TO LHASA IN DISGUISE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18547, 3 November 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

TO LHASA IN DISGUISE.

PERILS AMID; THE SNOW. 4-' f" —— UEOPARD ACTS -AS GUIDE. RAW HORSE FLESH EATEN. A (BOLES CHANGED WITH COOLIE v>'- NO. IV. ' <BY DR. WILLI AH MONTGOMERY McGOVERN. Ph., D.. Professor of Oriental Studies. Lor.don University.) Below is the fourth instalment, of».««**« *tory of the adventures of a British scientist in the forbidden country of Tibet, ft true romance of almost incredißle dangers, inert exiciting than any work of Action, MM author is lecturer on Oriental huntiM the University of London. Every precaution whs taken by both the British »*«£«*£ and the Tibet authorities to Preventjourney; but. d ssuised ~as ft .ow-class Tibetan, he crowed the high passes of the Himalayas in tin dead of winter, succeeded in entering Lharifc, and reached the Presence of the Dalai in a, the Living Budda of that mysterious land. Our march pioved terribly exhausting. By the time we were on the way the snow was brea it-high, anil each of us had to take it in turns to act as a plough to make a furrow through the snow, in which the animals, might follow, for they were helpless otherwise. Fortunately for all of them. ever, the invalid pony seemed to be in fairly pood condition. When after* three miles we came to another group of deserted huts swe were, as my diary litis it, "almost dead from fatigue," so that 1 had little difficulty in persuading the servants to go no further for the dav. Our next day's march (January 24) was even shorter. After going only a little over a mile 1 went o:a strike and refused to travel another inch further. For here we found another couple of huts, and I remembered that ! there were no more until we got back to Lachen, still some six or seven miles further back. I knew that we must avoid returning to Lachen at all costs. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining brilliantly, and the snow was already beginning to melt. Moreover, a curious bend in the valley had rendered a little patch on the hill nearly free from snow. Here the animals could get a few mouthfuls of coarse winter grass, so that the fodder questions would be temporarily solved. . , Our own food store was running dangerously low. but we had enough to last us a few lavs longer, so I decided to form a little winter canp and wait for a new opportunity to push on to the pass Under ordinary circumstances I should have returned to Sikkim and waited another two months before renewing our attempt to enter Tibet, but I was convinced it was now or never, and preferred to hang on desperately. From the afternoon of the 24th to the afternoon of the i.6th we staved in our little camp on this spot. Personally, I enjojred this short time of rc<t, but" I was careful to arrange little jobs for the servants, for their morale would have been completely destroyed in a few hours' idle brooding. Tood Question Pressing. On the 261h I decided to go forward again. The snow had been melting steadilv in our part of the valley. In a very high altitude such as ours, where the air is rarified, the sun's rays during the dan-time have an overpowering effect, however cold the nights may be, and under these scorching rays the snow had begun to decrease in depth ; and though still deep, I thought we had a chance to get through. The food question was becoming so pressing that no further dclav was to be brooked. But we only got off in the afternoon, as I had to spend" the whole morning bullying the ,servants into accompanying me. Owing to the late start, we we're able to cover only four miles. This brought us to the hut in which we had fust taken refuge after the commencement of the snowstorm, Soon after arriving we saw a enow leopard prowling about, and this so frightened the animals that Diogenes had to sleep outside with them to act 'as guard. . ... ?•■■■}■'* The .. .next. day (January., 27). was, to quote,. my diary,. ''the ..most awful dr.y I hsve ever spent." The memory of the miseries we had to endure ; s still very keen. Owing to the more protected nature of this part of the valley, we found that the snow had hardly melted at all, and for a great part of" the. way it lay between four and five feet deep. The further we went the deeper we sank. Soon after this the valley began to narrow down to a gorge which was literally choked . with snow. .,, - Struggling Through .Beep Snow. My illness had been growing worse thesie last two days, and had sapped me of all my strength. I was afraid to show my weakness before the servants, and so sent on my caravan ahead while I* stag- j. gered on. after them. Every fifty yards or so I would get entangled in the enow and fall, and was forced to rest for a minute or so before struggling up and on. • I was afraid that I was being left miles behind, but afterwards found that the servants were faring nearly as badly as ]'.'