. I speak in this way, how- ever, only of the best ponies of Spiti and Zanskar, and not of those of Lahaul, or of any of the lower Hima- layan provinces, which are much inferior. While stopping for breakfast on this great glacier, the ice beneath the stones on which we were gave a great crack, and the stones themselves sank a little way. This caused a general removal, and it looked as if we had seated ourselves for breakfast over a crevasse (not a wise thing to do), the mouth of which had been blocked up with stones. To do Silas and Nurdass jus- tice, they stuck by the breakfast-things and removed these also ; but that was, perhaps, because they did not understand the danger we were in. The place had been selected because of its affording shelter from the wind ; but when, after the crack occurred, I examined it closely, I saw quite clearly that we had been sitting THE VALLEY OP GLACIERS. 265 between the lips of a crevasse which had got blocked up with rocks, and that the place was eminently an unsafe one. Our Losar bigarris had a story about the rocks on this glacier having been owing to the fall of a moun- tain-peak which had formerly existed in the immediate neighbourhood. Very possibly there may have been a land-slip of the kind ; but the coolies varied in their legend about the fall of the peak, some saying that it occurred two generations, and others twelve years, ago. When questioned on the subject, they acknowledged that the glacier must move, because every summer they had to find a new path across it, and had to erect fresh marks in order to indicate the way. There are so many crumbling peaks and precipices about the great fountains of this glacier, that there is no absolute need for the theory or legend of the Losar people to explain its covered condition. This glacier clearly arose from a number of large glaciers meeting in a great valley above, filling that up, and then pushing themselves over its rim in one great ice-stream down to the river ; and the crumbling precipices and peaks around were quite sufficient to supply the rocks we saw below. So compact had the covering got, that in some places I observed grass and flowers growing on this glacier. Coleridge has sung of the " living flowers that skirt the eternal frost," but here the flowers were blooming on the eternal frost itself. But to return to the Shigri valley : my second camping-place there was destitute of wood ; but it was very grassy and sheltered. The bigarris had the ad- vantage of an immense stone under which there were small hollows for them to sleep in ; and there was good 266 THE ABODE OF SNOW. water accessible, which is often a difficulty, because though there may be " water, water everywhere " about in those regions, both in a solid and a liquid shape, it does not necessarily follow that it can be easily got at; for you may have to descend a precipice of a thousand feet in order to get at the river, or to ascend as high to reach the glacier, which ceases to give out streams towards evening. At 3 p.m. the thermometer was as low as 40°, though during the day there had been a blazing sun and no clouds. From this spot, on the third day, the road was literally frightful, not so much in the sense of being dangerous as exasperating. It chiefly went over great stones, with scarcely the affec- tation, even, of a track. Sometimes it followed the bed of the Chandra, anon ascended the steep stony or precipitous banks of that river, and wound along the edge of precipices on paths fit only for deer or goats. We had to ford quite a number of cold streams, which did not fail to evoke plaintive cries from the women, and crossed at the foot of several glaciers, which did not appear to descend quite to .the river, but very pos- sibly did so, because I had neither time nor patience for close examination, and the shattered debris I several times crossed might well have had ice beneath. It was necessary to dismount and scramble on foot every now and then ; and nine continuous hours of this sort of thing were too much for an invalid. The Spiti pony could be trusted almost implicitly ; but many of the ascents were too much for it with a rider ; riding among the great stones endangered one's knees, and, on some of the high paths, there was not room for it to pass with a rider. And if the pony could be trusted, not so could its saddle, which very THE VALLEY OF GLACIERS. 267 nearly brought us both to grief. We came to some high steps — that is to say, large stones lying so as to make natural steps each about two and a half or three feet high — leading down upon a narrow rock-ledge, which ran (above a precipice) slightly turned inwards from the line of descent. It was madness to ride down here ; but I had been so worried by the fatigue of the road, and by constant mounting and dismounting, that I preferred doing so, and the pony quite justified my confidence. But at the most critical moment, when it stepped with both feet from the last stone on to the ledge, when I was leaning back to the very utmost, and everything was at the highest strain, then, just as its feet struck the rock, the crupper gave way, and the saddle slipped forward on the pony's neck, throwing us both off our balance. We must have both gone over hundreds of feet had not a preservative instinct enabled me to throw myself off the saddle upon the ledge of rock. This movement, of course, was calcu- lated to send the pony outwards, and, all the more surely, overboard ; but in falling I caught hold of its mane, pulled it down on the top of me, and held it there until some of the bigarris came to our release. A short time elapsed before they did so, and the little pony seemed quite to understand, and acquiesce in, the necessity of remaining still. I was riding alone at the time of the accident, and, had we gone over, should probably not have been missed at the time, or found afterwards. Nor can I exactly say that it was I my- self who saved us both, because there was not an instant's time for thought in the matter. All I know is, that it was done, and that I was a good deal bruised and stiffened by the fall. I had to lie down, quite 268 THE ABODE OF SNOW. exhausted and sore, whenever I reached our third day's camping-ground, which was a very exposed, dusty, and disagreeable one. Next morning I did not start till eight, and ordered all the bigarris to keep behind me, as I was afraid of their pushing on to Kokser, a distance which would have been too much for me. The road in many places was nearly as bad as that of the previous day, and there were dangerous descents into deep ravines ; but, in part, it was very pleasant, running high above the river over rounded hills covered with flowery grass. The way was also enlivened by flocks of sheep, some laden with salt, and by very civil shepherds from Kulii and Bussahir. The usual camping-ground was occu- pied by large flocks, and, for the sake of shelter, I had to camp close above a precipice. Here I purchased from the Kulu shepherds a wonder- ful young dog called Djedla, a name which, with my Indian servants and the public in general, very soon got corrupted into Julia. This animal did not promise at first to be any acquisition. Though only five or six months old, it became perfectly furious on being handed over to me and tied up. I fastened it to my _tent-pole, the consequence of which was that it tore the drill, nearly pulled the tent down, hanged itself until it was insensible, and I only -got sleep after some- how it managed to escape. I recovered it, however, next morning ; and after a few days it became quite accustomed to me and affectionate. Djedla was . a source of constant amusement. I never knew a dog in which there was so fresh a spring of strong simple life. But the curious thing is that it had all the appearance of a Scotch collie, though considerably THE VALLEY OF GLACIERS. 269 larger than any of these animals. Take a black-and- tan collie, double its size, and you have very much what " Julia " became after he had been a few months in my possession ; for when I got him he was only five or six months old. The only differences were that the tail was thicker and more bushy, the jaw more powerful, and he had large dew-claws upon his hind feet. Black dogs of this kind are called sussa by the Tibetans, and the red species, of which I had a friend at Pii, are mustang. The wild dog is said to go up to the snow-line in the Himalaya, and to hunt in packs ; but I never saw or heard of any, and I suspect their habitat is only the Indian side of the Himalaya. Such packs of dogs undoubtedly exist on the Western Ghauts of India, and they are not afraid of attacking the tiger, overcoming it piecemeal, while the enraged lord of the forest can only destroy a small number of his assailants ; but very little is really known about them. An interesting field for the zoologist is still open in an examination of the wild dog of Western India, the wild ass, yak, and horse of Tibet, and the wild camel, which is rumoured still to exist in the forests to the east of Yarkand. I mentioned this latter animal to Dr Stoliczka, who had not heard of it, and thought that such camels would be only specimens of the domestic species which had got loose and established themselves, with their progeny, in the wilderness ; but the subject is worthy of investigation, from a scientific point of view ; and, perhaps, the Yarkand Mission may have brought back some information in regard to it. But though Djeola was most savage on being tied up and transferred to a new owner, there was nothing 270 THE ABODE OF SNOW. essentially savage, rude, brutish, or currish in its nature. Indeed it very soon reminded me of the admirable words of Lord Bacon : " Take an example of a Dogy, and mark what generosity and courage he will put on when he is maintained by a man who to him is instead of a god or melior natura." It not only became recon- ciled to me, but watched over me with an almost ludi- crous fidelity, and never got entirely reconciled even to my servants. The striking my tent in the morning was an interference with its private property to which it strongly objected, and if not kept away at that time it would attack the bigarris engaged. I also found on getting to Kashmir that it regarded all Sahibs as suspicious characters, to belaid hold of at once; but, fortunately, it had a way of seizing them without doing much damage, as it would hold a sheep, and the men it did seize were good-natured sportsmen. It delighted in finding any boy among our bigarris that, it could tyrannise over, but never really hurt him. It was very fond of biting the heels of yaks and horses, and thinking itself ill-treated when they kicked. Its relations with Nako were also amusing. That old war- rior had no jealousy of Djeola, and treated it usually with silent contempt, unless it drew near when he was feeding — a piece of temerity which the young dog soon learned the danger of. But Djeola would some- times indulge in gamesome and affectionate fits towards Nako, which the latter never invited and barely tole- rated, and which usually resulted in a short and sharp fight, in which Djeola got speedly vanquished, but took its punishment as a matter of course, and without either fear or anger. I had intended this Himalayan giant sheep-dog for the admirable writer and genial sage, THE VALLEY OF GLACIERS. 271 Dr John Brown, who has given us ' Bab and his Friends,' who would have been able to do justice to its merits and compare it with the sheep-dogs of Scot- land, but could not arrange that conveniently, and left it with a friend at Puna, where, I fear, it has got into a bad way, the latest report of it being that it " has bitten everybody." When in the Shigri valley I kept a watch for any symptoms of gold, but did not notice any, and on other grounds should not think it likely that gold exists there in any quantity. But Mr Theodor, a German employed in carrying out the construction of the road over the Barra Lacha Pass, told me that he had found silver ore in this valley. I may mention that the first great glacier which I crossed has pushed its way into the Chandra, and threatens to close up that river in a very serious manner, as it once did before, which might lead to, disasters in the valleys of the Chandra-Bhaga and of the Chenab, similar to those which occurred in the Drance and upper Bhone valleys of Switzerland in 1595 and 1819. 272 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTER XXYIII. THE ALPS AND HIMALAYA. LIVING GLACIER FLOWERS SUBTERRANEAN GLACIERS ALPS AND HIMALAYA CONTRASTED — SAVAGE GRANDEUR OP THE HIMALAYA SHATTERED PEAKS THE ALPINE AND HIMALAYAN PEOPLE. Occasionally, I think, a living flower is found on Swiss glaciers, but very rarely — whereas on the Him- alayan, flowers are by no means uncommon ; and the circumstance is easily accounted for by the greater power of the sun in the Himalayan regions, and also by the fact, that when the glaciers get down a certain distance, they are so thickly covered by shattered rocks that they have to work their way, as it were, under- ground. In Switzerland, one often sees the great ploughshare of a glacier coming down into a green valley and throwing up the turf before it ; but usually among the Himalaya, long before the glacier reaches any green valley, it is literally overwhelmed and buried beneath the shattered fragments of rock from the gigantic precipices and peaks around. This slackens, without altogether arresting, its progress ; so that in many places the debris is allowed sufficient rest to permit of the growth of grass and flowers. It struck me that in some places there were even what might THE ALPS AND HIMALAYA. 273 be called subterranean glaciers ; that is to say, that the fallen debris had so formed together and solidified, that the ice-stream worked below it without disturb- ing the solidified surface. And here, as I am well acquainted with the Alps,* it may not be amiss for me to compare the Himalaya with those European mountains, which are so well known to the English public. The Himalaya, as a whole, are not so richly apparelled as the Alps. In Kashmir, and some parts of the Sutlej valley, and of the valleys on their Indian front, they are rich in the most glorious vegetation, and present, in that respect, a more picturesque appearance than any parts of Switzer- land can boast of; but one may travel among the great ranges of the Asiatic mountains for weeks, and even months, through the most sterile scenes, without com- ing on any of these regions of beauty. There is not here the same close union of beauty and grandeur, loveliness and sublimity, which is everywhere to be found over the Alps. There is a terrible want of level ground and of green meadows enclosed by trees. Except in Kashmir, and about the east of Ladak, there are no lakes. We miss much those Swiss and Italian expanses of deep blue water, in which white towns and villages, snowy peaks and dark mountains, are so beautifully mirrored. There is also a great want of perennial waterfalls of great height and beauty, such as the Staubbach ; though in summer, during the heat of the day, the Himalaya, in several places, present long graceful streaks of dust-foam. The striking contrasts and the more wonderful scenes * See " Switzerland in Summer and Autumn," by the author, in ' Blackwood's Magazine ' for 1865-66. 274 THE ABODE OF SNOW. are not crowded together as they are in Switzerland. Both eye and mind are apt to be wearied among the Himalaya by the unbroken repetition of similar scenes during continuous and arduous travel, extending over days and weeks together ; and one sorely misses Goethe's Ehschen, or the beautiful little corners of nature which satisfy the eye and mind alike. The picture is not sufficiently filled up in its detail, and the continuous repetition of the vast outlines is apt to become oppres- sive. The very immensity of the Himalaya prevents us from often beholding at a glance, as among the Alps, the wonderful contrast of green meadows, darker pines, green splintered glaciers, dark precipitous cliffs, blue distant hills, white slopes of snow and glittering icy summits. There are points in the Sutlej valley and in Kashmir where something like this is presented, and in a more overpowering manner than anywhere in Europe ; but months of difficult travel separate these two regions, and their beauty cannot be said to char- acterise the Himalaya generally. But what, even in Switzerland, would be great mountains, are here dwarfed into insignificant hills ; and it requires some time for the eye to understand the immense Himalayan heights and depths. Some great rock, or the foot of some precipice, which is pointed out as our camping-place for the night, looks at first as if it were only a few hundred feet off, but after hours of arduous ascent, it seems almost as far off as ever. The human element of the Western mountains is greatly wanting in those of the East ; for though here and there a monastery like Ki, or a village like Dankar, may stand out picturesquely on the top of a hill, yet, for the most part, the dingy-coloured, flat-roofed Him- THE ALPS AND HIMALAYA. 275 alayan hamlets are not easily distinguishable from the rocks amid which they stand. The scattered chdlets and sen huts of Switzerland are wholly wanting ; and the European traveller misses the sometimes bright and comely faces of the peasantry of the Alps. I need scarcely say, also, that the more wonderful scenes of the Abode of Snow are far from being easily accessible, even when we are in the heart of the great mountains. And it can hardly be said that the cloudland of the Himalaya is so varied and gorgeous as that of the mountains of Europe, though the sky is of a deeper, more sword-like blue, and the heavens are much more brilliant at night. But when all these admissions in favour of Switzer- land are made, the Himalaya still remain unsurpassed, and even unapproached, as regards all the wilder and grander features of mountain scenery. There is no- thing in the Alps which can afford even a faint idea of the savage desolation and appalling sublimity of many of the Himalayan scenes. Nowhere, also, have the faces of the mountains been so scarred and riven by the nightly action of frost, and the mid-day floods from melting snow. In almost every valley we see places where whole peaks or sides of great mountains have very recently come shattering down; and the thought- ful traveller must feel that no power or knowledge he possesses can secure him against such a catastrophe, or prevent his bones being buried, so that there would be little likelihood of their release until the solid earth dissolves. And, though rare, there are sudden passages from these scenes of grandeur and savage desolation to almost tropical luxuriance, and more than tropical beauty, of organic nature. Such changes are startling 276 THE ABODE OF SNOW. and delightful, as in the passage from Dras into the upper Sind valley of Kashmir ; while there is nothing finer in the world of vegetation than the great cedars, pines, and sycamores of many of the lower valleys. It is needless to look in the Himalaya for a popu- lation so energetic and interesting as the Swiss, the Vaudois, or the Tyrolese; and these mountains have no women whose attractions at all approach those of the Italian side of the Alps from Lugano eastward, or of the valleys of the Engadine and the Tyrol. The Tibetan population is hardly abundant enough, or of sufficiently strong morale, for heroic or chivalric efforts, such as have been made by the ancient Greeks, the Swiss, the Waldenses, the Scotch Highlanders, and the mountaineers of some other parts of Europe and even of Asia. There are traditions enough among the Him- alaya, but they usually relate either to the founding ot monasteries, the destruction of invaders, like Zorawar Singh, whose forces had been previously dispersed by the troops of Lassa ; or the death of travelling-parties in snowstorms, and from the avalanches of snow or rock. Nowhere, unless in the vast cloudy forms of Hindu" mythology, do we meet with traditions of heroes or sages of whom it can be said, that " Their spirits wrapt the dusky mountain ; Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain ; The meanest rill, the mightiest river, Rolled mingling with their fame for ever." How easily Kashmir, with a European population, might have guarded its passes and preserved its inde- pendence ! but it has scarcely ever made any attempt to do so ; and the people of Tibet' have not shown much more heroism, though they have had abundant THE ALPS AND HIMALAYA. 277 experience of fighting. The introduction of Biidhism into this elevated country was no doubt accomplished only by means of much self-sacrifice on the part of its early missionaries ; but the shadowy forms of that age are most indistinctly seen, and have little attraction for the modern European. There is much of interest, however, in Lamaism and in the very peculiar customs of the Tibetan race ; and I found it impossible to move among these people, especially in the more primitive parts of the country, without contracting a great liking for them, and admiration for their honesty, their pa- tience, and their placidity of temper, in circumstances which must be trying for these virtues. 278 THE ABODE OP SNOW. CHAPTEE XXIX. THE HIMALAYA. EXTREME LENGTH OF HIMALAYA " THE STONY GIRDLE OP THE EARTH " "THE ROOP OF THE WORLD" MEANING OP "THE ABODE OP SNOW" LATIN, GREEK, AND SLAV COGNATES ABODE OP THE GODS GERMAN HIMMEL MILTON'S IMAIIS — PLACE IN HINDI? MYTHOLOGY PERSONIFIED AS SIVA LINE OP PERPETUAL SNOW IN HIMALAYA, ANDES, AND ALPS — DRYNESS OP ATMOSPHERE EFFECT OF SOLAR RAYS — TEMPERATURE OF DAY AND NIGHT ALTITUDE AND LONGEVITY. The Alps extend only for about 600 miles, counting their extreme length from Hungary to the Mediter- ranean, and their lateral extent is very narrow ; but the Himalaya proper are at least 1500 miles in length. They are a great deal more if we add to them the Hindu Kush, which really constitute only a continua- tion of the range ; and their breadth is so great that at some points it is more than half the entire length of the Alps. If, as Eoyle remarks, we consider the Hindu Kush to be a continuation, not so much of the Kuen- lung, as of the Himalaya, then these latter extend from the equator (by their branches into the Malaya Peninsula) to 45 degrees of north latitude, and over 73 degrees of longitude. That is a gigantic space of the earth's surface, and affords a splendid base for the THE HIMALAYA. 279 giant peaks which rise up to almost 30,000 feet ; but, as I have already hinted, there is even more meaning than this, and more propriety than the Arabs them- selves understood, in their phrase, " The Stony Girdle of the Earth," because this great central range can easily be traced from the mountains of Formosa in the China Sea to the Pyrenees, where they sink into the Mediterranean. This fact has not escaped the notice of geographers ; and Dr Mackay, especially, has drawn attention to it in his admirable ' Manual of Modern Geography,' (Edin. 1871) though he has not known the expressive phrase of his Arab predecessors. The Western Himalaya are a series of nearly parallel ranges lying from south-east to north-west. They are properly the Central Himalaya ; the Hindu" Kiish are the Western ; and what are now called the Central Himalaya are the Eastern. These are the most obvious great natural divisions; but additional confusion is caused by the Inner Himalaya, or the interior ranges, being also sometimes spoken of as the Central. It is more usual, however, to take the Pamir Steppe, or " the Roof of the World," as a centre, and to speak of the western range as a boundary wall to the high table - land of Western Asia, separating the waters of the Arabian Gulf from those of the Cas- pian, the Black Sea, and the Aral. That portion consists of the Hindu Kush, the Parapomisan moun- tains, the Elburz, the Zagros of Kurdistan, Ararat and the Armenian mountains, the Taurus and Anti-Taurus ; and these are continued through Europe in the moun- tains of Greece and European Turkey, the Alps, the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees. The south-eastern range runs from the Pamir to the China Sea, in the Himalaya, 280 THE ABODE OF SNOW. ; , and in the branches from it which go down into the Malay Peninsula and Annam. The eastern range goes nearly due east from the Pamir to the Pacific in the Kuen-lung, and in the Pe-ling, which separate the Yang-tsze from the Yellow Eiver. There is also a north-east range, which runs from the Pamir to Beh- ring's Strait, including the Tengu Tagh, and several ranges in Siberia and Kamtchatka. Rut the Himalaya proper, with which we are concerned, may be said to be enclosed by the Indus, the Brahmapiitra, and the great northern plain of India. That is a very simple and intelligible boundary line ; for the two rivers rise close together in, or in the near neighbourhood of, Lake Mansorawar ; in the first part of their course they flow close behind the great ranges of the Himalaya, and they cut through the mountains at points where there is some reason for considering that new ranges commence. In adopting " The Abode of Snow" as the running title of these papers, I only gave the literal meaning of the word Himalaya, which is a Sanscrit word, and is to be found in most of the languages of India. It is a compound word, composed of hima, snow or winter, and alaya, an abode or place. Its component parts are thus Hima-alaya ; and as the double a is contracted into one, even the infant philologist of modern times will perceive the erroneousness of our ordinary English way of pronouncing the word as " Himalaya."* The Sanscrit word hima is also some- * We are not quite so bad a3 the French in this respect ; but, as a general rule, the infant philologist (and all infants are in a fair way of being philologists nowadays) will find it pretty safe always to reverse the acents which he finds Englishmen putting upon foreign names. Even such a simple and obvious word as Brindisi we must turn into Brindisi ; and it is still worse when we come to give names of our own to localities. THE HIMALAYA. 281 times used to signify the moon and a pearl ; but even thus a portion of its original meaning is denoted. No doubt this hima is closely cognate with the Latin hiems and hibernus, for himermus ; with the Greek x^ v (x««fia), the Persico-Zend zim and zima, and the Slav- onic zima, a word used for winter. As the great Abode of the G-ods is held by the Hindus to be in the Himalaya, and the word Himalaya itself is used by them in that sense, it is obvious that Himmel, the German word for heaven, comes from the same source ; and it is the only instance I know of in European languages which takes in both compounds. This must surely have occurred to the lexicographers, but I have not noticed any reference to it. It also occurs to me that the word " Imaus," which Milton uses in the third book of ' Paradise Lost,' and which he took from Pliny, may very likely be from himas, another Sanscrit form used for winter and for the Himalaya. In Hindu mythology these mountains are personified as the husband of Manaka. He was also the father of Durga, the great goddess of destruction, who became What a descent from " The Abode of Snow" to " The Hills" of the Anglo- Indians, even when the latter phrase may come from a rosebud mouth ! But that is not so striking an example of our national taste as one which has occurred in Jamaica, where a valley which used to be called by the Spaniards the " Bocaguas," or " Mouth of the Waters," has been trans- muted by us into " Bog Walks." A still more curious transmutation, though of a reverse order, occurred in Hong-Kong, in the early days of that so-called colony. There was a street there, much frequented by sailors, in which Chinese damsels used to sit at the windows and greet the passers-by with the invitation, "Come 'long, Jack;'' consequently the street became known by the name of the " Come 'long Street," which in the Chinese mouth -was Kum Lung, or " The Golden Dragon.'' So when the streets were named and placarded, " Come 'long Street" ap- peared, both in Chinese and English, as the Street of the Golden Dragon. 282 THE ABODE OB 1 * SNOW. incarnate as Parvati, or the " daughter of the moun- tain," in order to captivate Siva and withdraw him from a penance which he had undertaken to perform in the Himalaya. Siva himself also is known as Himalaya, and it is under that title that he forms the subject of Kalidasa's beautiful poem the " Kumara Sambhana," or "Birth of the War- God," which has been admirably rendered in English verse by Mr R. T. H. Griffith (London, 1853). It. is, then, with the god of destruction and his no less terrible spouse, that the Himalaya are more specially associated, rather than with the brighter form of Vishnu, the Preserver ; but the whole Hindu pantheon are also regarded as dwell- ing among the inaccessible snowy peaks of these inaccessible mountains. Neither Cretan Ida nor Thes- salian Olympus can boast of such a company; and, looking up to the snows of the Kailas, it may well be said that " Every legend fair, Which the supreme Caucasian mind Carv'd (mt of Nature for itself, is there." Being a boundary wall to the Tibetan and other elevated plains of Central Asia, the Himalaya are usually steep towards the Indian side, and more gradual towards the north, the strata dipping to the north-east; but this rule has many exceptions, as in the case of the Kailas and the lofty mountains forming the southern boundary of the Shigri valley. There the fall is as abrupt as it could well be towards the north, and the 23,000-feet Akun peaks in Surii seem to stand up like needles. The statement frequently made that there is more soil and more springs on the northern than on the southern side, applies specially only to that portion THE HIMALAYA. 283 of the exterior range which runs from the Narkanda Ghaut up to the Kailas. The height of the snow-line in the Himalaya presents the remarkable peculiarity of being lower on its south- ern slope than on its northern. The chief cause of this is the dryness of the northern side and the great quantity of snow deposited on the southern side by the moisture of the Indian monsoon. According to the Schlagintweits, though the southern slope from Bhotan to Kashmir has an average temperature of 33° F., its snow-line is at 16,200 feet; while on the southern slope, with a temperature at 25°, it is at 18,600 feet. On the eastern slope of the Andes of Bolivia the snow- line is 15,900 feet, but on their western slope 18,500. On the Alps the line is 9100 feet on the north side, and 9100 feet on the south. General Cunningham assigns a somewhat higher line for the higher Himalaya, and it is at least so high as to detract greatly from their beauty in July and August, though that increases their savage grandeur. Even taking 16,200 feet and 18,600 feet as the line of perpetual snow on these mountains, that really only means that we find exposed surfaces of rock at these heights, and must not be taken as a literal rule. Where snow can lodge it is rare to find bare tracts above 16,000 feet at any period of the year ; and even in August a snowstorm may cover everything down to 10,000 feet, or even lower. There are great beds of snow and glaciers which remain unremoved during the summer, and on the north side, far below 18,000 feet. In the Swiss Alps the line of perpetual snow is about 9000 feet; so there is the enormous difference on this point of 9000 feet between the two mountain-ranges ; and so it may be conceived 284 THE ABODE OF SNOW. how intense must be the heat in summer of the deeper valleys of the Himalaya : but in winter the snow comes down in the latter mountains to 3000 feet, or lower occasionally; so that there may be a range of 26,000 feet of snow instead of 14,000 as among the Alps. The arrest of the clouds of the Indian south-east monsoon on the outer range of the Himalaya combines, with other causes, to create an extraordinary dryness of atmosphere, and this aridity increases on the steppes beyond. Hence, even when the temperature may be very low, there is often very little snow to be deposited, and the accumulations on the high mountains have been the work of ages. It has often been observed, in polar and mountainous regions, how great is the power of solar rays passing through highly rarefied air ; and upon the great heights of the Himalaya, the effect of these rays is something terrible. When they are reflected from new-fallen snow their power is so intense, that I have seen them raise my thermometer (when placed at a particular angle against a great sheet of sun-lit snow and exposed at the same time to the direct rays of the sun) from a little above freezing-point, which was the temperature of the air, to 192° Fahrenheit, or between the points at which spirits boil and water boils at the level of the sea. It is remarkable that in spite of this, and though snow-blindness is often the result, yet no cases of sun- stroke appear to occur in the Himalaya, and supports the theory that sunstroke partakes more of the char- acter of heat-apoplexy than of mere injury to the head in the first instance. The difference of temperature between the days and nights is not such as might be expected from the ex- THE HIMALAYA. 285 tremely rapid radiation of heat there is at high alti- tudes. The change arising from that cause would be almost killing were it not for the fortunate fact that the atmosphere forced up by the warmth of the day descends at night, and, being condensed, gives out heat. The cold of the Himalaya has been known to kill people when they were exposed to sudden gusts of wind, though they could safely have borne a much lower temperature in still air. The wind is certainly the great drawback both to health and comfort among these great mountains ; but, as we have seen, it has its advantage, being caused by the elevation of heated air from below, which, afterwards descending and contract- ing, renders the nights endurable. I understand that the monks of St Bernard, who go up to that monastery at eighteen years of age, and vow to remain there for fifteen years, only in rare instances are able to remain so long — and that does not say much for high mountain air ; but it may be the seclusion of their life up there, and other defects in it, which makes that life so injurious to them. If any one would allow me a thousand a-year on condition that I always keep above 12,000 feet, I should be happy to make the ex- periment, and to write a warm obituary notice of my benefactor when he dies below. 286 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTER XXX. THE MORAVIANS IN LAHAUL. CHARACTERISTICS OF LAHAUL AN ANCIENT LANGUAGE — MAGNIFI- CENT AVALANCHES — THE MORAVIAN MISSION A HOWLING WILDER NESS — LAHAULESE DISORDERLINESg ROUTES FROM KAELANG TO KASHMIR THE ZANSKAR ROUTE FLOWERY MAIDANS "A LITTLE DIFFICULT" — ALARMED SERVANTS — SAD FATE OF A POLICEMAN. The British province of Lahaul, into which I had now entered, lies on the southern slope of the main range of the Western Himalaya. The average level of its ground where there are villages is between 10,000 and 11,000 feet, and it is about sixty miles long, with an extreme breadth of about fifty. It has many mountain peaks, however, from 15,000 to 22,000 feet. Its popu- lation numbers about 6000. Though rich in trees as compared with Spiti and Zanskar, it is specially dis- tinguished for its wild flowers ; and of the wild rose alone Herr Jaeschke has collected 282 varieties. In geological formation it is similar to other districts I have described which lie to the west oi Chinese Tibet. The people, the language, and the religion are Tibetan, but all three have been a little affected by the Hindus of the neighbouring province of Kulu. The bodies of dead human beings are disposed of by burning in Lahaul, whereas in Tibet proper they are exposed on the crests THE MORAVIANS IN LAHAUL. 287 of mountains. It is of interest to notice that there are remnants of what, for want of a better phrase, may be called an aboriginal language. It is called the Boonan, and resembles the Tiberskad spoken at Siignam in the upper Sutlej valley. Herr Jaeschke of Herrnhut de- scribed it to me as an aboriginal, unwritten, non-Aryan language, and having a grammar more perfect than the Tibetan — as, for instance, in distinguishing different persons in the verb ; but on this principle it must be more perfect than the language of Shakespeare and Milton. I shall only mention further, in general connection with this province, that at Gandla, and still better, about half-way on the road to it from Sisii, magnificent avalanches of snow may be both heard and seen. On the opposite side of the Chandra river there rises, to the height of 20,356 feet, the extremely precipitous peak M of the Trigonometrical Survey ; and from the great beds of snow upon it, high above us, avalanches were falling every five minutes, before and after mid- day, on two long glaciers which extended almost down to the river. As the bed of the Chandra is here under 10,000 feet, the highest peak must have risen up almost sheer more than 10,000 feet, in tremendous precipices, hanging glaciers, and steep beds and walls of snow; though on its north-western shoulder the ascent was more gradual, and was covered by scat- tered pines. Immediately in front the slope was ter- rific ; and every few minutes an enormous mass of snow gave way and fell, flashing in the sunlight, on steep rocks. A great crash was heard as these masses struck the rocks, and a continuous roar as they poured downwards, until they broke over a precipice above the 288 THE ABODE OF SNOW. glaciers, and then fell with a resemblance to great cataracts of white foaming water, and sending up clouds of snow-spray as they struck the ice. The volume of one of these avalanches must, so long as it lasts, be greater than that of any known cataract, though they descend thousands of feet ; and their final thundering concussion is as the noise of many waters in the solitudes around. " They too have a voice, yon piles of snow," and- truly these are " Sky-pointing peaks, Oft from, whose feet the mighty avalanche Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene." The Moravian missions in Tibet originated with the sending of two of the brethren from Herrnhut to Mon- golia, by way of the former country, in 1853. When the authorities on the Chinese border stopped their progress they received orders to settle down where they best could among the Tibetans, and selected Kaelang in Lahaul as their place of residence. A few years after, the Mission was placed on a more regular footing under Brothers Jaeschke, Eechler, and Heyde. When I visited this station in 1873, the staff consisted of Brothers Heyde and Redslob, with their wives and nearly twenty baptised converts, including the children of the native Christians. The mission house, which is situated 10,000 feet high, is a large substantial building, with glass windows and German stoves and furniture. Its orchards and vegetable gardens are carefully tended ; fields have been recently cultivated in connection with it higher up the mountains, and in some respects it presents the aspects of a prosperous farm. The mis- sion work of the Moravians, however, has been very varied and extensive, and is not to be judged of by the THE MORAVIANS IN LAHAUL. 289 number of their convents. They have translated almost the whole of the New Testament, and have scattered Christian publications over all the Tibetan-speaking countries, as well as conducted extensive educational operations, some of a practical kind. Their linguistic labours also have been very valuable ; and both Brit- ish officials and casual visitors speak of them in high terms. Lahaul is pretty well known, being traversed every year by Himalayan tourists on their way to Ladak. The Tibetan natives of the province call it Darcha ; Lahaul is a Hindiisthani word, signifying a wilderness. It would not be far wrong to render it as " a howling wilderness ; " and that is exactly what Lahaul is, in one respect important for travellers. As compared with other parts of the. Himalaya, it is far from being a howling wilderness in any physical sense of these words ; because it is comparatively rich in trees and fields, and among the inner Himalaya the valleys are much more open than in the outer, where it is too often impossible to see the mountains because of the moun- tains. After the scenery around, there is a delightful sense of relief in entering its more open valleys and getting pretty full views of the great snowy ranges ; there is also comfort in travelling along a cut road, however narrow it may be ; but these advantages are counterbalanced by the disposition of the Lahaulese towards travellers, which is so bad that the tourist requires to be forewarned of it. There is, however, a great set-off to that in the pre- sence of the Moravian missionaries, who at Kaelang have created an oasis amidst the squalor and wildness of this Himalayan province, and have done as much T 290 THE ABODE OF SNOW, for its improvement as the difficult circumstances of their position would allow.- A Yarkand merchant had complained bitterly to me of the exactions and other annoyances which he was experiencing in Lahaul ; and this, conjoining with my own experience — which I found afterwards to be in accordance with that of other Eng- lish travellers, some'of high official position, — induced me to inquire of the Moravians the cause of such a state of matters, which presents a serious obstacle to the development of trade between Yarkand and British India. Qne reason they assigned was, that the people of Lahaul were irritated at the making of the cut road, which allowed ponies and mules to traverse their pro- vince, and so deprived them not merely of their rights of porterage, but also of certain vested rights of pil- fering from packages, which they valued much more. Another reason assigned was the hostility of the Tseho, or larger zemindars ; but, I believe, the difficulty is in- timately connected with the general position assumed by the British Government. It has been so success- fully instilled into the minds of the people by the Tscho that the British rule will come to an end, that when the Moravians purchased some land at Kaelang a few years ago, they could only obtain it on the con- dition being formally inserted in the title-deed, that it should revert to the original owners whenever Brit- ish rule came to an end in Lahaul. A fact like this hardly requires comment, and I may leave it to speak for itself. From the junction of the Chandra and Bhaga rivers the pilgrim has the choice of several routes to Kashmir, but they are all of such a character that even Hopeful might be excused for contemplating them with some THE MORAVIANS IN LAHAUL. 