The Project Gutenberg eBook of East of the sun and west of the moon
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: East of the sun and west of the moon
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Kermit Roosevelt
Release date: November 9, 2025 [eBook #77204]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926
Credits: Andrew Scott, Emmanuel Ackerman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST OF THE SUN AND WEST OF THE MOON ***
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
EAST OF THE SUN
AND WEST OF THE MOON
[Illustration: THE AUTHORS AND THEIR SHIKARIES AT SRINAGAR, ON THEIR
RETURN]
EAST OF THE SUN
AND WEST OF THE MOON
BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
AND
KERMIT ROOSEVELT
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN
BY K. R.
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
NEW YORK · LONDON
MCMXXVI
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
COPYRIGHT, 1925, 1926, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE CO., INC.
Printed in the United States of America
[Illustration: colophon]
TO
JAMES SIMPSON
WHO MADE THIS TRIP POSSIBLE. OUR ONE
REGRET IS THAT HE WAS UNABLE TO
BE OUR COMPANION ON IT
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. PLEASURES OF ANTICIPATION . . . . . . 1
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
II. FROM THE VALE OF KASHMIR TO THE BARRENS OF
LADAKH . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
KERMIT ROOSEVELT
III. OVER THE LOFTY PASSES OF THE HIMALAYAS TO
YARKAND . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
IV. DESERTS AND OASES OF TURKESTAN . . . . . 72
KERMIT ROOSEVELT
V. BEYOND THE LAST BARRIER TO THE PROMISED
HUNTING-GROUNDS . . . . . . . . . 98
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
VI. IN THE HEART OF THE HUNTING COUNTRY. IBEX,
SHEEP, AND BEAR . . . . . . . . . 128
KERMIT ROOSEVELT
VII. THE ASIATIC WAPITI OF THE TIAN SHAN . . . 155
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
VIII. CHINESE TURKESTAN: THE TEKKES TO KASHGAR . . 183
KERMIT ROOSEVELT
IX. THE PAMIRS AND THE POLI . . . . . . 211
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
X. ACROSS THE WINTRY HIMALAYAN PASSES BACK
TO KASHMIR . . . . . . . . . . . 244
KERMIT ROOSEVELT
APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . 275
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . 281
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Authors and Their Shikaries at Srinagar, on Their Return
_Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Suydam Cutting and George Cherrie in the Heart of the
Himalayas . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Route Map of the Expedition . . . . . . . . 8
A Ladakhi Dance in Leh . . . . . . . . . 18
Jemal Shah, the Cook, Beside a Wall of Prayer-Stones . . 18
Down the Ladakh Slope of the Zoji La . . . . . . 30
On the Summit of the Zoji La . . . . . . . 30
The Zoji La . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Mulbeck, a Town in Ladakh . . . . . . . . 34
Leh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
A Kirghiz Yourt Near the Sanju Pass . . . . . . 46
Yaks Climbing the Khardong Pass . . . . . . . 50
A Thibetan Antelope . . . . . . . . . . 50
C. S. C., T. R., K. R., and Abdul Hamid go to Call on the Amban
of Yarkand . . . . . . . . . . . 78
The Fair at Yarkand . . . . . . . . . . 84
Ferrying Across the Yarkand River . . . . . . 84
Pack-Ponies Fording the Muzart River . . . . . . 104
A Camel Negotiates the Muzart . . . . . . . 104
Crossing the Muzart Glacier . . . . . . . 108
Ismail Bey with K. R.’s Siberian Roe Deer . . . . 120
Rahima with an Ibex Shot by K. R. near Khan Ayalik . . 120
Loose Leading a Pony Laden with Products of the Tian Shan 132
Tula Bai and Khalil Spying for Ovis Karelini . . . 132
Khalil with the World’s Record Ibex Head . . . . 144
Khalil with the World’s Record Ovis Karelini . . . 144
The Record Karelini . . . . . . . . . . 152
Nurpay and the Bear . . . . . . . . . . 152
A Kirghiz Grandmother Moving House . . . . . . 164
A Kalmuck Marmot-Hunter . . . . . . . . 164
Wapiti Country . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Khalil, Nurpay, and a Tian Shan Wapiti . . . . . 172
A Kalmuck Wedding . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Through the Muzart Glacier . . . . . . . . 194
Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt in Tian Shan
Hunting-Kit . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Kichik Kara Kul . . . . . . . . . . . 222
An Early Morning Start After Ovis Poli . . . . . 222
A 53-Inch Ovis Poli . . . . . . . . . . 226
Rahima, Palang, Khalil, and T. R. with T. R.’s Big Poli 252
Baltit in the Hunza Valley . . . . . . . . 266
Crossing the Burzil in Winter . . . . . . . 270
Territory Covered in the Course of the Expedition . . . 274
EAST OF THE SUN
AND WEST OF THE MOON
CHAPTER I
PLEASURES OF ANTICIPATION
“Now the girths and ropes are tested,
Now they pack their last supplies.”
—RUDYARD KIPLING.
When I was defeated for Governor of New York I got an involuntary
holiday, and fortunately my brother Kermit could adjust his affairs
and free himself for the coming year. For years he and I had been
planning to make an expedition together. Time and again we had to put
it off, because when one could go, the other could not. This year
conditions shaped themselves to make it possible.
There were many delightful short trips we could have taken with
reasonable comfort. We decided, however, that these should be saved
for a later day when we had qualified for the grandfather class. We
felt we should take the hard trek now when we were still in good
condition physically, before we “carried too much weight for age.”
Though I have done a certain amount of roughing it and hunting during
my life, compared to Kermit I am a beginner. Every continent has seen
the smoke of his camp-fires. He was on the expeditions made by my
father to Africa and South America. His business is shipping, which
takes him all over the world, and as a result he has been able in
the course of his work to hunt in India, Manchuria, and various parts
of the United States and Mexico.
Though hunting in itself is great sport, without the scientific
aspect as well it loses much of its charm. Therefore, we decided that
any expedition we made would be organized along scientific lines.
Both Kermit and I are much interested in natural history and have
been for years. Through my father, originally, we met naturalists
the world over. When I was knee-high to the proverbial grasshopper I
remember delightful days spent with John Burroughs and others, who
saw in the woods ten times more than the ordinary individual sees.
Our thoughts turned to central Asia. As a matter of fact, this had
always been the Mecca of our desires. Though one of the oldest
countries in the world, it is one of the least known. In the northern
part the Mongol tribes originated, who swept like flame over Asia and
half of Europe. Through it the great caravan routes run, over which
trade passed before Rome was founded, when Egypt was the world-power,
and elephants were hunted on the Euphrates. These caravan routes
are practically the same to-day as they were when a few adventurous
Europeans pushed east over them in the late Middle Ages.
Roy Chapman Andrews and his expedition have covered the Gobi desert
and the surrounding territory, and will reach the Altai mountains,
and probably Dzungaria. It would have been duplication of effort for
us to strike for the same country, so we decided we would make our
general objective farther south and west.
Besides this we had in our minds Kipling’s verse from “The Feet of
the Young Men”:
“Do you know the world’s white rooftree—do you know that windy rift
Where the baffling mountain eddies chop and change?
Do you know the long day’s patience, belly-down on frozen drift,
While the head of heads is feeding out of range?
It is there that I am going, where the boulders and snow lie,
With a trusty, nimble tracker that I know.
I have sworn an oath, to keep it, on the Horns of Ovis Poli,
For the Red Gods call me out, and I must go.”
We therefore fixed on the Pamirs, Turkestan, and the Tian Shan
mountains as our objectives. There in the Pamirs lives ovis poli,
which is conceded by sportsmen the world over to be one of the finest
of all game trophies. Ovis poli is the great wild sheep of Marco
Polo, the “father and mother” of all the wild sheep. He represents
the elder branch of the family of which our bighorn is a member, and
makes our bighorn look, in comparison, a small animal. He lives in
the barren, treeless Pamirs. He was originally discovered about 1256
by Marco Polo, hence the name. Marco Polo says:
There are great numbers of wild beasts, among others wild sheep
of great size, whose horns are good six palms in length.... This
plain is called Pamier, and you ride across it for twelve days
together, finding nothing but desert without habitation or any
green thing, so that travellers are obliged to carry with them
whatsoever they have need of.
For a long time this was considered a romance, for any one was
willing to prove that no such animal could exist. It was allotted
a place with the unicorn and the phœnix. At last, some six hundred
years later, Lieutenant John Wood, an English officer, made his way
into the country, shot a sheep, and proved that Marco Milione—at
least in this instance—was speaking the truth. Indeed, if anything,
he was understating the case, for whereas he says that “these great
sheep have horns six hands in length,” the record head, a pick-up,
is seventy-five inches. This head belonged to Lord Roberts, the
famous “Little Bobs of Kandahar,” and was given him by the Emir of
Afghanistan. Not only is Marco Polo correct where he describes the
wild sheep but also the customs of the natives which he mentions are
practically unchanged from that day to this. Poor Polo, like many
another who has told the unknown truth, was branded a colossal liar
by his generation.
Beyond the Pamirs, the “world’s white rooftree,” lies the plain of
Turkestan. There the barren, sandy waste of the Takla Makan desert is
broken only by the oases and jungles that fringe the streams. These
rivers, turbulent, muddy torrents when they leave the mountains,
gradually shrink as they wind their way through the plain until
they finally disappear in brackish marshes in the desert. In the
jungles are Yarkand stag and many small animals and birds. Still
farther north, running across northern Turkestan, lie the Tian Shan
mountains, where two other great sheep live—the ovis ammon karelini
and the ovis ammon littledalei. There also lives the greatest of all
the ibex, whose horns measure between fifty and sixty inches. Besides
these, in this territory are snow-leopards, the great brown bear, the
Siberian roe, the Asiatic wapiti, and many other forms of wild life.
On this trek we would strike all climates, from the bitter weather of
snow-swept mountains to the blazing heat of sand-drifted deserts and
jungle-covered river-bottoms. The country was exceedingly interesting
from a scientific standpoint, because no comprehensive American
expedition had ever covered it, and there were to all intents and
purposes no collections of the wild life in our museums.
My brother Kermit and I were in no position to finance an
undertaking of this sort ourselves. Fortunately for us, the Field
Museum of Natural History in Chicago was interested in our plans,
and Mr. Stanley Field and Mr. Davies, director of the museum,
went to Mr. James Simpson to see if the money could be raised for
the undertaking. Mr. Simpson not only believes very strongly
in out-of-door life but also is a great advocate and backer of
scientific enterprise. Within an hour he had agreed to furnish the
financial support, and the James Simpson-Roosevelts-Field Museum
Expedition was born.
One of the real problems that confronted us on the trails of central
Asia was the difficulty of transporting equipment and supplies. Every
additional white man, of course, greatly increased the baggage that
must be carried. For this reason we had to keep our white personnel
to a minimum. We decided, therefore, that besides ourselves we would
be able to take only two others. Our first choice was George K.
Cherrie, a man of marked attainments as a scientist. Cherrie was with
my father and Kermit on their South American expedition. We got in
touch with him at once, and were delighted when he not only agreed to
come but was as enthusiastic as either of us.
For the fourth member, we asked a lifelong friend, Suydam Cutting,
who took photography for his particular work. Parenthetically, just
before we left the United States, Cutting and his brother won the
National Court Tennis Championship, and when he returned he won the
singles.
[Illustration: SUYDAM CUTTING AND GEORGE CHERRIE IN THE HEART OF THE
HIMALAYAS]
Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the expedition,
from a scientific standpoint, was the fact that it formed a link
in the great study that is now in progress to determine the course
of migration of animal life to this continent. In prehistoric
times Asia and North America were connected by a land bridge which
stretched across the Bering Straits. The theory is that most of our
mammal forms, including man, originated on the great central Asian
plateau, worked north following the receding ice-cap, migrated across
the land bridge, and then spread south over this continent. In other
words, our wapiti is descended from the ancestor of the Asiatic
wapiti, and our Indian from far-distant tribesmen of central Asia.
What I say does not mean, of course, that our forms are descended
from the forms now in existence in Asia, any more than man is
descended from any existing species of anthropoid ape. It means that
a common ancestor existed from which the present types evolved, and
from which in many cases both have varied largely. Naturally, as
environs tend to influence variation, those animals which remained
in the place in which the original stock lived have, as a rule,
varied least. In this country an extensive and comprehensive study
of mammal, bird, and reptile life has been made. In Asia, the Roy
Chapman Andrews expeditions have collected exhaustively the northern
and central varieties. The Field Museum Expedition adds the final
link to the chain by collecting the southwestern Asiatic specimens.
Our scientists in this country will then have at their disposal for
study a more or less complete series, stretching from the table-lands
of southwestern Asia north, and then down through our continent.
From this, in all probability, they will not only be able to prove
their theory but also to work out many other interesting problems
concerning variation.
The next problem confronting us was to determine our route and get
our passports. Getting into this part of Asia is difficult at best.
Three ways lie open. One is across China, one across Russia, and one
over the Himalayan passes north of the Vale of Kashmir. To cross
China we would have had to travel five months by caravan to reach our
hunting-grounds. The transportation of supplies we thought would be
chancy through the “Land of the Brown Bear.”
[Illustration: ROUTE MAP OF THE EXPEDITION]
We therefore decided to apply for permission to the British
Government to cross the mountain wall that protects India on the
north. Over these mountains, at one point or another, the majority of
the invaders of India have poured since the Aryans who left us the
Vedic hymns flooded down in prehistoric times to the Punjab. Here
the distances are not so great but “every mile stands on end.” Again
three choices offered themselves. We could go over the Hunza Pass,
or through the Leh-Karakoram route, or endeavor to work our way up
through Afghanistan. The first of these, the Hunza route, seemed to
us the most desirable for it landed us directly in the poli country,
the Tagdum-Bash Pamirs. This, however, proved impossible, for two
Dutch mountain-climbers, the Vissers, had already organized an
expedition to explore this region, and had obtained permits to use
this pass. Because of the great difficulty in transporting supplies,
only one expedition was permitted to go through there that year.
We then had left open to us the Leh-Karakoram and the Afghanistan
routes. The Afghanistan route was very difficult, and the natives
uncertain, to put it mildly. We did not wish to be “collected”
ourselves before we had a chance to collect any animals, so when we
failed of permission to use the Hunza we applied for permits to go by
the Leh-Karakoram route.
The Viceroy of India, Lord Reading, and the British Government most
kindly gave us permission. This, of course, was only part of the
permits we needed, for in the mid-Himalayas the sovereignty changes
from British to Chinese, and Turkestan and the Tian Shan are part of
the Chinese Republic. For poli-hunting, too, we might have to go to
the Russian Pamirs, so Russian passports were necessary.
We went to the Chinese Legation. They immediately extended to us
every courtesy. Not only did Minister Sze help us officially but also
he put us in touch with personal friends of his who were acquainted
with some parts of the country through which we intended to travel.
Mr. Sze told us frankly that he was not sure how much he could do, as
Turkestan is a very long way from the seat of government in China,
and the reins of authority are but lightly held. He said that he
would cable to Pekin. Knowing the effect an impressive document has
on people in the back-eddies of the world, we asked him also to draw
up for us the most gorgeous “to whom it may concern” he could make.
He entered into the plan, and found in the attic of the legation
a form of credentials long abandoned but resplendent with gold
lettering and seals. On it he wrote a long and flowery description
of us. More than once this stood us in good stead, for even when the
natives could not read they were awed by its splendor.
As there was no Russian representative in the United States, we had
to wait for the Russian visas until we reached England.
Naturally, we were on tenter-hooks while getting our permits, for
any slip-up would have driven the expedition on the rocks, and it
was impossible for us to wait and undertake it “some other year.”
As William the Silent observed when he decided to strike for the
Crown of England, it was a case of “Aut nunc aut nuncquam.” There
was general rejoicing in the Roosevelt family when word came that
everything was arranged.
At about this time we made the announcement of our plans. There are
those who say that Americans have lost the pioneer spirit. I doubt
if they would maintain this had they seen the flood of letters that
were received by the museum, Simpson, Kermit, Cherrie, and myself.