. , At sunset I caught up with them, and we ploughed on for another two hours, ,not in the least knowing where we wen, ' for the road lay deep buried in snow, ar.d we had only the. general contour of the valley by which to go. s*requeiitly we thought that. we we:re on safe ground, ,when suddenly the nu.n ahead would disappear from sight down some gully or waterhole rendered invisible by the snow. We had used up all our spirits: in a vain attempt to secure extra stimulation, but by half-past eight we were still far from our objective, the plateau of Sitang. Our day's march hjidbeen only some eight or nine miles, but it had taken us over 14 hours to cover even this distance. We had lost the road, and were wallow * ing in a long snowdrift. It was pitch dark, although the moon should have been visible. Suddenly, while we were in this state, it began to snow again. 1 wan long past all feeling now, but Lhaten broke down and wept. Later his wee p.ing changed to hysterical sobbing, which could not be stopped. It was absolutely impossible to go any further that night, so I looked about for shelter. We had long passed the region of houses or huts, but, even more .serious, I could see no place where we could possibly erect.a tent. Eventually we espied among the great rocks overhanging the river one with a flat top, from which most of the snew had been driven by the wind, and it was upon this that we decided to hoist oar tent, for under such conditions to have slept in the open would have meant certain death. _ ' A Night in a Hurricane. Our tent was held up by placing boxes on its sides and ends, for,, of course, the rock was impervious to tent pegs, and into this all five of us had to squeeze, although it was meant for only one person, or at the most for two. _ For the animals a hole was burrowed in the shew by the side of the .rock. There was nothing else we could do fcr them, but we were afraid that they would be frozen to death during the night. Fortunately for our food supply, we were too tired to feel hungry, and we were content with a small piece of meat apiece. This we had to eat absolutely raw, in true Tibetan fashion, loi we had no means of lighting a, fire. ' An hour later the wind dropped, but it was succeeded by one of the terrific wind storms which are known only in Tibet and ,in the passes. In a very short time the t en j d lal ' en in on us > and we lay huddled together in one tight heap, with Sfli °tr' !> wltin ß on our heads. me fee ß " 1 ?', leased, and at last huddled >la?t ,ri a our vho] c and dle on Un &- "J»» °" the rock -where wr alt J , , SI1 ' 0W beyond, «W lightened but he had WnVrooJh? y , " memb ?«"* that %an a long snvoXh to all K?, f d samts, beiniy -oartifmlo-i. • » tne Tl betan appeal voclfe l™* in his Adm a S an Tbhavt K d\Tthesl ine t T l,ibb - nK years and more ut ,1* A thousand other things hn™ - confeascd, among to come with me sSf*, ¥. h l* - h «™ therefor. ■ Th«^riJ nd a ! ke ? 'jJWj» about three in *uT ?+**«*& di "d down not until theJ + " lU!B ' ■* nd ifc was .' v sleep, . en tlut *• were able to

When I awoke* again a few hours later (January 28)' I found the servants were ready packing up. preparatory to going back ,tq/Sikkim. They took it for granted that even > T'i could not possibly: want to go on. ; , I must confess that "they were Very, nearly right,. All my fine hopes had disappeared, and should"! have been asked for my vote on the subject , it would have been cast in favour of return. But this cool assumption that I had abandoned the enterprise was too much for me. Fearing that argument would be useless, I rushed for Hie food bag, -already nearly empty, and, holding it over th« great river ■ ravine, I swore that if they went back I would throw their food away, which meant that they would starve before they could arrive once more at the inhabited part of Sikkim. I then pointed out that they were more than half-way through the snow, and that to turn back would be as difficult as to go on. After this I rushed on as fast Ah I could, leaving them to follow, which sheepishly thsy did. Followed Leopard's Track. We had a very ..curious bit of hick that morning. Our friend the snow leopard had passed us in the night, and seemed to be heading for the pass, for we could see his footprints in the snow. There seem id to be. a striking regularity about its path, and it occurred to me that he might >e travelling over where the road was. ]ivest'iga lions proved that this idea was correct. By following in his footsteps we saved ourselves a good deal of the roadseeking of the previous day. It was a mystery to me how the leopard knew the road buried beneath several feet of mow as it was, and, of course, level with the wide white expanse on every side. I could only suppose thajt it was by means of a sense of smell, effective through the deep snow, though why he should have kept to the road with all its zig-zags, when he could easily have made cross-cuts impossible for us was a further mystery which I did not attempt to solve. The servants looked upon the footprints as a very auspicious omen, or even as a miraculous intervention on the part of the blessed Buddhas and Bodhisattvas— no tion that I was careful not to contradict. A few miles further on, and the valley swept to the right, and became a broad plain, running in an east to west direction, bounded on the north and south by high mountain ranges. . Technically, we were still in Sikkim. The northern range of mountains marked the political boundary line, but geographically and geologically we were already in Tibet. The ' scarcity of the snow was an evidence of this. In greatly improved spirits we continued our way until evening, and eventually camped just under the Chumiomo glacier. Here