291 dismay. The easiest, undoubtedly, is that by Leh ; but it is much the longest and dreariest, involving thirty-seven marches to Srinagar, and an 18,000-feet pass, besides several more of lesser height. A shorter, and, on the whole, a much easier road, goes by way of Chamba and Badrawar; but the difficulty is how to get into it, because (not to speak of a jhula over the > Chandra, which beats all the bridges I ever saw, and the mere sight of which makes the blood run cold) the best way into it is across the fearful Barra Bhagal Pass, over which beasts of burden cannot cross, and where there is a dangerous arrdte, which can only be passed with the aid of ropes. The usual route taken is that in twenty-seven marches, down the Chandra-Bhaga river to Kishtwar. But though that route has been improved of late years, there is one part of it which is impassable for mountain ponies, and it involves a descent to 5000 feet down a close warm valley. So I set to inquire whether my old idea of following the lie of the Himalaya, and always in its loftier valleys, could not be carried out on this part of my journey ; and was delighted to hear from Mr Heyde, the accom- plished head of the Moravian Mission, that it was quite possible ; that he himself had traversed about the first half of the way, and that it led through Zanskar, a country of the very existence of which I was then as io-norant as my readers probably are now. Mr Heyde was quite enthusiastic in praise of this route, and he even spoke of its leading over flowery niaidan or plains. I am bound to say, however, for the benefit of future travellers, that this was a delusion and a snare. Men who have lived for many years among the Hima- 292 THE ABODE OF SNOW. laya come to have very peculiar ideas as to what con- stitutes a maidan or plain. There were no difficulties on this route \ I inquired. Oh, there were none to speak of, except the Shinkal Pass which led over into Zanskar. It was of unknown height; "it required four days to cross it; there were no villages or houses on the way, and the top of it was an immense glacier. He (Mr Heyde) had once crossed * it in company with Brother Pagell, and Bruder Pagell had fainted whenever they got off the glacier. But there had been new snow on the ground, which was very fatiguing ; and at the end of the fourth day I would descend upon Kharjak, the first village in Zans- kar, which I would find to be a nice hospitable place, about 14,000 feet high. Were there other passes? Well, there was the Pense La, but that was nothing. A flowery maidan led up to it (my experience was that a glacier and six feet deep of snow led up to the top of it) ; but he did not know farther, and there might be places a little difficult to get over between Surii and Kashmir. I mention this to show how reo-u- lar Himalayans look upon such matters ; for Mr Heyde was careful to warn me about the lateness of the season, to inquire into the state of my lungs and throat, and to give me all the information and assist- ance he could. It took me exactly twenty- eight marches and thirty-one days to reach Srinagar from Kaelang by this route, and it could not well be done in less ; but my difficulties were much increased by a great snowstorm which swept over the Himalaya in the middle of September, and which need not be counted on so early in the season. THE MOBAVIANS IN LAHAUL. 293 The selection of this route nearly caused a mutiny among my servants, who had been promising them- selves the warm valley of the Chandra-Bhaga. So un- known a country as Zanskar frightened them ; and Silas unfortunately heard of Mr Pagell's fainting fit, which almost made the eyes start out of his own head, since he knew that gentleman's endurance as a mountaineer. The only doubt I had was about the weather, which began to look threatening; but I finally resolved on this interesting route, and found good cause to con- gratulate myself on having done so. On the 3d September I took farewell of Brothers Heyde and Redslob, the Moravian missionaries, of their kind ladies, and of Mr Theodor, who was suffering in- tensely from the exposure he had incurred in construct- ing the road to Leh over the Barra Lacha. It was cold and gloomy the day I left Kaelang. The clouds that hung about the high mountains added to the impres- siveness of the scene. Through their movements an icy peak would suddenly be revealed for a few mo- ments ; then a rounded snow-dome would appear, to be followed by some huge glacier, looking through the clouds as if it were suspended in the gloomy air. For two days we pursued the road to Leh — namely, to the village of Darcha, from which the path over the great Schinkal Pass into Zanskar diverges to the left, or north-west, up the valley of the Kado Tokpho river. This was the last human habitation before reaching Kharjak, four days' journey off; and though the most of my coolies had, by Mr Heyde's advice, been engaged at Kaelang to take me as far as Kharjak, their number had to be supplemented at Darcha. To secure that, a 294 THE ABODE OF SNOW. representative of British authority, a policeman so called, had been sent with me to Darcha; but the policeman soon came back to my tent in -a bruised and bleeding condition, complaining that the people of the village had given him a beating for his interference ; and the men who did engage to go, tried to run away when we were well up the desolate pass, and gave me other serious trouble. THE GREAT SHINKAL PASS, OR SCHTNGO LA. 295 CHAPTER XXXL THE GREAT SCHINKAL PASS, OR SCHINGO LA. THE VALLEY OF STONE AVALANCHES A HINDI? DEVOTEE — THE DREAD MOTHEB RAMJAKPUK — COL OF THE SHINKAL HEIGHT OF THE PASS HIGHEST ASCENTS THE REGION OF PERPETUAL SNOW TROUBLE WITH COOLIES THE WILD HORSEMAN OF THE GLACIER • — A SNOWSTORM. The first day of our ascent from Darcha, the last village, was certainly far from agreeable. The route — for it would be absurd to speak of a path — ran up the left bank of the Kado Tokpho, and crossed some aggravating stone avalanches. My dandi could not be used at all, and I had often to dismount from the large pony I had got at Kaelang. Our first camping- ground was called Dakmachen, and seemed to be used for that purpose, but had no good water near. On great part of the next day's journey, granite avalanches were also a prominent and disgusting feature. Indeed there are so many of them in the Kado Tokpho valley, and they are so difficult and painful to cross, that I was almost tempted to wish that one would come down in my presence, and let me see what it could do. They were very like Himalayan glaciers, but had no ice beneath ; and an appalling amount of immense 296 THE ABODE OP SNOW. peaks must have fallen down into this hideous valley. An enterprising dhirzt, or tailor, well acquainted with the route, was our guide, and the owner of my pony, and I could not help asking him if this were one of the maidan of which Mr Heyde had spoken ; but he said we should meet one presently, and found one wherever there was a narrow strip of grassy land. A-t one place we had to work up the side of a sort of precipice, and met coming down there a naked Hindi! Bawa, or religious devotee, who was crossing from Zanskar to Lahaul, accompanied by one attendant, and with nothing but his loin-cloth, a brass drinking-pot, and a little parched grain. He was a young man, and appeared strong and well-nourished. It was passing strange to find one of these ascetics in the heart of the Himalaya, far from the habitations of men ; and when I went on without giving him anything, he deliberately cursed both my pony and myself, and prophesied our speedy destruction, until I told him that I had slept at the foot of the Dread Mother, which seemed to pacify him a little.* The first day and a half were the worst part of this journey over the Schinkal Pass. Its features changed greatly after we reached the point where the Kado Tokpho divides into two branches, forded the stream to the right, and made a very steep ascent of about 1500 feet. Above that we passed into an elevated picturesque valley, with a good deal of grass and a few birch bushes, which leads all the way up to the * Kalika, the most inaccessible peak of the holy mountain Girnar, in Kathiawar. It is consecrated to Kali, or Dtirga, the goddess of Destruc- tion ; is frequented by Aghoras — devotees who shun all society, and are said to eat carrion and human flesh. The general belief is, that of every two people who visit Kalika, only one comes back. THE GBEAT SCHINKAL PASS, OR SCHINGO LA. 297 glacier that covers the summit of the pass. The usual camping-ground in this valley is called Ramjakpuk, and that place is well protected from the wind ; but there are bushes to serve as fuel where we pitched our tents a mile or two below, at a height of about 15,000 feet. Towards evening there was rain and 'a piercing cold wind, with the thermometer at 36° Fahr., and many were the surmises as to whether we might, not be overtaken by a snowstorm on the higher portion of the pass next day. In the morning the thermometer was exactly at freezing-point, the grass was white with hoar-frost, and there was plenty of ice over the streams as we advanced upwards. For some way the path was easy; then there was a long steep ascent, and after that we came on the enormous glacier which is the crest of this awful pass. The passage on to the glacier from solid ground was almost imperceptible, over immense ridges of blocks of granite and slabs of slate. Some of these first ridges rested on the glacier, while others had been thrown up by it on the rocky mountain-side ; but soon the greater ridges were left behind, and we were fairly on the glacier, where there were innumerable narrow crevasses many of them concealed by white honeycombed ice, numerous blocks of stone standing on pillars of ice, and not a few rills, and even large brooks, the sun hav- ing been shining powerfully in the morning. It was not properly an ice-stream, but an immense glacial lake, on which we stood — for it was very nearly circular ; it was fed by glaciers and snow-slopes all round, and it lapped over into the valleys beneath in several dif- ferent directions. I was prevented by an incident, to be mentioned 298 THE ABODE OF SNOW. presently, from calculating the height of this pass ; but as Kharjak, the first village in Zanskar, is 13,670 feet, and it took me the greater part of next day to get down to Kharjak, though I camped this day at least 1500 feet below the summit of the pass, on the Zanskar side, I conclude that the Schinkal cannot be less than 18,000 feet high, and that it may possibly be more. I notice, however, that in the list of heights given by the Schlagintweits,* the Schinkal or " Schinku La " is set down at 16,684 feet; and the estimate seems to have been made by the unfortunate Adolph Schlagint- weit, who was murdered farther to the north. In the early days of the Trigonometrical Survey it was set down at 16,722 feet, but I have been unable to dis- cover whether or not it was one of those heights where sufficient observations were taken. I learn, from the best authority there is on the subject, that reliance cannot always be placed on the accuracy of the heights which have been given by the Schlagentweits. Khar- jak is more likely to have been accurately ascertained, in connection with the other observations which were taken in Zanskar by the Trigonometrical Survey ; and if that village be 13,670 feet high, it is scarcely pos- sible that the Schinkal or Schingo La can be only 16,684 or 16,722, as that would give a difference be- tween the two points of only 3000 feet, which would not by any means cover the descent we made. However, even taking the lowest estimate, or 16,684 feet, that is nearly a thousand feet higher than the summit of Mont Blanc. Of course the difficulty of breathing at this height was very great ; some of my * Results of a Scientific Mission to India and High Asia, by H. A-. and R. de Sclilagintweit (Leipzig, 1862), vol. ii. p. 382. THE GREAT SCHINKAL PASS, OR SCHINGO LA. 299 people were bleeding at the nose, and it would have been hardly possible for us to ascend much higher in the then state of the air. Humboldt got up on the Andes to 19,286 feet, and Mr W. J. Johnson in the Himalaya to 19,979 feet, and the Schlagentweits be- lieved they reached the height of 22,259 feet on the flanks of Ibn Gamin in Tibet ; but such feats can only be accomplished in very exceptional states of the atmo- sphere. Higher ascents have been made in balloons, but there no exertion is required. In ordinary cir- cumstances, 18,000 feet, or nearly 3000 feet higher than the summit of Mont Blanc, is about the limit of human endurance when any exertion is required ; and On the Schinkal I had the advantage of a strong saga- cious pony, which carried me over most of the glacier easily enough ; but I had a good deal of work on foot, and suffered much more from the exertions I had to make than any one else. A good deal of confusion has arisen in regard to the name of this pass. In the topographical sheet No. 46 of the Survey (in which only one side is set down, the country beyond being left blank), it is called the Schinkal Pass ; but there is another Schinkal or Schin- kil Pass set down in the same sheet farther to the west. This latter pass, takes over from the valley of the Chandra-Bhaga, near Sauch, into Zanskar, coming down on the Tema Tokpho valley and the Burdun monastery. It is believed to be more than 18,000 feet, and to avail one's self of this road, one must also pass over the Poat La, which is set down by the Trigo- nometrical Survey at 18,752 feet. From its being so designated in the topographical sheet, I have continued to write of the pass I crossed into Zanskar as the 300 THE ABODE OP SNOW. Schinkal, but the Schlagentweits speak of it as the Schinku La, and Lieut-Colonel Montgomerie (to whom all Himalayan travellers are so much indebted) informs me that its proper name is the Schingo La, and that sching means " wood," which, no doubt, is the correct rendering ; and though there is precious little wood upon this pass, there is just sufficient about Ramjak- piik to give a colour of meaning to the term. In this part of the country the word La is universally used to signify a "pass ;" and hence the inaccuracy of writing down " the Parang-la Pass," " the Zoji-la Pass." On reaching the middle of the glacial lake at the summit of the Schingo La, it became quite apparent where its sea of ice came from. On every side were steep slopes of snow or nive, with immense beds of snow overhanging them. It was more like a Place de la Concorde than the basin of the Aletsch glacier in Switzerland ; and the surrounding masses of n&v& rose up in a much more abrupt and imposing manner than the surroundings of any scene amid the high Alps. On the right the snow-slopes were especially striking, being both beautiful and grand. A dazzling sheet of unbroken white snow rose up for more than a thousand feet, on a most steep incline, to vast overhanging walls of what I may call stratified n$v&, from which huge masses came down every now and then, with a loud but plangent sound. So, all around, there were great ridges, fields, domes, walls, and precipices of snow and ice.. No scene could give a more impressive idea of eternal winter, or of the mingled beauty and savagery of high Alpine life. Even Phuleyram, my Kunawar Miinshi, was struck by it. Up to this point I was not aware that he knew any English, and had not heard THE GREAT SCHINKAL PASS, OR SCHINGO LA. 301 him speak in any language for days, he being rather sulky at having to walk for the most part ; but on this occasion he suddenly turned round to me, and, to my intense surprise, said in English, — " I think this must be the region of perpetual snow." That was doubtless a reminiscence of old book-knowledge of English which had almost passed from his mind, but was recalled by the extraordinary scene around, and it came in quite ingenuously and very appropriately. My attention, however, was soon recalled to a more practical matter. Knowing the danger of crossing a glacier at this height, and in the threatening weather which had been gathering for several days, I had given strict orders that all the bigarris, or porters, should keep together and beside me ; but, on the very summit of the pass, in the middle of the glacial lake, I found that three of them were missing, and that they were the three who were the most lightly laden, and who carried my most important effects — namely, my tent- poles, my bedding, and the portmanteau which con- tained my money. The tent-poles might have been dispensed with ; but still the want of them would have caused great inconvenience in an almost treeless region, where they could not have been replaced. I could only have supplied the want of the bedding by purchasing sheepskins, furs, or blankets alive with body-lice ; and the loss of the rupees would have been worse than either. I have no doubt this was a planned arrange- ment, whoever devised it ; for the bigarris, who carried these light burdens, were strong men, and the obvious motive was that I should be compelled to turn back from Zanskar and take the Chandra-Bhaga route. On discovering this state of matters I was exces- 302 THE ABODE OE SNOW. sively angry, not so much because of the attempt to force my steps, as on account of the danger in which some ignorant fools had placed us all. Though the morning had been fine, bad weather had been gather- ing for several days ; the sky was now obscured ; clouds were rolling close round, and to have been overtaken by a snowstorm on that glacier would have been almost certain death to us all. So long as the sky was clear and we had the snow-walls to guide us, it was easy enough to cross it ; but where would we have been, in a blinding snowstorm, on a glacier at least 18,000 feet high, with no central moraine, and lapping over on half-a-dozen different sides % Moreover, the snow would cover the rotten honeycombed ice which bridged over innumerable crevasses. All the people about me, ex- cept, perhaps, the dhirzi, were quite ignorant of the danger we were in, and that exasperated me more at this tricky interference. As I was determined not to turn on my steps, I saw that not a moment was to be lost in taking decided measures : so I made my ser- vants and the bigarris continue across the glacier, with instructions to camp at the first available spot on the Zanskar side, and threatened them if they delayed; while I myself rode back, accompanied by one man, in search of the missing coolies and their loads. There was an obvious danger in this, because it involved the risk of being cut off from my people and baggage ; but it was really the only thing to be done in the circum- stances consonant with a determination to proceed. So I waited until my party disappeared on the brow of the glacier, and then rode back in a savage and reck- less humour over ice which I had previously crossed in a very cautious manner. I could easily retrace our THE GREAT SCHINKAL PASS, OR SCHINGO LA. 303 track until we got to the great stony ridges, and then the man I had taken with me was useful. On getting off there, and descending the valley a short way, I found my three light-laden gentlemen quietly reposing, and immediately forced them to resume their burdens, and go on before me. Even then they showed some unwillingness to proceed ; and I had to act the part of the Wild Horseman of the Glacier, driving them before me, and progging whoever happened to be hindmost with the iron spike of my heavy alpenstock, which con- siderably accelerated their movements. There was the most urgent reason for this, because, had we been half an hour later in getting oyer the summit of the pass, the probability is that we should have been lost. It began to snow before we got off the glacier ; and when we descended a few hundred feet it was snowing so heavily on the ice-lake we had just left that we could not there have seen two yards before our faces, and it would have been quite impossible to know in which direction to turn, the tracks of our party being obliter- ated, and the crevasses, which ran in every direction, affording no guidance. Even on the narrow glaciers of the Alps a number of people have been lost by being caught in snowstorms ; so it can be imagined what chance there would have been for us on a great lake of ice above 18,000 feet high. Without the tracks and a sight of the surrounding snow-walls to guide us, we could only have wandered about hopelessly in the blinding storm ; and if we did not fall into a crevasse, through rotten ice concealed by the new-fallen snow, we might have wandered on to one of the outlets where the ice flowed over in steep hanging glaciers which it would have been impossible to descend. 304 THE ABODE OF SNOW. Fortunately, however, we managed to keep the pro- per track in spite of the snow which was beginning to blind us. On reaching our camp T found it pitched on a morass about 1500 feet below the summit of the pass. The thermometer was two degrees below freezing-point, and a little snow continued to fall about us. I felt extremely exhausted after the exertion and excitement of the day ; but some warm soup and the glow of a fire of birch branches revived me, and I soon fell into a deep refreshing sleep. MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS. 305 CHAPTEE XXXII. MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS. THE SCENE AT MIDNIGHT — FLAMING STARS — IMMENSITY OF THE UNIVERSE SNOWY PEAKS AND STARLIT SPACES PERFECTION OF ORGANIC EXISTENCE MISERY OF SENTIENT LIFE THE HARD- WAR TIGRESS THE AFRICAN CONTINENT OPINION OF EASTERN SAGES EVEN CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE WORDSWORTH GOETHE'S DAS GOTTLICHE JOHN FOSTER MONADS PRACTICAL CON- CLUSION. A little after midnight I was awakened by the in- tense cold ; and went out of my tent, and a little way up the pass, to look upon the scene around. Every- thing was frozen up and silent. The pools of water about us had ice an inch thick ; my servants were in their closed rauti, and the bigarris were sleeping, hav- ing, for protection from the cold, twisted themselves into a circle round the embers of their dying fire. There was the awful silence of the high mountains when the snow and ice cease to creep under the influ- ence of the sunbeams. The storm had ceased ; " The mute still air Was music slumbering on her instrument ; " the snow-clouds also had entirely passed away. The moon, which was little past its full, cast a brilliant u 306 THE ABODE OF SNOW. radiance on the savage scene around, so that every precipice, snow -wall, and icy peak was visible in marvellous distinctness ; and in its keen light the great glaciers shone gloriously : but, brilliant as the moon was, its light was insufficient to obscure the stars, which, at this altitude, literally flamed above, dis- playing " All the dread magnificence of heaven." At night, amid these vast mountains, surrounded by icy peaks, shining starlike and innumerable as the hosts of heaven, and looking up to the great orbs flam- ing in the unfathomable abysses of space, one realises the immensity of physical existence in an overpowering and almost painful manner. What am II what are all these Tibetans and Paharries compared with the long line of gigantic mountains ? and what the moun- tains and the whole solar system as compared with any group of the great fixed stars 1 But this whole stellar universe which we see around us distinctly, extending beyond the limits of human conception — sparkling with stars on which the earth would be no more than a grain of sand is upon the earth, and including the undistinguished orbs which afford the light of the Milky Way — would be no more to our vision, if beheld from one of those dim nebula rings, composed of more distant stars, than the wreath of smoke blown from a cannon's mouth. Though the facts have long been known, modern thought appears to be only now realising the power and boundless extent of the physical universe ; for the phenomenon of conversion, or the effective realisation of admitted truth, is by no means confined to purely MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS. 307 religious circles, but is a process which extends over the whole range of human knowledge. It is no wonder that such a realisation should engross the thoughts of many minds, and appear almost as a new revelation. But, accustomed as I was to the questions, which thus arise, a strange feeling came over me amid those snowy peaks and starlit spaces. How wonderful the order and perfection of the inorganic universe as compared with the misery and confusion of the organic ! Oxy- gen does not lie to hydrogen ; the white clouds pass gently into exquisitely -shaped flowers of snow ; the blue ocean laughs un wounded round our star, and is gently drawn up to form the gorgeous veil of blue air and many-tinted cloud which makes the rugged earth beautiful. With perfectly-graduated power, the sun holds the planets in their course, and, to the utmost range of mortal ken, the universe is filled with glorious orbs. But when we turn to the organic life around us, how strange the contrast, and especially as regards its higher manifestations ! A few individuals in every age, but especially at present, when they benefit by the exceptional standing-ground which such discoveries as that of the use of steam has given to the people of this century, may, arguing from their own experience, imagine that this is a satisfactory and happy world; but, unfortunately, it is only a select few who can console themselves with that illusion. Not in selfishness nor in anger, but in sad necessity, in every age and clime, the voice of humanity has risen in wondering, sorrow, and questioning to the silent heaven, and a different tone is adopted chiefly by those who are tossed up for a moment on the wave into the sunlight. I need only 308 THE ABODE OF SNOW. refer to what the history of the animal creation (and, more especially, the human part of it) has been, and to the part which even its better tendencies play in aug- menting the sum of wretchedness. The Hardwar tigress, which held a boy down in her den, though his shrieks rang from the rocks around, while her cubs played with him, was gratifying a holy maternal in- stinct ; and the vivisectors of Europe are only slaking the sacred thirst for knowledge. Dr Livingstone wrote in one of his last journals, after witnessing a massacre of inoffending villagers — men, women, and children — on the shore of Lake Tanganyika : " No one will ever know the exact loss on this bright, sultry summer morning ; it gave me the impression of being in hell ; " but still " The heavens keep up their terrible composure.' 7 The scene to which he referred was far from being an abnormal one on the African continent, or different from its ordinary experience for countless generations ; and when he referred to the locality in which such scenes are supposed to be natural, perhaps the great African traveller hit the mark nearer than he was him- self aware of, though that would not prove that there may not be a worse place below. I merely give one or two illustrations, and do not attempt a proof which would require one to go over the history of the human race and of the brute creation which has been conjoined with it by the common bond of misery. I need scarcely say, also, that the view of organic life which I have thus mildly indicated is the same as that of all the great thinkers of the earth, and of all our great systems of religion. The ancient Hindu sages soon perceived and expressly taught that our life was MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS. 309 utterly undesirable. It was his profound sense of the misery and worthlessness of life which drove Gautama Biidha from his throne into the jungle, which underlies all the meaning of the religion which he founded, and which finds forcible expression in the Budhist hymn — " All is transitory, all is misery, all is void, all is without substance." And the cardinal doctrine of Christianity has the same meaning, though it is often verbally accepted without being realised. Accepting it, in substance, I cannot conceal from myself its true signi- fication. That awful meaning plainly is, that the only way in which the Creator of the human race could redeem it, or perhaps only a portion of it, from utter perdition, was by identifying Himself with it, and bearing an infinite burden of sin and agony. Shirk the thought as we may, it cannot be denied that this is the real meaning of the Christian religion, and it finds innumerable corroborations from every side of our knowledge. The burden is shifted, but has to be borne. Human existence is redeemed and rendered tolerable, not from any efforts made out of its own great misery and despair, but from its Creator taking upon Himself the punishment and the agony which pursues His creation. Far be it from me to complain of the Providence which enabled me to pass through those tremendous scenes in safety, or to arraign the wisdom of the arrangements of the universe. I only suggest, that existence in itself implies effort, pain, and sorrow ; and that the more perfect it is, the more does it suffer. This may be a Budhistic idea ; but, as pointed out above, it is certainly a Christian doctrine, though the true meaning of it seems scarcely to have been understood. Of His own will, Deity is involved 310 THE ABODE OF SNOW. in the suffering of His creation, so that we cannot say- where the agony ends. Our notions on this subject are confused by starting from the supposition that there is an effortless existence of pure unshadowed enjoyment for which no price has been paid ; and the more we realise the actual state of the case, though doing so may have a saddening effect, yet it will not necessarily lead us to doubt that existence vindicates itself, much less to arraign Eternal Providence, or the ways of God towards man. Thoughts of this character, however true they might be in themselves, were not fitted to give a cheerful aspect to that midnight scene on the Schinkal Pass. The ' Zartusht Namah' says that when Zoroaster lay- one cold night under the stars, " understanding was the companion of his soul." I hope he found under- standing to be a more agreeable companion than I did ; for there are moments of depression when we seem to feel still in need of some explanation why organic life should exist at all. "A life With, large results so little rife, Though bearable, seems hardly worth This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth." Our civilisations reach a certain point, and then die corruptly, leaving half-savage races, inspired by coarse illusions, to reoccupy the ground and react the same terrible drama. Wordsworth put the usual answer admirably when he said, — " O life ! without thy checkered scene Of right and wrong, of weal and woe, Success and failure, could a ground For magnanimity be found, For faith, 'mid ruined hopes serene ? Or whence could virtue flow 1 " MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS. 311 But the difficulty of this argument, so far as our know- ledge goes, appears to be the enormous waste, and use- less, endless cruelty of Nature, as also in the purely fanciful ground of the suppositions which are usually brought to explain that cruelty, and which, even if admitted, do not really solve the mystery. Nor is there much consolation to be found in the views of the monadic school, which have been so forcibly expressed by Goethe in his poem Das Gottliche, which I may here translate, as it was in my mind on the Schinkal Pass : — Noble be Man, Helpful and good; For this alone separateth him From every being "We do know of. Hail to the unfathonied Highest Being Whom we follow ! May He, too, teach us All believing. Ever Nature Is unfeeling: She lighteth the sun Over evil and good ; And for the destroyer Shine, as o'er the best, The moon and the stars. Storms and rivers, Thunder and hail Pursue their path, Ever hasting, Downward breaking On the sons of men. 312 THE ABODE OF SNOW. Also Fortune, Wand'ring along, Seizes the locks Of the innocent child, And empties her horn Over the guilty. For all of us must, After eternal Laws of iron, Fulfil our being. Man alone has power To grasp the Impossible. He separateth, Chooseth and judgeth And righteth the evils The hour has brought forth. He alone dare Eeward the righteous, The evil punish, Purify, and save ; And usefully govern Doubting and error. And ever we honour Him whom we image", In honouring men Immortal in deeds Over great and small.* Let the noble man Be helpful and good ; Unwearied, let him shape The useful and right, Be to us an image Of the Eternal. * This stanza differs somewhat from the original. MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS. 313 This is well in its way ; but when we consider what humanity has been able to accomplish in imaging the divine, it would seem as if a voice had said to us, as to the Prometheus of iEschylus, "Evermore shall the burden of the agony of the present evil wear thee down ; for he that shall deliver thee exists not in nature." Indeed life sometimes seems as if it were composed very much of the torturers and the tortured, the devourers and the devoured. There is some refuge, however, for the spirit in the order and beauty of this unfeeling inorganic nature. The Yliastron, or materia prima, has strange attractions of its own. So orthodox a thinker as John Foster could write — " There is through all nature some mysterious element like soul which comes with a deep significance to mingle itself with our own conscious being, . . . conveying into the mind trains and masses of ideas of an order not to be gained in the schools." Speaking of a departed friend and brilliant poet, Goethe said : " I should not be sur- prised if, thousands of years hence, I were to meet Wieland as the monad of a world — as a star of the first magnitude. . . . We can admit of no other destination for monads than as blessed co-operating powers sharing eternally in the immortal joys of gods." In like manner, when the most purely poetical genius of England foresaw his own passage from this troubled life, it was as a star that the soul of Adonais beaconed from the abodes of the Eternal ; and in describing the gain of his brother-poet, he could only break forth — " It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long Swung blind, in unascended majesty, Silent, alone amid a heaven of song." These may be something more than poets' dreams, 314 THE ABODE OP SNOW. but "the immortal mind craves objects that endure," and such are scarcely to be found in lower forms of life, or in the inorganic world, for even " The lily fair a transient beauty wears, And the white snow soon weeps away in tears." Logical thought becomes impossible when we rise into these 18,'000-feet regions of speculation; and it may- be safer to trust our instincts, such as they are. Apparently heedless of us, the worlds roll through space, — " While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, We men who in our morn of youth defied The elements, must vanish ; — be it so ! Enough if something from our hands have power To live and act and serve the future hour ; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know." THE TSAEAP LINGTI VALLEYS. 315 CHAPTER XXXIII. THE TSAEAP LINGTI VALLEYS. THE KHARJAK VALLEY TREMENDOUS SERIES OF GLACIERS — GIGANTIC PYRAMID PERPLEXING MOUNTAINS WONDERFUL COLOURS FATIGUE OF THE JOURNEY KHARJAK VILLAGE ITS TAhJkdIr THESUR JUNCTION OF THE KHARJAK CHU AND TSABAP LINGTI PUNE MONASTERY CHAR BURDUN MONASTERY ARRIVE AT PADAM. Next morning was excessively cold, and we were glad to hurry down the pass. The way ran down a not very steep slope to a glacier-stream (which it might be difficult to ford during the heat of the day), then on a slight ascent to the end of an enormous spur of the mountains where there was a very long and extremely steep descent to La-kiing — " the pass-house," a large, low, stone room, with no window but the door, and with open spaces between the stones, — which has been erected for the protection of shepherds and travellers. We were now within the watershed of the Indus, in the valley of the Kharjak Chu, one of the mountain streams which form the Tsarap Lingti river. There were very formidable-looking mountains to the right, through which the dhirzl, who was a great geographi- cal authority, assured me there was no available pass to Ladak. In and descending from the mountains to 316 THE ABODE OF SNOW. the left — that is to say, on the left bank of the river down to Padam, and on the right bank of the river which runs from the Pense La down to Padam on the other side — there is probably the most tremendous series of glaciers to be found in the world, out of Arctic and Antarctic regions. There are literally hun- dreds of them ; they extend on through Surii, and even within the boundary of Kashmir proper, and at some parts they come down into the large rivers threatening to block them up. As the path runs down its right bank we had to ford the Kharjak Chu ; but though broad and rapid, it is shallow at this place, and there was little difficulty in doing so ; but in warmer weather it must be impos- sible to cross it during the day. The path now fol- lowed the windings of the stream, sometimes over grassy meads, and anon over aggravating stone ava- lanches. We were now fairly in the almost fabulous Zanskar; but no signs of human habitations were visible. At first we passed beneath tremendous cliffs of cream-coloured granite, which, as we got farther down, appeared as one side of an enormous detached pyramidal mass, high and steep as the Matterhorn, and so smooth that scarcely any snow lodged upon it, though it could have been little short of 20,000 feet high. From some points this extraordinary mountain looked almost like a column; and I am sure if any Lama, Bawa, or lover of inorganic nature could get up to the top of it, he would enjoy the most perfect seclusion. Of all the mountains I have ever beheld, those of Zanskar were the most picturesque, weird, astounding, and perplexing. For several marches, all the way THE TSAEAP LINGTI VALLEYS. 31 7 down the valley of this river and through almost all the valley of the Tsarap Lingti, the precipice- walls were not only of enormous height, but presented the most extraordinary forms, colours, and combinations of rock. Even the upper Spiti valley has nothing so wonderful. There were castles, spires, plateaus, domes, aiguilles of solid rock, and spires composed of the shattered fragments of some fallen mountains. At the entrance of many of the ravines there were enormous cliffs thousands of feet high, which looked exactly as if they were bastions which had been shaped by the hands of giants. Every mile or so we had to scramble across the remains of some stone avalanche which deflected the stream from its course, and under cliffs from which great rocks projected so that it looked as if a slight touch would send them thundering down. Then the colour of these precipice-walls was of the richest and most varied kind. The predominant tints were green, purple, orange, brown, black, and whitish- yellow, but I cannot say how many more there might have been; and green, purple, and deep brown were most frequent. It can easily be imagined that, with such colours, the dazzling sunlight and the shadows of the mountains falling over the valley worked the most wonderful effects. Sometimes the sunlight came down through a dark-coloured ravine like a river of gold. In certain lights the precipices appeared almost as if they were of chalcedony and jasper. The dark - brown manganese-like cliffs looked exceedingly beautiful ; but no sooner was one extraordinary vista left behind than a different but not less striking one broke upon the view. The geology of these valleys was rather puzzling ; for a remarkable feature here, as elsewhere to a less 318 THE ABODE OE SNOW. degree among the Himalaya, is the way in which vari- ous rocks pass into each other — as the clay-slate into mica-slate, the mica-slate into granite, the quartzose conglomerate into greywacke, and the micaceous schist into gneiss. I was unable to pay any special attention to the geology of this interesting region, and indeed I found the continuous journey I had undertaken rather too much for my strength. Could I have rested more frequently I would have enjoyed it more, and have ob- served more closely. As it was, I had continually to press onwards, and being alone caused a great strain on my energies, because everything in that case depends on the one traveller himself. He has to see that pro- per arrangements are made ; that his servants do not practise extortion ; that his camp is roused at an early hour in the morning ; and he has almost to sleep with one eye open. Anything like an examination of these Zanskar cliffs would have required several days specially devoted to them, which I could by no means spare. Some of them were composed of rocks which I had never met with before ; and others, judging from the fragments in the valley below, were of quartzose con- glomerate, passing into greywacke of grey and greenish colour, of clay-slate, very fine grained mica-slate, gneiss, greenstone, smooth soapy talc, and porphyry. There seemed to be much zeolite, and probably other minerals abounded. This part of Zanskar does not seem to have been examined by the Trigonometrical Survey, and is nearly a blank in all our maps. After passing down the valley for several hours, we came at last upon Kharjak or Khargia, the first village of Zanskar, comprising little more than about a dozen THE TSARAP LINGTI VALLEYS. 