Literally hundreds of people from all over the country wrote asking
to go on the expedition. Nearly all of them either volunteered to
go without pay or to pay their expenses. Jew and Gentile, lawyer
and dock-hand, city-dweller from the East and rancher from Idaho,
they “yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.”
Indeed, we even had applications from Canada, France, Russia, and
Germany. Here in this country, a large group were young fellows
just graduating from college. Next to them in point of numbers came
ex-soldiers, excellent men, whom we would have been glad to have with
us. Then there were hunting-men, and scientific and outdoor men of
all types; one minister applied to go as a missionary. Nor was this
entirely confined to the male sex, for a number of women, evidently
inspired by the exploits of the women explorers of this century,
wrote to us. One, I recall, wished to be a cook. Another felt that
stenographic work would be valuable. Some men went so far as to come
to New York to apply in person. Many of these people would have done
well on the expedition but, in a country where every additional ounce
of baggage counts against you, it is necessary to cut personnel to
the bone, so we had to refuse all applications.
Besides these came offers and suggestions of every kind and
description. They ranged from advice as to books that we should
take on the trip to special remedies for problematical ailments.
Naturally, a large part of them were taken up with suggestions for
rifles and equipment. Perhaps there is no more persistent crank than
the rifle crank. He has more theories to the square inch than there
are hairs on a dog’s back. One of these wrote to say that he had
arranged a rifle-trap by which the game could be made to shoot itself.
In addition to those who wished to give us things, there were the
usual host who wished us to give them things. Countless letters came
in asking us to bring the writer some “souvenir” when we returned.
One man wanted a dog, another wanted postage-stamps of the locality.
There are dogs in the Pamirs, but I am afraid that the man who was in
search of postage-stamps will have to wait many a long year before
his ambition is realized.
In selecting our outfit, we took as our first principle that we must
keep the bulk and weight down to the lowest extent consistent with
attaining the results we desired, and we decided to take from this
country only those articles which we felt we might not be able to get
in India.
First of all, of course, the question of rifles came up. Originally
we intended to take .405 Winchesters, but though the smashing power
of this arm is very great, the trajectory is hardly flat enough for
long-range shooting. For this reason we left these rifles in Kashmir
for use on our return to India. For central Asia we decided upon
two .375 Hoffman arms and two sporting model Springfields. Cherrie
took also a combination shotgun and rifle—valuable as a collector’s
gun—and an extra 16-gauge shotgun. For all the various arms we
carried a total of some 3,000 rounds of ammunition.
Our bedding-rolls were water-proof envelopes with eider-down between
the blankets. They were excellent, and kept us warm even in the
bitterest weather. We took telescopes, Zeiss binoculars, three little
still cameras, an Akeley movie camera, the regulation army emergency
ration, saddles, compasses, and a number of other small articles.
In the high altitudes where air is scant it is very difficult to
cook. An onion can be boiled literally for hours and still remains
hard as a rock. To cure this we bought a patent pressure cooker. It
was excellent. Not only did it give us hot food but it was so simple
and strong that even a native could understand it and could not break
it.
The scientific equipment consisted mainly of skinning-tools,
preservatives for the various specimens, and traps for the smaller
animals. For bait for the traps Cherrie took peanut butter and
raisins.
For literature we took the proverbial standbys: the Bible,
Shakespeare, and “Pilgrim’s Progress,” flanked by an odd assortment
of works: “The Ingoldsby Legends,” “Plutarch’s Lives,” “Mr.
Midshipman Easy,” “The Cloister and the Hearth,” Robinson’s poetry,
Kipling’s poetry, some of Molière’s comedies, and a number of others
selected equally at random. They were cloth-covered editions, easy to
carry, and valuable only for the contents.
An interesting feature of our equipment were four cougar hounds.
Kermit had suggested that it might be a good plan to take hounds,
and try to hunt the varmints of central Asia with them. There is in
central Asia a very rare tiger which no white man has ever shot.
Travellers have occasionally seen its tracks. We thought if we were
fortunate enough to come on signs of this animal, we might get it
with hounds when we would stand no chance with other methods.
We bought, therefore, two hounds from an old hunter in Montana, Bob
Bakker. Two more dogs were given us by Tom McHenry, of Mississippi.
The latter were descendants of the famous Rainey pack that was used
in Africa.
We had many amusing times with the dogs. To begin with, my brother
lives in New York City and I live in the country. Therefore, it was
foreordained through the ages that when they came East they should
stay with me until the time came for them to go. My wife runs the
place in the country. On it she has, besides four children, two dogs
of which she is very fond. Early in the proceedings, she advised us
that the hounds were not to be kept at Oyster Bay. We felt that it
was wiser not to debate the matter, so we said nothing. Fortunately,
they arrived the day I was going to Chicago, so I merely let her know
the dogs had come and then left town. I think the best account of
what happened then is given in the following letter from my wife to
my sister, Mrs. Longworth:
DEAR SISTER,
So far, I haven’t had much to do helping in the arrangements for
the trip, but what a change to-day! When they first planned to
hunt the long-haired tiger with cougar hounds, I said it was a
grand idea, provided I did not have to take care of any stray
hounds out here. Ted and Kermit didn’t say much in direct reply,
but talked a great deal about the rarity and phenomenal value of
the Montana hounds—equalled only by those of Mississippi.
Time went on. Day before yesterday, Ted said: “Oh, by the way,
the hounds are coming to-morrow. You can arrange about them all
right, of course!” I said feebly: “How many?” Ted said: “Maybe
a couple from Montana, maybe a couple from Mississippi. Four
perhaps—yes, that’s it, four—nice dogs, very.” Then he took the
train for Chicago.
Well, the hounds spent the night in Kermit’s laundry in town, and
Dick [Doctor Derby] was persuaded to take them out to me in his
car with Summers [Kermit’s chauffeur].
When they got here, I heard a racket such as never was, and went
out to find our entire household gathered to admire two of the
most delightful bloodhoundish animals I ever saw. My two puppies
were watching most disapprovingly from the top of a hill, and
later they retired discreetly to their kennels.
Summers said to me: “The other two dogs will be here to-morrow,
madam. Of course you won’t want to change their diet. They are
accustomed to seven pounds of meat apiece daily. Horse-flesh.
If you try to have it cooked in the house you won’t be able
to remain indoors. It is rather strong, but excellent for the
hounds. They should be taken for a run every day for exercise,
but you mustn’t do it, madam—you couldn’t hold them.”
I spent that afternoon motoring all around in a vain search
for the huntsman of the —— Kennels, whom I hoped to be able to
persuade to help me out with the food. Finally, I got him on the
telephone, and sounded exactly like Aunt —— buying tickets for
Cuba.
“My husband is going hunting in central Asia ... a most
interesting experiment ... cougar hounds, after long-haired
tiger.... The hounds are here now.... My husband has gone to
Chicago.... I know nothing.... Of course _you_ know more about
hounds than any one.... Oh! if you only _would_....”
He was coming around next morning at eight-thirty to see those
hounds. I had had two strenuous days in town, and had been
looking forward to oversleeping next morning, but, needless to
say, I was down-stairs waiting, hoping that I could arrange to
get, for this week and next, twenty-eight pounds a day of cooked
horse.
The telephone rang. He was detained, but would be over in the
afternoon. I had been going out that afternoon, but what did that
matter? I stayed in, and he never came at all. Those dogs ate
beef and dog-biscuit, and were glad to get it. They didn’t get
seven pounds apiece a day either!
In addition to all this, and more besides, the children are
having their Easter vacation.
One reason I want to come to see you is the idea of the long
peaceful train journey between New York and Washington!
E.
My wife put these dogs in the barn. She put the two strongest in the
strongest shed she had. The next morning they had broken down most
of the shed, and were almost loose. She then had them chained with
heavy iron chains. One of them broke his chain. She then had them
chained together, on the theory that if they got away, they would
not run so far. This was almost disastrous, because they thereupon
proceeded to try to eat each other up!
The cheapest way to get our equipment, including the hounds, to India
was to send it direct over one of my brother’s lines to Karachi.
Cherrie agreed to go with it. The last two days before Cherrie’s
departure we spent in feverish packing. We checked everything once,
then checked it back again. We kept lists of every box. Eventually,
Cutting was detailed to paint numbers on our boxes. He did it
thoroughly—so thoroughly, in fact, that he partially painted one
child and a library chair as well.
On the morning of the day that Cherrie’s boat went, we all gathered
at Kermit’s house, where the equipment had been assembled. We shoved
the last things into a trunk and then, in three automobiles, went
down to see Cherrie off. We divided the cougar hounds between the
automobiles. One sat on my lap in the front seat of our car. When
we got to the pier we found that there was only an iron gangway,
which the dogs could not climb, so we struggled on board, each with
a cougar hound over his shoulder. We took them forward and left them
tied to stanchions.
Next Saturday, April 11, Kermit, Suydam Cutting, and I sailed on the
_Leviathan_.
When we reached England, the first and most important thing we had
to do was to get our passports to the Russian Pamirs, where we
believed the largest ovis poli would be found. We went at once to the
headquarters of the Russian Trade Delegation, where Mr. Rakovsky,
the envoy, was very cordial. We presented our letters, and he told
us that he would be glad to give us the permit. We stayed to tea
with him. Before the revolution he had been head of a big mill in
Russia, and he discussed economic conditions the world over with wide
knowledge. What struck me most about the offices of the delegation
was the number of portraits, busts, and photographs of Lenin that
were everywhere. As far as this delegation is concerned, Lenin stands
first, and there are no seconds.
We then called on various hunters, travellers, and naturalists.
It was delightful meeting them, and they were invariably kind and
helpful. They put themselves out to aid us in every way. They
recommended for our party natives whom they knew, advised on the
best passes and trails, and suggested equipment. As they talked you
could see they imagined themselves back, pushing through snow-covered
mountain passes, and tramping in dust clouds over sere, sun-dried
plains.
[Illustration: A LADAKHI DANCE IN LEH]
[Illustration: JEMAL SHAH, THE COOK, BESIDE A WALL OF PRAYER-STONES]
We stopped in Paris just long enough to buy a few odds and ends.
These consisted mainly of presents for the natives. Some of the
country where we intended to hunt is so far from civilization that
money means little to the tribes who live there. We purchased an
assortment of knives, cheap watches, and similar articles. The best
of these were the most gorgeous buttons that ever graced a gown. They
were every color of the rainbow. There was not a subdued note amongst
the lot. The colors were chosen not to blend but to clash.
From Paris we went to Marseilles, where we took ship for the last leg
of the trip to India. Travel was light and we had the ship nearly to
ourselves. This gave us a splendid chance to study Hindustanee. We
had it for breakfast, we had it for lunch, and we had it for dinner.
I am not particularly good at languages, and I soon felt as if my
mind were like one of those kaleidoscopes in which colored glass is
continually shifting into patterns of meaningless design.
The weather was clear, the Mediterranean was sapphire blue. We passed
Stromboli at night. It was “acting up,” and every few seconds a
tongue of red flames stabbed the black of the sky. The birds were
migrating north from their winter in Africa, and, though we were out
of sight of land, many flew by the ship. One in particular, a dove,
came in under the awning and lit on a stanchion. Early one morning
I looked out of the port-hole and there, lying to the north, was a
rugged coast-line capped with a snow-crowned mountain. It was Crete,
the home of the sea-kings, and of one of the oldest civilizations of
which we have record.
We passed Port Said, where the real East begins, and where an
ethnologist would tear his hair in despair, for every race has
blended there for years, with a strange and weird result. Down the
Red Sea we cruised, with barren, sun-scorched desert shivering in the
heat haze on either hand.
One evening we reached Aden, built in the crater of an extinct
volcano. I can imagine no hotter place, for the sun beats down on
it and the rock walls guard it from every breeze. In fact, I should
think the inhabitants would be inclined to disagree with Kipling when
he says:
“Old Aden, like a barrack stove
That no one’s lit for years and years.”
The origin of the town is lost in the shadows of time.
It has always been a point of contact between Africa and Asia. People
have lived there so long that the valley is one great graveyard,
and one cannot dig anywhere without turning up bones. We saw the
water-tanks that supplied the old town. They are built of cement, the
process for making which is lost, and which is better than any we
make to-day. Their origin, like that of the town, is unknown. Behind
Aden, up the peninsula, lies Arabia Felix where the Queen of Sheba is
supposed to have had her capital.
From Aden we cruised over a changeless sea, until early one morning
Bombay with its clustered shipping loomed up out of the haze.
The first stage of our Odyssey was finished.
CHAPTER II
FROM THE VALE OF KASHMIR TO THE BARRENS OF LADAKH
Those who know India only during the winter months, the tourist
season, can form little conception of what the country is like during
the summer. In the greater centres of population the old hand-pulled
punka has given way to the electric punka, or the simple electric
fan. At the stations along the railway, however, you still see the
patient punka-coolie squatting outside the station-master’s room,
tugging at the punka-rope with monotonous regularity, and it is he
that to me typifies the great heat of the Indian plains.
When we landed in Bombay this time, on May 11, there was fortunately
nothing to oblige us to linger long in the heat, and so, after some
strenuous bustling about, making a few final preparations, we pulled
out of Cocaba Station at half past four in the afternoon of the very
day on which we had arrived. The most valuable acquisition which
we made there was the information with which Mr. S. H. Prater, the
head of the Bombay Natural History Museum, supplied us. He not only
possessed a fund of helpful hints and data but was very ready to
impart them to us, a combination not always found.
The captain of the _Homestead_, the freighter on which Cherrie had
come over, was waiting for us on the pier at Bombay, and reported
that Cherrie and all the equipment had been safely landed at Karachi.
We were greatly relieved to hear this, and also to learn the four
cougar hounds had gone ashore in better shape than they had come
aboard. We were still a little anxious, however, about the manner in
which they would weather the train journey across the Sind desert.
Forty-eight hours after leaving Bombay we rolled into Rawal Pindi,
and on the 14th of May left there by motor for Srinagar. In winter
the cantonments are crowded, but during the hot weather headquarters
moves to Murree, a hill station some forty miles distant, where the
altitude is 7,000 feet. There we spent a night. The descent thence
to the Jhelum River is very precipitous, with a multitude of hairpin
turns, and we were glad indeed to have our friend Barr driving. He
had been an aviator during the war, and was one of those fast drivers
who yet give you full confidence.
The hillsides were glorious with the pink mountain-oleander, and as
we neared the river we came upon masses of purple irises. The Jhelum
is here a rushing, turbulent river, much used for driving great
logs from Kashmir down to the plains of India. Along its banks grow
pomegranates, now in full bloom. The road was everywhere in excellent
repair. We passed the customs, and a few hours later entered the
famous Vale of Kashmir, and sped along the avenues of poplar-trees
that remind one of roads in Lombardy. On either side stretched
paddy-fields, some already a bright green. Occasionally we came upon
a grove of spreading chenar-trees. The chenar has a leaf like the
maple, but grows to great size, and in shape reminds one of an old
oak. In the fall the leaves turn vivid red and yellow, as do our
maples.
Srinagar is often given that very hackneyed title “The Venice of the
East.” Any town which has a few canals or a couple of rivers winding
through it seems to take particular pride in naming itself the Venice
of that particular portion of the globe in which it is situated.
Srinagar has numerous canals, on one of which is the Maharajah’s
palace, a long, ramshackle, rather gingerbready building or series of
buildings. Along another are strung the European shops and agencies,
and gigantic chenar-trees shade the footpath separating the buildings
from the canal.
In London we met Major Blacker, whose book, “Secret Patrol in High
Asia,” I had read with much interest. Blacker is an officer of the
Guides, the famous corps formed by Lumsden, which has won fame and
name in all the frontier wars, and afterward added to both in the
World War. During the months of his strenuous “secret patrol” he had
with him two particularly excellent men, Ahmad Shah and Feroze. The
former was squadron sergeant-major, and the latter a corporal. If
Ahmad Shah had not been absent so much on detached service, he would
undoubtedly have become a native officer. Blacker, besides giving
us any amount of valuable advice, also cabled the Guides to get in
touch with these two men, both of whom had retired from the army, and
arrange for them to accompany us.