the ground was frozen so hard that we broke several wooden tent-pegs trying to drive them into the soil, and finally we had to discard these and use only * giant iron nails. Even these were badly bent by the frostbound ground. Alas I Poor Gyargtse. The next day (January 29) I had hoped to be over the actual pass, but owing to the gross inaccuracy of the existing maps we missed our way, and went eight miles out of our course. The result was (hat evening found us still in the Upper Tista Valley. By this time I had discovered our mistake, but it was too late to retrace our steps that day. This event was. to us. a great calamity, for we had completely (exhausted our food stork and were well-nigh starving. All the animals, too, had reached the danger mark of fatigue. The previous two nights in the open had. in fact, proved too much for the ailing pony, Gyangtse. His lungs hid caught a chill, and I saw that at the best he could only last two or three days longer. In these circumstances I decided to end by o.>e stroke both his miseries and ours. All my servants had very strict Bud dhist religious scruples, however scampish they might be in their private life, and refused to kill any living thing, though they were quite willing to eot any animal killed by someone else. Cmsequently I got out my huge knife and slit the poor ' beast's throat. We gave hithf a few minutes,, to die and then being unable to restrain our hunger longer, we set to work to devour the choicer portions of his carcase. Fuel being more than ever unprocurable, we were forced to eat these raw. To a gourmet the raw and still quiverish tfesh of a horse may not appear appetising, but I had long* lost all sense of squeamishness, and all of us sat down to the meal with relish. After we had satisfied ft'ir immediate pangs I cut off further portions for our use on the succeeding day. The next morning (January 30) for eight miles ,we retraced our steps. In this part, of the valley the road bad long since disappeared, but after scorting around in ? several directions I eventually managed to choose the proper course. At sunset we ■'reached the path of the pass V some 18,000 ft. above sea level, and could shout with joy, " Lha-gyal-lo! Lha-gyal-lo !" — literally ''Victory! Victory to the gods." A Hew Role. That night I revealed the whole of my plans to my men. Up to that time they knew merely of my desire to reach Tibet. I now told them that my goal was not only Tibet, but Lhasa itself, and that to "succeed in getting there I should be forced to go in disguise. "■ To each of them I assigned his new role, and insisted then and there upon a careful rehearsal of it. From the baggage I got out a gala costume, such as is worn by the Sikkimese nobility, and gave it to Satan to try on. Hereafter he was to be the master, posing as a small landed proprietor going m pilgrimage to Lhasa, taking the rest of as along ?in his suite. Except for th change of masters the other servants were to continue their present duties, while I was degraded to the capacity of Lhaten's assistant, and was to act as genera! cook and bottle-washer. I must admit that the servants entered into the project with unexpected gusto. They regarded it as a game, for the dangers which were before us in case of detection had not yet occurred to their slow intellects. The actual process of disguise I postponed until the next morning (January 31). This turned oui a peculiarly painful business. My hair was already done, and required only a few finishing; touches, but in order to stain my skin I had •to strip and stand stark inked in that bitter morning wind of the pass, while Lhaten daubed on me my special concoction of walnutand iodine. I considered it necessary to stain my whole body, and not merely the ordinarily visible parts, as I feared that later on I might have to undergo a detailed physical examination. Finally came the question of eyes, fir my blue eyes' were likely to prove the weakest point in my disguise. For this I had a two-fold remedy. In the first place I sliced open the lemon specially brought for this purpose, and squeezed the juice into my eyes. Though sharpiy painful and likely to irritate the eyeball, lemon juice serves to give the eyes, temporarily at least, a much darker hu» For further security, however, I employed the gl'iis and dark gogides. I . pretended to have contracted a sharp attack of snow-blindness, and dabbed copious amounts of glue under the eyelids in imitation of the secretions which ens tomarily result from this trouble, and, added the dark goggles as a pretended protection against the glare of the sun. The next thing to be done was to wrap up all my European clothes and other such incriminating articles and secret them under a rock. It may be that some future traveller to Tibet will find them in years to come, and wonder how such things came to be nlaced in this far-away corner of the world. We then started out on our day's march. Eight miles down a long slope brought us to the first Tibetan village, and here our first thought waff' to secure food. I was in it very, great fright when we first entered the village lest someone should detect something unusual in my appearance, but seemingly everything was i n order. l a S ,P^ ri ?^ fc > Aust ralia and New Zea!t?UtW" ted Cable Service. All rights I.9&S?3St* the British Buit