319 houses, and with only two or three poor fields. There were a great number, however, of yaks and ponies,, and no signs of poverty about the place. The people are Tibetan-speaking Lama Biidhists, and differ from those of the other Tibetan provinces of the Himalaya only in being more pastoral, more primitive, more devout, more hospitable, and less democratic. Kharjak is a depend- ence of the larger village of Thesur, about a day's journey down the valley. The principal Tahikdar of both was in it when I arrived ; and his reception of us, as well as that given by all the people, formed a very pleasing contrast to the inhospitality of the Lahaulies. The Taliikdar gave me a rupee to touch as a hazur or act of obeisance, and insisted on furnishing my servants with horses for the next two days' journey, purely out of the hospitality of a mountaineer. He himself ac- companied us these two days, with three times the number of men that I required or paid for, merely to show me respect, and he was very kind and attentive in every way. Any sportsmen who have gone into Zanskar have done so from Kashmir, and only as far as Padam, so that in this part of the country Sahibs are almost unknown. I am not aware that any one has passed through it since Mr Heyde did so ; and in these circumstances, hospitality, though pleasant, is not to be wondered at. Kharjak, as I have mentioned, is 13,670 feet high, and it is inhabited all the year round. The sky was overclouded in the afternoon ; some rain fell, and a violent wind arose, which continued through great part of the night. Our next day's journey to the Tahikdar's village of Thesur was a sort of honorary procession, and the path was pretty good, though there were some ugly ravines 320 THE ABODE OP SNOW. and high banks above the river. Before teaching Thesur we had to cross to the left bank of the Kharjak Chu, and this was not easily accomplished. The stream was broad, and so rapid that a single man on horseback might have been swept away ; so we had to join hands and go over in an extended line — the riders, so to speak, supporting the horses, and the action of the whole party preventing any individual steed from being carried down. There were no trees at this village, but the houses were large, and there were a number of sloping but hardly terraced fields. The next morning took us to the junction of the Kharjak Chu with the Tsarap Lingti, before which we passed the Yal bridge, one of single rope, on which a man had all the appear- ance of flying through the air, as the slope from one side was considerable. The junction of the two rivers was a beautiful scene. On the right, the Pune Gonpa, or monastery, had a picturesque castellated appearance ; and the water of the Tsarap Lingti was of a clear, deep blue, with long, large, deep pools. The stream we had descended was of a muddy grey colour ; and for some way after their junction, the distinction between the water of the two rivers was as marked as it is at the junction of the Rhone and the Arve beneath the Lake of Geneva ; but (as is usual in unions between human beings of similarly dissimilar character) the coarse and muddy river soon gained the. advantage, and polluted the whole stream. Probably there is a lake up in that unsurveyed part of the mountains from whence the Tsarap Lingti descends, and hence its waters are so pure ; for the rocks be- tween which it ran are of the same character as those of its muddy tributary. THE TSARAP LINGTI VALLEYS. 321 Shortly after we passed Char (12,799 feet), perched most picturesquely on the other side of the river, but connected with our side by a very well constructed and easy jhiila. Immediately after, there was a camping- ground, and some attempt was made at a change of bigarris, but the Char people refused to have anything to do with the burden of our effects. I found my tent pitched at the little village of Suley, on a very small, windy, exposed platform, about a thousand feet above the river, and had it moved on again. We then passed down into a tremendous ravine, at the bottom of which there was a narrow deep gorge choked up with pieces of rock, beneath which a large mountain stream foamed and thundered. Soon after, we reached a bad, but sheltered and warm, camping-ground, on the brink of the Tsarap Lingti, and there stayed for the night, the Suley people bringing us supplies. The next day took us over very difficult ground, with no villages on our side of the river, but with Dargong and Itchor on the other. We camped at the village of Mune, beside a fine grove of willow-trees, the first I had seen in Zanskar, and near the Mune Gonpa, the Lamas of which were indisposed to allow me to examine their retreat. The next day took me to Padam, over similar ground. We descended by a steep slope, dangerous for riding, into the valley of the Tema Tokpho, and crossed that river just above its conflu- ence. Soon after, the great Burdun Gonpa appeared, where also objection was made to my admission ; and, on approaching Padam, I had the great pleasure of see- ing a few square miles of level ground which, though it was in great part covered .with white stones, afforded much relief to a mind somewhat overburdened with precipice walls and gorges. x 322 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTEE XXXIV. Z ANSKAR. CAMPING-GROUND — PADAM — SECLUSIONS OF ZANSKAE — ITS PEOPLE — AREA ELEVATION — VALLEYS A CURIOUS THEORY. At Padam we were told to camp in a very unsuitable place half a mile from the town, among fields which next morning were flooded with water ; but I would not do so, and found a delightful camping-ground about a quarter of a mile to the west of the town, on a fine grassy terrace under the shelter of an immense rock, which completely protected us from the wind. This capital of Zanskar may be called a town, or even a city, as matters go in the Himalaya, and was at least the largest village I had seen since leaving Shipki, in Chinese Tibet. It has a population of about 2000, and is the residence of a Thanadar, who governs the whole province as representative of the Maharaja of Kashmir, and who is supported by a small force of horse and foot soldiers. In the afternoon this Mohammedan official called, and presented a hazur of Baltistan apricots, and said he would send a sowar or trooper with me to Siiru, in order to prevent any difficulty on the way. He was civil and agreeable, and was specially interested in my revolver ; but I did not get much information out of him ZANSKAR. 323 beyond learning that in winter the people of Padam were pretty well snowed-up in their houses ; and, if that be the case there, at a height of only 1 1,373 feet, v hat must it be in the villages which are over 13,000 feet high 1 No province could be much more secluded than Zanskar /s. The tremendous mountains which bound it, the high passes which have to be crossed in order to reach it, and its distance (both linear and practical) from any civilised region, cut it completely off from the foreign influences which are beginning to affect some districts of even the Himalaya. There is a want of any progressive element in itself, and its Tibetan-Bud- hist people are in opposition to the influence of Moham- medan Kashmir. It yields some small revenue to the Maharaja ; but the authority of his officers and soldiers in it is very small, and they are there very much by sufferance. It is the same in the Tibetan portion of Surii ; but when I got over the long, wild, habitation- less tract which lies between the Ringdom monastery and the village of Surii, among a population who were more Kashmiri and Mohammedan than Tibetan and Biidhist, I found an immense change in the relations between the people on the one hand and the soldiers on the other. The former were, exceedingly afraid of the soldiers, and the latter oppressed the people very much as they pleased. There was nothing of that, however, visible in Zanskar, where the zemindars paid little re- spect to the soldiers, and appeared to manage the affairs of the country themselves, much as the zemindars do in other districts of the Himalaya which are entirely free from Mohammedan control. According to Cunningham, Zanskar has an area of 3000 square miles, and a mean elevation of 13,154 feet, 324 THE ABODE OF SNOW. as deduced from seven observations made along " the course of the valley ; " but in no sense can it be cor- rectly spoken of as one valley, for it is composed of three great valleys. Taking Padam as. a centre, one of these runs up the course of the Tsarap Lingti which we have just descended ; another, which we are about to ascend, lies along the upper Zanskar river, up to- wards the Pense La and Surii ; while a third is the valley of the Zanskar river proper, which is formed by the junction of the two streams just mentioned : these, when conjoined, flow in a nearly northern direction towards the upper Indus. In shape, this province is something like the three legs of the Manx coat of arms. Its greatest length must be nearly ninety miles, and its mean breadth must be over fifty; but this gives no idea of what it is to the traveller who has to follow the course of the rivers and meets with diffi- cult ground. It took me ten marches to get from one end of Zanskar to the other ; and no one with loaded coolies could have done it in less than nine. Thornton, in his gazetteer of the countries adjacent to India, describes it as lying between lat. 33° — 34°, 30', and long. 76° — 77°, 20'; and he says of it, "this region not having been explored by any European, little is known concerning it, except that it is drained by a large stream called the river of Zanskar, which, rising near Labrang, on the southern frontier, and holding a northerly course of nearly a hundred miles, receives several tributaries, and joins the Indus on the left side, about twenty-five miles below Leh." It must, how- ever, have been pretty well explored since his time, for the Trigonometrical Survey have measured a number of stations in this province, and I understand that the ZANSKAR. 325 reason why the routes through it have not been pub- lished is a rather uncalled-for fear that it might be exposed to an influx of travellers too great for its scanty resources. Cunningham translates the name Zanskar, or rather "Zangs-kar," as "white copper" or brass;* but an enthusiastic Gaelic scholar suggests to me that it is the same as Sanquhar of Scotland, and has a similar meaning. This latter supposition may seem very absurd at first sight, Tibetan being a Turanian, and Gaelic an Aryan language; but his contention only is, that the names of innumerable places in Tibet and Tartary are identical with the local names of the Gaelic language ; and for almost every Tibetan name I men- tioned to him he found a Gaelic synonym, having a meaning which suited the ' character of the Tibetan localities very appropriately. I cannot do more than refer to this matter here, and the above is not sufficient evidence on which to build up a theory ; but I should not be surprised if this view were borne out by a strictly scientific investigation of the subject, for it struck me forcibly before I left Zanskar that there must be some unknown relationship between the people of that province and the Scottish Highlanders. The sound of their language, the brooches which fasten * Emil Schlagintweit, in his ' Die Konige von Tibet ' (aus den Abhand- lung der k. bayer, Akaderuie der W. I. CI., x. B. iii., p. 802, Miinchen, 1866), makes the following remarks on the meaning of this name : — " Ein Beispeil der Verdiimmng des Auslautes liefert der Name der provinz Zdnhhar. Gewbhnlioh Zcmgsmkhar geschrieben, ' Kupferfeste,' so auch fmdet sich zangsdkar ' Weiss-Kupfer ' (so Cunningham) und bzang-khar 'gutes Fort.' Die verkurzte, Form Zang erklart sich daraus, dass das * bei der Aussprache nicht gehbrt wird ; dadurch kam eine neue Etymologie sehr leicht auf, von der wir fur dieses Wort sogar noch ein weiteres Bei- speil haben. Ich hatte bereits erwahnt dass es in meines Bruders Adolph Manuscripten zan-khar geschrieben steht." 326 THE ABODE OF SNOW. their plaids, the varieties of tartan which their -woollen clothes present, and even the features of the people (which are of an Aryan rather than a Tartar type), strongly reminded me of the Scotch Highlanders. The men had tall athletic forms, long faces, aquiline noses ; and the garments of the women in particular presented many of the clan tartans, though the check was not so common as the stripe. Division of races and of languages have been em- ployed of late to an unscientific extreme ; but there is nothing improbable in the supposition that a parti- cular Himalayan tribe, of mixed Aryan and Turanian blood, speaking a mixed language which became almost entirely Aryan as they advanced, but preserving espe- cially the local names of their Tibetan birthplace, with some peculiarities of dress and custom, may have pushed their way along the " Stony Girdle of the Earth " to the islands (if they were then islands) of the Western Sea. R and n being interchangeable, and as tartan is probably a word signifying crossing or weaving across, it is not absolutely impossible that tartan may have some relationship to Tartar, the name of the cloth being taken from that of the people who wore it. This is about as likely as the usual derivation of tartan from the French tiretaine ; but it would be almost as unwarrantable to affirm it without some positive indication of its having been the case, as it would be to accept the derivation of an ingenious and learned friend who insists that the word tartan obtained its present application when the Assyrian General Tartan took Ashdod, and carried away the Egyptians captive in an imperfectly clothed condi- tion, which must have made them bear a striking resem- blance to Scotch Highlanders in their national costume. OM MAN! PADME HAUN. 327 CHAPTER XXXV. OM MAN! PADME HAUN. CHOTEN — MANI — INSCRIBED AND SCULPTURED STONES PRATING STONES, FLAGS, WHEELS, AND MILLS — KOEPPEN ON THE UNIVERSAL PRATER — -MEANING OF OM MANI PADME HAUN — ITS SANSCRIT ORIGIN. Around this highly-elevated village of Kharjak, and at several other places in Zanskar, there is an unusual number of large Choten, nearly solid edifices, generally composed of large square platforms, placed one above an- other, and surrounded by the larger half of an inverted cone which supports a tapering pillar bearing a Dharma emblem. These Choten were originally receptacles for offerings, and for the relics of departed saints, and they thus came to be considered a holy symbol, and to be made large without containing either offerings or relics. They are sometimes of nearly a pyramidal shape. According to Koeppen, the proper names for them are m Tschhod, r Ten, or g Dung, r Ten; and General Cunningham says that the latter word denotes the proper bone-holders, or depositaries of holy relics ; but Choten, or something very like it, has come to be gene- rally applied to all edifices of this kind. There are more than a dozen of them about Kharjak, some nearly 328 THE ABODE OF SNOW. twenty feet high, and they do not seem to be associated with any particular saint. Some of them had what by courtesy might be taken for a pair of eyes figured on the basement ; and this, Cunningham informs us, means that they are dedicated to the supreme Budha, " the eye of the universe." One also frequently finds among the Tibetans small Choten three or four inches high, and I was shown one of these which was said to contain the ashes of a man's wife. Zanskar is rich, too, in the Mani which are to be found sometimes in the most desolate situations. These are long tumuli or broad dykes of stones, many of which stones are inscribed or sculptured. They are met with even high up among the mountains, all over the Himalaya, and vary in length from thirty feet to so many as a thousand and even more. Their usual height is about five feet, and the breadth about ten. I suppose I must have passed hundreds of these Mani on my journey ; and the Tibetans invariably pass so as to keep them on the right hand side, but I have been unable to discover the meaning of this practice. The stones are beautifully inscribed for the most part with the universal Lama prayer, " Om mani padme haun ;" but Herr Jaeschke informs me that sometimes whole pages of the Tibetan Scriptures are to be found upon them, and they have, more rarely, well-executed bas- reliefs of Budha, of various saints, and of sacred Biidhistic symbols. These stones are usually prepared and deposited for some special reason, such as for safety on a journey, for a good harvest, for the birth of a son ; and the prodigious number of them in so thinly peopled a country indicates an extraordinary waste of human energy. OM MANI PADME HAUN. 329 In a certain formal sense the Tibetans are undoubt- edly a praying people, and the most pre-eminently praying people on the face of the earth. They have praying stones, praying pyramids, praying flags flying over every house, praying wheels, praying mills, and the universal prayer, " Om mani padme haun," is never out of their mouths. In reference to that formula, Koeppen, in his ' Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche/ p. 59, makes the following striking remarks, the truth of which every Tibetan traveller will allow : " These primitive six syllables which the Lamas repeat are, of all the prayers of earth, the prayer which is most fre- quently repeated, written, printed, and conveniently offered up by mechanical means. They constitute the only prayer which the common Mongols and Tibetans know ; they are the first words which the stammering child learns, and are the last sighs of the dying. The traveller murmurs them upon his journey ; the herds- man by his flock ; the wife in her daily work ; the monk in all stages of contemplation, — that is to say, of nihilism ; and they are the cries of conflict and triumph. One meets with them everywhere, wherever the Lama Church has established itself — on flags, rocks, trees, ^ walls, stone monuments, utensils, strips of paper, human skulls, skeletons, and so forth. They are, ac- cording to the meaning of the believer, the essence of all religion, of all wisdom and revelation ; they are the way of salvation, and the entrance to holiness. ' These six syllables unite the joys of all Biidhas in one point, and are the root of all doctrine. They are the heart of hearts out of which everything profitable and blessed flows ; they are the root of all knowledge, the guide to re-birth in a higher state of being, the door which the 330 THE ABODE OF SNOW. curse of birth has closed up, the ship which carries us out of the mutations of birth, the light which illumines the black darkness, the valiant conqueror of the Five Evils, the flaming ocean in which sins and sorrows are destroyed, the hammer which shatters all pain ' — and so forth." That is pretty well for a glorification of " Om mani padme haun," and one becomes impatient to know what these mystic syllables mean, and how they come to possess such tremendous power. It is rather dis- appointing to find that the closest English version of them which can be given is " God ! the jewel (or gem) in the lotus ! Amen." I have gone carefully into this subject, and little more can be got out of it. Sub- stantially the prayer, or rather the exclamation, is not of Tibetan, but of Sanscrit origin. Koeppen translates is simply as — " ! das Kleinod in Lotus ! Amen." But that is quite insufficient, because the great force of the formula lies in " Om," the sacred syllable of the Hindias, ■ which ought never to be pronounced, and which denotes the absolute, the supreme Divinity. In order to show the literal meaning, the words may be translated into their English equivalents, thus — Om Mani Padme Haun. God ! the jewel lotus in Amen ! Om I have already explained. Mani is a Sanscrit word, and so is Padma, the nominative of Padme. Haun, I have been doubtful about, but Professor Max Miiller informs me that exclamations like it, such as Hing and Hung, are common in Sanscrit, and he thinks he has met with Haun also. I need not go into the mystic explanations of this OM MANI PADME HAUN. 331 formula, as, for instance, that each of the five syllables which follow the sacred " Om " is a representative against a particular great class of evils. Suffice to note that the repeating of this prayer — whether vocally or by various mechanical means — has become a sacred and protecting symbol, such as making the sign of the cross is among Eoman Catholic Christians. However it may be with tiie more intelligent of the Lamas, to the ordinary Tibetan mind "Om mani padme haun" is only known in that sense, and as a prayer for the well being of the six classes of creatures, — to wit, human beings, animals, evil spirits, souls in heaven, souls in purgatory, and souls in hell. Koeppen does not seem to have been aware of this special application of the prayer as it is now used, but that is really the meaning universally associated with it ; and so it comes to be an aspiration of universal benevolence, which is supposed to have a protecting influence on those who give utterance to it, or reproduce it in any way. The ' Spectator,' in noticing my remarks on this formula, has very well asked, " After all, does it not amount to ' Our Father who art in heaven,' said by his more helpless children ? " The original meaning of a charm of this kind does not much matter when once it obtains general acceptance ; and it is quite in accord- ance with the peculiar value attached to it, that the reproduction of it on stones, flags, and rolls of paper, should be regarded as religious worship, as well as the oral repetition of it. It is in this way that the prayer-wheels and prayer- mills are used. These cylinders are filled with rolls of paper, on which this prayer, and occasionally other charms, are written many times, and the turning them 332 THE ABODE OF SNOW, from left to right is supposed to be a means of offer- ing up the prayer. The Lamas keep constantly repeat- ing it when turning their hand-cylinders upon an axis which they grasp below. These cylinders are very often shortly called " Mani," a word which is loosely applied to many matters connected with the Lama religion ; but, according to Cunningham, their proper designation is " Mani chhoe khor," or the " precious religious wheel." This agrees with Koep- pen, who adds that they are not originally Tibetan, but were used in India four hundred years before the Christian era. On that latter point, however, he gives no authority for his statement, which is opposed to the opinion of Klaproth, and of such an experienced archae- ologist as Cunningham, who says of the prayer-cylin- der, " I can vouch that I have never seen it represented on any piece of Indian sculpture." I understand that about Darjiling it is not difficult to get prayer-cylin- ders, but they are probably manufactured specially for the foreign market. Mr Heyde told me that the only way in which he had been able to supply the demand of friends for them was to get them manufactured; and all my efforts, to purchase from Lamas a specimen which had been in use were entirely fruitless. SNOWED UP IN ZANSKAR. 333 CHAPTER XXXVI. SNOWED UP IN ZANSKAR. A GREAT SNOWSTORM — PHE — TAKE REFUGE IN A TIBETAN HOUSE — DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE AN OPEN ROOF — A WINTER IN PHE TWO DELIGHTFUL CHILDREN — THE GRANDMOTHER FEATURES OF THE MEN .HEBREW-LOOKING BALTIS. Starting from Padam in the afternoon of the next day, we proceeded in a north-westerly direction up the pretty, level, open valley of the upper Zanskar river, and camped at Seni Gonpa, where there is a small village. The next day also, on the journey to Phe, the- road was good, and the valley pleasant, but we had to cross to the left bank of the river by a long and difficult jMla. It was amusing to notice the looks of the dogs, as, wrapt in plaids, they were unwillingly carried over on the backs of coolies ; and one of my servants became so nervous in the middle, that he was unable to go either backwards or forwards, until one of the mountaineers was sent to his assistance. After passing two villages, we came on a long stretch of un- inhabited ground that extended to Phe, and here met with the commencement of a tremendous snowstorm, which, on and about the 16th and 17th September, swept over the whole line of the Western Himalaya 334 THE ABODE OF SNOW. from Kashmir, at least as far as the Barra Lacha, clos- ing the passes, and preventing the Yarkand traders from getting down to Simla, as noted in the Indian newspapers at the time. Such a snowstorm is not usual so early in the season, but the Zanskaries said it occasionally occurred. It had often struck me how little attention the people of the Himalaya paid to the weather, and how ignorant they were of its signs ; and the present occasion was no exception to that rule, as the storm appeared to take our party quite by surprise. The morning had been cold and dark, but with that peculiar thickening of the air which indicates the gathering of snow. As we advanced up the valley, an ocean of mist began to hurry across it from the glaciers and snowy mountains on the left or south-western side ; but admitting, at first, occasional gleams of sickly sunlight, which soon disappeared altogether. At first, also, there was almost no wind where we were, though it was blowing a hurricane above, and the mist rushed over from the one snowy range to the other with mar- vellous rapidity. After a time, however, violent gusts of wind and blasts of rain came down upon us ; the rain changed into sleet ; a violent wind blew steadily ; and before we reached the village of Phe it was snow- ing heavily. To camp in our tents in these circum- stances was not desirable; and the sowar whom the Thanadar of Padam had given me, prevailed on the principal zemindar of Phe to allow us to take up our quarters in his house ; and there we had to stay until the day after next, when the force of the storm had exhausted itself. This house, wh ich was a typical Tibetan residence of the better class, was built of stone, without mortar, but in- SNOWED UP IN ZANSKAR. 335 terspersed by large beams, which must have been brought from a distance, and which added to the security of the edifice. It occupied an area of, I should think, about eighty feet in length, and sixty in breadth, was two-storeyed, and had a small courtyard in front. All the lower rooms were occupied by ponies, sheep, and cattle ; and savoury were the smells, and discordant the cries, which they sent up-stairs, or rather through the roof of their abode, during my two days' confine- ment above. The upper storey was reached by a stone staircase, which ascended partly outside the house and partly inside, and which, in its latter portion, required one to stoop painfully. Part of this storey, fronting the courtyard, had no roof, and so formed a kind of balcony, one end of which, however, was roofed over, and afforded shelter and a cooking place for my ser- vants. From that, a low passage, on both sides of which there were some small rooms or closets, led into the principal apartment of the house, on one side of which there was another large room occupied by the women and children, with a very small window and balcony. On another side there was a store-room; and on the third there was a dark room which was used as a chapel, and in which a light was kept con- stantly burning. The principal apartment, in which I took up my residence, along with the husbands of the wife, and apparently any one who might drop in, in- cluding a Balti-wanderer, was about forty feet long by thirty. It had no window, properly speaking — light, air, and, I may add, snow, finding admission through a square hole in the roof, with sides each about six feet. Directly below this, but not so large, there was a corresponding hole in the floor, so that a 336 THE ABODE OP SNOW. sort of well ran down to the ground-floor, and served to carry off the rain and snow which are admitted by the hole in the roof. This is an ingenious arrangement, and shows that the human mind may have some in- vention, even, when it is not equal to conceive of a chim- ney. The room was just high enough to allow of a tall man standing upright beneath the beams; and the roof was about four feet thick, being composed of thorn-bushes pressed very closely together, and resting on several large strong beams. Inside, the walls were plastered with a kind of coarse chunam ; the floor was composed of rafters and slabs of slate ; and on the floor, resting against one of the walls, there were two or three small stone fireplaces, which constituted the only furni- ture, except one or two chests, which served as seats. To say that this was in itself a pleasant place of re- sidence would be incorrect. The large aperture in the centre of the roof created a low temperature which re- quired a fire to make it tolerable, but the smoke from the fire knew when it was well off, and showed a re- markable aversion to going out at the aperture. Conse- quently, there was the alternative of being starved with cold, or being occasionally half choked and blinded with the pungent smoke of birch and thorn bushes. However, the smoke, after going up the- wall, did collect pretty close to the roof, the inside of which it had covered with a thick layer of soot. That was not nearly so great an evil as the porous character of the roof itself, through which the snow soaked only too easily, and being thoroughly melted by the time it got through the roof, fell everywhere into the apartment in large, black, dirty drops, so that it was somewhat difficult to find a spot on which one could keep dry or clean. • SNOWED UP IN ZANSKAE. 337 On the second day, when there was no appearance of the snowstorm ceasing, and there was great probability of my having to spend a winter of eight months in Phe, I began seriously to consider what state I should likely be in after so prolonged a residence in such an apart- ment. The prospect was by no means a pleasant one, and I resolved, if I had to remain, to take up my abode in the half-covered balcony. My liquors were at their last ebb, and my tea was disappearing ; but I could keep myself going in coffee by means of roasted barley, and there would be no want of milk, meal, and mutton. Per- haps a knowledge of the Tibetan language might prove more useful to me than that of English; and an intelli- gent being might find more satisfaction as a Mniapa Lama, than as either Primate or Prime Minister of Eng- land in the present age. The polyandric wife and mother of this house kept to the inner room; but there was a delightful trio which kept me company in the public apartment, and was composed of the aged grandmother and two fine children, a girl and boy of five and six years old respectively. They were delicious children, fair almost as northern Europe- ans, frolicsome and wild whenever the grandmother was away or not looking after them, and the next moment as demure as mice when the cat is in the room. They ate with great gusto enormous piles of thick scones covered with fine rancid butter. No young lions ever had a more splendid appetite, or roared more lustily for their food. The old woman kept them winding yarn and repeat- ing "Om mani padme haun ;" but the moment her back was turned they would spring up, dance about, open their sheepskin coats and give their little plump rosy bodies a bath of cold air ; but when old granny, who Y 338 THE ABODE OF SNOW. was blear-eyed and half blind, hobbled back, they were seated in their places in an instant, hard at work at " Om mani pad," and looking as if butter would not melt in their mouths. Sometimes they would sit down beside me and gaze into the fire, with all the wisdom and sol- emnity of Biidha in their countenances ; then the boy's naked foot would noiselessly steal out until he caught a burning branch between his toes, on which the girl would give him a violent nudge, push him over, and they would both jump up laughing, and run away. The grandmother too was interesting. She said she had seen seventy years — she did not know how many more, and the Tibetans rarely know their own ages. There was between her and the children that confiden- tial relationship we often see in Europe, and which, being born of love, creates no fear ; and she also found room in her affections for a young kitten, which drove Djedla almost mad. Though nearly blind she plied her distaff industriously, and she showed her piety by almost continuously repeating the great Lama prayer. It is true she never got any farther than " Om mani pad," thereby getting over more repetitions of it than would have been possible had she pronounced the whole formula ; but let us hope the fraud on heaven was passed over. A less agreeable occupation in which she indulged was that of freeing her own garments and those of the children from unpleasant parasites ; for, after doing so, she always carefully placed them on the floor, without injuring them ; for it would never have done to neutralise the effect of the prayer for the six classes of beings by destroying any of them. To the looker-on, this placing of parasites on the floor is apt to suggest foreboding reflections. But, to tell the SNOWED UP IN ZANSKAE. 339 truth, one gets accustomed to that sort of thing. What- ever care be taken, it is impossible to travel for any- time among the Himalaya without making the ac- quaintance of a good many little friends. It is impos- sible to describe the shuddering disgust with which the discovery of the first is made ; but, by the time you get to the five-hundredth, you cease to care about them, and take it as a matter of course. When our bedding and all our baggage is carried on the backs of coolies, there must bo some transference of that class of para- sites which haunt the human body and clothes ; but they are easily got rid of entirely when the supply stops. Though the children were so fair, the men of the house were dark and long- featured, with almost nothing of the Tartar in their countenances ; but their language is quite Tibetan, and I should say that we have here a distinct instance of a people who speak the language of an alien race and that alone. It will be curious if my supposition be correct that these Zanskaries are the congeners of the Celtic race, and the subject is well worthy of examination. I was not admitted into the room dedicated to religious purposes, but saw there were Biidhist images, brass basins, and saucer-lights similar to those used both by the Chinese and the Indians. The young Balti who had taken refuge with us from the storm displayed his honesty, though he was going in a different direction from ours; for, on my giving him four annas (sixpence) for quite a number of the apricots of his country which he had presented me with, he said that was too much, and brought me more of his dried fruit, which must have been carried over a difficult journey of weeks. I met several large par- 340 THE ABODE OF SNOW. ties of Baltis in this part of the Himalaya, and was struck by their Jewish appearance. Though Moham- medans, their language is Tibetan, and Nurdass had no difficulty in talking with them. Here is another instance where a people, evidently not of a Tartar race, speak a Tartar language ; and I must again protest against the extreme to which the philologists have em- ployed the clue of language. The Hebrews of China have entirely lost their own tongue, and their national- ity has been recognised only by two or three customs, and by their possession of copies of the Pentateuch — which they are unable to read. Such matters are often as well treated by men of general knowledge and large capacity of thought as by the devotees of some particular branch of knowledge. THE SNOWY PEKSE LA. 341 CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SNOWY PENSE LA. AFTER THE STORM^-A LOVELY SCENE NIGHT IN THE WASTE BEARS GLACIER AND DEEP SNOW — COL OF THE PASS — DANGEROUS RIDING EFFECT OF THE SUN DAZZLING WHITENESS SER AND MER PEAKS — HIOUEN TSANG's DESCRIPTION DESCENT THE CHILING PASS DESCRIPTION OF THE RINGDOM MONASTERY — MARCHES. On the second morning after our arrival at Phe the storm had entirely passed off, and a council of the villagers was held to determine whether or not we could be got over the Pense La or Pense Pass. I should have been delighted to remain in Zanskar all winter, though not in such an apartment as I have described, but was in a manner bound in honour to my servants to proceed if it were possible to do so ; and the vil- lagers were anxious to see us off their hands, for it would have been a serious matter for them had we remained all winter. So, with a strong body of bigarrls and a number of ponies and cows, we started at nine in the morning. The open valley presented a most lovely scene. Pure white snow rose up on either side of it nearly from the river to the tops of the high mountains, dazzling in the sunlight. Above, there was a clear, brilliant, blue sky, unspotted by any cloud or 342 THE ABODE OF SNOW. fleck of mist, but with great eagles occasionally flitting across it. Close to the river the snow had melted, or was melting from the grass, displaying beautiful autumn flowers which had been uninjured by it ; the moisture on these flowers and on the grass was spark- ling in the sunlight. Every breath of the pure keen air was exhilarating ; and for music we had the gush of snow-rivulets, and the piping of innumerable large marmots, which came out of their holes on the sides of the valley, and whistled to each other. It was more like an Alpine scene in spring than in autumn, and reminded me of Beattie's lines describing the outbreak of a Lapland spring : — " Thus on the chill Lapponian's dreary land, For many a long month lost in snow profound, When Sol from Cancer sends the seasons bland, And in their northern cave the storms are bound, From silent mountains, straight with startling sound, Torrents are hurled ; green hills emerge ; and, lo ! The trees with foliage, cliffs with flowers are crowned, Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling flow." On reaching the last village, called Abring, it was determined not to stay there, but to camp as high up on the pass as we could reach before nightfall, in order to have the whole of the next day for getting over the deep snow with which its summit is covered. On ascending from the larger valley, we passed through a number of picturesque small vales, and then got on a more open tract, on one side of which, where there were some birch-bushes, we camped at eve. My tent had to be pitched on snow, and I may say that for the next seven days, or until I reached Dras, I was very little off that substance ; and for six nights my tent was either pitched on snow or on ground which had THE SNOWY PENSE LA. 343 been swept clear of it for the purpose. At this camp on the Pense La, darkness came on (there being only a crescent moon in the early morning) before our pre- parations for the night were concluded. My ther- mometer sank to 22°, and there was something solemn suggested on looking into the darkness and along the great snowy wastes. My bigarris were very much afraid of bears, saying that the place was haunted by them ; but none appeared. Starting early next morning, we passed through several miles of thick brushwood, chiefly birch and willow, just before we approached the col of the Pense Pass. A great glacier flowed over it, and for some way our ascent lay up the rocky slopes to the right side of the ice-stream ; but that was tedious work, and when we got up a certain distance, and the snow was thick enough to support us, we moved on to the glacier itself, and so made the remainder of the ascent. The fall of snow here had been tremendous. I probed in vain with my seven-feet long alpenstock to strike the ice beneath ; but every now and then a crevasse, too large to be bridged by the snow, showed the nature of the ground we were on. I fancy this was the most dangerous ground I rode over in all the Himalaya, for the snow over a crevasse might have given way beneath a horse and his rider ; but several of the Zanskar men were riding and did not dismount, so I was fain to trust to this local knowledge, though I did not put any confidence in it. Not far from the top of the pass we came upon a beautiful little lake in the glacier, sunk within walls of blue ice, and frozen, but with the snow which had fallen and the upper ice of its surface all melted. For 344 THE ABODE OF SNOW. by this time the power of the sunbeams in the rarefied atmosphere, and of their reflection from the vast sheets of pure white snow, was something tremendous. I had on blue goggles to protect my eyes,* and a double musHn veil over my face, yet all the skin on my face was destroyed. After crossing this pass, my counte- nance became very much like an over-roasted leg of mutton ; and as to my hands, the mere sight of them would have made a New-Zealander's teeth water. On my Indian servants the only 'effect was to blacken their faces, and make their eyes bloodshot. The top of the Pense La is only 14,440 feet high, but it took us a long time to reach it, our horses sink- ing up to their girths in the snow at almost every step, and the leader having to be frequently changed. We have been told to pray that our flight should not be in the winter; and certainly in a Himalayan winter it would not be possible to fly either quickly or far with- out the wings of eagles. The deep dark blue of the heavens above contrasted with the perfect and dazzling whiteness of the earthly scene around. The uniformity of colour in this exquisite scene excited no sense of monotony ; and, looking on the beautiful garment of snow which covered the mountains and glaciers, but did not conceal their forms, one might well exclaim — " It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee With purer robes than those of flesh and blood." Especially striking was the icy spire of one of the two Akun (the Ser and Mer) peaks, the highest of the West- * There was another use to which I found goggles could be put. Tibetan mastiffs were afraid of them. The fiercest dog in the Himalaya will skulk away terrified if you walk up to it quietly in perfect silence with a pair of dark-coloured goggles on, and as if you meditated some villany ; but to utter a word goes far to break the spell. THE SNOWY PENSE LA. 345- ern Himalaya, which rose up before us in Surii to the height of 23,477 feet. I did not get another glimpse of it ; but from this side it appeared to be purely a spire of glittering ice, no rock whatever being visible, and the sky was " Its own calm home, its crystal shrine, Its habitation from eternity." But instead of attempting further description, let me quote an older traveller, and give Hiouen Tsang's de- scription of what he beheld on the Musur Dabaghan mountain as applicable to what I saw from, and expe- rienced on, the Pense La, and still more especially on the Shinkal : " The top of the mountain rises to the sky. Since the beginning of the world the snow has been accumulating, and is now transformed into vast masses of ice, which never melt either in spring or summer. Hard and brilliant sheets of snow are spread out till they are lost in the infinite and mingle with the clouds. If one looks at them, the eyes are dazzled by the splendour. Frozen peaks hang down over both sides of the path some hundred feet high and twenty or thirty feet thick. It is not without difficulty or danger that the traveller can clear them or climb over them. Besides, there are squalls of wind and tornadoes of snow which attack the pilgrims. Even with double shoes and with thick furs one cannot help trembling and shivering." In front of us immense sheets of snow stretched steeply into a narrow valley, and down one of these we plunged in a slanting direction. It was too late to reach the neighbourhood of any human habitations that night ; but we descended the valley for several miles till we came to brushwood and a comparatively warm 346 THE ABODE OF SNOW. camping-spot, well satisfied at having got over the Pense La without a single accident. Where I was to go next, however, was a matter of some anxiety ; for here the elevated valley theory began to break down, and we were in front of a confused congeries of moun- tains which must be difficult enough to cross at any time, but tenfold so after such a snowstorm as had just swept over the Himalaya. I felt especially uneasy about those unknown places of which Mr Heyde had said, " they might be a little difficult to get over." From this point where we now were, I had proposed to go, in a south-westerly direction, over the Chiling Pass, to Petgam in Maru Wardwan, from whence it would not have been difficult to reach Islamabad in the south of Kashmir ; but the Zanskar men declared that there was no such pass, no passage in that direction ; and it was at least clearly evident that the habitation- less valleys leading that way were so blocked up with prodigious masses of snow, that they had become quite impracticable till next summer. I was thus compelled to proceed northwards, and to strike the road from Leh to Kashmir, and camped that day at a small village near to thegreat Eingdom Gonpa, or monastery, which I was permitted to enter and examine. From there it took me three easy marches, through beautiful open valleys, to reach the village and fort of Suni. The first two days were over uninhabited ground; and we camped the first night at Giilmatongo, where there are some huts occupied by herdsmen in summer. This place is the most advanced post in that direction of the Tibetan-speaking people, and of the Lama religion ; for the village of Parkatze, where we camped next night, is inhabited chiefly by Kashmiri Mohammedans, and at THE SNOWY PENSE LA. 347 Siiru there are a Kashmiri Thanadar and a military- force. In these valleys there are immense numbers of large marmots, called pia by the Tibetans, from the peculiar sound they make. We shot several of them, and found their brown fur to be very soft and thick. There was no difficulty in shooting them, but some in gaining possession of them, for they were always close to the entrance of their holes, and escaped down these unless killed outright. The people do not eat them, consider- ing them to be a species of rat ; and though the skins are valued, this animal does not seem to be hunted. The skins I procured disappeared at Surii, the theft being laid to the charge of a dog; and though half my effects were carried in open hiltas, this was the only loss I experienced on my long journey, with the excep- tion of a tin of bacon which disappeared in Lahaul, and which also was debited to a canine thief. The Himalayan marmots were larger than hares, though proportionably shorter in the body. They were so fat at this season that they could only waddle, having fed themselves up on the grass of summer in preparation for their long hybernation in winter. They undoubt- edly communicate with one another by their shrill cries, and have a curiously intelligent air as they sit watching and piping at the mouth of their subterranean abodes. The marmot has a peculiar interest as one of the unchanged survivors of that period when the me- gatherium, the sivatherium, and the other great animals whose fossil remains are found in the Sewalik range, were roaming over the Himalayas, or over the region where these now rise. Shortly before reaching Siiru we had to leave the 348 THE ABODE OF SNOW. bed of the Surii river, which takes its rise near Giil- matongo, and had to make a detour and considerable ascent. The cause of this was an enormous glacier, which came down into the river on the opposite (the left) bank, and deflected the stream from its course. Splendid walls of ice were thus exposed, and here also there is likely to be a cataclysm ere long. Surii is only a dependency of Kashmir, and there were more snow-covered mountain-ranges to be crossed before I could repose in the Valley of Flowers; but at this place I had fairly passed out of the Tibetan region, and without, so far as I am aware, having become either a Lama or a Bodhisavata. I may say that, while it has unrivalled scenery, its people also are interesting, and manage wonderfully well with their hard and trying life. The Kingdom Gonpa, to which I have just alluded, is, as the Lama monasteries usually are, placed on the top of a hill ; and Gonpa literally means " a solitary place." This eminence, which is about 400 feet high, rises out of a waste of level stony ground, and is about two miles distant from the small Eingdom hamlet. After the Pense Pass I was too much fatigued to take any notes regarding it, and can only remember gene- rally its characteristics. A gateway, outside of which there were some large Choten, led through strong stone walls into an open court-yard, round which were the cells occupied by the monks. These, with various offices, occupied three sides of a quadrangle, and on the fourth side was the room for prayer, down the centre of which ran a cushioned double divan, on which the monks were wont to offer up their supplications. Beyond this was the temple, with relic-chambers at- THE SNOWY PENSE LA. 349 tached. Both the walls and the temple were adorned with praying flags, and the former constituted the back walls of the cells of the monks. There were a number of images and pictures in the temple, one of which re- minded me of the Chinese Queen of Heaven. I thought I had clearly impressed the characteristics of this monastery upon my mind ; but find now, after the lapse of time, that if I went into the subject I should be in great danger of developing it out of the depths of my consciousness. The monks, of whom there were about thirty, were very agreeable, and made no objec- tions to my entering the temple ; but, after the snow- storm, and in the sort of country I was in, it would not have done to have halted for even a single day. The resemblances between Lamaism and Roman Ca- tholicism have been pointed out by MM. Hue and Ga- bet and others. Koeppen defines Lamaism as a corrupted Biidhism, having the same relation to early Budhism that the Romish Church has to primitive Christianity. The corrupting influence was the Sivaism of India, but some old Turanian superstitions appear to have been worked in also. The ruling idea of Lamaism appears to be that of a sovereign Church or ecclesiastical state, and nowhere else does the monastic system exist in such gigantic proportions as in the Tibetan and Mon- golian countries. The marches from Kokser in Lahaul to Surii were as follows, taking the ordinary rate of progress of loaded hillmen : — Hours. Kokser to Sisu, . . . . .5 Sisu to Gkmdla, . . . . .4 Gundla to Kaelang, .... 