They were at the station at Rawal Pindi and, coming up, saluted
and reported for duty. Ahmad Shah was tall, erect, and bearded, a
soldierly figure in his white turban. Feroze was small and wiry, with
“thruster” written all over him, a man who could be counted on to
push forward in the face of any obstacle. That night, in talking over
plans, they told us they knew of a syce, or groom, in the Guides who
they were sure could take charge of the dogs. We straightway wired
Colonel Campbell, and next day Fezildin arrived by train from Mardan.
Thus, with Rahima and his brother Khalil, native hunters whom I had
secured through Douglas Burden, the important members in our party
were assembled. These last two had been Burden’s shikaries during a
most successful hunting trip which he made a few years ago. He cabled
them from New York and they were awaiting us in Srinagar. Tall and
lean, they were the very type of the ideal shikary. According to
local custom, the shikaries had brought with them from their own
village of Bandipur our cook and three permanent coolies to do all
the odd jobs around camp, carry the tiffin-basket and thermos bottles
on the marches, and make themselves generally useful.
I already knew a little Hindustanee, and Ted and Cutting worked
like beavers on the language during the sea-passage. None of our
men spoke English, so we were immediately called on to put it into
practice. During our first interviews, an officer whom I had known in
Mesopotamia, Captain Pim, not only acted as interpreter but had many
a useful sidelight to give.
Having laid out for ourselves on this trip an extensive schedule,
and being obliged to forego the direct route by Gilgit to the Hunza,
it was imperative for us to economize time in every way. It is
not possible for an ornithologist to work satisfactorily when he
is called upon to be continually on the move. We made our plans,
therefore, to march together to Leh and thence over the Karakoram
Pass. Once over, Ted and I, travelling light, would hurry across the
plains of Turkestan to the Tian Shan mountains, while Cherrie and
Cutting would follow along more slowly, stopping a few days wherever
they wished to collect. By the time they joined us in the Tekkes
Valley, we hoped to have got well started on the groups of ibex,
wapiti, mountain-sheep, and Siberian roe deer with which we relied
upon providing the museum from the Tian Shan country. It was arranged
for Ahmad Shah and Feroze to take charge of the main and slow-moving
caravan, while Rahima and Khalil undertook with us the expedition
after big game.
In Srinagar Sir John and Lady Wood most hospitably invited us to stay
at the Residency, and no one could possibly have been more kind. Both
Mr. Avery and Captain Sevenoaks, of Cockburn’s Agency, worked like
Trojans to hurry us through our preparations. Thus aided, and with
Sir John’s help in everything, we were enabled to start off for Leh
four days after we had reached Kashmir.
In Kashmir most of the transport is by pack-pony, tough, wiry little
beasts that carry an average load of 150 pounds over most difficult
country. When the passes are in bad shape, you cannot negotiate them
with ponies, but must rely on porters. Yakdans, which are wooden
boxes covered with cowhide, are the most convenient containers for
supplies and personal outfit. The kilta, or round basket, is much
lighter, but will not stand rough usage.
It is near Ganderbal—the first stage on the road to Leh—that the
possibility of motor transport ends. We sent our equipment there by
boat on May 18, and followed by automobile some hours later. Early
next morning we loaded our food and our scientific equipment onto
sixty ponies, and set off up the Sind Valley. The dogs were wild with
joy at being once more at large; they had been over two months en
route from their homes in Montana and Mississippi. They jumped into
the irrigation ditches, and raced up hills, coming back now and again
to wag their tails at us.
It would be difficult to imagine more ideal conditions for starting
off on a hunting trip. The Sind Valley is narrow and fertile; on the
south side the mountains are tree-covered, on the north they are
barren; the crests are white with snow. The river boils down between
stony banks, now narrow and turbulent, now humming over shallows.
There is much cultivation, little stone-enclosed fields of rice or
wheat, but the glory of the valley is its trees. Centuries old they
must be, chenar and willow. We generally camped beneath some grove of
patriarchs, which might well have cast their shade upon Lalla Rookh.
There was a great deal of bird life, and Cherrie was kept busy, for
we wished to send back from Leh something that would prove to the
Field Museum that we had not delayed in starting to work. Indeed,
Cherrie had already returned a first consignment consisting of four
different species of hawk which he had shot in the Red Sea from the
decks of the _Homestead_.
The sombre raven accompanied us everywhere, and there were many gaily
clothed strangers. There were several old friends, too, among the
birds, chief of which was the little water-wagtail, whose intimate
acquaintance I first made in central Africa, sixteen years ago.
He is such a cheerful, friendly fellow that it is not pleasant to
contemplate “collecting” him. He will hop about and wag his tail
within a few feet of you in a most confiding manner. Ted and I
spent much time watching a couple of water-ouzels diving into the
stream. It was amazing to see such a small bird dive off a rock into
the rushing water and as much as two minutes after come swimming
unconcernedly back.
There were plenty of trout in the river, but we had neglected to
provide ourselves with a fishing permit, so Ted, the fisherman of the
expedition, had to wait until we should have passed out of the region
of restricted waters. We didn’t do much in the cause of cleanliness
because the water was too cold for more than a hurried dip, preceded
by a hasty soaping, while precariously balanced on a slippery rock.
We met with but few butterflies, and none of them were gaudy. Dwarf
purple irises grew in clusters on the hills and in the fields; wild
roses, both pink and white, were abundant, and an occasional field of
mustard in bloom wove in its pattern of cloth of gold.
At Baltal, while awaiting favorable conditions to cross the Zoji
Pass, we were serenaded with avalanches. First there would be a
booming roar, reminiscent of a battery of heavies on the French
front, then, if the avalanche were in sight, you would see great
masses of snow hurtling down the precipices. After a short
intermission another salvo of sound and more plunging snow—two or
three such outbursts would occur in diminishing violence, and then
all would be quiet.
The Zoji La is the most used pass in the great range of the western
Himalayas. It is the low point in a line of mighty mountains
averaging 17,000 feet in altitude, and containing among other peaks
the famous Nanga Parbat, which is 26,620 feet in height. The winds
naturally concentrate on this gap, and the pass is at times very
treacherous. Sudden blizzards sweep down, and many human lives, and
the lives of countless baggage-animals, have paid toll to the Spirits
of the Pass. In winter it is always hazardous, but it is in March and
April that it is most dangerous with sudden avalanches and unexpected
hurricanes. In the summer months, beginning with June, there is
rarely any cause for anxiety.
[Illustration: DOWN THE LADAKH SLOPE OF THE ZOJI LA]
[Illustration: ON THE SUMMIT OF THE ZOJI LA]
Fortunately, after one day’s detention, weather favored us, and we
set off as early as we could gather the ponies which were scattered
about the hillside in search of pasture. Our train was diminished
by the loss of a pony who died from eating poisonous grass; not an
uncommon occurrence, and one much dreaded by the pony men. The long
winding trail up the pass gave little trouble, save in a few places
where small avalanches had come down across the track. One such
spot seemed at first sight calculated to afford much difficulty, but
the little spindle-legged ponies negotiated it with great skill. One
turned a complete somersault, doubling his neck beneath him in such
a way that it seemed it must be dislocated. Luckily he was brought
up by the heavy drifts before he could roll far, and when we dragged
him clear, we found he was unhurt. The descent on the farther side
of the pass is gradual, and would have been a simple affair but for
the deep snow, now rapidly softening under the burning rays of the
sun. The ponies were continually plunging a foot through the bedded
snow of the trail, and sinking belly-deep. It must have been most
exhausting; we bipeds certainly found it so, but the hardy little
beasts gave no signs of failing. They wound down the valley, crossing
and recrossing the river, which in most places was hidden deep
beneath the snow. At such times we would pass over snow bridges, and
more than one of these was ominously fissured and threatened to give
way, plunging horse and load into the rushing stream below. We all
wore snow-glasses, a very necessary precaution. One of the coolies to
whom we could supply none came to us next morning with his eyes in
bad shape, and several others had suffered to a less degree.
The dogs alone thoroughly enjoyed themselves, for the surface of the
snow was sufficiently strong to bear their weight. We had been a
little worried as to how much the altitude would bother them, but we
might have spared ourselves the anxiety. They toiled up and down the
mountainside, and along the most hairbreadth ledges, skirting the
caravan, and always choosing to pass on the outside, although the
ponies themselves preferred to keep so near the edge that not an inch
was left of leeway.
We camped on a boulder-strewn hillside, on which no snow remained.
The ponies came in struggling manfully through the last drifts. Once
over on solid ground we looked to find them well tuckered out. Not at
all; even before their loads were off they started grazing, although
one would have needed a microscope to determine what fodder they
found.
The contrast between the country out of which we had passed and that
in which we now found ourselves could scarcely have been greater. No
longer were the mountains covered with forests of pine, nor was the
riverside deep in the shade of willow and chenar. On either hand rose
barren mountains; the only relief to their monotony was the snow that
covered their crests and lay in the deeper folds. Riding down these
valleys through the abomination of desolation, one thought of Isaiah,
and felt the true strength of the Bible’s old simile of comfort: “As
rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a
weary land.”
The Ladakhis are adepts in the art of building irrigation canals.
Without these canals there would be no human life. They capture the
water coming down in the occasional torrents from the mountainside
and lead it off to moisten the little patches of land, which they
have freed from stones. Ploughing is a laborious affair; the familiar
crooked wooden plough of Biblical times is pulled by horse or steer
or yak, or sometimes by a mixed team. The bits of cultivation are of
odd shapes: crescent, elliptical, or round. Often this is accounted
for in the avoiding of some large rock or hillock, but at other times
the shape seems due to a caprice of the ploughman. There were usually
poplar-trees bordering the ditches and perhaps a few fruit-trees
mingled with them. These green oases were few and far between, and
often not more than a couple of acres in extent. On rounding some
bend after a particularly long and arid stretch, the sight of this
vivid green brought to mind the words of the old Irish song: “Sure
a little bit of heaven fell from out the sky one day.” The sun was
scorching; never have I felt it stronger, but once in the shade the
relief was instantaneous, and in a few minutes you were almost chilly.
Bird life was scarcer here. The ravens were still with us, and
occasionally we would see a hawk soaring far above. Once it was a
great lammergeyer with a spread of eight or nine feet. The wagtail
we still found along the streams, and at the oases there were blue
pigeons and purple finches. A sparrow closely resembling our English
sparrow was the commonest and most abundant of the birds. They
often nested in the holes in the cliffs. Ted succeeded in stalking
a hawk and adding it to the collection. This was a particularly
difficult feat, because we had only shells for the little auxiliary
barrel that was fitted into the 16-gauge shotgun for the purpose
of collecting small birds. We were in ibex country now and Rahima
Loon explained that he had shot them here, but that the heads were
small. In any event we had no time for halts, and had resolved to
put off ibex-hunting until we should reach the Tian Shan, where the
finest heads are to be found. The larger game seen so far consisted
of one small black bear, which Ahmed Shah had observed far up on the
mountainside when bringing the baggage-train into Baltal. The dogs
were still too soft to risk them on a hunt, even if the bear had been
full-grown.
[Illustration: THE ZOJI LA]
[Illustration: MULBECK, A TOWN IN LADAKH]
We had now passed out of the land of Mohammedanism into that
of Buddhism. In Kashmir, although the rulers are Hindus, the
great bulk of the population is Moslem, while in Ladakh, almost
without exception, they are Buddhists. On the hill above the
little collection of mud huts called by courtesy a town clustered
the buildings of the monastery. We came across no town without
its monastery. We were in the land of the red lama, and sturdy
though grimy members of the sect came down to watch with interest
our actions, whether we were eating or reading or preparing
bird-skins. In these monasteries there are lamas that correspond to
the lay brothers of the Roman Catholic orders; they till the fields
and collect the rents, while the balance of the lamas spend their
time presumably in meditation and prayer.
The most picturesque of these monastic towns is Lamayuru. On top of
the hill rise the sacred buildings, flags flying from the roofs;
tier upon tier of house and cavern dwellings stretch down from
the mountains to the plain. Seen from a distance Lamayuru is most
impressive; in the right light there is a touch of Mont Saint Michel
about it; but like most sights in the Orient, it is distance that
lends an enchantment which is apt to crumble on closer approach.
At Kargil we lost a companion caravan that had been with us since
Baltal. The head of it was a hill Rajah of Baltistan; a very pleasant
man of about thirty-five or forty. His wife was purdah—veiled—and
travelled in a litter completely hidden behind white curtains. Four
sturdy hillmen bore the litter, and it was amazing to see them swing
along up the Zoji Pass. For her own peace of mind, I hope the lady
never looked out to see how close her litter skirted the edge of
nothing. A sturdy Mongol-featured nurse trudged or rode behind. The
Rajah’s two sons and his three-year-old daughter also accompanied
him. The boys were splendid-looking young fellows; they rode with
the father, while the little girl had a number of different modes of
conveyance. Sometimes we saw her riding pickaback on the shoulders
of a fine fiercely mustached retainer of her father’s. A small
wretched-looking monkey also formed part of the train. The Rajah’s
pipe-bearer was always at hand at a halt, and hastened forward
with the long silver hookah packed ready to light. We separated
regretfully when the Rajah turned off to his rocky fastness in
Baltistan.
There is great attraction in barren mountains and sterile,
rock-strewn valleys. It was spring, and yellow crocuses undauntedly
showed their heads among the rocks. The Ladakhis we passed had
usually a bunch of flowers stuck in cap or hair. Occasionally, there
would be a wild-rose bush in bloom; and on the edges of the fields
were patches of iris. In the most arid of the valleys there were
always times when the air was redolent with the sweet, pungent odor
of the artemisia.
Our pack-train had decreased by ten ponies, for we now had only
fifty. Sometimes a donkey or a yak would be drafted in. We changed
animals every night. The ponies were sturdier and shaggier than
those we had had in Kashmir, but I doubt if they were any tougher.
We were in the country of pigtails, and the men in charge of the
ponies wore them. They were a cheerful lot, very Mongol in feature,
and not at all cleanly. On the back of each man’s tunic was a greasy
cone-shaped black mark made by his pigtail as it swung to and fro
pendulum-wise.
One day we had a woman among our pony-drivers. This is the land of
woman’s emancipation. No longer was the adult feminine population
kept in the background Women working in the fields straightened
up and greeted us as we passed, and once I saw a man and woman
laughing and jostling each other as if they were good friends and
comrades—something unimaginable in India or Kashmir. The Mohammedan
greeting of “Salaam” had given way to “Joolay,” to which your
response is “Joo.”
The custom of polyandry is largely, if not entirely, responsible for
the amelioration of woman’s lot. Unattractive and distasteful as it
may seem to an Occidental mind, there is here a great deal to be said
for it. The very fact that it keeps down the population is of primary
importance in a land where the number of people that can be supported
has a very definite limit. A woman usually has three husbands,
although I heard of one instance where there were seven. They are
generally brothers. The first husband stands head of the household.
Upon his death the wife, if she so desires, can very simply rid
herself of the others by divorce.
There must be a great deal of nutrition in the diminutive and all
but invisible clumps of grass scattered through the rocks, for the
flocks and herds seem well nourished, and the mutton we bought was
excellent. The sheep and goats were very small, many adults no
larger than a fox-terrier. They were all friendly, and one little
black ram adopted us, trotting along perfectly cheerfully among the
dogs. We had great difficulty in persuading him to turn back. We
noticed a most curious variation in the shape of the horns. In one
herd there would be animals with scimitar-shaped horns resembling
ibex, another with spiral horns like markhor, and a third with his
horns formed like those of mountain-sheep. It would seem as if these
characteristics must point to a descent from the wild game of the
mountains.
We went off after sharpu a number of times. These animals are about
the size of our Rocky Mountain bighorn, but carry no such fine
trophy. Their horns branch out sideways and back in a semicircle. A
good head will measure between twenty-five and thirty inches long.
They often go in large troops. They prefer a slide-rock country,
and walking is both difficult and fatiguing along the shale-covered
hillsides. The shikaries rather look down upon sharpu-shooting as a
sport that requires but little skill, and Rahima Loon said that when
hunting them he paid no attention to wind. We saw at least thirty
females one afternoon, and a few rams, but the largest had only a
twenty-inch horn, and so was not worth collecting.
