ACROSS TIBET.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 2669, 20 December 1928, Page 3

ACROSS TIBET.

MISSIONARY'S TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE. A trip across Tibet in midwinter when the wind has a barbed, savage tail and the snow lies thick in the defiles and the yak starve and the frost bites, like acid, through everything, is not exactly a restorative. So Mr. J. Mathewson, of the China Inland Mission, who spent the last year in that appalling country, walking a great many of the 5000 miles from Sining, in the Kansu province of Northern China, to Leh, in Kashmir, has plenty of excuses, for his pallor, his nervousness. He arrived in Sydney recently, says the - Sydney Morning Herald, looking very tired, pale and shaken. About the middle of April, 1927, the anti-foreign riots became so serious that most of the missionaries set off for Shanghai. Mr. Mathewson, however, decided that a. better way out of the country would be to strike across Tibet to India. With Mr. Filschner, a German explorer and scientist,, and Mr. Plymire, an American missionary, he set out on 27th May. The party took with it about 60 yak, some tents and meagre equipment. It was hoped that the journey would occupy about four months; actually it was not finished until ten months later. The opening stages of their journey took them over country starved and hardened by a three-year drought. The mountains sprang up in endless discouraging panorama before them, dry mountains powdering to dust and sand. The yak began to die. First one at a time, then two at a time, finally 18 died in one day. Burying some of their stores in sandhills and carrying as much as they could, the three men pushed on again. They were feeling despondent when they ran suddenly into a party of Mongol pilgrims, who lent them animals on which they returned to the caches where they had stored their provisions. Now they were able to hasten to the Mongol settlement, whence, after resting a few days they plunged into a great uninhabited, dry, inhospitable country, where only speed could save them from disaster. A few days afterwards the party reached the headwaters of the Yangtse and encountered for the first time the authority of the Tibetans. It was a small outpost, and the officials agreed to send on to the Dalai Lama three copies of a letter asking him to assist their stupendous undertaking. Weeks later they reached Nagchutcha, with a great deal of satisfaction, for they learned that they were now only three fast courier stages from Lhassa, whence the journey to Darjeeling and India would be comparatively a simple affair. However, they were not so near deliverance as they expected, for the official at Nagchuscha, who had sent out 700 troops to intercept them, ordered that they should return immediately to China over the road they had traversed. This was too much. The patient German scientist accepted the inevitable and commenced to purchase camels, but Mr. Mathewson, who believed that he had not been guided through all the tribuliations of the first 2000 miles for nothing, sat down and refused to budge. The official talked largely about cutting off heads, and ridiculed their suggestion that by this time the Dalai Lama must have received from them two letters informing him of their intentions. Every day they reiterated their assurance that they had sent letters to the Dalai Lama, and every day the official denied that this could be true. At last, after six weeks of debate, he was delighted to demonstrate that the Dalai Lama knew nothing of them by producing the two letters and admitting that he had intercepted them. Luckily they had sent the third copy on by a merchant, and this eventually reached Lhassa, and the Dalai Lama communicated with the British Government in India, which, instructed him to do ail he could to assist the travellers.

They had hoped to make a short journey, of 30 days or so, southwards to India, but the Dalai Lama giving them transport, food guides, servants, and encampments, which he prepared on the. line of their march, laid out for them a route that would occupy five months' constant travelling. There was no room for argument,, but they had the satisfaction of knowing afterwards that the British Government demanded to know why Dalai Lama had imposed upon tired men he had been asked to assist, this new, crushing burden. From drought and summer they stepped into winter and the heaviest snowfall Tibet had suffered for 50 years. The guides and servants seemed to be working happily enough, but when everything seemed to be moving weir and home was within sight the men suggested that they should make a detour around the hills to avoid heavy snowdrifts. That seemed reasonable enough, so they cut into the hills and discovered, after their guides had deserted them, that they were in a place, the head man of which was a notorious bandit, who threatened to decapitate them immediately. When the Tibetan interpreter saw how things were moving he told the bandit that the great armies of Britain and all its airplanes would sweep down and destroy his

14 tents if he touched a hair on the heads of these men. Thinking better of his intentions, the bandit detained them for a few days in the place 17,000 feet above sea level. At last his feet dangerously frozen, Mr. Mathewson reached Leh, in Kashmir, and rested under medical attention. Thence he went to India and returned immediately to Australia.