6 Kaelang to Kulang, . . . . 4 350 THE ABODE OF SNOW. Kulang to Darcba, Darcha to Dakmaclien camping-ground, Dakmachen to near Kamjakpiik camp, Ramjakpiik to camp on Zanskar side of the Camp on Schinkal to Kharjak, Kharjak to Thesur, Thesur to camp below Suley, Suley to Muni, Muni to Padam, Padam to Seni Gonpa, Seni to Phe, Phe to first camp on Pense La, First camp to second, over snow, Second camp to Kingdom, . Eingdom to Gulmatongo, . Giilmatongo to Siini, Siirii to Sankri, Sankii to hamlet opposite Dras, Dras to Mataan, Mataan to Baltal camp, Baltal to Sonamarg, Sonamarg to Goond, Goond to Kangan, Kangan to Ganderbahl, Ganderbahl to Srinagar, Hours. 4 6 Schinkal, 9 9 10 10 13 2 8 10 9 15 7 8 5 9 7 6 5 THE OMBA PASS. 351 CHAPTEK XXXVIII. THE OMBA PASS. DIFFICULTY OF DESCENDING ON KASHMIR — KARTSE — SANKU — OMBA A BIG HILL FUGITIVE COOLIES SNOW BLINDNESS — HEIGHT OF THE PASS A DILEMMA A DOUBLE PASS DARKNESS ANOTHER PONT AN AWFUL GORGE. Almost every one longs, and many hope, to see the beautiful Vale of Kashmir. Probably no region of the earth is so well known to the eye of imagination, or so readily suggests the idea of a terrestrial Paradise. So far from having been disappointed with the reality, or having experienced any cause for wishing that I had left Kashmir unvisited, I can most sincerely say that the beautiful reality excels the somewhat vague poetic vision which has been associated with the name. But Kashmir is rather a difficult country to get at, especially when you come down upon it from behind, by way of Zanskar and Siiru. According to tradition, it was formerly the Garden of Eden ; and one is very well disposed to accept that theory when trying to get into it from the north or north-west. Most people go up to it from the plains of India by one of the four authorised routes ; but I have a habit of getting into places by some quite unusual way, and did so in this instance. 352 THE ABODE OF SNOW. From Siini to Kartse and Sankii, a day's journey, the road was not bad, except at one place, where I had to ride high up the mountains in order to find a path possible for ponies; and at another where the path was so narrow, running athwart precipices and nearly pre- cipitous slopes of shingle, that a man whom I met lead- ing his pony along it, had to take his steed back for more than a mile before the two ponies could pass each other. At Sankii there was a fine grove of trees for a camping-ground, giving promise of a more genial clime, though there was snow lying under the trees ; and the way from Sankii to Omba, up the valley of the Nakpo Chu, was tolerably easy; but after leav- ing Omba I did come upon some places which were " a little difficult to get over." Unfortunately I had no proper map of that part of the country; and, starting early from Sankii, we reached the mountain village of Omba at half-past ten in the morning. That seemed rather a short day's journey, so I asked one of the coolies, who spoke a little Hin- diisthani, how far it was from Omba to Dras, and he said it was the same distance as we had come from Sankii to Omba, and farther illustrated his meaning by grasping my alpenstock by the middle, and indicating the two halfs of it as illustrations of the equal length of the two .distances. When I afterwards. reproached this man for the difficulty into which he had led us, he answered, with true Kashmirian effrontery, that he had said nothing of the kind ; that it was a Draswallah, a fellow from Dras, who, he alleged, had passed at the time, that had said so. But no one objected to our going on, and all the bigarris showed a remarkable alacrity in starting. What on earth their motive was THE OMBA PASS. 353 I cannot say positively. Perhaps they really wished to get on to Dras that day, from fear of being cut off from their homes by a fall of snow ; but it is more pro- bable that they were afraid of going there, and pro- posed to give me the slip among the mountains ; for about this time the envoy of the Yarkand ruler was expected to be coming up the Dras valley on his return from a visit to Constantinople, and immense numbers of Kashmir coolies were being impressed in order to take his European purchases up to Leh. At all events there must have been some secret motive for their hurrying me into the injurious task of undertaking in one day what ought properly to have been a three days' journey. I was ignorant of the fact when among those mountains; but find now, that in 1822, Moorcroft went over the same road, and he took three days to it, though it was July, and he started from above Sanku, and on the third day did not reach Dras, but only the hamlet opposite it,, which I reached in one day from Sankti ; so it can be understood how tremendous was the day's journey, and how great the mistake into which I was led. So we started from Omba, and began to ascend a hill. I do not say " a hill " sarcastically, because had I seen, soon after starting, what a mountain this hill was, I should immediately have turned back and camped at Omba ; but, though immense mountains rose before us, they did so in such a manner as to make it appear likely that a low pass ran between them. It was not until we had laboured up steadily for about a couple of hours that the horrible truth began to dawn upon my mind that there was no pass, and that it was up the face of one of those gigantic z 354 THE ABODE OF SNOW. mountains that we were now going by a corkscrew path. There really appeared to be no end either of the path or of the mountain, and we soon got involved in large patches of snow, though this was the south side of " the pass." It was like going up, not to Kash- mir, but to heaven ; and I should even then have re- turned to Omba but for the consideration' that the bigdrris were from Sanku, and that it might be diffi- cult to supply their places or to get them to go on next day. Meanwhile they began to show symptoms of distress, and two or three attempted to leave their luggage and bolt. One man nearly effected his escape by getting leave to go down a little way to a snow rivulet to drink. Whenever he got there he took to his heels down the pass, but was cut off and forced to come back by one of my servants who had fallen behind and was coming up on horseback. However, I ignorantly thought that if we got to the top of this tremendous Omba La, or Omba Pass (which was as steep, and nearly as high, as the Kung-ma, which leads from Namgea over into Chinese Tibet), it would be all right ; and so I encouraged the bigdrris to labour upwards. There was deep snow at the summit; and looking down the northern side, an immense sheet of snow was seen stretching down into a desolate valley, and broken only by the track of a party of Baltis we met at the summit. One of these was crying bitterly, and on inquiring into the cause, I found he had been struck with snow-blindness by the reflection of the sun. I had scarcely time to look round, and the dazzling whiteness was too much for my eyes, even when protected by blue glass; but Moorcroffc says that when he crossed it, and when THE OMBA PASS. 355 there must have been much less snow, " the view from the crest presented a majestic line of snow-covered mountain-tops, very little above the level of the pass, extending round a circle of at least twenty miles in diameter. The uniformity of the ridges was very remarkable ; for although broken with peak and gorge, yet there were no single mountains or mountain-chains that towered ambitiously above their fellows." This pass, I learn, is probably about 14,500 feet high ; for the Trigonometrical Survey have measured a station just above it and two miles to the west, which is 15,291 feet, and the craggy Dandal Peak which rises above the pass is 17,762 feet. It took us a long time to get down that snow-slope, and for riders it was rather ticklish work. On reach- ing the desolate valley, where there were only a few stunted bushes, I thought it high time to refresh the inner man, fancying we had only to go down this valley a little way to come upon Dras and human habitations - ; but I had only taken a few mouthfuls when I learned that it led nowhere, that it had no human habitations, and that, in order to reach Dras, we should have to cross another snowy range, possibly higher than the one we had just got over with so much difficulty. The effect upon me of this piece of infor- mation was precisely like that of a hot potato. On inquiry, I found that the score of coolies had little more than a pound of flour among them, and that my servants were in almost as bad a predicament. I had told the latter always to be provided for such an emer- gency ; but they excused themselves on the ground that they had supposed we had got out of the high mountains. I myself could have camped with perfect 356 THE ABODE OF SNOW. comfort, having plenty of provisions and clothing ; but the coolies had no sufficient means of protecting them- selves from the cold, besides being destitute of pro- visions. The situation was an extremely difficult one, because by this time it was past three o'clock ; the sun .was completely shaded off the valley by the mountains around ; an intense cold began to make us all shiver ; and to attempt a snowy pass at that hour in the after- noon, after having been almost continuously travelling from before seven in the morning, was a distasteful and exceedingly hazardous thing to do. On the other hand, it occurred to me very forcibly that if I did camp there I should find in the morning that all the coolies had disappeared. It could hardly be supposed that they had led me into this position merely for the pleasure of doing three days' journey in one, or of themselves spending a night -unprotected from the cold and with empty stomachs, in the Twajeh valley. The most rational supposition was that they wanted to give me the slip, and so I determined to proceed at all risks. It was most fortunate I did so, because next day a tremendous snowstorm fell over these mountains. If we had remained in this elevated valley all night, we certainly could not have got over to Dras the next day, or for several days, and it is almost as certain that we could not have got back to Omba. The most of the party must have perished; and hence I really was indebted to the imaginary Draswallah; though, from the exposure of that evening, I suffered for months. But having determined to proceed, it was absolutely necessary to secure that the- bearers of my baggage should do so likewise. Fortunately all my servants THE OMBA PASS. 357 "were mounted, so I broke up our party into three di- visions, in order that the coolies might more easily be kept in hand. I sent on my most valuable articles in front, carried by coolies under charge of the violent Chota Khan, and a sowar, or trooper, who had been sent with me by the Thanadar of Surii. Keeping the sharp boy Nurdass with me, I took the most refractory of the men under my own charge, and made Phuley- ram and Silas with his gun look after a small section in the rear. My servants saw as well as I did the necessity for the most decided action, and we soon reached the foot of the second range. Here the man who had before nearly succeeded in running away gave me some trouble by making a similar attempt, and afterwards by lying down and refusing to budge an inch further, so I had to show him that such con- duct might involve worse evils than those of going on. I was not at all afraid of their running away once I got them well over the summit of this infernal second snowy range, because from that point they could hardly have reached Omba on empty stomachs ; so my great anxiety was to get them over the brow of the range before dark, so long as there was light enough for us to keep them in hand. By various kinds of en- couragement I managed- to push them up that lofty mountain at really an astonishing rate, considering the ground they had got over that day ; and when I saw men flagging really from want of strength, I made them hold on by our horses' tails, which, in making an ascent, is very nearly as good as riding on the animal itself. The sun had disappeared, and the light on the snow we were crossing had become pale, when I got my 358 THE ABODE OF SNOW. party up to the summit of this great mountain-ridge. But instead of a descent to Dras, I saw before me, with dismay, a large valley of snow, athwart which ran the tracks of Chota Khan's party, rising up into a higher mountain -range beyond. It was, in fact, a sort of double pass we were on ; and though the descent between the two ridges was not great, yet it was suffi- ciently formidable, and the distance between them was enough to alarm one in the circumstances. How weird that scene was in the grey fading light ! The cold made me shiver to the bone ; but there was something in the scene also to make one shiver, so cold-looking was it, so death-like. A crescent moon gleamed in the sky with exceeding brightness, and the whole disc of the moon was distinctly visible ; but its light was insufficient to dispel the darkness which seemed to be creeping up from the valley over the wastes of snow. We had quite sufficient light, however, to take us over the second summit of the pass ; but I suffered much from the cold, being insufficiently clad, having had no expectation whatever of being up nearly 15,000 feet at such an hour. It was with a feeling of great relief that I learned that we had now only to descend, and had no more snowy ridges to surmount on our terrible w T ay to Dras. But how to descend ? That was the question which immediately forced itself upon me. I was inclined to stick to the pony so long as I did not find it upon the top of me ; and fortunately it was a wonderful steed, equalled only by that of the Shigri valley ; but by this time the night had become dark, the crescent moon was disappearing behind the mountains, and there were long slopes of snow to be traversed. Here the THE OMBA PASS. 359 pony absolutely refused to move a step without my allowing it to put its nose down close to the snow ; and though, when it was in such an attitude on a steep slope, there was considerable difficulty in keeping on its back, I found it could be trusted to go down safely in that way ; and carry me down it did, until we got into a deep and excessively dark gorge, where it was impossible to ride. It was so dark here that we could hardly see a step before us, and I scrambled through in a manner that I could hardly have believed possible. Our way lay along the bed of a stream full of great stones, over which we often fell. Then we would break through ice into pools of ice-cold water, and come to falls where we had to let one man down and descend upon his shoulders. The pony meanwhile followed us, obedient to the voice of its owner ; and it seemed to have more power of finding its way than we possessed; for it got round descents which it could hardly have jumped, and which we could find no way of avoiding. After that frightful passage we came on more gentle and easy descents ; but it was with intense relief that I saw the flames of a large fire of thorn-bushes which Chota Khan and the sowar had kindled for our guid- ance at a hamlet opposite to Dras, on our side of the river. We gladly turned our steps in that direction, and stayed there for the night, the men of the hamlet assisting in setting up my tent. It was past ten before I reached this place, so that we had been above fifteen hours almost continuously travelling. The party un- der Silas came in soon ; but he himself did not turn up for nearly an hour, and when he arrived he was in a very excited state. After dark he got separated 360 THE ABODE OF SNOW. from his party, and came down that awful gorge in company with one old coolie, of whose language he understood only the single word bdM, or " bear ; " and no doubt there were likely enough to be bears about. This was clearly not treatment such as a Bombay butler had a right to expect ; but a little cocoa had a bene- ficial effect upon him : and whenever my tent was set up I went to sleep in spite of the wind, which now began to blow violently, accompanied by rain — and was so worn out that I did not rise, or almost awake, till one o'clock next day. THE ZOJI PASS AND SIND VALLEY. 361 CHAPTER XXXIX. THE ZOJI PASS AND SIND VALLEY. DRAS THE SOURCE OP SNOW MATAAN THE WUZEEr's WUZEER ADMINISTERING THE STICK THE TARKAND ENVOY'S RETINUE THE ZOJI LA CURIOUS ROAD BALTAL BEAUTY OP THE PANJTARNE VALLEY DEMON LOVERS THE SIND VALLEY SPLENDID TREES REACH SRINAGAR. The morning was wet and windy ; thick clouds cov- ered the mountains which we had descended, and, as they lifted occasionally, I saw that heavy snow had fallen. In such weather, and being in a fatigued con- dition, it was quite sufficient to move from our exposed camp only two miles, to the Thana of Dras, where there was the shelter of trees and of walls. The Thanadar there spoke of the snow being forty feet deep in winter, though the height is little over 10,000 feet, and he seemed a highly respectable old officer. His quarters are detached some way from the large fort where the most of his troops are stationed ; and I suppose these latter are not much needed now, unless for purposes of oppression. Dras is a dependency of Kashmir, being one of the provinces which have been added to it by Mohammedan force and Hindu fraud, which do not fail, in the long-run, to break the shield 362 THE ABODE OP SNOW. of the mountaineers. This valley is sometimes called Himbab, or the " Source of Snow," — which must be a very suitable name for it, if that prodigious story about the forty feet of snow be true. There remains, however, another pass to be crossed before we get into the valleys of even Upper Kashmir. A very cold and wet day's journey took us up the Dras river to the miserable hamlet of Mataan, where, before getting out of my tent next morning, I learned that the Yarkand envoy could not be far off. I heard a loud voice crying out, Caffi banao, cha banao — " Make coffee, make tea," — followed by whack, whack, as the blows of a. stick descended upon a man's back. This turned out to be the Wuzeer's Wuzeer, or the envoy's avant-courier, who was pushing on ahead of his patron, and preparing the way. Like many gentle- men's gentlemen, he was extremely indignant at the comforts of life not being ready for him. I do not believe that this miserable hamlet of Mataan could have turned out a cup of tea or coffee to save the lives of all its inhabitants ; and it seemed to me that the Wuzeer ? s Wuzeer administered the stick to the entire population of that unhappy village. When I came out of my tent, I had a momentary glimpse of a little man in something like a red dressing-gown, dancing furiously round a very big man, and hitting him with a long stick; but, on my appearance, he suddenly retired into his duli. After that, on the six marches down to Srinagar, I never found myself clear of the retinue of the Yarkand envoy : for the whole road down was covered with men carrying his things ; and tents, guarded by Kashmir soldiers, had been pitched for him at various places. THE ZOJI PASS AND SIND VALLEY. 363 There were said to be 3000 coolies employed in carry- ing up himself and the effects he had purchased in Eu- rope. I cannot say as to the exact number ; but really there seemed to be no end of them, and they came from all parts of Kashmir. They were to be met with at almost every turning, and in very various positions. At one moment I would find half-a-dozen of them rest- ing to groan under the weight of a 24-pounder gun, wrapped in straw, while a sepoy of the Kashmir Maha- raja threatened them with his stick, or even with his sword; half an hour after another party of them were pul- ling down walnuts from some grand old tree, while some grand-looking old dame (for the Kashmir women who survive to old age have an aristocratic appearance, which would attract attention in the Courts of Europe) was looking on the spoliation of her property, or on that of her grandchild, now with a melancholy dignity, which might have become the tragic muse, and anon with shrieks and imprecations which might have excited the envy of a mcenad. Again, I would come across three or four hundred of them at sundown, kneeling down at prayer, with their faces turned towards what was supposed to be the direction of Mecca, but which really was more in the direction of the North Pole star than of anything else. At another time a party of them would halt as I came by, support their burdens on the short poles which they carried for that purpose, and some Hindusthani spokesman among them would say to me : " protector of the poor ! " (Gurib Parwdr pronounced Guripur), "you have been up among these snowy mountains — shall we ever see our house-roofs again ? " They all had the same story as to their monetary position. Each man had got five rupees (I 364 THE ABODE OF SNOW. do not know whether small chilki, Kashmir rupees, or British, but should fancy the former) in order to pur- chase rice for the journey ; but their further expecta- tions on the subject of pay were of the most despond- ing kind, and the only anxiety they showed was, not as to how they were to get back again, but as to whether it would be at all possible for them ever to get back again. I must have missed the Yarkand envoy himself about Ganderbahl, a day's march from Srinagar ; but shortly before getting to Ganderbahl I came across three of his retinue, who puzzled me a little. It was very wet and very muddy, when I suddenly came across three riders in black European waterproofs, one of whom 'said to me — " Bones sore, Mushii ? " After being for months up in the Himalaya, one is unaccustomed to being ac- costed in a European language ; and the matter was complicated by the fact that my bones were sore at the time, and most confoundedly so, from the combined effect of that evening on the Omba La and of a fall. Hence it was that I had fairly passed the three curious riders before it at all occurred to my mind that the salutation was " Bon soir, Monsieur." They were doubtless Frenchified Turks, whom the envoy had brought from Constantinople ; but they had scarcely any ground to expect that their peculiar French would be recognised, on the moment, in one of the upper valleys of Kashmir. But I have not quite yet got into even the outskirts of the Garden of Eden. The Zoji La had to be crossed ; and though it is a very easy pass, and set down by the Trigonometrical Survey as only 11,300 feet high, one cannot calculate beforehand on what state a pass may happen to be. At Srinagar I heard, on what seemed THE ZOJI PASS AND SIND VALLEY. 365 to be good authority, that the Trigonometrical Survey had fallen into an error here, and made this pass about 1000 feet lower than it is; but such, I learn, has not been the case ; for I find that, though the Zoji La has not been determined trigonometrically, it has been re- peatedly measured in other ways. The idea that an error had been made was due to an observation taken on a spur higher than the actual pass. The Zoji La is a very remarkable depression in the Himalayan range, and no other such depression exists all the way from Nangha Parbat and the bend of the Indus to the most easterly part of Bhotan. Still, though the Zoji Pass is almost child's-play to the traveller from Zanskar and the Omba La, and it seemed to me nothing after what I had gone through, yet it must have a formidable appearance to travel- lers coming upon it from below, judging from the fol- lowing description of it by Dr . Henderson, the orni- thologist of the first of Sir Thomas Forsyth's missions to Yarkand :— " The road we had ascended was in many places rather trying to the nerves, being very steep, and sometimes consisting merely of a platform of brushwood attached to the face of the precipice. This road, owing to its steepness, is quite impassable for baggage animals after a fall of snow, and it is then necessary to wait at Baltal until the snow has melted, or to follow the stream up a very narrow rocky gorge, with precipices of from 500 to 1000 feet on either side. This gorge, however, is only practicable when filled up by snow to about fifty feet in depth, as it usually is early in the season : it is then the usual route ; and at that season, in order to avoid the avalanches, it is necessary to start at night 366 THE ABODE OF SNOW. and get over the pass before sunrise. Avalanches do not fall until late in the day, after the sun begins to melt the snow."* I do not think the road has been improved since Dr Henderson passed over it ; and now that I think of it, I remember that there was something like the brush- wood platforms of which he speaks. The great interest of the Zoji La is that it leads sud- denly down upon the beautiful wooded scenery of Kash- mir. After months of the sterile, almost treeless Tib- etan provinces, the contrast was very striking, and I could not but revel in the beauty and glory of the vegetation ; but even to one who had come up. upon it from below, the scene would have been very striking. There was a large and lively encampment at the foot of the pass, with tents prepared for the Yarkand envoy, and a number of Kashmir officers and soldiers ; but I pushed on beyond that, and camped in solitude close to the Sind river, just beneath the Panjtarne valley, which leads up towards the caves of Ambarnath, a celebrated place for Hindu" pilgrimage. This place is called Bal- tal, but it has no human habitations. Smooth green meadows, carpet-like and embroidered with flowers, ex- tended to the silvery stream, above which there was the most varied luxuriance of foliage, the lower moun- tains being most richly clothed with woods of many and beautiful colours. It was late autumn, and the trees were in their greatest variety of colour; but hardly a leaf seemed to have fallen. The dark green of the pines contrasted beautifully with the delicate orange of the birches, because there were intermingling tints of brown and saffron. Great masses of foliage * ' Lahore to Yarkand :' London, 1873. THE ZOJI PASS AND SIND VALLEY. 367 were succeeded by solitary pines, which had found a footing high up the precipitous crags. And all this was combined with peaks and slopes of pure white snow. Aiguilles of dark rock rose out of beds of snow, but their faces were powdered with the same element. Glaciers and long beds of snow ran down the valleys, and the upper vegetation had snow for its bed. The effect of sunset upon this scene was wonderful ; for the colours it displayed were both heightened and more harmoniously blended. The golden light of eve brought out the warm tints of the forest ; but the glow of the reddish-brown precipices, and the rosy light upon the snowy slopes and peaks, were too soon succeeded by the cold grey of evening. At first, however, the wondrous scene was still visible in a quarter-moon's silvery Ught, in which the Panj- tarne valley was in truth " A wild romantic chasm that slanted Down the sweet hill athwart a cedarn cover — A savage place, as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath the waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon lover." The demon lovers to be met with in that wild valley are bears, which are in abundance ; and a more de- lightful place for a hunter to spend a month in could hardly be invented ; but he would have to depend on his rifle for supplies, or have them sent up from many miles down the Sind valley. The remainder of my journey down this latter valley to the great valley or small plain of Kashmir was de- lightful. A good deal of rain fell, but that made one appreciate the great trees all the more, for the rain was not continuous, and was mingled with sunshine. 368 THE ABODE OF SNOW. At times, during the season when I saw it, this " inland depth " is " roaring like the sea ; " " WMle trees, dim-seen, in frenzied numbers tear The lingering remnant of their yellow hair ; " but soon after it is bathed in perfect peace and mellow sunlight. The air was soft and balmy; but, at this transfer from September to October, it was agreeably cool even to a traveller from the abodes and sources of snow. As we descended, the pine-forests were con- fined to the mountain -slopes ; but the lofty deodar began to appear in the valley, as afterwards the plane, the elm, and the horse-chestnut. Bound the pictur- esque villages, and even forming considerable woods, there were fruit-trees — as the walnut, the chestnut, the peach, the apricot, the apple, and the pear. Large quantities of timber (said to be cut recklessly) was in course of being floated down the river ; and where the path led across it there were curious wooden bridges for which it was not necessary to dismount. This Sind valley is about sixty miles long, and varies in breadth from a few hundred yards to about a mile, except at its base, where it opens out considerably. It is considered to afford the best idea of the mingled beauty and grandeur of Kashmir scenery ; and when I passed through its appearance was greatly enhanced by the snow, which not only covered the mountain- tops, but also came down into the forests which clothed the mountain-sides. The path through it, being part of the great road from Kashmir to Central Asia, is kept in tolerable repair, and it is very rarely that the rider requires to dismount. Anything beyond a walking pace, however, is for the most part out of the question. THE ZOJI PASS AND SIND VALLEY. * 369 Montgomerie divides the journey from Srinagar to Baltal (where I camped below the Zoji La) into six marches, making in all sixty-seven miles ; and though two of these marches may be done in one day, yet if you are to travel easily and enjoy the scenery, one a-day is sufficient. The easiest double march is from Sonamarg to Gond, and I did it in a day with apparent ease on a very poor pony ; but the consequence is that I beat my brains in vain in order to recall what sort of place Gond was, no distinct recollection of it having been left on my mind, except of a grove of large trees and a roaring fire in front of my tent at night. Sonamarg struck me as a very pleasant place ; and I had there, in the person of a youthful captain from Abbotabad, the pleasure of meeting the first European I had seen since leaving Lahaul. We dined together, and I found he had come up from Srinagar to see Sonamarg, and he spoke with great enthusiasm of a view he had had, from another part of Kashmir, of the 26,000-feet mountain Nanga Parbat. Marg means a " meadow," and seems to be applied specially to ele- vated meadows ; sona stands for " golden : " and this place is a favourite resort, in the hot malarious months of July and August, both for the Europeans in Kash- mir, and for natives of rank. The village being com- posed of four houses and three outlying ones, cannot produce much in the way of either coolies or supplies. Its commercial ideas may be gathered from the fact that I was here asked seven rupees for a pound of tea which was nothing but the refuse of tea-chests mixed with all sorts of dirt. In the matter of coolies I was independent, for the bigarris who had taken my effects over the Zoji La were so afraid of being impressed for 2a 870 THE ABODE OF SNOW. the service of the Yarkand envoy, that they had en- treated me to engage them as far as Ganderbahl, near the capital, hoping that by the time they reached that place the fierce demand for coolies might have ceased. At Ganderbahl I was fairly in the great valley of Kashmir, and encamped under some enormous chundr or oriental plane trees ; the girth of one was so great that its trunk kept my little mountain-tent quite sheltered from the furious blasts. Truly — " There was a roaring in the wind all night, The rain fell heavily, and fell in floods ; " but that gigantic cMndr kept off both wind and rain wonderfully. Next day a small but convenient and quaint Kashmir boat took me up to Srinagar ; and it was delightful to glide up the backwaters of the Jhe- lam, which afforded a highway to the capital. It was the commencement and the promise of repose, which I very seriously needed, and in a beautiful land. THE VALLEY OF ROSES. 371 CHAPTER XL. THE VALLEY OF ROSES. KASHMIR AND SURROUNDING COUNTRIES CLIMATE — GENERAL CHAR- ACTERISTICS UNION OF SUMMER AND WINTER ENCIRCLING SNOWS WATERS VEGETATION SRINAGAR APPLE-TREE CANAL DAL OR CITY LAKE FLOATING ISLANDS — THE LOTUS — SHALI" MAR BAGH NISHAT BAGH THE EMPEROR JEHANGfR AND THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. At Srinagar, where I stayed for a fortnight, I was the guest of the Eesident, the amiable and accomplished Mr Le Poer Wynne, whose early death has disappointed many bright hopes. I had thus every opportunity of seeing all that could be seen about the capital, and of making myself acquainted with the state of affairs in Kashmir. I afterwards went up to Islamabad, Mar- tand, Achibal, Vernag, the Eozlu valley, and finally went out of Kashmir by way of the Manas and Wular Lakes, and the lower valley of the Jhelam, so that I saw the most interesting places in the country, and all the varieties of scenery which it affords. That country has been so often visited and described, that, with one or two exceptions, I shall only touch generally upon its characteristics. Kashmir doubtless owes some of its charm to the 372 THE ABODE OF SNOW. character of the regions in its neighbourhood. As compared with the burning plains of India, the sterile steppes of Tibet, and the savage mountains of the Himalaya and of Afghanistan, it presents an astonish- ing and beautiful contrast. After such scenes even a much more commonplace country might have afforded a good deal of the enthusiasm which this valley has excited in Eastern poetry, and even in common rumour; but beyond that it has characteristics which give it a distinct place among the most pleasing regions of the earth. I said to the Maharaja, or ruling Prince of Kashmir, that the most beautiful countries I had seen were England, Italy, Japan, and Kashmir ; and though he did not seem to like the remark much, probably from a fear that the beauty of the land he governed might make it too much an object of desire, yet there was no exaggeration in it. Here, at a height of nearly 6000 feet, in a temperate climate, with abundance of moisture, and yet protected by lofty mountains from the fierce continuous rains of the Indian south-west monsoon, we have the most splendid amphitheatre in the world. A flat oval valley about sixty miles long, and from forty in breadth, is surrounded by magnifi- cent mountains, which, during the greater part of the year, are covered more than half-way down with snow, and present vast upland beds of pure white snow. Kash- mir has fine lakes, is intersected with water-courses, and its land is covered with brilliant vegetation, in- cluding gigantic trees of the richest foliage. And out of this great central valley there rise innumerable, long, picturesque, mountain- valleys, such as that of the Sind river, which I have just described ; while above these there are great pine-forests, green slopes of grass, glaciers, THE VALLEY OP ROSES. 373 and snow. Nothing could express the general effect better than Moore's famous lines on sainted Lebanon — " Whose head in wintry grandeur towers, And whitens with eternal sleet ; While Summer, in a vale of flowers, Is sleeping rosy at his feet." The great encircling walls of rock and snow contrast grandly with the soft beauty of the scene beneath. The snows have a wonderful effect as we look up to them through the leafy branches of the immense chil- ndr, elm, and poplar trees. They flash gloriously in the morning sunlight above the pink mist of the valley- plain ; they have a rosy glow in the evening sunlight ; and when the sunlight has departed, but ere darkness shrouds them, they gleam, afar off, with a cold and spectral light, as if they belonged to a region where man had never trod. The deep black gorges in the mountains have a mysterious look. The sun lights up some softer grassy ravine or green slope, and then dis- plays splintered rocks rising in the wildest confusion. Often long lines of white clouds lie along the line of mountain-summits, while at other times every white peak and precipice-wall is distinctly marked against the deep-blue sky. The valley-plain is especially strik- ing in clear mornings and evenings, when it lies partly in golden sunlight, partly in the shadow of its great hills. The green mosaic of the level land is intersected by many streams, canals, and lakes, or beautiful reaches of river which look like small lakes. The lakes have float- ing islands composed of vegetation. Besides the im- mense cMndrs and elms, and the long lines of stately poplars, great part of the plain is a garden filled with fruits and flowers, and there is almost constant verdure. 