At Nurla we were most unexpectedly the witnesses of a protracted
Buddhist service. One of our men announced that there was going to
be a tamasha, or celebration, and we saw a red lama approaching,
followed by a nondescript acolyte bearing a shrine. This shrine was
placed beneath a tree on a low platform. Above it was hung a Chinese
kakemono of Buddhist saints. Several images were placed in front,
together with ceremonial platters and daggers and incense-burners.
Next a stone altar was constructed—two smaller rocks supporting a
long heavy one that was borne onto the scene by several coolies. The
head priest opened the ceremony with some droned invocations, and
then the first devil appeared; he wore a grotesque mask and capered
about every which way, badgering the priest. The entire population of
the village had by now gathered, and were seated in a semicircle—the
women and children at one end and the men at the other. There seemed
to be but little intermingling, although one old patriarchal couple
sat together, sharing their enjoyment of the devil’s antics. Many of
the women had chubby babies on their arms, or in baskets on their
backs, and more than one fat pappoose was diligently sucking its
thumb.
The head lama and the devil carried on a most complicated warfare,
in which the honors seemed remarkably evenly divided. The spectators
were vastly amused, laughing when the devil made sudden sallies
into their ranks. At length he was subdued and exorcised. The head
priest’s labors were by no means over, though, for a second lama
immediately appeared. His face was whitened with chalk and he was
draped in a sheepskin poshteen with the wool outside. Into the
circle he pranced amid much laughter, and once more the chief lama
entered into conflict. This battle was longer drawn-out and there
were numerous skirmishes with the bystanders, greatly to every
one’s delight. At length this second devil was overcome also, and
prostrated as a penitent before the altar. So far everything had
been conducted in light vein. It is said that these devil dances are
intended educationally. When, a Buddhist dies he has a straight and
narrow path to follow. From this path the devils, with their hideous
features, attempt to frighten him, but the lamas thus prepare and
forewarn him in life that he may not be affrighted and driven aside.
The serious portion of the services now commenced; there was no
longer any laughter, but from this time the onlookers joined in
chanting the great prayer of the Buddhist faith: “Om mani padme
Om”—“The Jewel in the Lotus.” The priest went through his mystic
signs. He scattered incense, and genuflected before the altar. He
then took a small dagger, which he ran through a hole in his cheek,
plunging it in up to the hilt, so that the blade appeared between his
teeth. Next he took two sabres, and, intoning a dirge-like chant,
swung the swords about his head in the approved Cossack style.
Suddenly he stripped himself to the waist, placed the point of each
sword in the pit of his stomach, and, running a short distance,
plunged forward to the ground, balancing himself on the swords. He
must have cleverly taken the weight off the points of the sabres
through his grasp upon the hilts, for otherwise they would have
pierced his intestines. He now appeared much wrought up, and placing
the point of one of the swords in his mouth, in such a way that it
brought up against his cheek and bulged it out, he flung himself
down, apparently supporting himself solely by the sword-point which
was distending his cheek. Before he could repeat this performance the
two assistant lamas rushed up and took the swords from him.
One of the reformed devils now lay on the ground on his back, with
his sheepskin poshteen folded upon his stomach. On top of this
poshteen two men placed the altar-stone. The chief priest seized one
of the rocks which had supported the altar and dashed this rock down
with all his force upon the altar-stone, smashing the altar-stone in
two. There was no flaw in the stone, and it weighed a good hundred
and fifty pounds, but the devil beneath sprang up none the worse for
wear. I imagine the credit must be supposed to lie in the devil’s
conversion.
The services were closed with further prayers and some dancing to the
accompaniment of a three-stringed zither. By now it was almost dark,
and the chanting, swaying figures seemed exotic and outlandish as
they wound among the apricot-trees with the white-topped mountains in
the background.
The Ladakhi is evidently a great believer in the efficacy of
prayer, but being of a frugal mind, he wishes to economize effort
wherever possible. Hence, prayer-wheels. By writing a number of
orthodox prayers and enclosing them in a cylinder, it is possible
to so arrange the cylinder that it revolves around a simple axis
with a minimum of effort. Each time a prayer revolves it is the
same as if it were verbally repeated. Many of those watching this
Buddhist ceremony had prayer-wheels in their hands. The pony men
are often engaged in spinning yarn all through the day’s march,
but next to the distaff it is the most usual thing to see men busy
turning prayer-wheels. They are sometimes set upon walls, so that
any passer-by may achieve merit by giving them a turn. There are
also long walls built up eight feet high, on whose tops are strewn
prayer-stones. The lamas inscribe the prayers on these stones, and if
the traveller but keeps the wall on his right hand, all the prayers
thereon automatically say themselves for his benefit. These walls
are called manis and appear in the most unexpected places. They
are sometimes as much as three-quarters of a mile in length. The
chortens, or dilapidated mud-and-stone monuments generally seen near
the manis, are burial vaults or tombs. A rich man occupies one to
himself. After his body has been burned the lamas take some of the
ashes and mould them with clay into the rough likeness of a man.
This is placed in the middle of the chorten. With the poor many such
effigies are laid in a single chorten.
We had regarded the stretch from Srinagar to Leh as the first leg
of the rather centipedal expedition. At Leh, the capital of Ladak,
we were to launch off across the mighty main ranges, so the green
oasis that marked the town from a distance loomed up very important
to us when we approached it on the morning of June 2, just two weeks
out from Srinagar. Riding up through the bazaar to the Travellers’
Bungalow, we set to work immediately laying out the lines for the
bundobust that would take us into Turkestan.
CHAPTER III
OVER THE LOFTY PASSES OF THE HIMALAYAS TO YARKAND
“March by march I puzzled through ’em, turning flanks and
dodging shoulders,
Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass.”
—RUDYARD KIPLING.
Leh, where we were to make the final “bundobust” for our climb over
the Himalayas, is a little village of two or three thousand people.
As our caravan approached over a sandy plain, the clustered foliage
almost concealed the town. On every side brown barren foot-hills
stretch away, and the lofty snow-crowned mountains, rampart-like,
surround all. Leh in the summer months is a busy place, and its
population swells to five or six thousand. It is then that “the
snow-bound trade of the north comes down” through the high passes.
Caravans from Yarkand, Khotan, and Lhassa wind in, to barter with
those that come north from India through the Zoji Pass. Then the Leh
bazaar is a seething throng of the races of central Asia, and the
gossip of the hinterlands is exchanged as the hookah passes from hand
to hand.
Our entrance into Leh was a problem, not to us, but to our
shikaries. The evening before we reached the town, they came to
us and politely suggested that, in accordance with our dignity,
we should get out our “store clothes” from the yakdans and enter
in style. We explained to them that all we had with us were the
dinner-coats and opera-hats we had brought for the benefit of the
Ambans and Begs of Turkestan, and that as missionaries lived in Leh
and other English people came there quite often, these clothes would
not do for eleven o’clock in the morning. To this they reluctantly
agreed, but said something must be done. Of course we would not
shave, as our beards were being grown for utility, not ornament.
However, we did rummage around in our yakdans and take out what we
could find. Kermit put on a very heavy pair of knickerbockers and a
black four-in-hand cravat. Cutting and Cherrie each wore an equally
heavy pair of long trousers intended for autumn in the Tian Shan, and
I borrowed an exceedingly large pair of long trousers with a hole in
one knee from Cherrie, and set off my brown canvas shirt with a black
evening bow cravat. So clad, we rode majestically into Leh. The best
that could be said for us is what was said of the native girl in the
“Bab Ballads”:
“And tho’ the clothes he made her don
Sat awkwardly a maid upon,
They were a great improvement on
The ones he found her in.”
In Leh the three officials with whom we had to deal were the
Tesildar, representing the Kashmir Government, the Bahadur Khan,
representing the Indian Government, and the Aksakal, under whom
is the traffic north. Of these the latter was by far the most
interesting. His title, Aksakal, is Turki and means “white-bearded
one.” His name was Abdullah Shah. He was a lean, brown, fine-featured
fellow. His family is Mohammedan. It has been the great family in Leh
for generations. Though Mohammedans, they hold a license to trade
with the forbidden city, Lhasa. Their home is in Leh, where the head
of the family lives, but they have members in the principal cities
with which Leh trades. Two more brothers live at Yarkand and Khotan,
respectively, and there is a cousin at Lhasa. In a small way, they
are the Warburgs of this part of Asia.
As soon as the Eastern interchange of civilities permitted, we got
down to business. At first we were told that the passes would not
be open for two weeks, then that perhaps in a week some of our
party might start if we would buy ponies, not rent them. By gentle
obduracy, however, we finally succeeded in getting away from Leh, not
in two weeks or even a week, but in four days, and arranged to rent
ponies for all the party.
[Illustration: LEH]
[Illustration: A KIRGHIZ YOURT NEAR THE SANJU PASS]
While we were in Leh a number of entertainments were given for us.
These were in the nature of teas with frills. The most interesting
was that of the Bahadur Khan. He is a thin, wizened little Punjabi
with a long white beard and blue glasses, but he is a good shikary
and a real sportsman. We all sat in a row on the piazza of his house.
In the garden in front of us a band, consisting of flutes and drums,
played whining melodies that all seemed much the same to me. From
time to time dancers stepped out from the crowd of people who were
watching and danced for us. First came three old women. They wore
the native perak, a heavy head-dress of turquoises sewed on cloth
extending from a peak on the forehead more than half-way down the
back. With it are worn wing-like pieces of black wool that stand
out from the ears. The story is that long ago a queen of Ladakh had
earache. She thought ear-muffs would help her and had some of this
type made. Hence the fashion. These old women did what to me was a
very dreary dance. It consisted mainly in hesitant poses and slow
shifting of the feet. The natives seemed to enjoy it thoroughly.
Then followed native men who performed in much the same manner. The
high lights, as far as I was concerned, were a sword-dance and a
dance by a Kanjuti. The latter was a fine-looking, light-colored,
aquiline-featured man from that race of gallant fighters and stout
mountaineers that inhabit the Hunza Valley. He danced with a snap and
swagger entirely lacking in the others.
Tea over, we adjourned to the polo-field, where a game was played in
our honor. The field was a long, narrow, rather irregular strip of
sand. The sides were about five men apiece. I asked of what a team
consisted, and was told from four to eleven, so I judge that polo
here is like the shinny of my youth, plastic and not cramped with
too many rules. Here the Bahadur Khan showed in his proper colors.
Stout old sportsman that he was, he turned out in his riding-clothes
on a white Balkh stallion and played a good game, white beard, blue
glasses, and all. The players ranged from Abdullah Shah, the Aksakal,
who played in his fez, to Mongol-looking Ladakhis with pigtails,
whose loose robes flapped in the wind as they charged furiously up
and down the field. For mounts they had everything from the Balkh
stallion, which must have stood fifteen hands high, down to little
mouse-like creatures which could have crawled under the average bed
without trouble. There was one poor animal that was very lame. Of
a necessity, his rider stayed mainly in one place. When the ball
happened to come his way he hit it, and the crowd cheered loudly.
The best player of the lot was the son of a local Rajah. He rode a
little, sausage-shaped pony that galloped like the wind.
The Moravian Mission has been established at Leh for a long time. The
members of its staff, Doctor and Mrs. Kunick, and Doctor and Mrs.
Asboe, were really fine examples of the practical missionary. They
loved their work and there was never a murmur from them about the
hardships they have to undergo. Mrs. Kunick, in particular, was the
smooth-browed, courageous, frontier type to which is due in large
measure the credit for building our own country.
While we were at Leh, George Cherrie continued his collecting.
Every morning at five he was off with his gun. He shot a number of
large blue rock-pigeons. They are very good to eat, so after being
skinned they were given to Jemal Shah, our cook. Once Cherrie shot a
sparrow-hawk, and over my protest turned it over also to the kitchen.
When the stew arrived that evening, we could not tell it from the
pigeons, and no one to this day knows who ate the hawk.
Saturday, June 6, both our parties started. Cherrie and Cutting,
with the larger part of the caravan, went by the winter route where
yaks could be used. Kermit and I set out for the Khardong Pass,
over which it was reported only coolies could travel. Abdullah
Shah, the Aksakal, accompanied our party in order to help in making
arrangements beyond the pass. We rode about ten or twelve miles the
first day, camping at the foot of the pass at a height of about
15,400 feet. The horses seemed to feel the altitude greatly, and
we had to get off and lead them the last part of the way. It was
very cold in the stony little nullah where we camped, and our heavy
sleeping-bags stood us in good stead.
Next morning we were awake by one o’clock, for that was the time we
expected the coolies who were to carry our baggage over the pass.
It was cold, but a gorgeous moon was shining and the snow summits
that surrounded us seemed quiet and austere. We waited shivering.
The coolies did not come. At last about five-thirty we decided they
were not coming. There were some yaks belonging to the villagers
browsing on one of the slopes near by. We commandeered nine of them,
and started as sunrise was flushing rose-pink a few of the highest
mountain peaks. We walked ahead. The shaggy black yaks lumbered
behind. The first mile or so we scrambled over steep bare rocks. Then
we hit the snow-line, and slipped and floundered upward through great
drifts. At last we reached the top, 17,800 feet in altitude, higher
than either Kermit or I had ever been. The air was really thin and
the work of climbing thoroughly winded me. From the top we looked
down and watched those who were following us struggling along. Among
the first to arrive was old Jemal Shah, the cook. In spite of his
gray hair, he stood the work well. Following the men came the great
yaks. How they made it, sinking belly-deep in the snow at every other
step, I do not see.
[Illustration: YAKS CLIMBING THE KHARDONG PASS]
[Illustration: A THIBETAN ANTELOPE]
As soon as the party had gathered on the crest we started the
descent. For those on foot this was moderately easy, though it was
over a small snow-covered glacier, but for the animals, carrying
from 160 to 180 pounds apiece, it was very hard work. Again the
yaks proved their worth and plodded down without accident.
Kermit and I felt no mountain-sickness when we were on the top of the
pass. Curiously enough, however, we developed splitting headaches
when we stopped for a rest and something to eat at an altitude of
about 16,000 feet. When we camped for the night at Khardong at
a height of only 13,500 feet, we really felt we were in the Low
Countries.
On the way up to the pass, Kermit had killed a little
mountain-rabbit. He chased it over the rocks and finally got it by
knocking it over with his khudstick. It was a chunky little gray
animal with crop ears. It would have made an interesting specimen
for the museum, and assumed an additional importance in our eyes
through the difficulty of its capture. We planned to skin it as soon
as we got to camp. When we arrived at the village of Khardong and
searched for it through the pockets of Kermit’s coat, we could not
find it. We decided that it must have fallen out during the climb. It
speaks volumes for Kermit’s coat that we found it again in those very
pockets some ten days later, squashed quite flat from being sat on.
A pathetic instance of the fatalism of the East occurred here. Our
two shikaries came from a town in Kashmir named Bandipur. We knew
that cholera was raging there and that they were worried about their
families. Word reached them via Leh that the daughter and the first
cousin of one of them had died. They were naturally heart-broken. In
trying to comfort them we suggested that a man be sent back to Leh to
send a message to the two families to move to some safer place. To
this, Rahima replied sadly: “No, why move them? It is as God wills.”
We had encountered the “It is Kismet” of the East, to which there is
no answer.
At Karthar we were met by Cherrie and Cutting, who had come through
safely. At Taghar, one of the little villages at which we camped,
we found a ruined palace on the hill back of the town. No one could
tell us to whom it had belonged. Probably when the valley was more
thoroughly populated some small Rajah had his local seat there. The
main building was in fair repair. On one side of the great balcony,
which overlooked the surrounding country, there was a partly ruined
fresco of Buddha surrounded by various symbolic figures. Below
the main palace ruined outbuildings with only the walls standing
stretched like a labyrinth over an acre of ground.
At Panamik, where there are hot mineral springs, we had a bath.
The natives have a mud bath-house which they use, I am inclined
to believe, not so much for cleanliness as because they think the
springs have medicinal properties. Farther up the hillside there is
a little open basin in which we bathed. The mineral, I believe,
is soda. The bath was a great luxury, for it was the first hot
water we had had for about four weeks. The overflow from the stream
ran down the hill in a little channel. In the channel we noticed
a green seaweed, about six inches long and fan-shaped. It was the
only water-plant we saw, for in the cold snow-streams nothing seemed
to grow. Where this weed came from in the high Himalayas I am not
botanist enough to say. Perhaps it survives from some remote period
when the country was totally different geologically.
We were to make the final arrangements for ponies at Panamik. On our
arrival, we went into the usual Eastern conference, the principals of
which were Kermit and I, Abdullah Shah, our shikaries, and an amusing
old rascal called Shaitan, who owned the ponies. As usual, “there was
a lion in the way,” and our plans seemed impossible. However, in some
inexplicable fashion, at the end of the second day the yaks which
Shaitan said could not be brought in from the hills for eight days,
were there. The ponies necessary for the balance of the caravan were
to be produced in another couple of days, and Kermit and I started
ahead for two days’ burrhel-shooting.
The burrhel is a member of the sheep family and lives in the high
mountains. He is a little larger than a donkey. His color is fawn
and white, except in the cases of old males, who have a strong tinge
of black. For any one whose eyes are not trained, he is exceedingly
difficult to see, for he blends in with the brown rock and dirt on
his native mountainside.
Sometimes we hunted together, sometimes we hunted separately. In
addition to our regular shikaries, Rahima and Khalil, we each had a
native. These natives were real “jungli wallahs,” mountain-men, bred
and born in the high Himalayas. They were as tough as old leather.
They had eyesight that would shame a telescope. Their clothes were
voluminous folds of drab homespun. They ate a curious grain compound.
Their skin, garments, and food were all of varying shades of brown.
For the first day’s hunt we drew a blank, though we saw quite a
number of burrhel. This was due to a combination of long ranges and
mediocre shooting on our part.
The second day we started out in different directions. All day I
toiled up steep slopes, sometimes slipping on slide rock, sometimes
floundering in snow. I saw some cunning little crop-eared rabbits
like the one Kermit got on the Khardong Pass. From time to time we
saw herds of burrhel, but there were either no large males or we
could not get close to them. At last, about six, I came back to
camp quite tired. It is one thing to walk all day on the level, and
another to climb hills at a height of from 15,000 to 17,000 feet
where there is only a hatful of air to go around, and each breath is
a gasp. I had not been sitting down more than half an hour, when
Khalil ran up to say that he had just sighted, through the telescope,
a herd of burrhel with some good rams near the top of a neighboring
nullah. We started at once. On the way out we picked up Kermit, who
was just coming in from his hunt. Then the ascent began. It was now
nearly dark, so we could lose no time. I must have sounded like a
grampus. Kermit, who was making better weather of it, encouraged me
once by saying we could not go much higher, as the mountain top was
only a short distance away. At last we topped the ridge behind which
the animals were feeding, waited a moment to catch our breath, and
then advanced. As we reached the last boulders we saw them, a flock
of eight rams some hundred yards away. In the gathering dusk it was
difficult to judge the size. We picked our animals at once and fired.
For a few seconds they were dazed and milled around. Then they made
off. Those few seconds gave us an additional opportunity, and two
rams dropped dead. We made our way slowly down the mountain in the
dark, slipping at every few steps, but satisfied with the evening’s
work. We got to camp at nine, had some hot cocoa and a drink of
brandy which warmed us, and then slept like logs. As so often
happens, it was the eleventh-hour effort that got the game.
These burrhel we found in very bad pelage. They were just changing
from their winter to their summer coats. When we skinned them the
hair came out in handfuls. They were in such condition that they
would not make proper specimens for mounting in the museum. This
confronted us with a very serious problem, for it was evident that we
would find the poli in much the same shape if we went to the Pamirs
immediately after crossing the Himalayas. As the poli were to be used
for setting up in a group in the museum, this would never do. We
decided, therefore, to change our plans and to strike directly for
the Tian Shan mountains. On our way back we could hunt poli, as in
late autumn or early winter their skins would certainly be good.
As Cherrie and Cutting had joined us with the balance of the
pack-ponies, we started next day for the second great pass, the
Sasser. This route has been used through the ages, and yet it is
one of the most dangerous. It is difficult for the average person
to realize the height of these mountains. The Karakoram Pass, which
still lay before us, is more than 19,000 feet, or nearly half again
as high as Pike’s Peak. What might be an easy climb at 10,000 feet,
at 17,000 sets the heart beating like a trip-hammer and the lungs
gasping for air. At night it is very difficult to sleep. You wake
every few moments, struggling for breath, and feel as if you had been
long under water. The severity of the journey is mutely witnessed by
the bones of the pack-animals which lie everywhere. At many places
there are huge piles six and eight feet high. They are scattered
and gnawed by the gray wolves of the mountains, which, with the
snow-leopards and birds of prey, are the only beneficiaries.
After a hard day’s march over glacial streams half covered with
ice, and through snow-drifts which pushed right across the valley,
we came to our camp at the head of the Sasser glacier. The glacier
itself bounded our bivouac so closely on two sides that you could
hit it with a stone. On the other sides rose the snow-covered
mountains through which we had come by a narrow defile. We were in
a natural ice-box. Early in the afternoon the sunshine left us, and
an icy breath from the glacier sent the thermometer below freezing.
Withal it was very beautiful, for though we were in the shadow, the
sun still shone on the encircling peaks whose “silent pinnacles of
ancient snow stood sunset flushed.”
We pitched no tents that night, but rolled up in our sleeping-bags.
The ponies and yaks were kept close together, each beside his load.
A few small dung-fires glowed, over which the men cooked their tea.
There was little sleep for any of us, as the altitude prevented it.
Through the night the men talked and moved around. At one time, Kadi,
the Yarkandi, droned a religious chant that went on interminably; a
rapidly mumbled monotone of jumbled words punctuated at intervals by
a sort of sing-songy chorus. We marvelled that he had the breath to do
it. About three-thirty the camp was astir for the day. At the first
light, four-thirty, we were under weigh, for if the sun once thawed
the snow-fields on the glacier we would never get over. Once the
crust on the snow is melted, the pack-ponies break through and travel
becomes impossible. Kermit and I were to shepherd the rear of the
caravans. In the faint gray light, we stood and watched the animals,
small black dots, climb laboriously up the trail to the top of the
glacier. Some fell and had to be set on their feet again. Most of
them suffered from the height and had to go slowly. At these heights
the ponies should bleed at the nose. If they do not, the men pierce
the nostril with a sharp bodkin-like instrument that they carry.
On top was a gently rounded snow-field over which we got without much
trouble. Once we had to climb down and up again, where a fissure
had separated the ice-field. Here a small black pony fell and could
not rise. He carried no pack. He died simply from the height, and
was the only casualty of the day. Until seven-thirty we rode down a
gradually descending snow slope, when we dropped to a reasonably good
trail in the valley, and the glacier was passed. We had played in
extraordinarily good luck. The weather had been fine throughout, but
we got across none too soon. As the tail of our caravan left the ice
a bitter wind arose, snow fell, and a miniature blizzard raged. The
camp site lay only a few miles down the valley. When we sat down to
a hot breakfast at nine, we were very happy to know that the Sasser
was behind us and our caravan safe.
Next day we sent back the yaks we had used over the pass, and started
up the Shyok River with our permanent train of slightly over sixty
animals. The danger anticipated here was deep water. We had to ford
some five times during the day. The first ford was girth-deep, but
the ponies took it in fine shape, and all came through. Fezildin,
who had charge of the dogs, dragged one across by the collar. After
some hesitation the other three, led by Raleigh, the black hound
from Mississippi, who was unusually stout of heart, plunged in and
swam over. With our caravan were three little donkeys, who, to my
surprise, took it as a matter of course, and got through about as
well as the larger animals.
Then we headed for the next ford. There was much protest from some of
the pony men, but Rahima Loon and the Yarkandi helped to still it. We
told them we would follow our usual policy. We would go and look at
it. If it were impossible, we would not try it. This ford is around a
jutting shoulder of rock and not across the river. When we got there
it looked bad. The water was swirling down in a yellow torrent. Even
Rahima said: “Bura pani” (bad water). The Yarkandi, however, said he
thought it could be done. He got on a horse and tried it. It was just
passable and no more. We directed that the horses be led over by ones
and twos. The men rolled up their dun-colored clothes to the waist
and plunged in, towing the horses behind them. The water was icy,
but neither horses nor men seemed to mind it. In an hour they were
all safely through. When the last man and horse struggled out on the
beach on the far side, I thought of some lines from “Kinmont Willie”
that mother used to read me when I was little:
“The river was spate and full of hate,
But never a horse nor a man we lost.”
From the ford we marched up the trail. It was gloomy but impressive.
There was not even a sprig of green to rest the eye. On every side
rose brown, rugged mountains that seemed to brood over the valley.
Great glaciers marched down to the very bank of the stream. Their
pinnacled white ice-blocks seemed like the soldiers of the elder
gods. A cold wind blew fitfully from the snow.
We passed the next fords without trouble. Just when we thought the
worst of the difficulties were behind us, we turned a bend and saw
the Remo glacier stretched across the entire valley. This was a very
unpleasant surprise. We halted and camped on the spot. Kermit and I
set out at once with a few men to see if we could find a way across.
We climbed interminably over slippery crags of ice incrusted with
slime and rocks. Between were deep crevasses stretching downward
until lost in a greenish-blue dimness. There was a constant
muttering and groaning. Occasionally some great chunk would break
off and crash down, starting a legion of echoes that reverberated
hollowly through the ice corridors. Some of the men refused to go on,
and turned back. Two hours’ fruitless search convinced us that there
was no possibility of getting the ponies across.
This decided, there was but one course open to us, and that was to
return as rapidly as possible and attempt the other and longer route.
Speed was essential, as the river was rising daily. Moreover, this
delay seriously affected our ponies. Baggage-animals are scantily
rationed while crossing the Himalayas, for they have to carry their
own provender. In addition they lose their strength quickly in the
high altitudes. We knew this mischance would cost us ponies.
We had to spend the night where we were, but in order to take
advantage of the low period in the stream before the sun melts the
snow and ice, we started off very early. One by one the chill waters
of the fords were safely negotiated. After the last, we met two men
who were part of the first caravan of the year from Yarkand, just
as we were the first people to attempt the crossing from Leh. They
told us they had had a bad time. Like us, they had tried the route
down the Shyok River, only to be stopped by the same glacier. They
had stayed there four days trying to force a way through without
success. As a result one man and eleven animals had died, and they
had been forced to eat horse-flesh. They told us, however, that the
Karakoram Pass was in good shape.
We pushed on as rapidly as possible and during the next few days
passed the Depsang Plain, a bit of barren rolling country 18,000
feet high. A bitter-cold wind swept over it continuously. At last
we reached Daulat Beg Oldi, the point from which the Karakoram Pass
is usually made. Our ponies had suffered considerably and six more
had died. As a result we decided to turn some of the riding-animals
into pack-ponies and to use them to relieve those who were weakening.
Accordingly, we grouped in pairs the men who had been mounted and
assigned one horse to each pair. Kermit and I had one horse between
us, and so on.
The approach to the Karakoram was up a long stretch of gradually
rising, shale-covered valley. On both sides the trail was lined with
the skeletons of dead pack-animals. There were camels, their padded
feet sticking stiffly out and patches of skin with brown hair on it
clinging to the bones. There were ponies and donkeys in grotesque and
hideous positions. There were countless whitened and disassociated
skulls and bones. Overhead three great lammergeyers sailed. Around
on rocks were perched coal-black ravens that eyed our caravan with
sinister interest. The tracks of wolves were everywhere.
On the last steep ascent to the crest of the pass a pack-pony fell
off the trail, which brought the number of animals lost to eight.
About two o’clock the last of the caravan reached the top and started
down the long, gradual slope to the north. “The King of Passes,” as
one of the shikaries put it, was behind us.
On the Depsang Plain and just beyond the Karakoram the Tibetan
antelope range. They are graceful animals, about the size of the
American prongbuck which used to live on the plains of our West in
millions. They are fawn-colored, dark on the back and almost white on
the belly. The male has beautiful tapering horns, sometimes in the
shape of a lyre. How they lived in this barren country was a constant
source of wonder to us. Their only food seemed to be the sparse tufts
of dried grass that were scattered over the surrounding country at
very infrequent intervals. They seemed to thrive on this meagre diet,
for those we killed were as fat as butter-balls.
The morning after we crossed the Karakoram we saw a herd of seven
grazing on our left. They were startled by our approach and fled like
shadows across the path of the caravan. I was walking with my rifle
at the head. As they went by about 200 yards away I shot and killed
the buck and a doe. A little later in the same day Kermit killed
another fine buck. This gave us not only our group for the museum but
fresh meat.
The fourth of the five great passes, the Suget, we made quite easily
during a twenty-six-mile march. The map we used gives it as 16,610
feet high, but our aneroid made it 18,200 feet, and I am inclined
to believe our instrument. All through the country in which we were
travelling the maps showed blank areas marked unexplored. The names
they gave even to the explored parts were often unrecognized by the
natives who used other names. They show nicely marked points which
to the uninitiate would mean towns. As a matter of fact, they are
nothing but a few fire-blackened rocks where caravans stop, and
where no one has lived or ever will. Indeed, in spite of the maps,
travelling here is a good deal as described in “The Three Sealers”:
“Half steam ahead, by guess and lead.”
At the end of our march over the Suget we came to grass. It was the
first bit of green we had found for nearly nine days. I have rarely
seen anything that seemed prettier to me. All the animals were turned
out to graze during the evening. Here we had our first visit from the
wolves, whose signs we had been seeing all along. During the night
one of our three little donkeys was killed and partly eaten by wolves
within less than one hundred yards of our camp. None of us heard a
sound. I suppose we were sleeping unusually heavily on account of
the long march. The next day as we walked down the valley we found
it scored not only with the tracks of wolves, but with those of
snow-leopards.
In spite of the fact that it was very small and rocky, and would
be considered in the United States as almost barren, this valley
seemed to us “fair as the garden of the Lord.” We had spent nine
days in almost total desolation, where the brown rocky stretches
were relieved only by patches of snow. The green grass and the tiny
sweet-scented spring flowers were to us like a drink of cold water
after a long hot trek.
The following day, after a short march, we came to Suget Karaul.
It is a square, covering perhaps an acre of ground, surrounded by
a mud-and-stone wall with a rampart on top. Inside is a little hut
where the Chinese custom officer lives during the summer months. We
were too early for him and there was no one at the post. We sent
out men to the Kirghiz Begs in order to get some camels to help us
over the fords, for the Karakash River was deep. We also needed
yaks to assist us over the last big pass, for our ponies were worn
out. We armed each man with a note in English, which the Begs could
not read, and splendid credentials in Chinese with a gold seal and
ribbons given us by the museum, which the Begs could not read either.
In a short time a couple of Kirghiz arrived in camp. They were
light-colored, wild-looking men who rode camels.
This was the first inhabited country we had seen since we left
Panamik. For nearly two weeks we had been travelling through a great
stretch of wilderness and mighty mountain fastnesses, which are “no
man’s land” in every sense of the term.
For the next two days we worked down the Karakash River. It is
bordered by scrub thorn-bushes and scant grass. There is practically
no wild life. I did not see over a dozen birds in the two days. We
struck one really bad ford. It was on a swift-flowing tributary of
the Karakash. As usual, it was Kadi, the Yarkandi, who attempted it
first. Kermit and I followed right after him, for we felt that once
we were on the other side, no argument was possible, the caravan had
to follow. We were right, for as we stood on the far shore we could
see the men stripping in preparation. Then came the usual shouts,
and in they all plunged. One horse fell and was almost drowned, but
staggered up and came through after they finally managed to get his
pack off.
At the end of the second day we came to a ford before which
even stout-hearted Kadi quailed. The water was rough, swift and
breast-high. We had to turn aside and go over a mountain ridge
instead. Cutting, Kermit, and I scrambled around over the edge of
the cliff and waited. It took the train two hours and a half to do
about half a mile of map distance. Cherrie, who was with them, said
that in all the thirty-eight expeditions he had made, he never saw
pack-animals go over so bad a trail. One mule turned five somersaults
and got up unhurt.