374 THE ABODE OF SNOW. " There eternal summer dwells, And west winds, with musky wing, About the cedar'd alleys fling Nard and cassia's balmy smells." Srinagar, the capital of the country, has a very fine appearance when one does not look closely into its details. As the Kashmiri has been called the Nea- politan of the East, so his capital has been compared to Florence, and his great river to the Arno. But there is no European town which has such a fine placid sweep of river through it. The capital dates from 59 A.D., and portions of it might be set down to any conceivable date. For the most part the houses either rise up from the Jhelam or from the canals with which the city is intersected, and are chiefly of thin brick walls supported in wooden frames. Being often three storeys high, and in a most ruinous condition, the walls present anything but straight lines, and it is a marvel that many of the houses continue standing at all. Some of the canals present deliciously picturesque scenes, such as even Venice cannot boast of, and the view from any of the five bridges across the Jhelam is very striking ; but, as remarked, it is better to leave the interior unvisited beyond floating through the canals. The British Eesidency, and the bungalows provided free of charge for European visitors, are above the city, on the right bank of the river, which here presents a noble appearance, and in a splendid line of poplar-trees. A wooded island opposite them adds to the beauty of the scene. Almost every place about Srinagar that one wants to go to can be reached by boat, and the wearied traveller may enjoy a delicious repose. THE VALLEY OF ROSES. 375 There is one excursion from Srinagar, which can easily be made in a day by boat, that is specially worthy of notice, and it takes through canals and through the apple-tree garden into the Dal or City Lake, and to two of the gardens and summer-houses of the Mogul Emperors. I write of the Vafley of Eoses on the shore of Ulleswater, the grandest and not the least beautiful of the English lakes : the mountains and sky are reflected with perfect distinctness in the deep unruffled water, and the renewed power of the earth is running up through the trees, and breaking out into a dim mist of buds and tiny leaves ; but ex- quisite as the scene before me is, its beauty cannot dim or equal my remembrance of the lakes of Kashmir, though even to these the English scenery is superior as regards the quality, to use a phrase of Wordsworth's, of being " graduated by nature into soothing har- mony." The Dal is connected with the Jhelam by the Sont- i-Kol or Apple-tree Canal, which presents one of the finest combinations of wood and water in the world. The scene is English in character ; but I do not know of any river-scene in England which is equal to it — so calm is the water, so thickly is the stream covered with tame aquatic birds of very varied plumage, so abun- dant the fish, so magnificent, as well as beautiful, the trees which rise from its lotus-fringed, smooth, green banks. An Afghan conqueror of Kashmir proposed to cover this piece of water with a trellis- work of vines, supported from the trees on the one side to those on the other ; but that would have shut out the view of the high, wild mountains which heighten, by their contrast, the beauty and peacefulness of the scene 376 THE ABODE OF SNOW. below. Many of the trees, and a whole line of them on one side, are enormous planes (Platanus orien- tfalis), mountains of trees, and yet beautiful in shape and colour, with their vast masses of foliage reflected in the calm, clear water. From thence we pass into the Dal, a lake about five miles long, with half the distance in breadth, one side being bounded by great trees, or fading into a reedy waste, and the other encircled by lofty mountains. The most curious feature of this lake is the floating gardens upon the surface of its transparent water. The reeds, sedges, water-lilies, and other aquatic plants which grow together in tangled confusion, are, when they cluster together more thickly than usual, detached from their roots. The leaves of the plants are then spread out over the stems and covered with soil, on which melons and cucumbers are grown. These floating islands form a curious and picturesque feature in the landscape, and their economical uses are considerable. Moorcroft mentions having seen vines upon them and has supplied the detailed information regarding them which has' been made use of by suc- ceeding travellers and statisticians. "A more econo- mical method of raising cucumbers cannot be devised," — and, he might have added, of melons also. Ac- cording to Cowper, — " No sordid fare, A cucumber ! " But, thanks to these floating gardens, you don't require to ruin yourself in order to eat cucumbers in Kashmir ; and the melons are as good as they are cheap, and must have valuable properties ; for Captain Bates says, " those who live entirely on them soon become fat," THE VALLEY OE ROSES. 377 which probably arises from the sugar they contain. Usually, in the fruit season, two or three watchers re- main all night in a boat attached to these islands, in order to protect them from water-thieves. On the Dal I came across several boatmen fishing up the root of the lotus with iron hooks attached to long poles. This yellow root is not unpalatable raw, but is usually eaten boiled, along with condiments. Southey's lines, though strictly applicable only to the red-flowering lotus, yet suggest a fair idea of the lotus- leaves on this Kashmir lake, as they are moved by the wind or the undulations of the water. " Around the lotus stem It rippled, and the sacred flowers, that crown The lakelet with their roseate beauty, ride In gentlest waving, rocked from side to side. And as the wind upheaves Their broad and buoyant weight, the glossy leaves Flap on the twinkling waters up and down." Still more useful for the people of Kashmir, as an article of diet, is the horned water-nut {Traba bispin- osa), which is ground into flour and made into bread. No less than 60,000 tons of it are said to be taken from the Wiilar Lake alone every season, or sufficient to supply about 13,000 people with food for the entire year. These nuts are to be distinguished from the nuts, or rather beans, of the lotus (Nelumbium speciosum), which are also used as an article of food, and prized as a delicacy. These, with the lotus-roots, and the im- mense quantity of fish, provide abundance of food for a much larger population than is to be found in the neighbourhood of the Kashmir lakes ; but of what avail is such bounty of Providence and all the land 378 THE ABODE OF SNOW. lying round, -when the first conditions of human pro- sperity are wanting 1 Passing the Silver Island and the Island of Chunars, I went up to the Shalimar Bagh, or Garden of Delight, a garden and pleasure-house, the work of the Emperor Jehangfr and of his spouse Niir Jahan ; but fine as this place is, I preferred the Nishat Bagh, another garden of pleasure, which is more in a recess of the lake, and also was a retreat constructed by the same royal pair, and planned by the empress herself. This garden of pleasure is more picturesquely situated, though shaded by not less magnificent trees. The mountains rise up close behind it, and suggest a safe retreat both from the dangers and the cares of state ; and its view of the lake, including the Sona Lank, or Golden Island, is more suggestive of seclusion and quiet enjoyment. Ten terraces, bounded by magnificent trees, and with a stream of water falling over them, lead up to the lat- ticed pavilion at the end of this garden. Between the double storeys of this pavilion the stream flows through a marble, or, at least, a limestone tank, and the struc- ture is shaded by great chundr trees, while, through a vista of their splendid foliage, we look down the ter- races and water-courses upon the lake below. This was, and still is, a fitting place in which a great, luxu- rious, pleasure-loving emperor might find repose, and gather strength for the more serious duties of power. Jehangfr was a strange but intelligible character. One historian briefly says of him — " Himself a drunk- ard during his whole life, he punished all who used wine." And after the unsuccessful rebellion of his son Khusrii, he made that prince pass along a line of 700 of his friends who had assisted him in rebelling. These THE VALLEY OF ROSES. 379 friends were all seated upon spikes — in fact, they were impaled;- so we may see it was not without good reason that Jehangfr occasionally sought for secluded places of retirement. But these characteristics, taken alone, give an unfair idea of this great ruler. Though he never entirely shook off the dipsomaniac habits which he had formed at an early age, yet it may have been an acute sense of the inconvenience of them which made him so anxious to prevent any of his sub- jects from falling into the snare ; he hints an opinion that though his own head might stand liquor without much damage, it by no means followed that other people's heads could do so ; and the severe punishment of the adherents of a rebellious son was, in his time, almost necessary to secure the throne. Jehangfr did, in fact, love mercy as well as do justice, and was far from being a bad ruler. He was wont to say that he would rather lose all the rest of his empire than Kashmir ; * and it is likely that in this and sim- ilar gardens he enjoyed the most pleasure which his life afforded. His companion there was Mihrunnisa Khan am, better known as Nrir JaMn, "the Light of the World." t When a young prince he had seen and loved her, but they were separated by circumstances ; and it was not until after the death of her husband, Sher Af kan, and he had overcome her dread of marry- ing one whom she supposed to have been her husband's murderer, that Mihrunnisa became Jehangir's wife, and received the name of the Light of the World. A great * Voyages de Frangois Bernier, contenant la Description des Etats du Grand Mogol. Amsterdam, 1699. t She was also, for a time, called Nur Mahall, the Light of the Palace ; and under this name must be distinguished from the queen of Jehangir's son Shah Jahan, to whom was raised the wonderful Taj Mahal at Agra. 380 THE ABODE OP SNOW. improvement in the emperor's government resulted from this union. The story is a curious illustration of the abiding power of love, and it goes far to redeem the character of this dissipated emperor, who would allow nobody to get drunk except himself. I daresay, if the truth were known, the Light of the World must have had a sad time of it with her amorous lord ; but she was at least devoted to him, and seriously risked her life for him when the audacious Mahabat Khan unexpectedly made him a prisoner. The memory of these faithful lovers seems still to linger about the Nishat Bagh, and to have transferred itself into the imperial splendour of the plane-trees, the grateful shadow of the mountains, and the soft dreamy vista over the placid lake. KASHMIR PEOPLE AND AFFAIRS. 381 CHAPTER XLI. KASHMiR PEOPLE AND AFFAIRS. REGRETS IN KASHMfR UNFORTUNATE STATE OF THE PEOPLE THEIR BAD REPUTATION ILL-TREATMENT OF THEM KASHMIRI BEAUTIES SUSPICIOUS DEATHS LIEUTENANT THORPE DR ELMSLIE — MR HATWARD BOOKS ON KASHML3. It is a pity that so beautiful a country as Kashmir should not have a finer population. At the entrances of the valleys, looking at the forests, the rich unculti- vated lands, and the unused water-power, I could not but think of the scenes in England, " Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride, And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes glide.'' My mind reverted also to the flashing snows of the American Sierra Nevada, the dwarf oaks and rich fields of wheat, the chubby children, the comely, well-dressed women, and the strong stalwart men of California. For, though the chdlets were picturesque enough at a little distance, they could not bear a close examination ; and there was not much satisfaction to be had in con- templating the half-starved, half-naked children, and the thin, worn-out-looking women. One could not help thinking of the comfortable homes which an Anglo- Saxon population would rear in such a land. It may 382 THE ABODE OF SNOW. be seen from my map, what an enormous extent of ter- ritory is under the sway of the Maharaja of Kashmir ; and though much of it is mountainous and sterile, a great part which might be fertile is lying waste. Many hundred years ago the Chinese traveller Fa- Hian spoke of the people of Kashmir as being of a peculiarly bad character. Eanjit Singh said to Sir Alexander Burnes, " All the people I send into Kash- mir turn out rascals (haramzada) ; there is too much pleasure and enjoyment in that country." Moorcroft described them as " selfish, superstitious, ignorant, supple, intriguing, dishonest, and false." A more recent traveller, Dr A. L. Adams the naturalist, says of them, " Everywhere in Cashmere you see the in- habitants indolent to a degree, filthy in their habits, mean, cowardly, shabby, irresolute, and indifferent to all ideas of reform or progress." Their name has be- come a by-word throughout a great part of Asia. Even where there are so many deceitful nations they have obtained a bad pre-eminence. According to a well- known Persian saying, " you will never experience any- thing but sorrow and anxiety from the Kashmiri." When these people got this bad name is lost in anti- quity, and so is the period when they first passed into the unfortunate circumstances which have demoralised them. They are, however, not unattractive, being an intellectual people, and characterised by great ingen- uity and sprightliness. I cannot deny the truth of the accusations brought against them, yet I could not but pity them, and sym- pathise with them. I think also that they have the elements of what, in more fortunate circumstances, might be a very fine character ; but dwelling in a fer- KASHMIR PEOPLE AND APE AIRS. 383 tile and beautiful valley, surrounded by hardy and warlike tribes, they have for ages been subject to that oppression which destroys national hope and virtue. Their population has hardly been large enough to afford effectual resistance to the opposing forces, though, unless there had been a large element of weakness in their character, they might surely have held their passes ; and, at the same time, they were too many in numbers to retire, for a time, before invaders, from their fertile lands into their mountain fastnesses. As it is, they are abominably used and they use each other abominably. It seemed to me that every common soldier of the Maharaja of Kashmir felt himself en- titled to beat and plunder the country people ; but I noticed that my boatmen tried to do the same when they thought they were unobserved by me. The Ma- haraja himself holds an open court on one day every week, at which the meanest peasant is nominally free to make his complaint, even if it be against the highest officials; but I was told, by very good authority, that this source of redress was practically inoperative, not because the Maharaja was unwilling to do justice, but because there was such a system of terrorism that the common people dared not come forward to complain. Great improvements have already been made under the present ruler of Kashmir ; but he is one man among many, and when a corrupt and oppressive officialdom has existed in a country for ages, it cannot be rooted out in one reign. The beauty of the Kashmir women has long been famous in the East, but if you want beautiful Kash- miri do not go to Kashmir to look for them. They have all fine eyes, and " the eyes of Kashmir " have 384 THE ABODE OF SNOW. been justly celebrated in Eastern poetry ; but that is almost the only feminine attraction to be found in the country even among the dancing-girls and the boat- girls. As to the ordinary women, there is too much sad truth in Victor Jacquemont's outburst against them — " Know that I have never seen anywhere such hideous witches as in Kashmir. [He had not been in Tibet !] The female race is remarkably ugly. I speak of women of the common ranks — those one sees in the streets and fields — since those of a more elevated station pass all their lives shut up, and are never seen. It is true that all little girls who promise to turn out pretty are sold at eight years of age, and carried off into the Panjab aud India." I am afraid a good deal of that traffic still goes on, notwithstanding the law which forbids women and mares to be taken out of the country ; and as it has gone on for generations, it is easily explicable how the women of Kashmir should be so ugly. A continuous process of eliminating the pretty girls and leaving the ugly ones to continue the race, must lower the standard of beauty. But the want of good condition strikes one more painfully in this valley than the want of beauty. The aquiline noses, long chins, and long faces of the women of Kashmir, would allow only of a peculiar and rather Jewish style of beauty ; but even that is not brought out well by the state of their physique ; and I don't suppose the most beautiful woman in the world would show to advantage if she were imperfectly washed and dressed in the ordinary feminine attire of Kashmir — a dirty whitish cotton night-gown. It is unfortunate for the reputation of Kashmir that a sudden death, not entirely free from suspicious cir- I I I I I KASHMIR PEOPLE AND AEFAI14S. 385 cumstances, should have befallen three ( of our cdUntry- men who had distinguished themselves by exposing the abuses existing in the country ; and it is at Jeast re- markable that suspicion on the subject should "have been roused by the Kashmiris themselves — that is to say, by reports generally current in Srinagar. I allude to Lieutenant Thorpe, Dr Elmslie, and Mr Hayward. The first of these gentlemen had published a pam- phlet entitled " Kashmir Misgovernment ; " and in No- vember 1868, when almost all visitors except himself had left Kashmir for the season, he expired suddenly at Srinagar, after having walked up the Takht-i-Suliman, a hill which rises close to the city to the height of a thousand feet. Naturally the supposition was that he had been poisoned ; but Surgeon Caley, who happened to be on his way down from Ladak, examined the body shortly after death, and reported that there had been "rupture of the heart." Dr Elmslie was a devoted medical missionary, who did an immense deal of good in Kashmir, and had published a valuable vocabulary of the Kashmiri language ; but he had also published letters complaining of the carelessness of the Govern- ment in regard to a visitation of cholera which had carried off large numbers of the people, and pointing out that sanitary measures might save the lives of thousands every year from smallpox and other diseases. The Srinagar rumour was that his servants had been offered so much to poison him within the Kashmir territory, and so much more if they would do so after he got beyond. Unfortunately Dr Elmslie also died rather suddenly shortly after he had got beyond the Kash- mir borders, and, it seems, also of heart disease. Mr Hayward had published letters in the Indian papers 2 B 386 THE ABODE OF SNOW. complaining of the conduct of the Maharaja's troops in Gilgit, and on the borders of Yassin, and he somewhat injudiciously returned to that part of the world. But I do not attach any importance to the gossip of Eastern cities — or of any cities, for that matter; and there has appeared no ground to suppose that his death was planned by Kashmir officials ; but what befell him was very sad. He was on his way to the Pamir Steppe, and somewhere about Yassin was in the territory of a chief who camped two hundred armed men in a wood near his tent. The next day's journey would have taken Hayward beyond this chiefs border ; and, sus- pecting mischief, he sat up all night writing with re- volver in hand. Unfortunately, however, in the grey of the morning, he lay down to take half-an-hour's sleep before starting; and the chief with his people came down on him then, overpowered him, tied his hands behind his back, and took him into the wood. Here, seeing preparations made for putting him to death, the unfortunate traveller offered a ransom for his life ; but his captors would not hear of it. They made him kneel down, and, while he was offering up a prayer, they hacked off his head after the half-hacking half-saw- ing way they have of killing sheep in the Himalaya. How this story was gathered has been told in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, and toler- ably correct accounts of such incidents get abroad in even the wildest parts of the East. The moral of it is that one ought to avoid Yassin rather than that it is dangerous to abuse the Kashmir Government ; but it is no wonder that the three cases just mentioned should have given rise to suspicions when we consider the character of the people, and the powerful motives which KASHMIR PEOPLE AND AFFAIRS. 387 the native officials have in preventing any outcry being raised against them. But even if it were the case that Englishmen in Kashmir come to be occasionally experimented, on we should only have ourselves to thank for it. Our posi- tion in that country is a very curious one, and reflects little credit upon the British name. By the Treaty of Amritsar, concluded in 1846 after the first Panjdb war, we actually sold the country to Golab Singh, the father of the present Maharaja, for seventy-five lacs of rupees, or rather less than three-quarters of a million sterling ; but so little welcome was he, that the first troops he sent up were driven out of the country, and he was en- abled to establish himself in it only by claiming the assistance of the Indian Government, and getting from it an order that the existing Governor was to yield obedience to the new sovereign, or to consider himself an enemy of the British Government. No doubt we wanted the money very much at the time, miserable sum as it was, and only double the revenue which Eanjit Singh drew in one year from Kashmir. It is possible, too, that there may have been some policy in thus making a friend of one of the chiefs of the Khalsa ; but the transaction was not an advisable one. Of all India and its adjacent countries Kashmir is the district best suited for Europeans, and it affords large room for English colonisation. It has now a population of about half a million ; but it had formerly one of four millions, and it could easily support that number. It has an immense amount of fertile land lying waste in all the valleys, and it would have been just the place for the retirement of Anglo-Indians at the close of their periods of service. As it is, Kashmir S88 THE ABODE OF SNOW. is practically closed to us except as a place of resort for a few summer visitors. Probably the visitors would be a good deal worse off than they are at present if it were under British rule ; but that is not a matter of much importance. The Maharaja acknowledges the supremacy of the British Government, and yet no Eng- lishman can settle in the country or purchase a foot of land in it. We are not even allowed to stay there through the winter ; for a recent relaxation of this rule has been much misunderstood, and simply amounts to a permission for British officers, who cannot get leave in summer, to visit Kashmir in winter. Visitors have to leave the country about the middle of October, and the Pan jab Government has issued very strict rules for their guidance while they are in the valley. After mentioning the four authorised routes for European visitors to Kashmir, the first rule goes on to say (the italics are its own) : " All other roads are positively forbidden ; and, in respect to the direct road from Jummoo (known as the Bunnihal route), the pro- hibition has been ordered at the special request of his Highness the Maharaja. The road branching from Kajaoree by Akuoor, which is used by the Maharaja's family and troops, is also expressly prohibited." Now this Jamu and Banihal route is by much the shortest and much the easiest route to Kashmir except for the small section of visitors who come from that part of the Panjab which lies to the west of the Jhelam ; and yet it is kept closed, at the Maharaja's special request, though another route is set apart for the movements between Srinagar and Jamu of his family and troops ! In fact, by this order, in order to get a tolerable route, the traveller has to cross great part of the Panjab and KASHMfjR PEOPLE AND AFFAIRS. 389 go up by Rawal Pindi and Marri, for neither the Pir Panjal nor the Piineh routes are convenient. In Rule II. we are told that every officer about to visit Kash- mir " should engage, before proceeding, a sufficient number of ponies or mules for the conveyance of his baggage ; " which is tantamount to saying that no one need put in a claim for getting any coolies, ponies, or mules, by the way. In Rule VI. they are told to en- camp only at the fixed stages and encamping-grounds. In Rule X. it is said that " when going out on shooting excursions, visitors are to take carriage and supplies with them." Rule XV. is amusing, considering the high moral tone of the British subaltern : " Officers are not allowed to take away with them, either in their service, or with their camps, any subjects of the Maha- raja, without obtaining permission and a passport from the authorities." I have heard of one visitor who tried to take away a Kashmiri damsel by putting her in a Jcilta, or wicker-basket used for carrying loads in, but the smuggling was detected. This rule does not pre- vent the bagnios all over India being filled with Kash- miri women ; and a regular slave-traffic goes on, most of the good-looking girls being taken out of Kashmir at an early age ; but, of course, the morals of the British officer must be looked after. He is also, by Rule XVI., made responsible for the debts incurred by his servants, which is rather hard, as most Indians make a rule of getting into debt up to the full amount of their credit. In Rule XVII., all visitors are told, in italics, " All presents to be refused. Presents of every description must be rigidly refused." This certainly is interfering in an extraordinary way with the liberty of the sub- ject ; but let the visitor beware how he violates any of 390 THE ABODE OP SNOW. these rules, because the Resident at Srinagar has the power of expelling him from the country. It is the Panjab, not the supreme Government, which is directly responsible for these extraordinary regula- tions ; and I daresay English people will be rather sur- prised by them. The Maharaja of Kashmir is called in them " an independent sovereign ; " but it is dis- tinctly stated in Article X. of the Treaty which gave him his dominions, that he " acknowledges the supre- macy of the British Government." Can the Panjab Government not understand that when the power of England guarantees the safety of the Maharaja and of his dominions, it is not for British officials to treat British visitors to Kashmir in so derogatory a manner, or to allow of their being turned out of the country every winter, and refused permission to purchase even waste land % This is only one of many subjects which may render it necessary to raise the questions, — In whose interest, on whose authority, and supported by what power, does Anglo-Indian officialdom exist % The im- perial interests of Great Britain have been too much lost sight of, and it is on these that the real, the vital interests of the people of India depend. There is now no difficulty in obtaining information in regard to Kashmir amply sufficient to guide the vis- itor. The older books on that country are well enough known, such as those of Bernier, Jacquemont, Moorcroft, Hiigel, and Vigne ; and it is curious how much infor- mation we owe to them, and how repeatedly that infor- mation has been produced by later writers, apparently without any attempt to verify it, or to correct it up "to date. Three books on Kashmir, however, which have KASHMIR PEOPLE AND AFFAIRS. 391 been published very recently, will be found of great use to the traveller of our day. First and foremost of these is ' A Vocabulary of the Kashmiri Language/ by the late lamented medical mis- sionary, Dr W. J. Elmslie, published by the Church Mis- sion House in London in 1872. It is a small volume, and gives the Kashmiri for a great number of English words, as well as the English for Kashmiri ones ; and he has managed to compress into it a large amount of valuable and accurate information in regard to the valley, its products and its inhabitants. To any one who has a talent for languages, or who has had a good deal of ex- perience in acquiring them, it will be found a very easy matter to learn to speak a little modern Kashmiri, which is nearly altogether a colloquial language ; and for this purpose Dr Elmslie's vocabularies — 1 the fruit of six labo- rious seasons spent in the country — will be found invalu- able. The acquisition of this language is also rendered easy by its relationship to those of India and Persia. The largest number of its words, or about 40 per cent, are said to be Persian ; Sanscrit gives 25 ; Hindu- sthani, 15 ; Arabic, 10; and the Turanian dialects of Central Asia, 15. The letters of ancient Kashmiri closely resemble those of Sanscrit, and are read only by a very few of the Hindii priests in Kashmir ; and it is from these that the Tibetan characters appear to have been taken. The second important work to which I allude has not been published at all, having been prepared "for poli- tical and military reference " for the use of the Govern- ment of India. It is ' A Gazetteer of Kashmir and the adjacent districts of Kishtwar, Badrawar, Jamii, Nao- 392 THE ABODE OF SNOW. shera, Punch, and the Valley of the Kishen Ganga, by Captain Ellison Bates, Bengal Staff Corps.' This volume was printed in 1873, and will be found very useful to those who can get hold of it. The principal places in the valley, and in the districts mentioned above, are enu- merated alphabetically and described ; and there are 150 pages in which routes are detailed in such a man- ner that the traveller will know what he has to expect upon them. In has also an introduction, which contains much information in regard to the country generally ; but a great deal of this has been taken from the older writers, and some of it does not appear to have been verified. In this respect Dr Elmslie's ' Kashmiri Voca- bulary ' affords more original information than Captain Bates's ' Gazetteer,' but the latter will be found a very valuable work of reference. The third volume I speak of is of a less learned de- scription, and is ' The Kashmir Handbook : a Guide for Visitors, with Map and Koutes. By John Ince, M.D., Bengal Medical Service ; ' and was published at Calcutta in 1872. This work is not free from errors, as notably in its rendering of the Persian inscriptions on the Takht-i-Siiliman, and it indiscriminately heaps to- gether a good deal of information from various sources : it is also very costly for its size, and the arrangement is not very good ; but, nevertheless, it is a useful guide- book. Armed with these three recently-published volumes, the visitor to Kashmir is supplied with all the informa- tion which an ordinary traveller requires in going through a strange country ; but their maps are not satisfactory, and he will do well to supply himself with the five mile to the inch sheets of the Trigonometrical Survey. The KASHMIR PEOPLE AND AFFAIRS. 393 antiquarian may consult Cunningham's ' Ancient Geo- graphy of India,' published in London in 1871, and Lieutenant Cole's ' Illustrations of Ancient Buildings in Kashmir.' For the sportsman there are Brinkman's ' Rifle in Kashmir,' and several other books, more or less of a light character. Bernier, the first of all the Euro- pean travellers in Kashmir since possibly Marco Polo, is exceedingly good ; Jacquemont's Letters are graphic and amusing, though full of insane vanity ; and Moor- croft gathered himself much more information regard- ing the country than almost any other traveller has done, for Elmslie may almost be regarded as having been a resident. 394 THE ABODE OP SNOW. CHAPTEE XLII. THE MAHARAJA AND THE RESIDENT. INTERVIEW WITH EANBIR SINGH — HIS FATHER A FISH — TRANSMIGRA- TION — the Maharaja's alleged misrule — his improvements — SERICULTURE — SHAWLS COL. GARDINER NIGHTS AT THE RESI- DENCY AN AFGHAN ABDIEL CHARACTER OF LE POER WYNNE — HIS EARLY DEATH THE ABHORRED SHEARS — THE TRUE CONSOLA- TION OF FAME. The Eesident at Srinagar procured me a private audi- ence of the Maharaja Ranbir or Eunbir Singh, which was given in a balcony, overhanging the river, of his city palace, within the precincts of which there is a temple with a large pagoda-like roof that is covered with thin plates of pure gold. His Highness is reputed to be somewhat serious and bigoted as regards his re- ligion. It was mentioned in the Indian papers a few years ago, that the Giirus having discovered that the soul of his father, Golab Singh, had migrated into the body of a fish, Eanbir Singh gave orders that no fish were to be killed in Kashmir, though fish is there one of the great staple articles of food among the poorer classes. The edict, however, was . calculated to cause so much distress, that the Giirus, after several years, announced that the paternal spirit had taken some other form. I never heard this story contra- THE MAHARAJA AND THE RESIDENT. 395 dieted ; and it affords a curious instance of the reality of the belief in transmigration which exists in India. As the character of these transmigrations, and the amount of suffering and enjoyment which they involve, is considered to depend on the good or evil conduct of preceding lives, and especially of those which are passed in a human form, such a belief would be calcu- lated to exercise an important influence for good, were it not for the sacrificial theory which attaches so much importance, as good works, to sacrifices to the gods, and to gifts to their priestly ministers ; and its bene- ficial effect is also lessened by the tendency of the Indian mind to assign an undue value to indiscrimi- nate acts of charity such as often do harm rather than good. It is curious to think of a Maharaja looking from his balcony beside his golden temple into the waters of the Jhelam, and wondering whether his royal father is one of the big or of the little fishes floating about in its stream or in some adjacent water. Some visitors to Kashmir have blamed its ruler severely for the condition of the country — as, for in- stance, Dr Adams, who says : " It is vain, however, to hope that there can be any progress under the present ruler, who, like his father, is bent on self-aggrandise- ment." * This, however, is entirely opposed to the substance of many conversations I had on the subject with Mr Wynne, who seemed to regard his Highness as one of the very few honest men there were in the country, sincerely anxious for the welfare of its inhabit- ants; and he mentioned to me various circumstances which supported that conclusion. "Without going be- * Wanderings of a Naturalist in India. By A. L. Adams, M.D. Edinburgh : 1867. P. 296. 396 THE ABODE OF SNOW. yond diplomatic reserve, i he said it was only to be hoped that the Maharaja's sons. would follow their father's example. I do not profess to see into a mill- stone farther than other people, but may say that the little I saw of this prince conveyed a superficial im- pression quite in accordance with Mr Wynne's opinion. He seemed an earnest, over-burdened man, seriously anxious to fulfil the duties of his high position, and heavily weighed down by them ; but it can easily be conceived how little he can do in a country which has been for time immemorial in so wretched a state, and how much reason he may have for wishing that he were expiating his shortcomings in the form of a fish. And it should not be forgotten that this prince was faithful to us, and in a very useful manner, at the time of the great Indian Mutiny ; for he sent six battalions of infantry, two squadrons of cavalry, and a battery of guns, to assist us at the siege of Delhi ; and, by this, considerable moral support was afforded at the moment to the British Eaj. I met, going down to the Jhelam, a Kashmir regiment which had been at the siege of Delhi, and the officer in command spoke with some pride, but by no means in a boasting or offensive way, of his having fought along with English troops. Among the improvements introduced by Eanbir Singh are those in the administration of justice and the manufacture of silk. The Chief-Justice of the Court of Srinagar is an educated native, I think from Bengal, who was well spoken of — and, absurdly enough, is in charge of the silk department also. He has been at pains to make himself acquainted with the breeding of silk-worms and the spinning of their cocoons, as pursued in other countries, and has turned THE MAHAEAJA AND THE RESIDENT. 397 this knowledge to good account in Srinagar. One pleasing and extraordinary innovation which he has been able to introduce is that of inducing children and others of the Brahman caste to engage in the spinning of silk. Anything like such an occupation has hitherto been considered as degrading, and forbidden to Brah- mans, and has not been entered on by those even in such advanced Indian cities as Calcutta and Bombay. It shows a curious way of managing matters that the Chief-Justice of Srinagar should also be the head of the silk department ; but such is, or at least very lately was, the case ; and under his management sericulture has been improved and developed. In 1871, the Maharaja set apart £30,000 for the development of this branch of industry, and part of the sum was ex- pended on the construction of buildings in which an equal temperature could be maintained for the silk- worms. I saw the process of extracting and winding the silk in the factory beside Srinagar : it was skilfully conducted, and the threads produced were remarkably fine and perfect. The mulberry-trees of Kashmir have hitherto enjoyed exemption from disease and injury from insects, so that the prospects of this production are very good, and a commencement has been made in weaving the silk into cloth. The whole production is a monopoly of Government ; but it gives increasing employment to a considerable number of persons, on what, for Kashmir, are good wages. In 1872 the quan- tity of dry cocoons produced amounted to 57,600 lb., and the resulting revenue was estimated at 124,000 chilki rupees, a portion of it, however, being required for the improvements which were made. The famous shawls of Kashmir are now somewhat at 398 THE ABODE OF SNOW. a discount in the world, except in France, where they still form a portion of almost every bride's trousseau, and where, at least in novels, every lady of the demi- monde is described as wrapped in un vrdi Cachemere, and wearing a pair of Turkish slippers. France alone takes about 80 per cent of the Kashmir shawls ex- ported from Asia ; the United States of America take 10, Italy 5, Russia 2, and Great Britain and Germany only 1 per cent each. Of course the late war almost entirely destroyed the shawl trade, but it has for the time being returned to its former state ; and, at the period of collapse, the Maharaja humanely made enor- mous purchases on his own account. The revenue from this source has diminished to at least half what it was some years ago ; but still a superior woven shawl will bring, even in Kashmir, as much as £300 sterling; and about £130,000 worth of shawls is an- nually exported, £90,000 worth going to Europe. The finest of the goat's wool employed in this manufacture comes from Turfan, in the Yarkand territory ; and it is only on the wind-swept steppes of Central Asia that animals are found to produce so fine a wool. The shawl-weavers get miserable wages, and are allowed neither to leave Kashmir nor change their employment, so that they are nearly in the position of slaves; and their average wage is only about three - halfpence a-day. Nearly all the English visitors had left Kashmir before I reached that country, and this gave me more opportunity of enjoying the society of Mr Le Poer "Wynne, of whom I may speak more freely than of other Indian officials who remain. Two or three officers, on their way out of the valley, appeared at the THE MAHAEAJA AND THE RESIDENT. 399 Residency, and a couple of young Englishmen, or Colonials, fresh from the antipodes, who could see little to admire in Kashmir; but the only resident society in Srinagar was a fine Frenchman, a shawl agent, and Colonel Gardiner, who commanded the Maharaja's artillery, a soldier of fortune ninety years of age. Colonel Gardiner was born on the shores of Lake Superior, and had wandered into Central Asia at an early period. There was something almost appalling to hear this ancient warrior discourse of what have now become! almost prehistoric times, and relate his experiences in the service of Ranjft Singh, Shah Sbtija, Dost Mohammed, and other kings and chiefs less known to fame. If (as I have no reason to believe) he occasionally confused hearsay with his own experi- ence, it could scarcely be wondered at considering his years, and there is no doubt as to the general facts of his career. Listening to his graphic narrations, Cen- tral Asia vividly appeared as it was more than half a century ago, when Englishmen could traverse it not only with tolerable safety, but usually as honoured guests. But most usually the Eesident and myself spent our evenings tSte-d-tSte, no one coming in except an old Afghan chuprassi, whose business it was to place logs upon the fire. This Abdiel had been a sepoy, and was the only man in his regiment who had remained faith- ful at the time of the Mutiny — " among the faithless, faithful only he ;" and the honesty of his character extended down into his smallest transactions. He took a paternal but respectful interest in us, clearly seeing that the fire must be kept up, though our con- 400 THE ABODE OF SNOW. •# versation ought not to be disturbed ; so he would steal into the room as quietly as possible, and place logs on the fire as gently as if we were dying warriors or Mogul emperors. Wynne himself was a man of very interesting mind and character, being at once gentle and firm, kindly and open, yet with much tact, and combining depth of thought with very wide culture. When a student he had employed his long vacations in attending uni- versities of Germany and France, and was widely acquainted with the literature of these countries, as well as able to converse fluently in their languages. To the usual oriental studies of an Indian civilian, he had added a large acquaintance with Persian poetry, and really loved the country to which he had devoted him- self chiefly from a desire to find a more satisfactory and useful career than is now open to young men at home with little or no fortune. Perhaps he was too much of a student, disposed to place too high a value on purely moral and intellectual influences, and too much given to expect that young officers should renounce all the follies of youth, and old fighting colonels conduct themselves as if they were children of light. That sprang, however, from perfect genuine- ness and beauty of character, to which all things evil, or even questionable, were naturally repulsive ; and it was wholly unaccompanied by any tendency to con- demn others, being simply a desire to encourage them towards good. There was not a little of the pure and chivalrous nature of Sir Philip Sidney in Le Poer Wynne ; and' he might also be compared in character to the late Frederick Eobertson of Brighton, whose sermons he spoke to me of as having made quite an BPHE MAHARAJA AND THE RESIDENT. 