We camped at Ali-Nazar Kurgan. The town consists of one Kirghiz
family, composed of two men and two women. The women were rather
pretty, and not at all shy. They were dressed in pink, a rather
grimy pink, and wore huge head-dresses shaped like the busbies of
grenadiers. They lived in two miserable little caves hollowed out
of the dried earth of the hillside. Near by were a few tombs. One
of them, evidently that of a well-known chief, was surrounded by
horse-heads, burrhel horns, and poli horns. We were much puzzled over
the latter until we found that the Kirghiz family had brought them
when they moved here from the Tagdum Bash Pamirs.
This day’s march brought us to our last pass in the Himalayas. During
the entire march from Leh, Cherrie collected wherever opportunity
afforded. At Panamik, where he stopped for four days, he had obtained
not only a number of birds but also two different kinds of rabbits,
some mice, and a shrew which he trapped. The birds were moderately
numerous until we reached the high altitudes, where there were
practically nothing but birds of prey. Our constant companions from
the valley of the Sind were a sparrow resembling the English sparrow,
a black and rusty brown warbler, the blue rock-pigeon, and the chukor
partridge. All of these disappeared when we reached the Depsang
Plain. The last two reappeared shortly after the Karakoram Pass. The
dividing barriers, as far as bird life is concerned, I should call
the Zoji and Karakoram Passes.
Just before we reached the Depsang Plain, we came on a small salt
lake in a hollow. On it were at least a dozen ducks. We had no
shotguns, so we could not collect any specimens, but we saw them
clearly. Their predominating color was light brown, and they were
large birds. I believe they were ruddy sheldrakes. A day later, while
riding down a barren little mountain stream, Kermit and I flushed
five geese. Where the water-birds lived, I cannot say. It did not
seem possible that the bodies of water where they were could support
them.
After a good night’s sleep we got up early and roused the camp for
the march on the last pass, the Sanju. This pass, though lower than
the others, was more dreaded by our men. It was very difficult to get
definite information about it. There were apparently two trails, one
very bad on account of a glacier, and the other almost invariably
closed at this time of year. Our ponies were all pretty well done up.
The grain brought for them by their drivers had given out a couple of
days before, and there was nothing for them but grass. We knew they
could not get us over. We had, therefore, sent a couple of Kirghiz
ahead with fifty rupees to hire fifty yaks to meet us at the foot of
the pass and relieve the ponies. This would have settled our worries
had we been at all sure the yaks would materialize, but, as Rahima
Loon remarked when discussing it: “Who knows? I give yesterday a
Kirghiz four anna to get milk. He get the four anna; I no get the
milk.” For four hours we marched up a rocky valley, incidentally
climbing nearly 4,000 feet. Suddenly, on turning a bend, we saw the
yaks before us. There they were, all fifty of them, standing in a
group with their drivers. They were a thoroughly welcome sight, for
already four ponies had given out. In addition to the men, there was
one woman sitting on the hillside. She was evidently the wife of
the chief and had come merely “for to admire and for to see.” After
looking us all over, she mounted a pony and galloped away.
As rapidly as we could we shifted loads and turned to the pass.
Fortune favored us and we found the better of the two trails open.
This convinced our men that we were under some special providence,
as it had not been open this early for fifteen years. Even though
better, it was none too good, for it was slide rock and gravel and
rose 2,500 feet in a little over two miles. There was, of course,
no question of riding ponies, for those poor animals had all they
could do to take themselves over, let alone to carry anything.
Cherrie rode a yak—the rest of us walked. Kermit and I were by this
time thoroughly toughened and acclimated to the altitude, so we
went on ahead and waited on the crest for the rest to come. Again
I wish to pay tribute to the yaks. They pushed unfalteringly up
that hill, carrying 150 pounds or more. At times the slope was at
least forty-five degrees. Their tongues hung out and their breathing
sounded like the exhaust-valve of a steam-engine, but on they went
until one by one they heaved themselves over the last rock and
reached the top.
There was a gorgeous view. The mountains on either side were
mist-cloaked, and their outlines blurred and softened. Below,
zigzagging upward, was the train of more than a hundred animals, and
the voices of the drivers, as they shouted, came faintly to us on the
gusty wind.
When the train reached the top, we turned to the descent. After a
short distance the mist rolled away and we saw spread beneath us
rolling green hills. On them were black dots. As we got closer we saw
they were flocks of yaks and goats feeding. There were many varieties
of bright-colored flowers “star-scattered on the grass.” Marmots
whistled at us from their holes.
As we rounded a hill we saw some clustered yourts with a group of
Kirghiz around them. A yourt is a circular hut with perpendicular
walls and a dome roof. Its framework of wood is covered with felt.
We went to the principal one, where they were expecting us. Inside
there was a fire burning in the centre, over which an old woman and
two younger ones were preparing a sort of cruller. Beside it tea was
stewing in the usual black-incrusted, pitcher-like copper vessels.
The women were dressed in gay colors and had long ribbons hanging
down their backs from head-dresses. The room was clean. Around the
walls were bridles, cooking-utensils, and a gun with an antelope horn
rest to be used in firing. On one side stood a great churn.
We seated ourselves on bright-colored woollen blankets and were
served tea, crullers, and some excellent curds. I felt as if I were
in the times of Abraham. In a short time the caravan came in safely
as far as the men and baggage were concerned, but the last pull had
been too severe for four of the ponies. This brought to thirteen
the number of animals lost on our twenty-five-day climb over the
Himalayas. We had much for which to be thankful, however. Hardly any
one had believed it was possible for us to make the journey so early
in the season. I know of no other white expedition which has done so.
Then there were times when a change in weather or a rise of a few
inches in a river would have placed us in a very serious situation.
As it was, the Sanju Pass was closed by snow the day after we went
through it.
In spite of all this, without the loss of a man or an important piece
of baggage we had crossed “the everlasting hills,” and were on our
way down to the plains of Turkestan.
CHAPTER IV
DESERTS AND OASES OF TURKESTAN
From Ayalik we dropped rapidly to more comfortable heights. Though
none of us had really suffered from mountain-sickness, we were glad
to be able to take in our quota of oxygen without the labor that
had been entailed at the higher altitudes. The principal Mohammedan
festival, Muharram, fell upon the second of July, the day after our
arrival at Ayalik. All our followers, with the exception of the
Ladakhi pony men, were Moslems, so we felt it only just to give them
a day to rest and celebrate. This feast corresponds to our Christmas.
It happened to be a peculiarly raw and blustering day, so next
morning the change was doubly welcome when we dropped down 3,500 feet
and camped near two poplars, the first trees we had seen for eighteen
days.
There now came up one of the customary debates regarding the trail.
The direct route continued to follow the course of the Sanju River,
but it was held by some that the waters were too high for the fording
involved, and that the alternate road taking two days longer and
necessitating the crossing of a fair-sized pass offered the only
logical route. We decided on the shorter and more watery trail,
and in the way of fords it left nothing to be desired. There were
sixteen; all were rapid and rocky and almost all were very deep. At
the second, we nearly lost a pony, for one went under and seemed
to prefer to stay there, poor beast. He was salvaged against his
will, however. Thereafter our lucky star shone forth, for a caravan
of twenty unladen camels put in an appearance, and to them we
transferred as much weight as they could handle. The camels with
their long legs easily crossed fords that would have proved serious
obstacles to our heavily laden ponies. With their reduced burdens,
the ponies successfully negotiated the remaining fourteen passages
and landed us in Sanju amid a lovely grove of willow-trees.
I have always taken particular delight in trees, especially in the
old patriarchs of the forest, but to thoroughly appreciate them, one
must have spent some weeks in as barren and inhospitable a country as
the high Himalayas. It seemed impossible to sufficiently feast our
eyes upon the first shady groves at Kivas and Sanju Bazaar.
The day of many fords happened to be the Fourth of July, so that
evening in honor of us Jemal Shah called forth his undoubted culinary
talents and we feasted and celebrated in orthodox fashion, calling
to mind those boyhood Fourths when armed with a plentiful supply of
firecrackers we would slip out in the dark hours to disturb the sleep
of long-suffering neighbors.
Next day, on entering the wide-spread Sanju Bazaar oasis, we were met
by a committee of leading citizens—old men with long flowing beards.
Greeting our followers, they took both hands of the individual
between their own, and then loosing them, each man stroked his own
beard, muttering the appropriate formulas of welcome. We were led to
a dais covered with carpets and felt numdahs, where food was spread
before us; roast lamb and chicken in wooden platters, bowls of curds,
plates of nuts and raisins, and basins of apricots and mulberries.
Having only recently finished a substantial breakfast, we were not
able to do justice to the meat courses, but our treatment of the
fruit more than made up for the scant courtesy shown the meat. The
camp that night was pitched in a garden of apricot-trees, out of
which we shook the fruit. We trooped down to the river to bathe and
found the water warm, a pleasant change from the frozen dips with
which we had hitherto satisfied our craving for a modified form of
cleanliness.
We now abandoned the river and struck across country toward
Karghalik. Once out of the oasis, the sun was blistering. For sixteen
miles there was no drop of water. We gave the contents of our
canteens to the two dogs that were with us, but, in spite of all,
we paid toll to the sun in the dog we could least spare, old Foxie.
The sudden drop from the freezing altitudes to the blazing lowlands
had severely taxed all of the dogs, and Foxie, being the oldest,
had suffered more than the others. Every one had become fond of the
gallant old fellow, and there was a very genuine mourning in the camp
at his death. We buried him in a little garden near the caravansary
at Koshtagh, 12,000 miles from his Montana home.
In three days we covered more than eighty miles on our march across
to Karghalik. At each oasis we were welcomed with apricots and curds
and great flaps of unleavened bread. On our departure, a group of
notables would escort us a mile or so on our way. Their mounts were
usually stallions, and they formed a vicious, squealing, kicking
cavalcade. There was once the start of a fair fight, but none of this
appeared to disturb a whit the serenity of the riders.
One morning when we were leaving our night’s stopping-place under
just such an escort, a big mare that I was riding reached the bridge
over an irrigation ditch at the same time as a diminutive pack-pony.
Neither wished to yield precedence, but the laden pony was the more
adroit, and before I knew what had happened, I was in the ditch.
Both the mare and I plunged head under, for the water was deep. No
damage was done, although for a moment I was afraid the zeal of the
escort in their efforts at rescue might prove my undoing. I had on me
my kodak and my Sept, and was much concerned as to their condition.
Fortunately, both responded to prompt drying.
At Bora, the last halt before Karghalik, there were two handsome
golden eagles in large wooden cages. The townsfolk use them for
coursing jeron, the so-called goitred gazelle. They are said to be
fairly common on the plains near by during the winter months, but
with the advent of summer they retreat into the foot-hills.
Our guides from Bora to Karghalik were four old men mounted upon
diminutive donkeys. They rode along in a row, their long beards
waggling as they chatted and joked. Sometimes one would ride with his
arm on another’s shoulder—old cronies evidently.
The Amban of Karghalik had not expected us so soon, and we were
thrust upon him in the midst of a levee of local Begs. He was
short and squat and cheerful, but language was a distinct barrier
and interpreting complicated. He did not speak even Turki, so all
sentiments had to be transmitted through Hindustanee, then into Turki
and Chinese. Doubtless their outlines became somewhat hazy in the
process. We had hoped to avoid stopping over a day, but this proved
to be impossible, for the Amban had set his heart upon giving us a
tamasha—an entertainment.
In preparation for this affair, we wended down to the rushing yellow
river that ran near the garden in which we were camped. A large and
intent audience of both sexes watched us bathe. Three of us in our
modesty kept on our clothes—they badly needed a wash—but one paid no
more attention to the audience than if it had not existed, and has
probably joined the galaxy of country deities. Thoroughly washed, we
proceeded to dig out tuxedoes and opera-hats, much to the delight of
our men, for in Leh they had felt crestfallen at our wearing only
workaday clothes.
The Amban arrived early to call for us. We were not ready, so he,
his two sons, and entire retinue joined our own men in watching us
dress. They were all greatly impressed—so much so that next morning
the Amban sent his tailor armed with bundles of black-and-white
striped silk. He squatted under a big tree near by busily copying the
tuxedoes, while the Amban’s carpenter copied our roorkee chairs. The
collapsible opera-hats were, alas, quite beyond emulation.
The Amban’s dinner was a great success. We had brought with us a
small supply of brandy and different sorts of liqueurs to be used as
gifts. On such occasions as this we mixed up a palatable cocktail
with fruit-juice, brandy, sloe gin, and cherry brandy. On the
dinner-table there were two bottles, one held a red liquid, the other
a yellow. On the labels were Chinese girls, and beneath were written
“Girl Brand Orange Champagne” and “Girl Brand Rose Champagne.” It
is not so easy to describe the taste. The Amban’s two sons were at
the dinner—pleasant fellows both. In spite of the lack of a common
language, everything went off smoothly, and the Amban seemed
particularly to enjoy Cutting’s songs. They spoke an international
language.
We had decided that we could make better time by travelling at night,
so we arranged for several mapas and arabas to be ready after dinner.
A mapa is what is known in northern China as a Pekin cart. It is a
two-wheeled covered vehicle. An awning stretches out in front to
protect the horse. An araba is larger and more primitive. If it has
a cover at all, it is only a length of reed matting arched across
it. Both have an entire absence of springs. We each crawled into a
mapa and stretched out as nearly at full length as possible. A swarm
of bobbing Chinese lanterns accompanied us through the darkened
bazaar. They never failed to remind me of a Japanese print as they
flitted along in the dark. Just outside of town we found the Amban.
He had his rugs spread out in the courtyard of a little house at the
roadside, and here we alighted for a parting cup of tea with the
inevitable accompanying dishes of nuts, raisins, watermelon-seeds,
and variegated colored candies. It is a pretty Chinese custom to
speed the parting guest on his way by installing oneself at the
wayside where the road leaves town, and bidding him alight for a
farewell cup of tea.
[Illustration: C. S. C., T. R., K. R., AND ABDUL HAMID GO TO CALL ON
THE AMBAN OF YARKAND]
To sleep soundly in a mapa calls for more than an easy conscience.
The ponies are festooned with bells, the ill-fitting wooden joints
creak and groan, there is no semblance of a spring, and, to add
to all, the driver sings or rather shouts out endless monotonous
epics. These he checks from time to time to warn his ponies of some
peculiarly bad spot in the road. This warning soon assumed a fateful
ring in our ears, and we would grab at any available portion of the
wagon’s anatomy to mitigate the force of the shocks which inevitably
followed.
Up to now, there had been but little travel on the roads we
traversed. Occasionally a small caravan had passed us on its way
to Ayalik, where the traders were massing preparatory to the first
push across the passes. We had come over far in advance of the
legitimately open season, and the only caravan which we met en route
was the small and sadly decimated one which we passed on the Shyok
River. Now, however, we constantly met little groups of men trudging
along with laden donkeys or well-fed pack-ponies in tow. From
Karghalik on, we never passed out of sight of cultivation of some
sort.
We reached Yarkand after marching two nights and part of one day. We
were met by the present Amban, two former Ambans, and the Chinese
general in command of the troops. All showed us every courtesy. We
made our formal calls upon them that afternoon, riding from residence
to residence dressed in our state uniform of tuxedo and opera-hat,
which always lent a cheerful note. The Aksakal we knew well by name,
for he was Abdul Hamid, brother of our friend Abdullah Shah at Leh.
We were quartered a couple of miles from town in a large house set in
the midst of a most attractive garden. Here we saw our first goitred
gazelle, a handsome buck. In his neck he had a swelling that pulsated
as he breathed, and reminded one of a well-developed Adam’s apple.
He was bad-tempered, and when Cherrie in his anxiety to get a good
picture motioned the man who was holding him to loose him, he charged
straight at the camera with a savage grunt. We came on another pet
gazelle later on at a village named Ak-Dong on the Yarkand-Maralbashi
road, but this second gazelle had a most pleasant and friendly
disposition.