401 era in his life. European culture and thought had not taught him to undervalue either the methods or the results of " divine philosophy ;" nor had his mind been overwhelmed by the modern revelations of the physical universe, though he was well acquainted with them ; and his departure from much of traditional theology had only led him to value more the abiding truths of religion. Our conversation related only in part to the East, and ranged over many fields of politics, philosophy, and literature. I cannot recall these nights at Srina- gar without mingled sadness and pleasure. It never struck me then that we were in a house at all, but rather as if we were by a camp-fire. My host had a way of reclining before the fire on the floor ; the flames of the wood shot up brilliantly ; brown Abdiel in his sheepskin coat suggested the Indian Caucasus ; and instead of the gaudily-painted woodwork of the Eesi- dency, I felt around us only the circle of snowy moun- tains, and above, the shining hosts of heaven. And to both of us this was a camp-fire, and an unexpected happy meeting in the wilderness of life. A few months afterwards, Mr Wynne, after a short run to Europe on privilege leave, returned to Calcutta, in order to take up the office of Foreign Secretary during the absence of Mr Aitchison, and died almost imme- diately after. He had not been many years in the Indian Civil Service, and the highest hopes were entertained of his future career. I had felt, however, instinctively, that so fine an organisation, both mental and physical, must either " die or be degraded;" and perhaps it was with some subtle, barely conscious precognition of his early doom, 2 c 402 THE ABODE OF SNOW. that Wynne rose and made a note of the lines "which I quoted to him one night when we were speaking of the early death of another young Indian civilian : — " But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spiin life. But not the praise." But praise, or fame, as here used by Milton and some of our older writers, is not to be confounded with the notoriety of the world, which almost any eccentricity, vulgarity, self-assertion, or accidental success may com- mand. It is even something more than the " good and honest report" of the multitude, or the approval of the better-minded of the human race, both of which judgments must often proceed on very imperfect and misleading grounds. Milton himself expressed the truest meaning of fame when Phoebus touched his trembling ears, and immediately after the passage just quoted, he went on to say — " Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistening foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, And perfect witness of all-judging Jove ; As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." It may be fancied that the poet .is rather inconsistent here, because he begins by speaking of fame as " the last infirmity of noble minds ; " and surely it can hardly be an infirmity to value the judgment which proceeds from the " perfect witness of all-judging Jove." But there is no inconsistency when the whole passage in Lycidas is considered, beginning, " Alas ! what boots it with incessant care ? " The argument is that it THE MAHARAJA AND THE RESIDENT. 403 must matter nothing, seeing that when we expect to find the guerdon and break out into sudden blaze, then comes Fate with the abhorred shears ; but to this Phoebus answers reprovingly that fame is not of mor- tal growth, and only lives and spreads above. This suggests a double life even now, and identifies fame with our own better existence. There is no subject, however, on which men are so apt to deceive themselves as when appealing to a higher and unseen judgment : probably few criminals go to execution without a de- ceiving belief that Heaven will be more merciful to them than man has been, because they can shelter themselves under the truth that Heaven alone knows what their difficulties and temptations have been, for- getting that it alone also knows their opportunities and the full wickedness of their life. Every man should mistrust himself when he looks forward to that higher fame with any other feeling than one of having been an unprofitable servant ; and even this feeling should be mistrusted when it goes into words rather than to the springs of action. It is in the general idea, and as regards others rather than ourselves, that the consola- tion of Milton's noble lines may be found. The dread severance of the abhorred shears extends not merely to the lives of the young and promising, but to all in human life which is beautiful and good. What avails the closest companionship, the fondest love, before the presence of Death the separator ? In even an ordinary life how many bright promises have been destroyed, how many dearest ties severed, and how many dark regrets remain ! For that there is no consolation worth speaking of except the faith that all which was good and beautiful here below still lives and blooms above. 404 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTER XLIIL THE UPPER JHELAM. KASHMIR BOATS — PANDRATHAN — HUNTING - DOGS — BIJBEHARA — ANALYSIS OP ITS POPULATION POPULATION OP KASHMiR FISH ISLAMABAD CBOCUS PLANTS JEHANGf R'S HUMOUR A KHIVA HORSE — BHUMJU OAVES — GENERAL CUNNINGHAM'S DUTY. Thebe are several very beautiful or striking places about tbe sources of the Jhelam which no visitor to Kashmir should omit to see. Islamabad can be reached in two days by boat, if the river is not in flood ; and the mat awning of the boats lets down close to the gunwale, so as to -form a comfortable closed apart- ment for night. In late autumn, at least, the waters of the valley are so warm, as compared with the evening and night air, that towards afternoon an extraordinary amount of steam begins to rise from them. But the air is exceedingly dry notwithstanding the immense amount of water in the valley, and the frequent showers of rain which fall ; and there is very little wind in Kashmir, which is an immense comfort, especially for dwellers in tents. At Pandrathan, not far up the Jhelam from Srinagar, we came upon the site of an ancient capital of the THE UPPEft JHELAM. 405 Kashmir valley, and on a very ruinous old temple situ- ated in the middle of a tank, or rather pond. The name of this place affords an excellent example of the present state of our knowledge of Kashmir antiquities ; Dr Ince, Captain Bates, and Lieut. Cole, following General Cunningham, deriving it from Puranadhis- thana, or " the old chief city" — while Dr Elmslie, adopt- ing its Kashmir sound Pandrenton, derives it from Darendun and his five sons the famous Pandiis. Hligel, again, made the mistake of calling it a Budhist temple, though it-is clearly Hindu, and associated with the Naga or snake worship. The water round this temple makes an examination of the interior difficult ; but Captain Bates says that the roof is covered with sculpture of such purely classic design, that any uninitiated person who saw it on paper would at once take it for a sketch from a Greek or Roman original. This suggests actual Greek influence ; and Cunningham says, in connection with the fluted columns, porches, and pediments of Ma^tand, — " I feel convinced myself that several of the Kashmirian forms, and many of the details, were bor- rowed from the temples of the Kabulian Greeks, while the arrangements of the interior and the relative pro- portions of the different parts were of Hindi! origin." It is not improbable, however, that these Kashmir ruins may have belonged to an earlier age, and have had an influence upon Greek architecture instead of having been influenced by it ; but, be that as it may, this beautiful little temple, with its profusion of decoration, and grey with antiquity, stands alone, a curious rem- nant of a lost city and a bygone age — the city, accord- ing to tradition, having been burned by king Abhi- manu in the tenth century of the Christian era. 406 THE ABODE OF SNOW. Camping for the night some way above this, and on the opposite side of the river, I saw some magnificent hunt- ing-dogs of the Maharaja, which bounded on their chains, and could hardly be held by their keepers on the ap- pearance of an unaccustomed figure. They were longer and higher than Tibetan mastiffs, and had some resem- blance in hair and shape to Newfoundlands, but were mostly of a brown and yellow colour. The men in charge said these dogs were used for hunting down large game, especially leopards and wolves, and they were certainly formidable creatures ; but the ordinary dogs of Kashmir are very poor animals, even excluding the pariahs. Bates says that the wild dog exists in some parts of this country, as Lar and Maru Wardwan, hunts in packs, and, when pressed by hunger, will destroy children, and even grown persons. At Bijbehara, immediately above which the Jhelam begins to narrow considerably, there is one of those numerous and exquisitely picturesque-looking Kashmir bridges, resting on large square supports formed of logs of wood laid transversely, with trees growing out of them and overshadowing the bridge itself. This town has 400 houses ; and the following analysis, given by Captain Bates, of the inhabitants of these houses, affords a very fair idea of the occupations of a Kashmir town or large village : Mohammedan zemindars or proprie- tors, 80 houses'; Mohammedan shopkeepers, 65 ; Hindu shopkeepers, 15 ; Brahmans, 8 ; pundits, 20 ; goldsmiths, 10 ; bakers, 5 ; washermen, 5 ; cloth- weavers, 9 ; black- smiths, 5 ; carpenters, 4 ; toy-makers, 1 ; surgeons (query phlebotomists), 2; physicians, 3; leather-workers, 5 ; milk-sellers, 7; cow-keepers, 2; fishermen, 10; fish- sellers, 7 ; butchers, 8 ; musicians, 2 ; carpet-makers, THE UPPER JHELAM. 407 2; blanket-makers, 3; Syud (descendant of the pro- phet), 1 ; Mullas (Mohammedan clergymen), 12 ; Pir Zadas (saints!), 40; Fakirs, 20. It will thus be seen that about a fourth of the 400 houses are occupied by the so- called ministers of religion ; and that the landed gentry are almost all Mohammedan, though the people of that religion complain of their diminished position under the present Hindu (Sikh) Eaj in Kashmir. For these 400 houses there are 10 mosques, besides 8 smaller shrines, and several Hindu temples, yet the Kashmiris are far from being a religious people as compared with the races of India generally. Let us consider how an English village of 4000 or 6000 people would flourish if it were burdened in this way by a fourth of its pop- ulation being ministers of religion, and in great part ruffians without family ties. It is a very rough and uncertain calculation which sets down the population of Kashmir at half a million. The whole population of the dominions of the Maha- raja is said to be a million and a half, but that includes Jamu, which is much more populous than the valley. Captain Bates says that the estimate of the Maharaja's Government, founded on a partial census taken in 1869, gave only 475,000 ; but that is better than the popula- tion of the year 1835, when oppression, pestilence, and famine had reduced it so low as 200,000. It is, how- ever, not for want of producing that the population is small ; for, according to the same authority, " it is said that every woman has, at an average, ten to fourteen children." I do not quite understand this kind of average; but it seems to mean that, on an average, every woman has twelve children. That shows a pro- digious fecundity, and is the more remarkable when we 408 THE ABODE OP SNOW. learn that the proportion of men to women is as three to one. This disproportion is produced by the infamous export of young girls to which I have already alluded ; and it is impossible that such a traffic could be carried on without the connivance of the Government, or, at least, of a very large number of the Government officials. Dr Elmslie's estimate of the population of Kashmir, in- cluding the surrounding countries and the inhabitants of the mountains, was 402,700 — of these 75,000 being Hindus, 312,700 being Siini Mohammedans, and 15,000 Shias. His estimate of the population of Srinagar was 127,000; but the census of the Government in 1869, gave 135,000 for that city. At night our boatmen used to catch fish by holding a light over the water in shallow places and transfixing the fish with short spears. So plentiful are these crea- tures, that between two and three dozen were caught in about half an hour, and many of them above a pound weight. I cannot say much of them, however, as arti- cles of diet. The flesh was insipid and soft as putty, and they were as full of bones as a serpent. Vigne acutely observed that the common Himalayan trout" varies so much in colour and appearance, according to its age, season, and feeding-ground, that the Kashmiris have no difficulty in making out that there are several species of it instead of one. Bates mentions eleven kinds of fish as existent in the waters of Kashmir ; but, with one exception, all the fish I had the fortune to see seemed of one species, and were the same in appearance as those which abound in prodigious quantities in the sacred tanks and the ponds in the gardens of the Mo- gul emperors. The exception was a large fish, of which my servants partook on our way to the Wular Lake, THE UPPER JHELAM. 409 and which made them violently sick. Elmslie agrees with Vigne in mentioning only six varieties, and says that the Hindus of Kashmir, as well as the Mohamme- dans, eat fish. Fly-fishing is pursued by the visitors to this country, but the fish do not rise readily to the fly, and Vigne says he found that kind of fishing to be an unprofitable employment. Much, however, depends on the streams selected for this purpose, and an Ang- ler's Guide to Kashmir is still a desideratum. Dr Ince mentions several places where good casts are to be had, but otherwise he affords Piscator no information. Islamabad is a fine name, and the town which it de- notes is the terminus of the navigation of the upper Jhelam. Boats do not go quite up to it, but within two or three miles of it, and there are a number of highly interesting places round it within a radius of thirty miles. Though the second town in the province, it has only about 1500 houses, and its population is a little doubtful, as the statistician leaves us at liberty to calculate from ten to thirty inhabitants to the house. It lies beneath the apex of the table-land, about 400 feet higher, on which the ruins of M&rtand are situ- ated. By the Hindus it is called Anat Nag ; and it is of importance to notice the number of Nags there are in Kashmir in general, and in this part of the country in particular, as the name relates to the old serpent- worship of the country. The present town of Islam- abad is a miserable place, though it supports no less than fifteen Mohammedan temples, and its productions are shawls, saddle-cloths, and rugs. At the Anat Nag, where the sacred tanks are alive with thousands of tame fish, there are fine plane-trees and a large double- storeyed building for respectable travellers. I only 410 THE ABODE OF SNOW. stopped for breakfast ; but a very short experience of the interior of that building drove me out into a sum- mer-house in the garden. There is no doubt that if the fleas in the larger edifice were at all unanimous, they could easily push the traveller out of bed. The water of the sacred tanks proceeds from springs, and is slightly sulphureous in character, which does not ap- pear to affect the health of the fish ; but it is strictly forbidden to kill these fish. At Islamabad, when I visited it, a good many newly- plucked crocus-flowers were in course of being dried in order to make saffron, though the great beds of this plant are farther down the Jhelam. I entirely agree with the Emperor Jehangfr — the man who would let nobody get drunk except himself — when he says, in his journal, of these crocus-flowers, "Their appearance is best at a distance, and when plucked they emit a strong smell." With some humour Jehangir goes on to say — " My attendants were all seized with a headache ; and although I myself was intoxicated with liquor at the time, I also felt my head affected." One would like to know how the Light of the World was affected on this occasion, but history is silent ; and, so far as I know, only Tmolus loved to adorn his head with cro- cus-flowers, as we learn from the first Georgic of Virgil, 56— " Nonne vides croceos ut Tmolus odores, India mittet ebur, mollea sua thura Sabsei." Notwithstanding their odious smell when fresh, these saffron-flowers, when dried, are much valued as condi- ment for food, as medicine, and as supplying one of the colours with which Hindus make some of their caste-marks. The saffron is called 1c6ng in the Kash- THE UPPER JHELAM. 411 miri language ; and, according to Elmslie, 180 grains of saffron — the dried stigmata of the Crocus sativus — bring nearly a shilling in the valley itself. In good seasons about 2000 trahs of it are annually produced in the valley, and a trak seems to be equal to nearly 10 lb. English. October is the season for collecting the flowers. A dry soil is said to be necessary to the growth of tbem ; and in from eight to twelve years they exhaust the soil so much, that eight years are often allowed to elapse before growing it again on the exhausted ground. The garden at Islamabad was full of soldiers, priests, and beggars ; and I was glad to move on five miles to Bawan, on the Liddar, where there is a similar grove and fish-ponds, but far more secluded and with more magnificent trees. This is a delightful place, and almost no one was to be found in the enclosure round the tanks, which are held, specially sacred. On the way thither I passed large flocks of ponies on graze, this part of Kashmir being famous for its breed. They are not in any respect, except size, to be compared with the ponies of Tibet ; but they are tolerably sure-footed, and can continue pretty long daily journeys. At Srinagar I had purchased, for my own use, a Khiva horse, from a Panjabi colonel and well-known sports- man. It had been brought down to India in the year 1872 by the envoy whom the Khan of Khiva sent to Lord Northbrook to ask for assistance against the Eussians — a request which was politely but firmly declined. This animal was of an iron-grey colour, with immensely thick, soft, short hair, and was of extraordinary thickness and length in the body, and so shaped that a crupper was required to keep the saddle 412 THE ABODE OF SNOW. from slipping on its shoulders. Nothing startled it ; it was perfectly sure-footed, and could go long journeys among the mountains ; but, though it had been shod, its feet soon got sore when I rode it with any rapidity along the plains. Its favourite pace was an artificially- produced one, which consisted chiefly in moving the two feet on one side simultaneously ; and in that way, which was rather an easy pace, it went almost as fast as it could trot or canter. The caves of Bmimjii, in a limestone cliff near to Bawan, do not present very much of interest. One of them penetrates indefinitely into the mountain, and the belief is that it goes on for twenty miles at least ; but it gets so narrow and low, that I was fain to come to a stop after going about 200 paces with lighted torches. Dr Ince, in his Kashmir Handbook, calls it the Long Cave, and says that it " may be traversed for about 210 feet ; beyond this the passage becomes too small to admit a man, even when crawling, so that its total length cannot be ascertained; the natives, however, believe it to be interminable. It is the abode of numerous bats, and the rock in many places is beautifully honeycombed by the action of water, which is constantly trickling from the higher portions of the roof." The water does trickle down upon one beautifully, but the honeycombing of the rock is the deposits of lime made by the water ; and even within the 200 feet a sense of pressure is experienced from the rock-walls. Of course I was told all sorts of stories as to what lies beyond, such as great galleries, halls, sculptures, inscriptions, rivers, waterfalls, evil demons, gods, goddesses, and so forth. All this sounded very interesting and enticing ; but worming along a small THE UPPER JHELAM. 413 aperture is by no means suited to my constitution or tastes, so I resisted the temptation, and said to myself, " Let General Cunningham creep up it : he is paid for looking after the archaeology of India." About fifty feet from the entrance of this passage, and opening from the left of it, there is a small cave-temple. In a still smaller excavated room nearer the entrance, there are the bones of a human being ; but skeletons are not scarce in Kashmir, and no particular antiquarian in- terest attaches to these remains. Another cave in the immediate neighbourhood, which is reached by ladders and very steep stone steps, shows more traces of human workmanship. This is called the Temple Cave. At its entrance there is a fine trefoil arch, and on one of the platforms inside there is what Ince speaks of as " a Hindu temple built of stone, of pyramidal shape, about 11^ feet square, and one of the most perfect specimens of this style of architecture to be seen in any part of the country." I examined this cave rather hurriedly, and took no notes concerning it, so I cannot speak with absolute certainty ; but my recollection of this Hindu temple and perfect specimen of architecture is, that it was a somewhat ordinary but large Lingam — an emblem which need not be explained to polite readers. 414 THE ABODE OE SNOW. CHAPTER XLIV. HYDASPES : FONS ET ORIGO. KASHMIR FORMERLY A LAKE — THE MONSTER TALDEO — THE SAINT KASHAF HINDU ARGUMENT FOR POLYTHEISM RUINS OP MAR- TAND THEIR ANTIQUITY SKETCH OP KASHMIR EARLY HISTORY SERPENTS ACHIBAL AND VERNAG THE SCHOOLBOY'S HYDASPES. On the sides of the bridle-path from these caves to the table-land above, successive lake-beaches were distinctly- visible. Geology leaves no doubt as to the truth of the old tradition that the great valley of Kashmir was once a magnificent lake, which has now subsided, leaving only remnants of itself here and there. The name of this ancient lake was Sahtisar, and the mountains sur- rounding it are thickly peopled. The tradition goes on to say that the lake became the abode of a terrible monster called Yaldeo, who, after devouring all the fish there were in the great water, proceeded to appease his hunger by devouring the inhabitants of the sur- rounding hills, who, in consequence, had to fly into the higher mountains above. At this stage the traditional Eishi, or holy man, makes his appearance on the field : his name was Kashaf, and his great sanctity had given him the power of working miracles. This holy man HYDASPES : FONS ET OEIGO. 415 proceeded to the north-west end of the lake, where the Jhelam now issues from the valley at Baramula, struck the ground with his trident, and the opening earth caused the waters of the lake to disappear, which soon brought about the death of the monster Yaldeo. Hence the name Kashmir, which is made out to be a con- traction of Kashafmar, the place or country of Kashaf, the Eishi, who may thus be said to have made it. As to the truth or probability of the above story about Kashaf, I need say nothing. The Hindu may turn round upon us and argue : " You say the age of miracles is over, and you can show no modern ones in support of your religion more probable or less puerile in appearance than those which the masses of this country believe that our devotees still accomplish. As the age of miracles is past for you, so, unhappily, is for us the age for the incarnation and appearance on earth of our gods, otherwise you would no„t be here. This we have long been taught, and see abundant reason to believe, is the Kala Yogi, or Black Age, when the gods have retired from the earth ; but that does not prove they have never been here before. We find that even the rationalistic Socrates did not deny the actual ex- istence of the gods of Greece ; and that, in an age of culture and criticism, the historian Plutarch thoroughly believed in them. Is the universal belief of whole nations and of hundreds of millions of people for tens of centuries to go for nothing in elucidation and proof of the past history of the human race ? If so, what importance, what value, can we attach to the reasoning and conclusions of a few Western scientific men and critical historians who have formed a school within the last century ? The probability would be that they, 416 THE ABODE OF SNOW. too, have fallen into delusion, and are blindly leading the blind. It is more rational to believe that the gods of ancient Greece and India really existed, as at the time they were universally believed to exist, and that they have now, alas ! passed away from this portion of the universe, or have ceased to display themselves to the degraded human race." Some way up on the table-land, in a now lonely and desolate. position, which commands the great valley of Kashmir, I found the wonderful ruin of the great temple of Martand. Vigne was quite justified in saying that, " as an isolated ruin, this deserves, on account of its solitary and massive grandeur, to be ranked, not only as the first ruin of the kind in Kashmir, but as one of the noblest amongst the architectural relics of antiquity that are to be seen in any country." Accord- ing to tradition, a large city once stood round it — and there are indications that such may have been the case ; but now this wonderful ruin stands alone in solitary unrelieved glory. It is strange, in this secluded Eastern country, where the works of man are generally so mean, and surrounded by these lofty snowy mountains, to come upon a ruin which, though so different in char- acter, might yet vie with the finest remains of Greek and Roman architecture, in its noble dimensions, in its striking and beautiful form, in the gigantic stones of which it is composed, in its imposing position, and by the manner in which gloom and grandeur are softened by its exquisite pillars, and its delicate though now half-defaced ornamentation. This temple is situated within an oblong colonnade, composed of fluted pillars and decaying trefoil arches and walls. It rises above these in such perfect majesty HYDASPES : FONS ET ORIGO. 417 that one can hardly believe its present height is only about forty feet. Its majestic outlines are combined with rich and elaborate details ; but a description of these, or even of its outlines, would give no idea of its grand general effect, while desolation and silence are around. Moreover, as Captain Bates remarks, " It overlooks the finest view in Kashmir, and perhaps in the known world. Beneath it lies the paradise of the East, with its sacred streams and glens, its brown orchards and green fields, surrounded on all sides by vast snowy mountains, whose lofty peaks seem to smile upon the beautiful valley below." Baron Hugel asserts of this ancient ruin, which he calls by its name of Korau Pandau, or, more usually, Pandu-Koru, that it " owes its existence and name to the most ancient dynasty of Kashmir. The great antiquity of the ruin will be acknowledged, therefore, when I remind the reader that the Pandii dynasty ended 2500 years before Christ, after governing Kash- mir, according to their historians, nearly 1300 years." That would give an antiquity of nearly 5000 years to this temple : later archaeologists, however, are more moderate in their demands upon our belief, and set it down as erected between A.t>. 370 and 500; but the reasons for this are by no means conclusive. When one knows nothing about the history of an ancient temple, it is always safe to call it a temple of the sun ; but in this case there is some support for the supposi- tion in the Sanscrit meaning of the word Martand. That, however, does not throw any light upon its age; and we may as well ascribe it to the Pandii dynasty as to any other period of ancient history. Kashmir may have been the mountain-retreat where Pandu himself 2d 418 THE ABODE OF SNOW. died before his five sons began to enact the scenes of the Mahabharata; but modern Indian archaeologists have got into a way of constructing serious history out of very slight and dubious references. This is not to be "wondered at, because the first synthetical inquiries, as conducted by Lassen in particular, yielded such magnificent historical results that later antiquaries have been under a natural temptation to raise startling edifices out of much more slender and dubious material. Hugel's date is quite as good as that of a.d. 370 ; and where all is pretty much speculation, we are not called upon to decide. But sufficient is dimly seen in the mists of antiquity to reveal something of the past, as we stand by this ancient temple and gaze over the Valley of Eoses. A temple such as Martand, and the city which once stood in its neighbourhood, would not, in all proba- bility, have found a place on this plateau, except at a period when the valley was a great lake. Hence we may presume that this temple and city of the Pan- diis belonged to a very ancient period when the inhabitants of Kashmir were located on the slopes of the mountains round a great beautiful lake, more picturesquely surrounded than any sheet of water now existing upon the earth. The people were Indo-Aryans, retaining much of the simplicity and rich powerful naturalness of the Vedic period, but civi- lised in a very high degree, and able to erect splendid temples to the Sun-god. Associated with the Aryan religion they indulged in the serpent-worship which they had adopted from more primitive races, and per- haps from the rude Turanians of the neighbouring abodes of snow. In these ancient times the people and HYDASPES : FONS ET ORIGO. 419 rulers of Kashmir would be very effectually secluded from aggressive forces. No rapacious neighbours would be strong enough to disturb their family, nationality ; and in their splendid climate, with a beautiful lake connecting their various settlements, it is far from un- likely that the Aryans in Kashmir may have presented a powerful, natural, and art-loving development, ana- logous to that which, about the same period, they were beginning to obtain in the favoured Isles of Greece. But, whether produced by natural or artificial causes — whether due to Fate or to a short-sighted desire for land — the disappearance of the lake and the desicca- tion of the valley, which tradition assigns to the year 266 B.c, must have wrought a great change in their circumstances, associated as it was with the increase of the warlike mountain-tribes around. Gradually the valley-plain would afford a more fertile and easily- worked soil than the slopes of the mountains, which were soon forsaken for it. The primitive serpent-wor- ship and the natural Vedic religion would be affected by the evil Brahmanism of the plains of India; and this, again, had to struggle against the rising influ- ence of Budhism, which is unfavourable to warlike qualities. Tartar chiefs began to dispute the kingdom with Hindu dynasties ; fierce mountaineers in the Hindu Ktish would greedily listen to rumours about the terrestrial paradise ; and there would be the com- mencement of that state of hopeless vassalage which has condemned the Kashmiri to centuries of misery, and developed in his character its falsity and feebleness. Nothing more definite can be discerned of that early period except that the Kashmiris were a brave and war- like people ; and that, even then, its women were famous 420 THE ABODE OF SNOW. for their beauty, as illustrated by the legend of the two angels Harat and Marat, who were sent on earth by God to reform men by their example, but were ensnared by the beauty of a fair Kashmiri. Other countries are not without stories of the kind ; but to Kashmir it was reserved to corrupt the reforming angels by means of a simple courtesan. Mermaids, too, there appear to have been in the lake — the beautiful daughters of the serpent-gods, before whom even Brahmans trembled- and were powerless. With the Mohammedans there comes a more troubled era. After an ineffectual at- tempt in the end of the tenth century, Mohammed of Ghuzni conquered Kashmir in the beginning of the eleventh century; chiefs of Dardistan and kings of Tibet make incursions into it, and forcibly marry the daughters of its tottering Hindu monarchs ; even dis- tant Turkistan sends vultures to the prey; and the only heroism is displayed by Queen Rajputani, the last of its Hindu sovereigns, who, rather than marry an usurping prime minister, upbraided him for his ingrat- itude and treachery, and stabbed herself before him. The sixth of the Moslem monarchs who succeeded and who reigned in 1396 A.D., was the ignorant zealot Sik- ander, nicknamed Bhutshikan or- the Image-breaker, who devoted his energies to destroying the ancient architecture and sculpture of Kashmir, and succeeded only too well in his endeavours. In the next century reigned the Badshah or Great King, Zein-ul-abdin, who gave Kashmir its most celebrated manufacture, by in- troducing wool from Tibet and weavers from Turkis- tan, as also papier-macM work and the manufacture of paper. This extraordinary man reigned fifty-three years : he was a patron of literature, a poet, and a HYDASPES: FONS ET OEIGO. 421 lover of field-sports, as well as a most practical ruler, and lie gave the country a great impetus. This van- tage-ground, however, was lost almost immediately after his death, and, as he had foreseen, by the grow- ing power of the native clan of the Chaks, who soon rose to supreme power in Kashmir by placing them- selves at the head of the national party. Under one of their chiefs the valley asserted itself nobly and victo- riously against its external enemies ; but this advan- tage was soon lost, through internal jealousies, enmi- ties, and treachery ; and a request for assistance offered by one of the Chak chiefs afforded Akbar the pretext for conquering the country and making it a part of the great Mogul Empire. On the way from Mdrtand to Achibal I saw the only serpent which appeared before me in Kashmir ; but, before I could get hold of it or strike it, the wily crea- ture had disappeared in the grass ; and those who have closely observed serpents know how readily they do disappear, and how wonderfully the more innocuous ones, even the large rock-snakes, manage to conceal themselves from the human eye in short grass, where it might be thought that even a small snake could easily be detected. I have been instructed by Indian snake-charmers, who are rather averse to parting with their peculiar knowledge, and have tried my hand suc- cessfully on a small wild cobra, between three and four feet in length, so I speak with knowledge and experi- ence on this subject. This Kashmir snake was only about two and a half or three feet long, and had the appearance of a viper ; but I do not know what it was. The ganas, or aphia, is a species of viper which is said to be very dangerous, and is most dreaded by the 422 THE ABODE OF SNOW. people of the country. The latter name has suggested, and very properly suggests, the ois of the Greeks. Serpents are scarce in Kashmir, and do not at all in- terfere with the great pleasure of camping out in that country. There is more annoyance from leopards, especially for people who have small dogs with them ; for the leopard has quite a mania for that sort of diet, and will not hesitate to penetrate into your tent at night in quest of his game. Achibal and Vernag are two delightful places, such as no other country in the world can present ; but their general characteristics are so similar that I shall not at- tempt to describe them separately. They resemble the Shalimar and Nishat Gardens, to which I have already alluded, but are more secluded, more beautiful, and more poetic. Bal means a place, and Ash is the satyr of Kashmir traditions. Ver, according to Elmslie, is the name of the district in which the summer palace is sit- uated; but it is properly vir, which may be either the Kashmir word for the weeping willow (which would suit it well enough), or an old Aryan form for the Latin vir. On the latter supposition it would be the haunt of the man-serpents, and it is exactly the place that would have suited them in ancient or any times. Both Achibal and Vernag were favourite haunts of our friend Jehangir, and of his wife Nur Jahan, the Light of the World. If that immortal pair required any proof of their superiority, it would be found in the re- treats which they chose for themselves, and which mark them out as above the level of ordinary and even royal humanity. At Achibal, a spring of water, the largest in Kashmir, rises at the head of the beautiful pleasure- garden, underneath an overshadowing cliff, and this is HYDASPES : FONS ET ORIGO. 423 supposed to be the reappearance of a river which disap- pears in the mountains some miles above. At Vernag, also,, a large spring bubbles up in almost icy coldness beneath a gigantic cliff, fringed with birch and light ash that " Pendent from the brow Of yon dim cave in seeming silence make A soft eye -music of slow- waving boughs." It is more specially interesting, however, as the source of the Jhelam or Hydaspes ; and as I sat beside it on an evening of delicious repose, an old schoolboy recollec- tion came to mind, and it was pleasant to find that if I could not venture to claim entirely the " Integer vitae scelerisque purus," yet I had escaped the Maurian darts, and had been enabled to travel in safety — " Sive per Syrtes iter sestuosas, Sive facturus per inhospitalem Caucasum, vel qu» loca fabulosus Lambit Hydaspes." 424 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTER XLV. KASHMIR TO THE HAZAEA. THE MANAS AND WULAR LAKES — BEAUTIFUL MIRRORED SCENES ■ — SUGGESTIONS OP THE UNDER-WORLD THE MIDDLE JHELAM VALLEY MOZAPARABAD FAREWELL TO TENTS THE HAZARA DISTRICT ABBOTABAD AND ITS SOCIETY. Before leaving Kashmir I must devote a paragraph to its two most famous sheets of water, the Manasbal and the Wiilar Lake. They are both on the usual way out from Srinagar, which is also the usual way to it, and are seen by most visitors to the valley. The Manasbal is called the most beautiful, but is rather the most picturesque, lake in Kashmir. It lies close to the Jhelam, on the north-west, and is connected with that river by a canal only about a mile long, through which boats can pass. This little lake is not much larger than Grasmere, being scarcely three miles long by one broad ; but its shores are singularly sug- gestive of peacefulness and solitude. Picturesque mountains stand round a considerable portion of it, and at one point near they rise to the height of 10,000 feet, while snowy summits are visible beyond. In its clear deep-green water the surrounding scenery is seen most beautifully imaged. There being so little wind in KASHMIR TO THE HAZARA. 425 Kashmir, and the surrounding trees and mountains being so high, this is one of the most charming fea^ tures of its placid lakes. Wordsworth has assigned the occasional calmness of its waters as one of the rea- sons why he claims that the Lake country of England is more beautiful than Switzerland, where the lakes are seldom seen in an unruffled state ; but in this respect the Valley of Koses far surpasses our English district, for its lakes are habitually calm : for hours at a time they present an almost absolute stillness ; they are beautifully clear, and the mountains around them are not only of great height and picturesque shape, but, except in the height of summer, are half covered with snow ; the clouds are of a. more dazzling whiteness than in England, and the sky is of a deeper blue. There, most emphatically, if I may be allowed slightly to alter Wordsworth's lines, — " The visible scene May enter unawares into the mind, With all its solemn imagery, its woods, Its snow, and that divinest heaven received - Into the bosom of the placid lake." The poet just quoted has tried to explain the singular effect upon the mind of such mirrored scenes by saying, that " the imagination by their aid is carried into re- cesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable." And he goes on to explain that the reason for this is, that " the heav- ens are not only brought down into the bosom of the earth, but that the earth is mainly looked at and thought of through the medium of a purer element. The happi- est time is when the equinoctial gales have departed ; but their fury may probably be called to mind by the sight of a few shattered boughs, whose leaves do not 426 THE ABODE OF SNOW. differ in colour from the fading foliage of the stately oaks from which these relics of the storm depend : all else speaks of tranquillity ; not a breath of air, no rest- lessness of iii sects, and not a moving object perceptible, except the clouds gliding in the depths of the lake, or the traveller passing along, an inverted image, whose motion seems governed by the quiet of a time to which its archetype, the living person, is perhaps insensible : or it may happen that the figure of one of the larger birds, a raven or a heron, is crossing silently among the reflected clouds, while the noise of the real bird, from the element aloft, gently awakens in the spectator the recollection of appetites and instincts, pursuits and occupations, that deform and agitate the world, yet have no power to prevent nature from putting on an aspect capable of satisfying the most intense cravings for the tranquil, the lovely, and the perfect, to which man, the noblest of her creatures, is subject." But the reasons thus suggested, rather than explicitly pointed out, are scarcely sufficient to explain the singular charm of a beautiful upland and cloudland scene reflected in a deep, calm, clear lake. Its most powerful sugges- tion is that of an under-world into which all things beautiful must pass, and where there is reserved for them a tranquillity and permanence unknown on earth. We seem to look into that under- world ; the beauty of the earth appears under other conditions than those of our upper world ; and we seem to catch a glimpse of the abiding forms of life, and of a more spiritual exist- ence into which we ourselves may pass, yet one that will not be altogether strange to us. Some of our latest speculators have attempted to prove the existence of such a world even from the admitted facts of physi- KASHMIR TO THE HAZARA. 427 cal science ; and in all ages it has been the dream of poetry and the hope of religion, that beyond the grave, and perhaps beyond countless ages of phenomenal exist- ence, or separated from us only by the veil of mortality, there is another and more perfect form of life — " the pure, eternal, and unchangeable " of Plato as well as of Christianity. No argument can be drawn in favour of such views from the under-world of a placid lake ; but the contemplation of it is suggestive, and is favourable to that mood of mind in which we long and hope for a land where " Ever pure and mirror-bright arid even, Life amidst the Immortals glides away ; Moons are waning, generations changing, Their celestial life blooms everlasting, Changeless 'mid a ruined world's decay." The Wiilar is the largest remnant of that great lake which once filled the vale of Kashmir, and it too must disappear ere any long period of time elapses. Captain Bates says correctly that it "is a lake simply because its bottom is lower than the bed of the Jhelam ; it will disappear by degrees as the bed of the pass at Baramula becomes more worn away by the river ; its- extent is perceptibly becoming more circumscribed by the deposition of soil and detritus on its margin." This is not at all unlikely, as the average depth is only about twelve feet. Its greatest length is twelve miles, and its greatest breadth ten, so that it is by no means so grand a sheet of water as that of Geneva ; but there is something in its character which reminds one of Lake Leman, and arises probably from the stretch of water which it presents, and the combined softness and grandeur of the scenery around. Lofty mountains rise almost immediately from its northern and eastern 428 THE ABODE OF SNOW. sides ; but there is room all round the lake for the in- numerable villages which enliven its shore. Calm as it usually is, furious storms often play upon its surface, and in one of these Ranjit Singh lost 300 of the boats carrying his retinue and effects. In the beginning of spring some of the wild-fowl of this and the other lakes of Kashmir take flight to the distant valleys of Yar- kand and Kashgar ; and, in connection with that migra- tion, the Kashmiris have a very curious story. They say that the birds, being aware of the difficulty of finding food in the streams of Tibet, which have only stony banks and beds, take with them a supply of the singhara, or water-nut of Kashmir, for food on their journey. Such forethought" is rare among the lower creation. I once, however, had a large dog which, when it saw me ready to start on a journey, would try and get hold of a bone or something of the kind, and take that down with it to the railway, in order to relieve the tedium of confinement in the dog-box ; and, of course, animals bring food to their young. At Baramula I took leave of the great valley of Kashmir. From that town a path leads up to the mountain-down of Gulmarg, the most favourite of the sanitariums of Kashmir, and from whence a splendid view may be obtained of the wonderful 26,000-feet peak of Nangha Parbat, which rises about a hundred miles to the north, between the districts of Chilas and Astor. Immediately below Baramiila, and after leav- ing the great valley, the Jhelam changes its character, and becomes a swift, furious river, on which boats can- not be used at all, except at one or two calmer places, where they are used for ferries, being attached by ropes to the bank. Along these are paths on both KASHMIR. TO THE HAZARA. " 429 sides of the river, but that on the left or southern bank is much preferable, both because the bridle-road is better, and it is much more shaded. Seven easy marches took me to the town of Mozafarabad, and I did not enjoy that part of my journey the less that I have almost nothing to say about it. The scenery is most beautiful, and fills the mind with a sense of calm pleasure. Though the valley is narrow it is thickly Wooded, and the dark forest glades spread out, here and there, into more open spaces, with green meadows. Great black precipices alternate with wooded slopes ; there are beautiful halting-places under immense trees, and the path often descends into dark cool gorges, where there are picturesque bridges over the foaming mountain streams. It must be delightful to come on this Jhelam valley in April or May from the burned- up plains of India, and it might revive even a dying man. Among the trees there were flocks of monkeys, which drove my Tibetan dogs frantic ; and bears are to be found in the wild mountain valleys which branch off from this larger valley. The rest-houses erected by the Maharaja of Kashmir were not free from insects, especially fleas, and the bridle-path went up and down more than was strictly necessary ; but I hear better houses have been erected, or are in course of erection, and the road is being improved. As no charge was made for stopping in the rest-houses, one could not complain of them ; but the new houses are to be charged for like travellers' bungalows in British India. At one of the wildest parts of the river, a Kashmiri said to me, " Decco," or, " Look here, Sahib ! " and plunged from a high rock into the foaming stream. The most obvious conclusion was that he had found life 430 THE ABODE OF SNOW. and the Maharaja's officers too much for him ; but he reappeared a long way down, tossed about by the river, and displayed the most wonderful swimming I have ever seen. Mozafarabad is in the corner of the junction between the Jhelam and the Kishen Ganga, or the river of Krishna. The valley of the latter stream is, for the most part, a mere chasm among the mountains, and some of its scenery is said to be exceedingly wild and beautiful. Mozafarabad is an important town, with about twelve hundred families, and a large fort, and stands on the last and lowest ridge of the mountains which form the watershed between the two rivers. Here I left the road, which takes on to the hill-station at Marri and to the Panjab plains at Eawal Pindi, and crossed the Kishen Ganga, as well as the Jhelam, in order to proceed to Abbotabad and the Afghan border. Thus I have now to enter upon an entirely differ- ent district of country from any I have yet described in this volume. We have to go along the base of the Hindu Kiish, below mountains into which the English traveller is not allowed to enter, and which are peopled by hardy warlike mountaineers, very dif- ferent in character from the placid Tibetans and effem- inate Kashmiris. The first district through which I have to pass is called the Hazara, and extends from near Mozafarabad to the Indus where it issues from the Hindu Kush ; the second is the Yusufzai district, which occupies the triangle formed" by the Indus, the Kaubul river, and the mountains just referred to ; and beyond these districts I have only to speak of Peshawar, and of an excursion a short way up the famous Khyber Pass. All that border has seen a great deal of fighting KASHMIR TO THE HAZAEA. 431 by British troops — and fighting without end before any British appeared on the scene, or even existed; and even before Alexander the Great took the rock- fortress of Aornos, which we have to visit under guard of Afghan chiefs and horsemen in chain-armour. Mozafarabad is only 2470 feet high, and a steep mountain -ridge separates it from the more elevated valley of the Kiinhar river, which is inhabited by Afghans who are under the dominion of Great Britain. On passing from the Kashmir to the English border I found an excellent path, on which mountain - guns might easily be carried, and descended on the village of Gurhi Hubli, where large-bodied, often fair-com- plexioned, Afghans filled the streets. This place is too close to the border of Afghanistan to be altogether a safe retreat ; but there are a large number of armed policemen about it. Scorn me not, romantic reader, if my chief association connected with it is that of the intense pleasure of finding myself in a travellers' bun- galow once more. Our estimate of these much-abused edifices depends very much on the side we take them from. After having snow for the carpet of your tent, and visits at night from huge Tibetan bears, there is some satisfaction in finding yourself quite safe from everything except some contemptible rat or a (compar- atively) harmless grey scorpion. There is also comfort in being free from the insects of the Kashmir rest- houses. People who have never lived in anything but houses must lose half the pleasure of living in a house. How the first man who made a dwelling for himself must have gloated over his wretched contrivance until some stronger man came and took possession of it ! But the bungalows of the Hazara district are particu- 432 THE ABODE OF SNOW. larly well built and- luxurious, just as if distinguished travellers were constantly in the habit of visiting that extremely out-of-the-way part of the world ; and their lofty rooms afforded most grateful coolness and shade ; while my wearied servants were delighted to remit the business of cooking for me to the Government Maw- samah, while reserving to themselves the right and pleasure of severely criticising his operations and ten- dering to him any amount of advice. The next day took me along a beautiful road over another but a low mountain-pass, and winding among hills which were thickly covered with pines and cedars. The forest here was truly magnificent, and perfect still- ness reigned under its shade. Emerging from that, I came down on the broad Pukli valley, on the other side ^f which, but at some distance, were visible the wooded heights of the Mataban, or Black Mountain, which was the scene of one of the most bloodless of our hill- campaigns. I stopped that night of the 4th November at Mansera, and witnessed a total eclipse of the moon, which was then at the full. This seemed to cause a good deal of consternation among the people of the village, and they moaned and wailed as if the heavens and the earth were in danger of passing away. Another day took me to Abbotabad, which is a con- siderable military station, and commands a large por- tion of the frontier. It is 4166 feet high, and being a little above the thirty-fourth degree of north latitude, it has a cool and fine climate. A good deal of rain fell during the few days that I was there, and the air felt very much like that of a wet English September or October ; while the church and the character of the houses gave the place quite an English look. Eising KASHMIR TO THE HAZARA. 433 close above it, at tile height of 9000 feet, there is the sanitarium of Tandiani, which can easily be reached in a very few hours, so that the officers stationed at this place are particularly fortunate. I wonder it is not more taken advantage of for European troops. Not even excepting artillerymen, all the troops there were Goorkhas, Panjabis, or Hindusthanis ; but no doubt there are military reasons for this, Abbotabad being so far from any railway : but it stands to reason that an important frontier station of this kind would be much the better of an English force. Anglo-Indian society shows to advantage in these secluded military stations, and I was at once made to feel quite at home by the officers and their families at Abbotabad. I had the advantage, too, of being the guest of General Keyes, an officer who distinguished himself greatly in the Umbeyla campaign, in which he was wounded, and who commanded the whole of the frontier forces, from Kashmir round the northern bor- der to Peshawar, and from Peshawar, excluding the dis- trict of that name, down to Dehra Ghazi Khan, a little below Miiltan. This, of course, involves the direction of many regiments ; and the officer commanding the frontier is not properly under the Commander-in-Chief in India, but under the direction of the Panjab Govern- ment. In the Peshawar district, which occurs in the midst of his border, the state of matters is different, all the large number of troops there being directly under the Commander-in-Chief. That seems an ano- malous state of affairs ; but the reason for it is, that the Afghan frontier being exceedingly difficult to«j manage, the Government of the Panjab is supposed to require a large body of troops on that frontier at its 2 E 434 the Abode op snow. own direct disposal, while it is equally necessary for the Commander-in-Chief in India to have a large force under his orders at Peshawar, which fronts the Khyber Pass, and is the key of our trans- Indus possessions. Abbotabad I saw when it was in a rather lively state, there being a marriage, a death, and sundry other minor events, during my very brief stay there. It was also much exercised by a ritualistic clergyman, who availed himself of the rare occasion of a marriage to act in a manner which threw the whole small com- munity into a state of excitement, and who insisted on the bride and bridegroom partaking of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper on the morning of their wedding- day. When chaplains in India give themselves the rein, they can indulge in many curious freaks. At another Indian station which I visited, my host told me that, at an evening party at his (my host's) house, the chaplain marched his own bishop before a large cheval-glass, and asked him if he had seen the latest portrait of the gorilla ? It is a pity that the good bishop had not the presence of mind to say that he re- cognised a resemblance in the figure standing behind him. But the Abbotabad chaplain's proceedings did little more than give a zest to the festivities connected with the marriage, which was that of a daughter of the popular officer commanding the station ; but ere they came to a close, they were terribly interfered with by the death of Captain Snow, who expired suddenly from heart-disease — a malady which seems to be sin- gularly common in the north of India — almost imme- diately after returning to his bungalow from the com- KASHMIR TO THE HAZARA. 435 munion service which the chaplain had insisted on holding on the morning of the marriage-day. He left a young widow ; and I have since noticed that other members of those Abbotabad parties who were full of life and humour, and distinguished by more graceful charms, have unexpectedly passed away. 436 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTER XLVI. THE FIGHTING VILLAGE OF KUBBUL. DANGERS OF THE AFGHAN BORDER SENDING FINGERS IN OFFICIAL LETTERS TORBELA THE HERO OF A NIGHT ATTACK VISIT A FIGHTING AFGHAN VILLAGE — AFGHAN AFFECTION FOR MURDERERS — USE OF THE KNIFE — THE SITANA FANATICS — THE RIVER INDUS. From Abbotabad I proceeded in three easy marches to Torbela, where the dangerous part of the frontier commences. Up to Torbela I had only a couple of sowars, or native horse-soldiers, with me; but from the Indus on to the fort of Hoti Mardan, I was guarded with as much care as if I were three vice- roys rolled into one. As a matter of convenience, even a single sowar riding behind one is a nuisance to a meditative traveller, especially when the M.T. is suffering from rheumatism in the back, which makes riding painful to him ; and I would gladly have dis- pensed with the escorts which were provided for me. It is not usual to allow any Englishmen, except officers on duty, to go along this part of the frontier, which touches on the territory of the Akoond of Swat ; and I was enabled to do so only by the special permission of the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief. The border authorities were thus responsible for my safety, and THE FIGHTING VILLAGE OF KUBBUL. 437 they took care to see that no harm befell me from the wild tribes of the mountains round the base of which I skirted. The reason of this anxiety was thus explained to me by a humorous officer : " Do not suppose," he said, " that the Panjab authorities mean to do you any special honour ; they probably wish you far enough. The case is this : if the hillmen get hold of you — and they would be very likely to make a dash at you over the border if you went unprotected — they would carry you up into the mountains, and would then write to the Panjdb Government offering to exchange you against some of their own budmashes which we have in prison. The Government would probably take no notice of this communication ; and, after the lapse of a little time, there would come down a second letter from the Swat hillmen, repeating the proposal, and containing the first joint of your little finger. The next day another letter would come with the second joint. Now, you see, it would be extremely unpleasant for the Panjdb Government to be receiving joints of your fingers, day after day, in official letters." Torbela is a village, or rather a congeries of small villages, and a large fortified police Thana on our side of the Indus. Opposite to it, and divided from this extreme corner of our territory by the river, there is the wild mountain Afghan district of Biinnair; and immediately opposite Torbela there is the fighting vil- lage of Kubbul or Kabal, chock-full of murderers and other fugitives from British justice ; while three miles farther up, also on the right bank of the Indus, there is Sitana, for long famous as the headquarters of the Wahabhi and other fanatics, who kept up an agitation in India for a jehad, or holy war, and are supposed by 438 THE ABODE OF SNOW. some to have instigated the assassination of Lord Mayo and of Mr Justice Norman. It occurred to me very forcibly here that now or never was my chance of crossing the border and seeing an Afghan village in its primitive simplicity. The British Government does not allow its subjects to cross the border, owing to the above-mentioned accident which may happen to their fingers; but I thought there could be nothing wrong in my crossing to a village which was in sight of our own territory, and could easily be destroyed. The next day I was to be handed over to the guards of the Yusufzai district; and, meanwhile, had only to deal with the native Thanadar in command of the armed police. That functionary, however, would not countenance any such proposal, and told me that Kubbul was a particularly bad place to go to ; that a few nights before it had come over and attacked one of the villages on his side of the Indus, and that, at the moment, it was fighting within itself. This looked bad; but fortunately, a few minutes after, one of my servants came, up to the roof of the Thana on which I was sitting, and told me a curious story about the Jemadar, the second in command. That hero had once been in this or some other police Thana in which a considerable sum of money was lying, when it was attacked at night by a number of Afghans from beyond the border. Judging the attack- ing force to be overpowering, the Thanadar and his police fled, probably no resistance being made to that, as the money was the object of the raid ; but old Ha- gan, as I shall call the Jemadar after the hero of the " Nibelungen Lied " who fought a similar fight, but in THE FIGHTING VILLAGE OP KUBBUL. 439 a less successful manner, remained behind, concealed in the darkness of the night and of the Thana. Before the Afghans had broken into the place where the money was, he attacked them single-handed with a tremendous sword which he had, cutting down the only torchman they had at the first blow, and then slashing away at them indiscriminately. He had the advantage of knowing that every one about him was an enemy ; while the Afghans, taken by surprise, and confused in the darkness, did not know how many assailants they had to deal with, and began hewing at each other, until the cry got up that the devil was amongst them, and those who were able to do so fled. The assistant commissioner of the district came over in hot haste next morning with a body of mounted police, expecting to find the treasure rifled; but, in- stead of that, he found my old friend the Jemadar strutting up and down the Thana, sword in hand, while a score of Afghans were lying dead or dying round him. On hearing this, it immediately struck me that Ha- gan was exactly the man intended to assist me to Kubbul, so I got him aside and asked him if he would go. Would he go ! Eepeating this question, a strange wild light broke out of the old man's eyes ; he un- sheathed his tremendous blade, of which it might well be said, that — " The sword which seemed fit for archangel to wield, Was light in his terrible hand ;" and eagerly assured me that if I would only say the word he would go with me not only to Kubbul but to Swat, which was supposed to be the last place in the world that an Englishman in his senses 440 THE ABODE OF SNOW. would dream of visiting. I should nave been glad to have accepted this proposal of going to Swat, but felt bound in honour to the high officials who had allowed me to go along the frontier, not to take any- thing which might look like an unfair advantage of their kindness. On hearing of our intention to cross the river, the Thanadar — who seemed to be a little in awe of his subordinate of the midnight massacre, but who was a proud Mohammedan who did not like to seem backward in courage — said that he would go also, and, after a little delay, produced a tall red- bearded old man, who had friends on the other side, and would accompany us. I fancy, however, that he must have reasoned with the Jemadar in private upon the subject, because, before starting, that worthy took me aside and said that we had better not stay long in Kubbul, because when the people in the mountains heard of our being there they might come down upon us. Our small party was increased by a somewhat unwilling policeman. It was well armed, and though I preferred to trust to the far-famed hospitality of the Afghans, and make no show of arms, I carried more than one weapon of offence concealed about me, and in handy positions. So we crossed the splendid and rapid stream of the Indus in a large carved boat of white wood. The fight- ing village of Kubbul rose up almost from the water's edge, and covered both sides of a long ridge which ran parallel with the stream, the narrow valley behind that ridge being partly occupied by a few grain-fields, im- mediately behind which were high bare savage moun- tains, the habitat of those individuals who are supposed to send men's fingers in official letters. All male Kub- THE FIGHTING VILLAGE OF KUBBTJL. 441 bul apparently (female portion not being visible, if in- deed it exists at all, which I am not in a position to affirm) had turned out to receive us, and lined the shore in a state of great curiosity. On landing, some rupees were presented to me as a token of obeisance, and I touched them instead of pocketing them, as the formal act invited me to do ; but which would have been considered very bad manners on my part, and would probably have sent all feelings and obliga- tions of hospitality to the winds. We were then taken over the ridge into the little valley behind, and the head-men showed me with great complacency the effects of the warfare in which they had been en- gaged on the previous day. What appeared to have taken place was that one end of the fighting village of Kubbul had blown out the other end, the place being in a state of too high pressure. It was divided into two parts, and my friends had made breaches in the wall of their neighbours' half and destroyed the houses next to that wall. They also showed me a mud tower which they had taken and dismantled ; and this was done with so much pride that I remarked they must be very fond of fighting, on which they assumed quite a different tone, and lamented the sad necessity they had been under of having recourse to arms — a necessity which was entirely due to the bad and desperate character of their neigh- bours. On this, even the solemn Thanadar smiled to me, for they themselves were about as ruffianly and desper- ate looking a lot as could well be conceived of. Where the enemy was all this time I cannot say. Perhaps he was up in the hills, or keeping quiet in the dilapidated part of the village ; but he could not have been far off, for the fighting was renewed that afternoon after we left, 442 THE ABODE OF SNOW. and heavy firing went on. I took care not to inquire after him. It was quite enough to have one party to deal with ; and it would have been impolitic to have been appealed to in the dispute, or to have shown any interest in the vanquished. After this we sat down in a courtyard, with a large crowd round us, and I was asked if I would wait while they prepared breakfast for me ; and they pressed me to do so. On this the old Jemadar gave me a signifi- cant look, so I compromised the matter by asking for some milk only; and very rick milk it was. Many of the men seated round us were fugitives from English justice, and they were not slow to proclaim the fact. One man told me that he had committed a murder seven years before in his own village, on our side of the Indus ; and he asked me whether, seeing so long a period had elapsed, he might not go back there with safety, adding that his conduct since then had been remarkably good : he had not killed any one since, except in open fight. I referred him to the Thauadar, who, in an alarmed man- ner, refused to take any responsibility in such a matter. MrDownes tells me that when he tried to go from Pesha- war to Kafiristan, and was seized, bound, robbed, and sent back, after he had got twenty miles beyond the frontier, and mainly at the instigation of the Peshawar police, the Afghans who seized him asked him if he had committed murder or any serious crime ; because in that case they would not rob him or send him back, but would either protect him or let him go on among the moun- tains as he might desire ; but, unfortunately for his enter- prise, my friend could not claim the necessary quali- fications. Behram Khan, who murdered Major Mac- donald this year of my journey and immediately crossed THE FIGHTING VILLAGE OP -KTJBBUL. 443 the frontier, has never been delivered up or punished, though the Amir of Kaubul has professed great desire to get hold of him, and has issued strict orders for his ap- prehension. The having committed any serious crime, and being a fugitive from justice, will secure protection among the Afghans ; but they have a special respect for murderers. Even that, however, is not a sufficient pro- tection beyond a certain point ; for, as Dr Bellew says, " if the guest be worth it, he is robbed or murdered by his late host as soon as beyond the protecting limits of the village boundary, if not convoyed by badraga of superior strength." The badraga is a body of armed men who are paid to convoy travellers through the limits of their own territory ; so that, after all, the pro- tection is in great part of a venal kind. The men who crowded round us did not carry their swords or matchlocks, but they all had daggers, and some of them had been slightly wounded in the fight- ing of the previous day. Most of the daggers were very formidable instruments, being about a foot and a half long, thick at the base, tapering gradually, very sharp at the point, sometimes round or three-cornered, slightly curved, and with thick, strong handles, capable of affording an adequate grasp. They are not like the ornamental articles of the kind which we see in Europe, but are meant for use, and would slither into one with great ease, and make a deep, fatal wound. When these noble borderers stab in the stomach, as they are fond of doing, they have a hideous way of working the dagger in the wound before withdrawal, in order to make assurance doubly sure. There was really, how- ever, not the least danger from these people, unless from some extreme fanatic amongst them, who would pro- 444 THE ABODE OF SNOW. bably be kept away from me ; and though Sitana was within sight, I learned that the colony of discontented Indians there had been removed further into the moun- tains, as the agitation they kept up in our territory trans- gressed even the liberal bounds of Afghan hospitality. The question may well be raised as to the expediency of allowing fugitives from English justice to look on us in safety from immediately across the border ; but it is at least obvious that we could not well interfere with them without departing from the whole line of policy which we have pursued towards Afghanistan of late years. That policy may be — and, I think, is — a mis- taken one ; but, if adhered to at all, we require to treat the border as a line which neither party should trans- gress in ordinary circumstances. On recrossing the river, a number of the youth of Kubbul accompanied us on niussaks, or inflated hides, on which they moved with considerable rapidity, the front of the onussah being in form something like a swan's breast, and gliding easily through or over the water. Some of these skins were so small that they must have been those of sheep or young calves, and each bore a single swimmer, whose body was thus kept out of the water while his limbs were free to paddle in it. From this point to its origin, about the Tibetan Kailas, great part of the long sweep of the Indus is unknown to Euro- peans, and its course is set down on our maps by a con- jectural dotted line. We know it again where it enters Baltistan, and as it passes through Ladak, but that is all. Indus incolis Sindus appellatus, said Pliny, and the Sanscrit meaning of the word is said to be "the sea;" but the Aryans who spoke Sanscrit must have had rather vague ideas as to what the sea was. As the Sutlej is THE FIGHTING VILLAGE OF KUBBUL. 445 supposed to proceed from the mouth of a crocodile, so the Indus comes from that of a lion. Edward Thornton, in his 'Gazetteer of the Countries adjacent to India,' has collected and reproduced all the information of any importance we have in regard to this great and histori- cally interesting river, and I must refer my reader to that work for the details, as also to General Cunning- ham's ' Ladak.' It has been measured near Torbela and found to be 100 yards broad ; but at Torbela I should think it was about 200 yards, though the current was rapid and deep. Between that place and Attok it is so shallow in winter, when it is not fed by melting snow, that there are several points at which it can be forded. From this point, also, boats can go down all the way to the sea, as they can also from very near Kaubul, float- ing down the Kaubul river till it reaches the Indus. 446 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTEE XLVII. THE BASE OF THE HINDU K.USH. CROSSING THE INDUS A PICTURESQUE SCENE MEN IN CHAIN-AR- MOUR THE ROOK OF PIHUR THE HINDU KUSH SWABI AFGHAN KHANS A BLOOD-HORSE ACROSS THE BORDER THE RUINS OF RANIGAT IDENTIFIED WITH AORNOS ANTIQUITIES OF TUSUFZA1 DISTRICT. Starting from Torbela on the afternoon of this day, I went about seven or eight miles down the left bank of the Indus to a ferry there is nearly opposite the mighty rock of Pihiir, which rises on the opposite shore, or rather almost out of the bed of the river, for in seasons of flood this rock is surrounded by the stream. Here I was passed over from the protection of the Hazara authorities to those of the Yusufzai district. Crossing the great river in another of those large high-pooped carved boats of white wood, such as, in all probability, bore Alexander the Great across the Indus, on the opposite bank a very strange sight appeared, which looked as if it might have been taken out of the middle ages, or even out of the time of the Grecian conqueror. The boundary-line between our territory and that of Afghanistan here leaves the Indus and runs along the foot of the Hindu Kiish, and one is supposed now to be in special need of being taken care THE BASE OF THE HINDtf KUSH. 447 of; so I was received on landing, and with great dig- nity, by a number of Afghan Khans belonging to our side of the border, by a native officer of police, a body of mounted police, and a number of the retainers of the Khans, some of whom were horsemen in chain-armour. Nothing could be more picturesque than the scene. It was now evening, and through the clear air the red light of the setting sun flamed over the yellow sands of the Indus, and burned on the high summits of the wild mountains around. The Afghan chiefs, with the retainers beside them, and their fine horses, were picturesque enough figures ; but the most picturesque feature in the scene was, undoubtedly, the men in chain-armour, who carried immensely long spears, rode the wildest and shaggiest looking of horses, wore brass helmets on their heads over crimson handkerchiefs, and galloped about between us and the hills, shaking their long spears, as if an immediate descent of the enemy was expected and they were prepared to do battle for us to the death. Unfortunately the enemy never did put in an appearance all the way along the border ; but the men in armour did very well instead, and imparted a delightful sense of danger to the mys- terious mountains. The rock of Pihur is between 300 and 400 feet high, and it would be a pleasant place of residence were it not for the wind which blows very violently up or down the Indus valley, and did so all night when I was there. Here I began to realise for the first time (belief being quite a different thing) that I was of some importance in the world. Guards slept in the veranda of the bungalow in which I was, though it was placed on the extreme summit of the rock and looked down 448 THE ABODE OP SNOW. precipices ; guards paced round it all night ; there was a guard half-way down the rock ; another guard at the foot of the rock ; and, when I looked down to the valley below, in the morning before daybreak, there were my friends in chain-armour riding round the rock in the moonlight, but slowly, and drooping in their saddles as if they were asleep and recruiting after the fatigues of the day. From Pihur we rode about twenty miles along the base of the mountains to the Thana of Swabi, passing through the village of Topi, the Khan of which accom- panied us on the journey. The mountains here and all along the border have a very singular effect, because they rise so suddenly above the plain. Our trans- Indus territory is here almost a dead level, being broken only by water-courses, at this season dry, which descend abruptly below the surface of the plain. From this wide level, which is scarcely 1800 feet above the sea, the mountains of the Hindu Ktish rise quite abruptly for thousands of feet, range towering above range till we come to the line of snowy summits. As I have already pointed out, these mountains are really a con- tinuation of the Himalaya, being separated from the latter by the gorge of the Indus, and running more directly to the west. Sir A. Burnes has told us that the name Hindu Kiish is unknown to the Afghans, but that there is a particular peak, and also a pass, bearing that name. This mountain is far from our present neighbourhood, being between Afghanistan and Tur- kestan. A good deal of doubt hangs over the deriva- tion and meaning of the word ; but, fancifully or not, the Kush has been identified with the Gaukasus of Pliny, and the whole of the immense range from the Hima- THE BASE OF THE HINDU KUSH. 449 laya to the Paropamisan Mountains, is known in this country as the Indian Caucasus. It is supposed to have a maximum height of about 20,000 feet, but very little really is known about it, and that adds to the interest of the range. Its highest peak or cluster of peaks appears to be the Koh-i-Baba, the Hindu" Ktish proper, between Kaubul and Bamlan ; and in the near neighbourhood of the British border there seem to be no peaks quite 16,000 feet high, though some way back from it, beyond Swat, there is one of 18,564, and another of 19,132 — the altitude of these heights, I presume, hav- ing been taken from points within our own territory or that of Kashmir. In geological formation these moun- tains do not seem to differ much from the Himalaya, being chiefly composed of quartz, granite, gneiss, mica- schist, slates, and limestone ; but they are richer in metals — namely, gold, lead, copper, tin, iron, and anti- mony. The most remarkable difference between the two ranges is, that in their western portion the Hindu Ktish are not backed to the north by elevated table- lands like those of Tibet, but sink abruptly into the low plains of Turkestan. They are even more desti- tute of wood than the Himalaya, but have more valleys which are something better than mere gorges. The Thana at Swabi is a very large strong place, with high walls, and could stand a siege by the moun- taineers. It was here arranged that I should make a day's excursion, and recross the frontier, in order to visit the famous ruins of Ranikhet or Banigat. This, however, I was told, was not a journey to be lightly undertaken. The Thanadar of Swabi, the officer of police, and quite a number of Afghan Khans, with their followers (including the inevitable horsemen in 2F 450 THE ABODE OP SNOW. chain-armour) thought it necessary to accompany me, all armed to the teeth, and mounted on fine horses. The chiefs who went with me were Mir Kuzzun, Khan of Topi ; Manir, Khan of Jeda ; Shah Aswur, Khan of Manir; Suniundu, Khan of Maneri; Amir, Khan of Shewa ; Husain Shah, the Thanadar of Swabi ; and the officer of police, Khan Bahadur Jhunota. It was a most imposing retinue ; and in lieu of my solid Khiva horse, they mounted me on a splendid and beautiful steed, which would have been much more useful than my own for the purpose of running away, if that had been at all necessary. I could well, however, have dis- pensed with this arrangement, for by this time I had begun to suffer intensely from intercostal rheumatism ; I could get no sleep because of it, and every quick movement on horseback was torture. I should like to have ridden slowly to Eanigat, a distance of about twelve miles from the Thana, as the quietest and hum- blest of pilgrims ; but it is impossible to ride slowly on a blood-horse, with half-a-dozen Afghan Khans "pranc- ing round you ; and however much you wished to do so, the blood-horse would object, so I had to lead a sort of steeplechase, especially in coming back, when, my blood having got thoroughly heated by torture and climbing, the rheumatism left me for the nonce, and by taking a bee-line, I easily outstripped the Khans, who must have been somewhat exhausted by their long fast, it being the month of Eamadan, when good Mo- hammedans do not taste anything from sunrise to sun- set. This horse I had must have been worth £200 at least ; and when T returned it to its owner he told me that he could not think of taking it away from me after I had done him the honour of riding upon it. I • THE BASE OF THE HINDtf KtrSH. 451 accepted this offer at its true value, and found no diffi- culty in getting the Khan to take back his steed. I was curious enough to inquire at Mardan what would have been the result if I had accepted the offer, and was told that it would have caused endless indignation, and would probably have led to the murder, not of my- self, but of somebody who had nothing whatever to do with the affair. Leaving our horses at the little village of Nowigram, we climbed on foot for a thousand feet up the steep hill on which are the ruins of Eanigat. General Cunning- ham * has the merit of having identified this place with the Aornos of Alexander the Great. The antiquarian discussion on this point would hardly interest the gene- ral reader ; so I shall only say that no other place which has been suggested suits Aornos so well as Eanigat, though something may be said in favour of General Abbott's view, that Aornos was the Mahaban mountain.! Rani-gat means the Queen's rock, and got this name from the Rani of Raja Vara. It has every appearance of having been a petra or " rock-fortress," the word ap- plied to Aornos by Diodorus and Strabo. The Khans who were with me called Ranigat a fort, and any one would do so who had not a special power of discover- ing the remains of ancient monasteries. Dr Bellew does not seem to have visited this place ; but in his valuable report on the Yusufzai district, J he refers to it as one of a series of ruins, and dwells on monastic features which they present. He is especially eloquent * See his Ancient Geography of India, I. The Budhist period, p. 58. t See Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1854,* p. 309, and 1863, p. 409. t Government Press. Lahore, 1874. 452 THE ABODE OF SNOW. on the " hermit cells " which, he says, " are met with on the outskirts of the ruins of Eanigat ; " and argues that the apertures sloping from them, and opening out on the faces of the precipices, were " for the purpose of raking away ashes and admitting • a current of air upwards." Having got so far, the learned doctor proceeds to draw a pleasing picture of the priests issuing from their chambers, crossing to the gateway of the temple, as- cending its steps, making their obeisance to the assem- bly of the gods, offering incense, making sacrifices, " and then retiring for meditation to the solemn and dark silence of their subterranean cells." Unfortu- nately, however, there is another and much more pro- bable theory in regard to these subterranean cells, and that is that they were simply public latrines; hence the sloping aperture out on the precipices. The plateau which forms the summit of the hill is strongly fortified by immensely strong buildings which run round it, and are composed of great blocks of hewn stone sometimes carefully fitted on each other, and in other places ce- mented as it were by small stones and thin slabs. This plateau is about 1200 feet in length by 800 in breadth, and is a mass of ruins. Separated from the external works and the " subterranean cells," the cita- del is 500 feet long and 400 broad. A number of broken statues,- chiefly figures of Budha, have been found among these ruins, and also one statue with the Macedonian cloak. The whole of this Yusufzai district is full of the most interesting antiquarian remains, such as ruins, statues, bas-reliefs, and coins, indicating the existence of a large population, of great cities, of arts, of an advanced civilisation, and of nations which have long since disappeared. A great part of these remains THE BASE OP THE HINDtf KUSH. 453 are Biidhistic, a few have relation to Alexander the Great and his Greeks, and a larger number belong to the empires of the Greeco-Bactrians, Indo-Bactrians, and Scythians. I should, however, require several chapters in order to do justice to this subject, and must content myself with merely alluding to it, and with mentioning that, in the Yusufzai district, I had the opportunity of inspecting two of the most interest- ing antiquarian monuments in the world — namely, the circle of great upright stones (resembling the so-called Druidical circle of Stonehenge) at the entrance of the Umbeyla Pass, and the great stone edict of King Asoka corresponding to the inscribed stone at the foot of Girnar in Kathiawar. There is a fine wild view from Eanigat up the mountains of the Hindi! Kush, and it is close to the entrance of the Umbeyla Pass, where, a few years ago, we had some very severe fighting with the hill-men. Their conduct had rendered it necessary to teach them a lesson, and a large British force was sent into the pass ; but the Afghans swarmed down upon it in large numbers and fought like devils. The British soldier did not show to his usual advantage in this" campaign, and one regiment retreated rather ignominiously from a post which it ought to have held. In order to insure the retaking of this position, Sir Neville Chamberlain, the commander of the force, placed himself at the head of the attacking column, and, rumour has it, turned round and said, " There must be no running away this time ; " on which the colonel of one regiment replied, " The — th don't require to be told that, General." 