A little while before reaching Karghalik, we had begun to notice
cases of goitre, and these increased steadily in frequency until
in Yarkand it seemed as if every other person was afflicted. Even
small children of four and five had pronounced goitres, and some of
their elders had them fearfully developed. It is said to come from
the filthy water that the townsfolk drink. A few days out on the
Maralbashi road put us beyond the goitre belt, and at Maralbashi I
saw only one case. Any one wishing to study the disease would find an
unsurpassed field in Yarkand.
We were surprised at the small number of Chinamen we met. A few
of the larger stores were run by them, and they seemed to have a
monopoly on the pawn-shops, but numerically they were only a small
part of the community. It is a land of exile for them. The Amban told
us that Pekin was distant six months’ travel. The private soldiers
were all Yarkandis; occasionally the corporals were Chinese. The
natives varied greatly in color; some were as white as we, and others
very dark. We saw no negroes nor could we make out any trace of negro
blood. The features were not Mongol; as a whole perhaps more Semitic
in caste than anything else. The men were better-looking than the
women.
We spent three days in Yarkand, making the bundobust for the next
stretch of our journey—that to Aksu. I wandered all through the
bazaars. There were three separate ones, all extensive. I saw little
of European manufacture. Matches and cigarettes were of Chinese
make—the cutlery was mostly made upon the spot. I picked up an old
pair of Chinese glasses for a friend, and a plate and some other
small objects of jade from Khotan, which is a great jade mart.
Bazaar life is always interesting and I could watch indefinitely
the silversmith, the blacksmith, or the shoemaker at work, or the
activities of the bakeshop. In one of the bazaars there was a
shrine to some very holy man, with a centrepiece composed of the
largest pair of ovis poli horns that I have ever seen. I had no
measuring-tape with me, but they must have been almost sixty inches
in length measured round the curves.
At Yarkand the expedition split. Suydam went with Feroze to Kashgar
to look after our arrangements there, while Cherrie planned to come
slowly on to Maralbashi, stopping a week or more whenever he found a
locality where the opportunity for collecting seemed good. Suydam was
to join him when he finished at Kashgar, and both were to meet us in
the Tekkes around the middle of September.
Ted and I hired six arabas, and shortly after midnight on the 14th of
July we piled ourselves and our belongings in them and set out with
all the speed feasible for Aksu. We loaded the carts lightly, and
hoped to make long marches. Besides Rahima Loon and Khalil, we took
with us the second cook, Rooslia, with Loosa and Sultana. Sultana had
received sad news at Yarkand. In a letter to Rahima from Bandipar
he heard of the death of one of his children, a boy of fourteen.
The ravages of cholera had been frightful—more than 700 of the
villagers had died. Our Kashmiris reminded me of the crew on a New
Bedford whaler in the old days, when almost every member was related
by marriage or blood. This of course made it sadder still for the
Kashmiris, as each one had a relative or close friend to mourn.
We had become much attached to our followers. Ahmed Shah, who was to
take charge of Cherrie’s caravan, had proved himself most efficient
on the trail across the passes. Feroze was an excellent little
fellow; he had a keen sense of humor, and was a merry companion.
Our Kashmiris were a patriarchal group, well led by Rahima Loon.
To his many other qualities, he superadded that of diplomacy. A
born diplomat, he managed to be ever smoothing our way, and yet
getting us along with amazing speed, for which he fully realized the
necessity. He watched over the finances with an eagle eye, and time
and again saved us many rupees. Not only did he cut down the larger
expenditures, but he also kept well under control the small daily
sums that have such a tendency to mount.
Jemal Shah, the veteran cook, we left with Cherrie. He had come
through everything smiling, and had conjured up the most magnificent
meals from nowhere, when confronted by what seemed a hopeless
insufficiency of time and materials. Just as the arabas were about to
start into the black night, he ran up and presented us each with a
box of matches as a final precaution for our comfort.
The Kashmiris were adepts in the art of massage. All Asiatics are
firm believers in it. In the bazaar at Maralbashi I came on a Darby
and Joan picture—an old woman massaging the feet of her white-bearded
husband. I was once much indebted to this massage on the way across
the passes. While running to adjust a load, I slipped on a stone and
threw my knee out so severely that I was for some time unable to put
the slightest weight on it. Rahima massaged it night and morning
for several days with ghee—rancid native butter—and I was back in
walking trim much sooner than I had dared to believe possible. All
our followers were most concerned and considerate, and at odd moments
would take a turn at massaging the knee. Kadi, the Yarkandi, also
tried his hand. They practised both massage and osteopathy upon each
other for every ailment from a headache to a stomachache. To cure
this latter, Suydam saw one of the men lying face down on the ground
while the others beat his arms and legs in a truly alarming fashion.
At Yarkand we parted with Kadi and his two partners, who had come
with us from Leh. All three wished to continue on to the Tian Shan,
but Rahima felt that they would be out of their bailiwick and of
little use. We had become genuinely attached to Kadi, he was so
everlastingly cheerful and hard-working. Short but beautifully
proportioned, he had in his walk that resiliency you so often see in
a well-conditioned hunting-dog. All day long he would be hurrying
from one end of the column to the other, adjusting the loads here and
there, helping a fallen pony to regain his footing, and yet coming
into camp at night after the longest day’s march his step would be
as springy as if he were but setting out. He was invaluable at the
fords, always the first across, returning time after time to help the
others over.
[Illustration: THE FAIR AT YARKAND]
[Illustration: FERRYING ACROSS THE YARKAND RIVER]
The stretch from Yarkand to Maralbashi we made in six days, averaging
better than twenty-two miles. At the start we tried night
marching, but as there was no moon, the combination of bad roads
and evening rain-storms made us feel it preferable to put up with
the heat of the sun. The Amban of Yarkand had been most efficient
in sending ahead word to the villagers to help us along. He was a
keen-faced, slightly built man, evidently accustomed to act quickly
and be obeyed. He warned us that much of the road was under water and
that we might find ourselves in difficulties, but promised to give us
all assistance possible.
We crossed to the right bank of the river at Toghraghe, fifteen or
sixteen miles from Yarkand. This was a slow performance, for the
river was very broad, with two deep channels, separated by a mud
flat, where the carts had to be unloaded and hauled across by the
horses. Next day we began to get out of the cultivated districts,
and passed through a jungle of dwarfed poplar-trees. It looked as if
there should be game about, but the natives insisted that there was
none. It had rained, as usual, during the night, and at sun-up the
air was delightfully clear. We had a brief glimpse of the Kuen Lun
mountains behind us, bounding with their glorious snowy peaks the
southern horizon. It is only on rare occasions that you can see any
distance, for the fine desert dust that has been whirled about by the
wind remains suspended in the air and effectively restricts one’s
vision.
On the third day after starting from Merket Bazaar we crossed back
to the left bank of the river, following a jungle trail which had
been widened and vastly improved for us at the command of the Amban.
We had with us two Yarkandi soldiers, one of them an efficient
picturesque fellow, a local prototype of Dugald Dalgetty. Somewhere
he had acquired a black slouch-hat, and in a bickering had lost a
good part of one ear. He was death on straggling, and after one or
two fruitless attempts at apathetic resistance, our araba drivers
spruced up and kept in close formation. Our soldier was no believer
in Gandhiism.
We had with us both Cumberland’s and Church’s accounts of their
hunting trips in Turkestan. We found Major Cumberland’s the best
reading of any of the books on the country. There is no question but
that there is far less game now along the trail from Yarkand to Aksu
than there was when he was here in 1889; less, too, than when Church
was through, ten years later. The local shikaries told us that it was
too hot and dry at this season, July, but that in another two months
the game would return. Such is, without doubt, the case. Still, where
Cumberland mentioned not once but many times running across the fresh
trail of tiger, we could not even hear from the natives of there
being tigers in the neighborhood. They would have been only too glad
to enlarge upon any such information had there been the slightest
foundation on which to build.
On the Yarkand side of Maralbashi the villages of Aksakmaral and
Shamal are supposed to be the best centres from which to hunt.
Beyond Maralbashi on the Aksu road, Yakka Kudak is regarded as
the most likely place for shikar. We were going through with all
possible speed, but whenever the local oracles gave us the slightest
encouragement, we took ponies and got in an early morning’s hunt,
catching the arabas at noon. We separated, one taking Rahima and the
other Khalil, with, of course, a local so-called shikarry (save the
mark!) in addition. Each time that we went out, either one or both of
us caught a fleeting glimpse of gazelles. There was never a chance
for a shot, however, for they were wild as hawks. We saw but very
little recent sign, so the place or time was wrong, probably both.
Of other wild life there was not a great deal. During a morning’s
hunt I counted over a dozen hares. Aside from that day, we never
saw more than one or two. Duck and geese were plentiful in some of
the lagoons and often amazingly tame. Of the pheasants about which
Cumberland and Church wrote, we saw not one. The sole contribution we
made to our collection was a brown snake about eighteen inches long
which a native brought in. This was the only snake, dead or alive,
which we had seen on the whole expedition up to date.
As a rule, we had been sleeping in the dirty battered caravansaries
of the villages where we halted, when we came in late this was a
necessity. Whenever it was possible to find a garden near by, we
either had our tent up or laid our sleeping-bags on the ground
uncovered, if the night gave promise of being fine.
Rough and uncertain as was the road, we were travelling along what
has been a trade route through countless generations. Marco Polo
may well have put up in more than one of the serais in which we
stopped. These serais are big courtyards lined on either side with
stalls for cattle, having a number of large rooms in the rear for
use of travellers. Outside of these rooms are earthen daises on
which we unrolled our sleeping-bags. Sometimes there would be other
travellers in our serai, and the different groups would squat over
their cooking-pots, plunging their hands into the communal dish.
The evening meal over, they would sing spirited ballad songs with
a swinging lilt to them or lugubrious dirges and indescribably
monotonous chants.
After dark there was much of the glamor of the East to be enjoyed in
the serai and its assemblage, which by daylight was obscured by raw
ugliness and filth. The night-watches were not always peaceful, for
more often than not the fleas bit shrewdly. Once we were set upon by
some peculiarly large and savage bug whose attack became only the
fiercer the more Keating’s powder was strewn about “and him as big
as a donkey,” at least so it seemed from the wounds inflicted. Suydam
on that occasion fared the worst, for his bites swelled and started
to fester. It may be understood, therefore, why we preferred our
unromantic tents to the age-old serai.
It was always difficult, however, to persuade our men to go on beyond
the well-known halting-places. The drivers and our guides were very
conventional, and to go past a regulation stage never seemed to
them possible. It was not that wood and water and other necessities
were not available at any number of places. It was just that these
definite places have been the stages time out of mind, and custom
ordains that there be no deviation. Then, too, for some reason the
men regarded the serai as more fitting and dignified.
The village musicians usually gathered in the serai. An average band
consisted of a stringed instrument with a body no larger than a
mandolin’s but the stem a good six feet long, a couple more stringed
instruments only half as large, and one or two tambourines. Sometimes
the musicians sang, sometimes not—and often a man would jump up
and dance. Music is a profession not much more highly considered
in Yarkand than in Ladakh, where the musician ranks lower than the
blacksmith or tinsmith—indeed, he is almost the lowest class of all.
The best dancing that I saw was in Karghalik. The men having
performed at the Amban’s levee were afterward gathered in a secluded
spot in the garden under some apricot-trees. They started again for
their own amusement and there I found them, and enjoyed their dancing
more than I had at the tamasha. One man would dance for a while, and
then he would select another from the surrounding circle, and hale
him out. They covered their hands with their long sleeves just as one
sees in the jade statue of a Kien Lung dancing-girl. Occasionally an
onlooker would step forward with some money in his hand, pass it a
couple of times around the dancer’s head, and then put it in an idle
tambourine that lay beside the musicians.
At Maralbashi, which we reached on July 19, we again unearthed our
worn and weary tuxedoes, and, topped off with opera-hats, returned
the Amban’s call, mounted on two ambitious ponies. We succeeded
in hurrying through without waiting over the usual day. We left
on the afternoon following our arrival, first having lunch with
the Amban and two other Chinese officials. If we had been able to
speak Chinese, these luncheons would have been both pleasant and
interesting, but as it was, the only thing we could do without the
aid of an interpreter was to pledge each other in Chinese brandy.
In some way a pint of champagne had found its way here, and it was
produced in our honor. It had been flat for many years and we drank
it as a liqueur.
The Amban was courtesy itself, and sent on two soldiers to take the
place of those that came with us from Yarkand, also two local Begs
to see that we had our wants supplied in the villages through which
we passed. We had brought with us some brandy and various kinds of
liqueurs to be sent as presents to the Ambans. We greatly regretted
that we had not also thought of wrist-watches, for they would have
served admirably as gifts.
The bazaar of Maralbashi is one long street, lined with the usual
bake-shops, butcher-shops, and all the other shops with their
display of gimcracks of every kind. There were many birds in cages,
seemingly more than in any bazaar through which we had yet passed.
The red-legged chukor appeared a favorite. There were also quail,
desert larks, and finches. One morning on the road we met a troupe of
six donkeys. On one was a man with a fat small boy perched in front
of him, on another was his wife, while strapped on each of the other
four were bobbing along four birds in their cages.
The donkey is much used as a conveyance. The rider has stirrups but
no bridle, and guides his charger by hitting him on one side or other
of the neck, uttering inimitable guttural sounds. It is surprising
what heavy loads of grain a donkey will carry. When you see them
coming along under a load of brush it looks as if “Birnam wood had
come to Dunsinane.”
Our araba drivers had needed urging on the road to Maralbashi, when
they often wished to stop short of our proposed day’s march. They
had also tried to persuade us to stay over there on the plea of sick
horses. Now they had apparently made up their minds that the best
thing to do was to hurry through to Aksu and get rid of us, for
they made amazingly good time of their own accord. We were only six
days on the road, averaging twenty-four miles a day. When a driver
wishes to shorten a stage, he will plead that there is no grass nor
wood on the road ahead, or that there is too much water—sometimes
all three. Then if you have halted in response to his petition,
you will probably next morning find that there were a dozen good
places farther on to have camped, and no lack of wood or fodder, nor
superfluity of water. The driver will be entirely unabashed when you
point this out with some acerbity, and with a childlike faith he will
offer the same time-honored reasons when next the occasion warrants.
Our horses were excellent, all of them stallions, and in fine shape.
They did not seem to lose condition on the road, but of course they
had an abundance to eat. An araba is drawn by from one to four
horses, according to the load or the fancy of the driver. We had two
with one horse only, three with one horse in the shafts and another
in front, tandem fashion, and one with three horses. The wheel-horses
were most intelligent. They would back into place between the shafts
merely at the spoken word, and they would shift to right or left on
the road at their driver’s command. There were no reins. A single
rope was attached to the bit of each horse, but it was rarely used.
Although an araba is not a comfortable conveyance for man, we
unquestionably made better time and at far less expense than we
could have done with a pack-train. Our six arabas took us nearly 300
miles for about eighty-five dollars. We would have needed fifteen
pack-ponies. We had one araba for the dogs—they could never have got
through the long hot marches on foot, and we particularly wished
to fatten them up for the hunting. They had, of course, got very
thin during the trek across the passes, but soon began to put on
weight and cover their ribs. In the arabas we either lay on our
bedding-rolls or sat tailor fashion upon them. When the road was
sandy we read for a while, but our eyes tired and an ear had to be
kept open for the “Oowah! Oowah!” with which the drivers encouraged
their teams across the particularly rough spots in the road. Then we
clutched any part of the araba and held on, while the cart bucketed
and swayed its way along. Ted put in most of his time on the Bible
and Shakespeare, while I had a more varied diet—three plays of
Molière, Lever’s “Handy Andy,” and “Westward Ho!”
There was more waste land on the Aksu road. For two days in the
neighborhood of Yakka Kudak we passed through almost continuous
desert. Once for several miles the whole surface of the land to a
depth of eight feet had been bodily removed and deposited elsewhere
by the wind. Numerous hummocks, held together by roots of the dead
trees perched on the summit, attested to the former earth level and
gave the place an eerie and ghostlike appearance—seemingly an abode
of the dead.