454 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTEE XLVIII. THE AFGHAN CHARACTER. SWAT AND ITS AKOOND — THE MULLAH OF TOPI — ETHNOLOGY OF THE AFGHANS THEIE DREADFUL HISTORY THEIR PUZZLING CHAR- ACTER INFLUENCE OF FATALISTIC MOHAMMEDANISM AFGHAN SONGS OF LOVE AND WAR. The portion of Afghanistan lying north of the Yusuf- zai district is scarcely even nominally under the sway of the Amir of Kaubul, and is virtually ruled by the Akoond of Swat, who is rather a spiritual than a tem- poral prince, but exercises a good deal of temporal power over the chiefs in his territory. He was ninety years old at the time of my visit to the Yusufzai, and had the reputation of being an extremely bigoted Mohammedan, not averse to stirring up a jehad against the infidels in India ; and in this respect his son is said to be even worse than himself. Fortunately, however, we have a counter-check to him in the Mullah of Topi, within our own district, who exercises a great religious influence over the Afghans, and is a rival of the Akoond. I had made a good deal of acquaintance with Afghans before this journey, and must say a word in regard to their character. They are a very strange THE AFGHAN CHARACTER. 455 mixture of heroism and cowardice, fidelity and .treach- ery, kindness and cruelty, magnanimity and meanness, high-sounding morality and unspeakably atrocious viciousness. Though their language affords no coun- tenance to their own belief that they are sons of Israel, and the linguist scoffs at this supposition in his usual manner, I think there is something in it. In physical appearance and in character they resemble the Hebrews of history; and it is unscientific, in judging of the origin of a people, to place exclusive reliance on one particular, such as language. Much meditation over this subject has also convinced me that our modern writers are far too much given to drawing hard and fast lines when treating of ethnology. They get hold of a race or a nation somewhere in the past, and vir- tually, indeed often unconsciously, assume that it has become stereotyped for all time, leaving out of mind that circumstances similar to those which form a race are continually modifying its peculiarities. As to the Afghans, I deem it likely that there is some truth in all the theories which have been started as to their origin. They are probably partly Semitic, partly Aryan, partly Asiatic, and partly European. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that their Hebrew blood has been mingled with that of the soldiers of Alexan- der the Great and of the Greek colonists of the Grseco- Bactrian kingdoms, and also of the Asiatic Albanians, who were driven across Persia. The Indo-Bactrians, again, may have modified the race ; and this theory of a composite origin affords some explanation of the inconsistencies of the Afghan character. Afghan history is a dreadful story of cruelty, faith- lessness, perfidy, and treachery. Though they may 456 THE ABODE OF SNOW. understand the matter among themselves, yet it is impossible for the European to draw any line within which the Pathans may be trusted. The tomb of Cain is said to be in Kaubul, and the popular belief is that the devil fell there when he was thrown out of heaven. These are the views of the Afghans themselves, and a double portion of the spirit of Cain seems to have de- scended upon them. In one small village through which I passed, there had been twelve secret assassina- tions within nine months. Among these people you have perpetually recurring reasons, in the shape of dead bodies, for putting the questions, " Who is she % " and " How much was it ?" for their murders proceed usually from quarrels as to women, or land, or cattle. A good many of our officers on the frontier have been assas- sinated, sometimes out of mere wantonness, and they have to go about armed or guarded. The Afghan monarch Shah Mahmood owed his throne to his Wuzeer Futteh Khan (Barukzai), and the latter was always careful not to show any want of allegiance or respect for that sovereign ; yet Shah Mahmood, at the instiga- tion of a relative, had his Wuzeer seized, and put out both his benefactor's eyes in the year 1818. Then he had the unfortunate blind man brought before him bound, and had him deliberately cut to pieces — nose, ears, lips, and then the joints. This is a characteristic Afghan incident, and not the less so that it was a ruin- ous act for the perpetrator. Sir Alexander Burnes, in his account of his journey to Bokhara (vol. ii. p. 124), says of the Afghans that, " if they themselves are to be believed, their ruling vice is envy, which besets even the nearest and dearest re- lations. No people are more capable of managing in- THE AFGHAN CHARACTER. 457 trigue." And yet he adds, " I imbibed a very favour- able impression of their national character." But this vice of envy is peculiarly the characteristic which marks off the lower from the higher portion of the human race; it has, not inappropriately, been assigned as the cause of angels turning into devils ; and it is curious to find that a people like the Afghans, who are possessed by it, can still excite admiration. Mr T. P. Hughes, a well-known able missionary on the border, who is inti- mately acquainted with these people, says that " the Afghans are a manly race, of sociable and lively habits. All Europeans who have come in contact with them have been favourably impressed with the very striking' contrast exhibited by our trans-Indus subjects to the mild Hindu and the miserable Hindiisthani and Panjdbi Mohammedans." He also says that their " manly qualities are not unequal to our own," and that there are elements of true greatness in the Afghan national character." Yet I was assured by more than one ex- cellent authority that one of the most hideous of all vices is openly practised in Kaubul, where a bazaar or street is set apart for it ; and that even in Peshawar the agents of the Church Mission require to be cautious in their conduct towards the boys under their tuition. It is the extraordinary union of virtues and vices which forms the most puzzling feature in the Afghan charac- ter. To courage, strength, and the other better features of a wild sentimental mountain people, they unite vices which are usually attributed to the decrepitude of corrupt civilisations and dying races ; and though their fidelity is often able to overcome torture and death, it as often succumbs to the most trivial and meanest temptations. 458 THE ABODE OP SNOW. I am inclined to believe that much of the badness of the Afghans is owing to the influence of Mohamme- danism. One might expect that so simple and intel- ligible a religion, holding the doctrine of the unity of God, and admitting Christ as one of its line of prophets, would be superior in its effects to polytheistic Hinduism, and especially to Brahmanism, the acceptance of which after and in face of Budhism, involved a moral suicide on the part of the people of India. But certainly my knowledge of India does not support that conclusion. Among a purely Semitic race like the Arabs, secluded among their deserts and at a certain stereotyped stage of thought, Mohammedanism may be good, and it un- doubtedly appears to have exercised a beneficial in- fluence in its removal of ancient superstitions ; but in the larger sphere and greater complications of modern life it becomes an evil influence, from its essentially Pharisaical character and its want of power to touch the human heart. I need not speak of Christianity or of Biidhism, with their enthusiasm of love and their doctrines of self-sacrifice : but even in Brahmanism there are humanising influences ; and in the older Hinduism, as Dr John Muir has so well shown by his metrical translations, the law of love finds an impor- tant place. It is not even the worst of Mohamme- danism that it is a system of external observances and mechanical devotion. Its central idea, as elaborated to-day, and as Mr Palgrave has already pointed out, is that of the Creator and Governor of the universe as a merciless tyrant, ruling after the caprice of a fathom- less will, breaking the clay of humanity into two pieces, throwing the one to the right, saying, "These THE AFGHAN CHARACTER. 459 into heaven, and I care not;" and the other to the left, saying, "These into hell, and I care not." Whenever God is thus regarded as an arbitrary tyrant, instead of an all-loving Father whose dealings with His children transcend our knowledge but do not revolt our moral consciousness, religion, or rather that which takes its place, becomes a frightful instrument of evil ; and even when the natural working of the human heart is too strong to allow of its being carried out practically to its logical conclusions, on the other hand, it prevents our higher sympathies from being of much practical use. It is worthy of such a system that it should regard a few external observances, and the mere utter- ance of such a formula as, " There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His prophet," as insuring an en- trance into heaven, and that its heaven should be one of purely sensual delight. I do not mean to say that Mohammed is responsible for all that Mohammedanism has become — for even in this case there has been mani- fested that curious tendency of religions to thrust for- ward and deify that which their founders began with repudiating and condemning — but he is in great part responsible ; and of all famous books in the world, the Kuran is about the least edifying. Hardy, brave, mean, and wicked a people as the Afghans are, they are great lovers of poetry, and have produced not a little poetry of a high order. They are very fond, at night, round their camp-fires, of reciting verses, and these verses are usually of a melancholy kind, relating to love, war, the unsatisfactoriness of all earthly enjoyment, and the cruelty of fate. Captain H. G. Raverty has rendered a great service in present- 460 THE ABODE OP SNOW. ing us with an almost literal translation of the produc- tions of the more famous Afghan poets ; * and these do not at all make the Afghan character more intelligible. When the women of a village ventured to come out to look at me, usually some man with a big stick drove them away with heavy blows, and remarks upon them which even a Rabelais would have hesitated to report ; yet the Afghans have romantic ideas of love, and are fond of singing these beautiful lines : — " Say not unto me, ' Why swearest thou by me ? ' If I swear not by thee, by whom shall I swear ? Thou, indeed, art the very light of mine eyes ; This, by those black eyes of thine, I swear ! In this world thou art my life and my soul, And not else besides ; unto thee, my life, I swear ! Thou art in truth the all-engrossing idea of my mind, Every hour, every moment, by my God I swear ! The dust of tby feet is an ointment for the eyes — By this very dust beneath thy feet I swear ! My heart ever yearneth toward thee exceedingly — By this very yearning of mine unto thee I swear ! When thou laughest, they are nothing in comparison, Both rubies and pearls — by thy laugh I swear ! Truly I am thy lover, and thine, thine only — And this I, Kiishhal, by thy sweet face swear ! " Of the despairing melancholy of the Afghan poets it would be easy to quote many instances ; but I prefer * Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Literally translated from the original Pushtoo. London, 1862. THE AFGHAN CHARACTER. 461 to give the following example, also translated by Cap- tain Raverty, by a chief of the clan Khattak, of their stirring war-songs : — " From whence hath, the spring again returned unto us, Which hath made the country round a garden of flowers 1 There are the anemone and sweet basil, the lily, and the thyme ; The jasmine and white rose, the narcissus, and pomegranate blossom. The wild flowers of spring are manifold, and of every hue; But the dark-red tulip above them all predominateth. The maidens place nosegays of flowers in their bosoms ; The youths, too, fasten nosegays of them in their turbans. Come now, maidens, apply the bow to the violin ; Bring out the tone and melody of every string ! And thou, cup-bearer, bring us full and overflowing cups, That I may become fraught with wine's inebriety ! The Afghan youths have again dyed red their hands, Like as the falcon dyeth his talons in the blood of the quarry. They have made rosy their bright swords with gore ; The tulip-beds have blossomed even in the heat of summer. Ae-mal Khan and Dar-ya Khan — from death preserve them ! — Were neither of them at fault when opportunity occurred. They dyed red the valley of Khyber with the blood of the foe ; On Karrapah, too, they found both war's din and tumult. From Karrapah, even unto Bajawar, both plain and mountain, Time after time, as from an earthquake, quaked and shook." 462 THE ABODE OF SNOW. CHAPTEE XLIX. HOTI MARDAN AND THE KHYBEK, PASS. CAPTAIN HUTCHINSON ADVANTAGES OF RESIDING AT HOTI MARDAN TEMPERATURE — HAWKING ASSASSINATIONS THE PAN.JAB GUIDES AND THEIR EXPLOITS OUR TRUE POLICY IN INDIA GENERAL JOHN NICHOLSON THE PANJAB IN THE MUTINY — PESHAWAR AND ITS OFFICIALS THE KHYBER PASS — CONCLUSION. One day's march from Hoti Mardan, or Murdan, I was handed over to the care of an escort of the Panjdb Guides, a famous regiment which is usually quartered in that fort. Its officers showed great hospitality and kindness, and especially Captain Hutchinson, whom I had met at Hard war, as also in Kashmir, and whose shooting expeditions had made him familiar with some of the remotest parts of the Himalaya and with the regions lying to the north of Kashmir. He had just returned from a journey into Gilgit, which he de- scribed as exceedingly barren and stony; and his quarters in the fort were adorned with many trophies of the chase, including quite a pile of the skins of the great snow-bear. Elsewhere, I heard a story of an officer who, on get- ting leave after a long period of close service, went up and spent his leave at this little remote fort of Hoti HOTI MARDAN AND THE KHYBER PASS. 463 Mardan, where he had formerly been stationed. That was adduced as a remarkable instance of English ec- centricity ; but I can quite appreciate the man's choice; The officers of a crack regiment in an isolated position make very good company ; there is excellent sport of various kinds, including hawking, to be had at Mar- dan; there is just enough of personal danger connected with a residence there to keep one lively ; interesting expeditions may be made along or across the frontier ; the whole country round is full of important anti- quities ; and the climate during great part of the year is delightful. According to the regimental records of temperature for the year 1872, the thermometer (in the open air, but in a position sheltered from the sun), had, in the month of January, an extreme range from 27° to 64°, and a mean range from 46° to 52°. In February, the extreme range was from 32° to 73°, and the mean from 48° to 52°. In April, the extreme range was 53° to 91°, and the mean 69° to 82°. The hottest month was June, when the extreme range was 70° to 109°, and the mean 92° to 100°. That sounds very dreadful; but the pure and excessively dry air of these regions does not make a temperature of 1 00° so intolerable as a temperature of 80° is in the moist regions of the coast, or, during the rainy season, in those parts of India which are much exposed to the influence of the south-west monsoon. Evaporation of moisture from the skin and clothes is the great source of coolness in a hot country ; and, of course, the drier the air is, the greater the evaporation and consequent coolness, while, the more the air is loaded with moisture, the less is the evaporation from our persons, and the more we 464 THE ABODE OF SNOW. become like furnaces surrounded by some non-beat- conducting substance. So early as September, the climate begins to be delightful at Hoti Marddn, the temperature for that month having an extreme range from 57° to 98°, and a mean of from 70° to 80°. After that it rapidly approaches the results given for Janu- ary, and becomes bracing as well as pleasant. I went out hawking with the officers one day, and we had some very fine sport, following the birds on horse- back, and being much amused by a large black vulture — a pirate bird — which once or twice made its appear- ance just when the falcon had hunted down its prey, and proceeded to act on the principle of sic vos non vobis, which appears to be one of the fundamental character- istics of organic life. Apart from its cruelty (which need not be expatiated on, seeing that all action we know of involves cruelty), the action of the falcon was very beautiful as it steadily pursued its prey, a species of crane, I think, and swooping down upon it, struck it again and again on the base of the skull, sending out a small cloud of feathers at every stroke, until the brain was laid open and the bird succumbed. Some of the officers at Fort Mardan did not trouble themselves to carry arms, relying upon their sticks or heavy hunting - whips ; but this was unwise. . Fort Michni was in sight, and there Major Macdonald had a stick when Behram Khan and the Khan's brother went up to him and fired into him with guns from close quarters. A stick becomes a satire in such circum- stances. Even arms, however, are not always a sufficient defence from Afghan assassins. Lieutenant Ommaney, a promising young officer in civil employ, was killed in Hoti Marddn by a scoundrel who presented him with HOTI MARDAN and the khybeb, pass. 465 a petition to read, and then stabbed him suddenly when the Englishman was engaged in looking over the naper. In this case Mr M'Nab, the acting commis- sioner of the district, on hearing of the affair at night, rode immediately over from Peshawar to Marddn, a distance of over thirty miles, and had the murderer hanged next morning — possibly without a very strict regard to legal forms, but in a summary manner, which served to put a check, for the time at least, upon what was threatening to become a too common Afghan - amusement. The Panjab Guides is a rather peculiar regiment, being composed half of foot-soldiers and half of horse- men, most of whom are Afghans, and many from be- yond our border. They are a splendid set of men, and the regiment has always been kept in an admirably effective state. In the Panjdb Mutiny Report * it is said that at the outbreak of the great Indian Mutiny " the Guide Corps marched from Mardan six hours after it got the order, and was at Attok (30 miles off) next morning, fully equipped for service, — ' a worthy begin- ning,' writes Colonel Edwards, of ' one of the rapidest marches ever made by soldiers ; for, it being necessary to give General Anson every available man to attempt the recovery of Delhi, the Guides were not kept for the movable column, but were pushed on to Delhi, a distance of 580 miles, or 30 regular marches, which they accomplished in 21 marches, with only three in- tervening halts, and these made by order. After thus marching 27 miles a-day for three weeks, the Guides reached Delhi on 9 th June, and three hours afterwards engaged the enemy hand to hand, every officer being * Lahore, 1859 ; para. 140. 2 G 466 THE ABODE OF SNOW. more or less wounded.' " That shows the splendid state of efficiency in which the Guides were kept. They did something of the same kind in 1872, or the beginning of 1873, when sent to the camp of exercise at Hassan Abdul, and I doubt not they would do it to-morrow if necessary. This regiment had only about half-a-dozen European officers when I saw it ; but then it was pretty well beyond the reach of the so-called philanthropic in- fluences which have weakened and are destroying our position in India. The officers were free to rule their men ; and the consequence was, that the soldiers not only looked up to, but liked, and were proud of, their officers. I must repeat emphatically that ability to rule wisely is ' the only condition on which we have any right to be in India at all, and that the instant we depart from that ground, trouble and disaster commence, whatever the character of that departure may be — whether it consist in having inferior English agents in the country or in curbing the hands of the capable ones — whether in stupid want of appreciation of the natives of India or in weak paudering to their insaner ambitions. Hoti Mardan, as well as the whole northern portion of our trans-Indus territory, is associated with the name of a very extraordinary man — General John Nicholson, who was mortally wounded at the siege of Delhi. No Englishman, at least of late years, appears to have left so powerful a personal impression upon the Afghan mind. I found it to be quite true that the Pathans of our district believe that they hear the hoofs of Nichol- son's horse ringing over the trans-Indus plain at night, and that that country shall never pass from our pos- session so long as these sounds are heard. In the In- stitute at Delhi there is an oil-painting of him which HOTI mardAn and the khybee, PASS. 467 was made after his death, partly from a small sketch and partly from memory. It represents him as having had a long head and face, with dark hair, and a very finely-formed white forehead. In some respects it re- minded me of the portrait of Sir Harry Vane in Ham House, and suggested more a man of contemplation than of action ; but that is not an unfrequent charac- teristic in the countenances of great soldiers. One of Nicholson's most splendid achievements was performed near this fort of Hoti Mardan. He was deputy commissioner of the district at the time of the outbreak of the Mutiny, when matters were in a most critical posi- tion, and the disaffected native soldiers were urged to move by the Hindusthani sepoys below, and were in correspondence with the Afghan and other fanatics of Swat and Sitana. If the Panjab saved India, it was our trans- Indus district, which was the most dangerous in the Panjab, and it was John Nicholson, more emphati- cally than any other man, who saved our trans-Indus possession. The place of the Panjab Guides, when they were despatched to Delhi, was taken by the 55th Native Infantry and the 10th Irregular Cavalry, the first of which threatened to murder their officers, and the second to " roast " the civil officer of the station. A very small force was sent to Mardan to deal with them, and it was accompanied by Nicholson as political officer; and, on its approach, the 55th Regiment broke and took to the hills. It was in the end of the month of May, and he had been twenty hours in the saddle, under a burning sun, and had ridden seventy miles that day ; * but, without a moment's hesitation, he "hurled himself on the fugitives with a handful of * See Panjab Mutiny Report, para. 151. 468 THE ABODE OF SNOW. police sowars," and did such fearful execution that 150 of them were laid dead on the line of retreat, 150 sur- rendered, and the greater number of those who escaped up the hills were wounded. The moral effect of this, just when everything was hanging in the balance, can- not be over-estimated. The tide of mutiny had rolled up almost unchecked until it broke upon this rock. It has been well said that, at the outbreak of the Mutiny, the valley of Peshawar stood in " a ring of re- pressed hostilities," while beyond that lay the chroni- cally hostile kingdom of Kaubul. The military forces in this valley consisted of 2800 Europeans and 800 native soldiers of all arms ; and when the intelligence of the events at Delhi and Meerut reached Peshdwar, most of the native soldiers became ripe for mutiny. It has often been alleged that the sepoys took no part in the atrocities of this dreadful time, and that these were committed only by released felons and other bad char- acters ; but in the Panj&b Mutiny Report it is stated (para. 145) that -at Pesh&war, in May 1857, "the most rancorous and seditious letters had been intercepted from Mohammedan bigots in Patna and Thaneysur, to soldiers of the 64th Native Infantry, revelling in the atrocities that had been committed in Hinddsthan on the men, women, and children of the ' Nazarenes/ and sending them messages from their own mothers that they should emulate these deeds." Communications also were going on between the sepoys in open rebel- lion and their brethren across the frontier. It was most fortunate that at this juncture Sir Sydney Cotton ordered the disarmament of his native troops ; and there is reason to believe that Nicholson had great influence in leading him to do so. The Mutiny Report mentions H0T1 MAEDlN AND THE KHYBER PASS. 469 that " this measure was determined on under the stren- uous opposition of the condemned corps; some had ' implicit confidence ' in their regiment ; others advo- cated ' conciliation.' " Of these infatuated old Indians, who have their counterparts at the present day, one colonel shot himself when his regiment, the 55th, revolted, so much did he feel the disgrace. Peshawar is a very interesting place ; and though the acting commissioner, Mr M'Nab, was absent on the border, I had met with him at Mardan, and received much information and great kindness from him as well as from Major Ommaney, another civil officer, as also from Mr Hughes of the Church Mission. Mr Ward, the superintendent of police, accompanied me up the Khy- ber Pass, near to Ali Musjid, the first camping-ground on the way to Kaubul. This is managed through the Afridis, or Afreedees, of the fort of Jumrood, which stands on the sort of no man's land — the desolate strip between our territory and that of Kaubul. The Khy- beris are a rapacious and sanguinary lot, and it does not do to enter their territory without protection of some kind. They even annoyed Sher Ali, the ruler of Kaubul, on his return from visiting Lord Mayo in 1869 ; and when I was at Peshawar the Khyber route into Afghanistan was entirely closed, owing to the ex- actions practised on travellers by the tribes who occupy it. More recently some of these people came down to Peshawar one night by stealth, and carried off into their fastnesses the bandmaster of an English, or per- haps a Scotch, regiment, who had fallen asleep by the roadside on his way from the sergeants' mess to his own quarters, and held him to ransom for £700, but were finally induced to accept a smaller sum. 470 THE ABODE OF SNOW. So thirty-five of the armed Afridis and one piper marched with me up the Khyher Pass, " to plunder and to ravish," no doubt, if there had been anything to plunder. We saw some caves high above the place where we stopped for breakfast, but none of the natives of the pass appeared. We then had a shooting- match, in which even little boys, who carried matchlock and dagger, acquitted themselves very well^played our most in- sulting tunes in the face, or rather against the back, of the enemy, — and marched back again. The pass is so narrow, and the mountains on both sides of it are so high and precipitous, that the Khyber must be a particularly unpleasant place to be attacked in. The entire length of this wonderful gorge is nearly fifty miles ; it runs through slate, limestone, and sandstone ; and in wet weather the path becomes the bed of a torrent. Near Ali Musjid the precipices rise from this narrow path to the height of 1200 feet, at an angle of about 80°. This wild pass is said to be able to turn out 26,000 fighting men, and during the Afghan war many of our troops perished in it. But I must now conclude my last chapter; and, as I do so, a feeling of relief and thankfulness comes over me. Curiously enough, some subtle influence, which eludes analysis, has correlated the difficulties of writing this book with those which I encountered on the journey which it describes. An effort similar to that which took me over the plains of India to the slopes of the Himalaya was necessary to describe, how- ever briefly, that portion of my journey; it was as hard for me to get away from Simla in literature as it was in person ; the Valley of the Shadow of Death HOTI MAEDAN and the khyber pass. 471 almost required another valley of the kind ; and now I throw away my pen and commit my note-books to the dust-hole with the same regretful yet over-wearied and glad feeling with which at Peshawar I disposed of my worn-out dandi, my cooking-pots, and my Khiva horse. Having such an over- wearied feeling upon me, the conscientious reader who has got this length (and who, I am certain, must sympathise with me on his own account) will gladly dispense with any. further obser- vations on Afghanistan, on our trans-Indus posses- sions, or on the Panjdb in general. I had much to say on these subjects, but human patience has its limits, in readers as well as in writers ; and I may be allowed to refer these subjects to abler pens, especially as they hardly come under the scope of the present volume. So I have only to take the long drive from Peshawar across the Panjab to Lahore, and to glide from Lahore along the railway to Bombay. This was in the end of December ; and all across the country of the Five Eivers, afar off, high above the golden dust-haze, there gleamed the snowy summits of the giant mountains whose whole line I had traversed in their central and loftiest valleys. These snowy mountains were especially clear and beautiful in the morning sunlight. Intimate as I had been with them, having — almost in desperation — found health and strength in their keen pure air, and retaining so many vivid memories of icy peak, dark precipice, and rugged glacier, I was truly entitled to say — " The mountains of this glorious land Are conscious beings to mine eye, "When, at the break of day, they stand Like giants looking through the sky, 472 THE ABODE OF SNOW. To hail the sun's unrisen car That gilds their diadems of snow, When one by one, like star by star, Their peaks in ether glow." If not in the Lama monasteries themselves, yet in the lofty valleys where they abound, I had realised the words of St Bernard in regard to the monastic re- treats of the middle ages — Bonuvn nos hie esse, quia homo vixit purius, cadit rarius, surgit velocius, incedit cautius, quiescit securius, moritur felicius. Nor could I refrain from associating these giant mountains with the grander forms of Hindu mythology and the earlier memories of the Aryan race. The next snow I beheld was on the peak of Cretan Ida, where the supreme Caucasian mind had found another abode for its titulary deities. But in the mountains which I was now leaving there were visible a more radiant and godlike form than " the lord of light and the unerring bow," a more awful power than the Greek imagination had shaped in the darkness of the grave. These gleaming summits might well be as- sociated with the life-giving power and perfect beauty of the sun-god Vishnu ; while in their savage desolation and wild sublimity they are a fitting abode for the dread Siva. It was to the darker power that my pilgrimage had been more particularly made. I had bearded him, so to speak, in his most inaccessible re- treat and in his most savage humour, and had come off not only safe, but refreshed and strengthened, from the encounter. Himalaya had become to me a mighty presence, and not only a giant range of mountains which I had known and loved. So, as the last of the snowy summits gleamed above the golden dust-haze, it HOTI mardan and the khyber PASS. 473 was in their double, and especially in their mystic meaning, that I found myself repeating Kalidasa's lines — " Far in the north Himalaya lifting high His towery summits till they cleave the sky, , Spans the wide land from east to western sea, Lord of the Hills, instinct with Deity." 474 APPENDIX. NOTE ON THE TEMPERATURE OE PU. Mr Pagell was in the habit of recording thermometrical obser- vations at Pii, and a selection from them may be interesting, as illustrative of the climate of the interior Himalaya, all the year round, at the height of about 10,000 feet. They show that the climate there is favourable to human life and strength in winter as well as in summer ; and it should be borne in mind that the scarcity of rain and the remarkable dryness of the atmosphere make the extremes of temperature more healthy and pleasant than similar extremes would be in most European countries. I shall not quote all the records — and, indeed, they are incomplete — but only sufficient to indicate the temperature. The thermometer was hung in a shaded veranda, and the observations were made at 6 or 7 A.M., and at mid-day. Jan. Feb. MORNING. Mm-DAT. MOKNINQ. Mid-day Degrees. Degrees. Degrees. Degrees. March 1. 33 56 1. 40 60 „ 6. 34 48 2. 36 54 „ 10. 38 55 10. 26 41 „ 20. 44 68 15. 32 56 » 24. 43 62 28. 26 49 „ 29. 46 66 April 1. 50 70 2. 27 52 „ 5. 38 56 8. 37 40 „ 12. 49 70 15. 34 50 „ 17. 45 59 20. 43 58 » 22. 52 71 25. 40 62 „ 28. 51 72 APPENDIX. 47 MOBNING. Mid-day. Morning. Mid-dat Degrees. Degrees. Degrees Degrees. May 3. 49 68 Sept. 11. 60 73 „ 10. 51 67 » 18. 54 75 „ 17. 44 64 3? 25. 59 82 „ 22. 52 74 3) 29. 52 78 „ 28. 59 77 Oct. 1. 7. 62 54 82 76 June 2. 56 70 » 15. 50 75 „ 6. 58 74 J? 22. 46 76 „ 10. 60 80 J) )? -*• v * 27. 43 69 » 18. 62 77 a » 21. 58 64 Nov. 1. 40 70 » 25. 52 70 •>•> 8. 42 68 jj 15. 39 65 July 2. 64 72 ?) 20. 35 58 „ 5. 66 80 >> 25. 36 66 » 12. 64 82 j; 27. 28 6? „ 18. 65 86 „ 26. 56 82 Dec. 9. 36 61 ?> 14. 36 56 Aug. 1. 66 82 J; 19. 34 56 „ 9. 64 85 )» 22. 30 55 » 13- 64 82 JJ 24. 30 60 „ 18. 64 80 )J 28. 34 52 „ 22. 64 82 JJ 31. 38 42 These observations were, no doubt, of a rough and unscien- tific kind; but they are sufficient to indicate generally the temperature of Pii, and of places at a similar height in the interior of the Himalaya. PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. By the Author of the 'Abode of Snow. THE 'EVER VICTORIOUS ARMY.' A HISTORY OF THE CHINESE CAMPAIGN UNDER 1IEUT.-C0L. C. G. GORDON, C.B., R.E., AND OF THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TAI-PING REBELLION. By ANDREW WILSON". With Six Maps. Price 15s. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. Athensenm, " For the battles fought, and the cities taken, the successes and reverses, the horrors of the massacres, and the excitement of the sieges, the reader must consult Mr Wilson's account of the campaign. There has probably never been a more strange history written. It is a record of treachery, of mutiny, and of cruelty, and yet of bravery and resolution, such as has no parallel within our knowledge. . . . That his work contains much food for re- flection on our relations with the East, besides vividly relating a tale second to none in dramatic interest, no one who peruses it can doubt. Carefully compiled from authentic sources, and forcibly and graphically written, it is a work of far more than ordinary merit." Illustrated London News. " This wonderfully well-filled volume is rendered still more valuable by the addition of six elaborate maps or charts. . . . It is a question whether there is any work in existence from which so much information of all sorts, including pronunciation of names and description of insignia, could be gathered by the inquirer after a knowledge of China. . . . The ' list of leading events ' prefixed to the narrative is in itself an epitomised history — refreshing the memory which has grown dull, and suggesting to the totally ignorant historical periods deserving of study. . . . The author is evidently master of his subject, and writes with all the authority and trustworthiness which experience, study, and confidence reposed in him can confer. He divides his work into four parts. In the first, he, in three most instructive and philosophical chapters, traces the relations between the past and present of China, and the origin of the Tai-ping Rebellion ; in the second, he reviews circumstances connected with the causes which brought us into collision with the rebels ; in the third, he gives a full account of Gordon's campaign ; and in the fourth, he follows the fate of the Tai-pings to their dispersion and final disappearance — devoting his last chapter to a discussion of the present and future of China. Subjoined are some very valuable appendices." Times. " In addition to a good deal of information respecting China and its recent history, this volume contains an interesting account of a brilliant passage in the military career of an English officer of remarkable promise, and of the im- portant results of his skill and heroism." Morning Herald and Standard. ■' The story is told with great spirit, and an amount of minute detail ; giv- ing all the separate items of warfare— guns, forces, numbers of troops, killed and wounded, &c. — which will gratify the most ardent of military readers. . . . Some admirable maps not only show the physical features of the whole of the great empire, but help to illustrate the plan of the whole campaign." Fall Mall Gazette. " This able and interesting volume, by a writer who has given close atten- tion to Chinese affairs, and has had the advantage of residing for some time in the country. ... In choosing a title, Mr Wilson has done his work some injustice ; for while he paints a graphic picture of the Tai-ping move- ment, and the feats of Colonel Gordon and his ' ever victorious army,' he also gives a full account of the social and political development of the Celestial Empire ; and his book is therefore one of wide scope, and varied information." London and China Telegraph. " A link of no slight importance in the chain of contemporaneous history is supplied by this volume, and supplied, moreover, in a manner which leaves nothing to be desired. . . . It is fortunate, indeed, that the task has been undertaken by a hand so well qualified to execute it. . . . The chapters that follow, detailing the exploits of the ' ever victorious ' under its new commander, read far more like romance than history, and afford a forcible illustration of the well-known saying that truth is stranger than fiction." Examiner. " Mr Wilson has here treated a very interesting subject in a very able way. Making it his chief business to recount the history of the Tai-ping Rebellion, and of Colonel Gordon's share in its suppression, he has perfected his narra- tive, and thus more than doubled its interest and value, by including in it much useful information touching the character and circumstances of Chinese politics, religion, and society. More readable than most of the many books about China written by soldiers, missionaries, and others, that have appeared during the last ten or twelve years, it has earned an honourable place among the smaller stock of books, valuable always, to which Sir John Davis's volumes were the first important contribution." Observer. " This excellent summary of a most important portion of Chinese history affords more real information respecting the politics of the country than any work which has yet been published." Weekly Review. " To intelligent minds Mr Wilson's volume will possess an interest incalcu- lably superior to that of a novel ; and they will arise from its perusal in- structed in no slight degree.'' Scotsman. " Mr Wilson has given too modest a title to his elaborate work ; for not only does he chronicle minutely the events of Colonel Gordon's elaborate campaign, and trace Tai-pingdom from the birth of its originator, Hung Sew-tswen, to the fall of Nanking, and the complete overthrow and dispersion of the Tai-pings, but he also supplies what is so much needed,, a sketch of the Chinese State as it really is, and tells his readers what are the prospects before China. . . . Indeed, Mr Wilson may be considered as almost the sole writer who has grappled, with due knowledge of the facts and with suf- ficient data, with the all-important question — Can the Chinese continue to hold together, now that they have come in contact with the Western civilisa- tion ? Are we to witness the same disintegration in China which has taken place in India 1 Before the close of the Tai-ping revolt, it was impossible to answer these questions. No safe inference could be drawn from the abnor- mal state of matters which then existed. But Mr Wilson, looking, back on the disastrous failure of that rebellion, and reviewing events down to the first month of 1868, is able to give his readers an answer to these questions, or to furnish them with full and reliable data for framing an answer. Then, it need hardly be said, that he had qualifications such as few have. Posses- sing the necessary literary ability to express what he saw and heard, he pos- sessed, what is rarer, the necessary experience to study profitably the pheno- mena of Chinese life, and to compare them with those of the Old and New Worlds. . . . We cannot conclude this imperfect notice of a work which is no doubt destined to take its place as the chief authority on the events of which it treats, without glancing at the chapter on ' The present and future of China.' In some twenty-five pages the materials of a volume are com- pressed. Indeed this compression is carried almost to excess ; and if there he any fault to be found with Mr Wilson's book, the fault is that there is too much in it." Manchester Guardian. " A very able and interesting work," Liverpool Albion. " This is a valuable addition to our oriental literature. It gives an in- sight into many of the arts and customs of the Chinese, and especially into their manner of conducting war." Carlisle Journal. " The very essence of the being, of the life and thoughts of a remarkable people, are here presented with a clearness of vision and elegance of language, with a combined conciseness of expression and fulness of knowledge, that could not possibly be surpassed." WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON. • LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH, AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. Alison— THE HISTORY OF EUROPE. From the Commencement of the French Revolution in 1789 to the Battle op Waterloo. 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