Whenever we had the slightest encouragement from the natives, we
went off in search of gazelle, but without success. When planning
the expedition, we had felt that to bring any shotgun other than
Cherrie’s collecting guns would involve too serious an addition of
weight. For a while, we thought of a .22 rifle, but decided against
it as not being worth the trouble. We would have been glad of the .22
many times when we could have used it on chukor, duck, or rabbit.
What we really should have taken along was a .410 pump-gun. The
shells are light and it would have been powerful enough to serve
our wants. On an expedition of this sort all you require is weapons
to shoot specimens and provide for variation in the diet. We had no
desire for sporting wing-shooting, but wished to bag our game with the
least expenditure of powder. Sixteen or twelve gauge shells weighed
so much as to be out of the question for us.
Five or six miles before reaching Yangi Shahr, we crossed the Aksu
River. Here we halted to wash off the dust of travel—and looking at
the water it seemed doubtful whether we would wash more off or on.
After our swim we dressed as usual in evening clothes and opera-hats.
We sent the arabas on and arranged for riding-ponies. We always felt
like waiters in a very second-class restaurant, but unquestionably
these clothes served a good purpose, for the officials felt that,
dirty or not, the intention to do honor was there. A business suit
would not have meant the same thing, but the military uniforms that
we had for a time considered would have done admirably.
During the ride in, we realized that we were once more in the goitre
belt. In Aksu it was not as prevalent as in Yarkand, but it seemed to
be more virulent, and the cases more advanced. The little babies were
a sad sight.
A lovely garden had been prepared for us, the best-kept one which we
had yet come upon. Carpets and numdahs were spread, and on tables
were fresh and dried fruits, together with the usual nuts, raisins,
and sugar candy. The muskmelons were delicious, and here we first
were given watermelons. The apricot season was over. There were
peaches, small but good, and a glossy red fruit, a cross between
apricot and peach, which didn’t appear to be ripe, although every one
ate it. There were grapes of different varieties, but all were green
as yet.
Yangi Shahr is the Chinese city of Aksu—lying about five miles from
the native city. In Yangi Shahr the Dotai, or Governor, of the
province resides, as well as the Lieutenant-Governor and the local
Amban. Each had some species of European carriage, ranging from a
fiacre to a Russian troika on wheels. The latter was sent to convey
us to the Dotai’s residence, where we sat through an innumerable
coursed dinner, while some itinerant Chinese players shouted and sang
and danced near by. There appeared to be no plot, but part of the
buffoonery was easily understood and appreciated.
The Dotai was a big, jovial man. Had we had a common language we
should have thoroughly enjoyed the time with him, but he was a
“brother hedged by alien speech and lacking all interpreter.” Our
men spoke a very halting Turki, therefore we had another added
temporarily to the string of interpreters—a man who fancied he was
able to understand our men’s Turki and translate it to his fellows.
Ted compared the whole arrangement to the game of gossip that we used
to play as children. One child would whisper a sentence to another,
he to still another, and so on, until it rounded the circle and came
back to its originator, who shouted out what he had first said, and
in what form it had returned to him. The comparison enabled us to
form some idea of how much of what we said seeped through to the
Dotai. The Dotai was an efficient executive, he made up his mind
quickly, and acted immediately. When he told us arrangements for our
march into the Tekkes would be completed without delay, we felt there
was no question but that such would be the case, and we had nothing
to worry about.
After a night in Yangi Shahr, we moved on to Aksu to complete the
arrangements for pushing on across the Muzart Pass into the valley of
the Tekkes, for we were eager to reach the promised land of big game.
CHAPTER V
BEYOND THE LAST BARRIER TO THE PROMISED HUNTING-GROUNDS
“But the land whither ye go is a land of hills and valleys, and
drinketh water of the rain from heaven.”
—DEUTERONOMY 2:2.
At Aksu we stayed a couple of days, for here we had to change from
arabas back to pack-ponies for our trip through the Tian Shan
mountains. We did not enjoy ourselves, as we were impatient to be
off. It was swelteringly hot in the Amban’s garden where we were
camped. During the day flies swarmed over everything like the
Egyptian plague, and at night the mosquitoes descended on us in
armies. The Amban all but killed us with courtesy, calling about
every two hours. We eventually curtailed his calls by letting loose
our hounds. The bright spots in our stay were some lovely old
embroidered robes and some quaint bits of china that we picked up.
Aksu is a very old town, so far off the beaten road that it has not
been swept clean of its treasures.
On the morning of our departure all was bustle and confusion. The new
pack-ponies had just come in from the range. They were grass-fed,
pot-bellied, and full of spirits. Packing them was difficult. Often
a pony half laden with yakdans and boxes would squeal, plunge and
buck across the courtyard, towing a yelling Turki behind him and
scattering camp utensils in all directions. Girthing up a pack-pony
in this country is a remarkable procedure. A man gets on either side,
the pack is put on, then each man places a foot against the pony’s
side and pulls the pack-ropes with every ounce of strength he has.
Every time I saw it done I expected the animal to be cut in two like
Baron Munchausen’s famous horse.
The train packed, we marched out of town. We were preceded by a
platoon of soldiers with fixed bayonets. Their rifles were nearly
fifty years old, and their uniforms were original, to say the least.
As we pushed through the bazaar we collected an additional escort of
dozens of little boys. Like boys the world over, they gathered thick
as flies around the marching column. They darted in front of the
horses, under their very noses, and I was afraid our collections in
this part of China would start with a Turki boy. Just beyond the town
the Amban was waiting. We said good-by. The soldiers presented arms,
and our escort left us.
In a short distance our road turned up the side of the steep white
clay cliff that bounds the Aksu Valley. Our way lay through a deep
cut, worn by generations of travel. As we plodded up, the day, which
had been overcast, suddenly cleared, and a brilliant sun shone. We
turned a corner and saw at the top of the rise, silhouetted against
the clear blue of the sky, a white-domed mosque with a fretted wall.
It was surrounded by gently waving green poplars, and was set like
a picture by the tall white banks on either side of the road. Every
shadow was diamond-cut by the bright sunlight, every line was clear in
the clean air. It was a fairy scene from the “Arabian Nights.”
On the top of the cliffs a broad flat plateau stretched for miles.
It was dotted in every direction with Moslem tombs. Arches, domes,
squares, and walls of white-baked clay were scattered in a seemingly
endless succession. An occasional tree gave a dash of color. We
looked beyond, and there to the north, hanging like clouds on the
horizon, were the snowy peaks of the Tian Shan mountains—our promised
land.
For three days we journeyed northeast across the plain. It was a
great relief to be riding again after the ceaseless jarring of the
arabas in which we had been driving. During the second day we made
a fruitless attempt to get a gazelle. We saw quite a number, but
the plain was very flat and they were very wary. They generally
saw us before we saw them, so our hunt consisted in the main of
watching them through field-glasses as they disappeared with great
graceful bounds. As we were anxious to reach the Tian Shan as soon as
possible, we had to abandon the hunt for the present.
At Khurgan we struck the foot-hills, and camped for the night. A wind
off the snow blew down the valley. We were cool for the first time in
nearly a month. This place gets its name from the Chinese fort there.
Khurgan is Turki for fort. Like all Chinese forts I have seen, it is
an emblem of authority rather than a military weapon. It consists of
a mud-walled square and a rampart running across the valley from the
river. An active boy could climb up the near-by hill and throw stones
into the fort itself. It was garrisoned by three Chinese customs
officials. One of them was a remarkable old fellow. He was the
father-in-law of the Aksu Amban and could not have been a day under
eighty, but he rode out some three miles to meet us and handled his
horse with dash and decision.
On August 1 we left Khurgan for our trip up the Aksu Valley to the
mountains. Besides our regular train we had with us quite a number
of people. The high ranker among these was Ishmael Bey, an important
Beg from Kizil Bulak, who handled the traffic north from that town.
He was a handsome man, tall and powerful, with fine features and a
heavy, grizzled black beard. He wore a fur cap, and a long brown
coat caught in at the waist with a bright-colored silk scarf. He
rode an excellent horse. More important than all this, he had a
stout heart. Time and again he was invaluable in getting the caravan
over difficult places. He would go anywhere any of the men would,
and go first. They told me he was a man of great wealth, and then
in true Biblical fashion enumerated his riches: 5,000 sheep, 3,000
goats, 1,000 donkeys, 300 ponies, and 30 camels—literally “the cattle
on a thousand hills.” He had with him a number of his servants,
dark-skinned, black-bearded men. Two of them carried ancient
flint-lock rifles. The Beg himself had a single-shot Russian army
rifle of the 1876 model. Each of these rifles had a pronged rest near
the muzzle, which was let down when the piece was fired.
There were also a number of other Begs who had come over the pass
to meet us. With one of them were his wife and son. The woman was
dressed in riding-clothes like a man. The conventionalities were
satisfied by a little white curtain fastened to the front of her cap,
which she let down over her face at the halts. On the march she did
not bother about it. She had a jolly brown wrinkled face, much like
a walnut. The boy was about twelve and rather fresh and obnoxious.
He rode well, however, and had plenty of courage. Our party was
completed by two Chinese soldiers attached to us as a guard of honor.
We would have liked to get rid of them, but they stuck to us like
burrs. I am inclined to think that the bukshish we gave them was
about the only pay on which they could count. One of them was almost
white, with gray eyes. I believe he must have been half Russian,
though I could never find out, as he spoke only Chinese. The other
was a picturesque old Oriental. He looked like an elderly serious
monkey, and rarely changed his expression. He was very thin, and his
nondescript uniform hung around him like a flag around a flagpole on
a windless day. He carried a long-stemmed pipe with a little bowl,
and a black horsetail fly-brush, and wore what we used to call when
we were little a “farmer-hayseed hat.”
In the Aksu Valley, for the first time since leaving Kashmir, we
found hills where there was regular rainfall. There were patches of
grass in the nullahs. The northern slopes got most of the rain. On
some of these fir-trees marched “like black priests in a row” to the
hill crest. Along the river-bank there was a fringe of trees with
grass, ferns and flowers beneath. Above all there was that sense of
cleanliness and austerity which only the mountains and great woods
give.
Wild life was plentiful. Hare were constantly loping off in front of
us. There were numbers of small birds, larks, sparrows, and warblers.
Crossing a small meadow we flushed a partridge, the first we had
seen. Once we saw an old mother chukor with her young. She did not
want to leave them, and they were very little, so we were able to
get within a dozen feet of the whole family. The old mother clucked
just like any barnyard hen. The little ones were brownish midgets and
scuttled very actively through the grass.
We were held up at the end of the first day’s march by a bad ford.
Ishmael Bey’s baggage reached it first. Five loads got over and then
the stream rose. When we got there the water was rushing past so
deep and swift that no loaded animal could make it. We tried it with
an unloaded camel, and almost lost him down-stream. These snow-fed
glacier streams rise very suddenly. When the sun shines during the
day the streams are swelled by the melting snow and ice. At night
when the glaciers freeze again, the water drops. The time of day at
which any particular ford is high depends, of course, on how long
it takes for the snow-water to reach it. Where the ford is near the
glacier the water rises early in the morning and falls early in the
evening. Where the ford is far down the river, the rise may not take
place until late in the afternoon, and the fall until early next
morning. The traveller prays for cloudy weather when he has to do
mountain-fording.
[Illustration: PACK-PONIES FORDING THE MUZART RIVER]
[Illustration: A CAMEL NEGOTIATES THE MUZART]
Early next morning we were waked by the raucous squealing of the
camels that we had collected from the near-by country to help us
across the bad fords. The camp was already up. Shortly after light we
started the balance of the Beg’s baggage over the stream. He had been
using donkeys, but now his loads were put on camels. A man got on top
of each loaded camel and held two donkeys by very long lead ropes.
The camels then proceeded to take the ford, towing the donkeys after
them like rowboats after a launch. Following this our baggage
went over in the same fashion. Kermit and I followed on our horses.
We each took a dog on our saddles, for, as the stream was nothing
but rapids, we were afraid they might be drowned. This made riding a
complicated matter, as neither dog wanted to stay where it was. To
make matters worse, in the middle of the river first one and then the
other of the horses stumbled and all but fell. At this point both
dogs decided to get off, and what with trying to hold a squirming
dog, guide the horse and whip it forward at the same time, all of us
very nearly went down the stream.
After we reached the other side our unloaded baggage-animals were
herded in, the men riding behind. The horse ridden by one of the men
slipped in the middle of the stream, made a desperate attempt to
recover itself, and then the horse and man plunged into the rapids.
In no time they were whirling down-stream like a log in a spring
freshet. The man held on to the horse. Over and over they rolled,
sometimes one above, sometimes the other. I made an ineffectual
attempt to reach them by wading out, but they swirled by before I
could get near them. Men on horseback galloped after them down each
bank, for the current was carrying them so fast it was impossible to
keep up by running on foot. Down they sank in the water. For more
than fifty yards I did not see the man at all. At last, more than
300 yards below, they touched one bank. Men were there as soon as
they grounded. The horse was dead, but when they rolled it over and
pulled the man out from underneath, the man was living. Not only was
he alive, but in spite of the time he had been under water, and the
rocks against which he had been battered, he had suffered no real
hurt.
Troubles never come singly, and sure enough at the next ford we all
but lost another man. The caravan was practically over. The Chinese
soldier with the straw hat, pipe, and fly-brush was bringing up
the rear. Suddenly his horse stumbled, floundered, and both were
rolling in the water. Warned by our previous experience, I had taken
a position at a point below the ford, near which I thought any man
carried down by current would drift. I jumped into the water. Luckily
he came close and I grabbed his hand. I was carried off my feet by
the current, but Kermit and Rahima Loon arrived on the run, and
between us we succeeded in pulling him out. Rahima plunged in without
a moment’s hesitation, although he cannot swim a stroke. When we got
the Chinaman on the bank and emptied some of the water out of him, we
found he still had his hat, his fly-brush, and his pipe. Indeed, as
far as we could see, even his expression had not changed. He finished
the day wrapped up in a poshteen made for a man twice his size, which
flapped in the wind, and, combined with his inevitable straw hat,
made him look like a dilapidated scarecrow.
This last ducking finished the fording for the day. There is a song
about a steeplechase course in Maryland which says that to cover the
course successfully “It takes a lean wiry rider on a horse like a
spider.” Kermit and I agreed that this applied also to the fords of
the Muzart River.
Just before the end of the march we saw our first ibex. There were
some twenty of them feeding at the top of a high ravine. Against the
green they looked like tiny, tawny dots. It was our first glimpse of
the game for which we had ridden and walked over the high Himalayas
and through the plains of Turkestan.
The shikaries got out the telescopes and, after studying the ibex
carefully, told us that there were no good males, nothing with horns
measuring over thirty inches. Of course there was no point then
in stalking them. When they saw us, they trotted up the nullah in
single file. They crossed what looked like an impassable precipice,
springing from rock to ledge with apparent ease. The last we saw
of them was a row of black dots against the snow on the top of the
mountain.
That night saw us camped but half a mile from the foot of the Muzart
glacier, at a place called Tango Tash. Like many places, it is merely
a name on the map. The camp site was a barren bit of level ground
backed up against a great cliff. On this rock natives as they passed
had scrawled rude sketches. We recognized ibex, wild sheep, and
the figures of men. They were not nearly so good as the Magdalenian
drawings. The only wild life we saw near the camp were a couple of
very friendly purple finches. They hopped around not ten feet away,
waiting for crumbs while we ate supper.
It was raining next morning when we started. We crossed a steep
neck of land. Ahead through the mist loomed the glacier, its mass
stretched from one side of the valley to the other. As far as the
eye could see there were ridges of dirty snow, rock, and débris. We
reached the top after a fairly stiff climb, and wound our way around
hummocks and boulders for over an hour and a half. The rain now
changed into a driving wet snow. We came to a very steep and high
ice-cliff. The men cut steps in it by which the pack-animals climbed
up. Fully half of the ponies fell at least once. Two or three of
them turned complete somersaults which would have killed any of our
Eastern ponies. At length they reached the top, all unhurt. Scattered
over this glacier and its approaches were the same piles of skeletons
of pack-animals that we had found in the Himalayas. Here at the foot
of the ice-cliff were the remains of a little donkey, its head wedged
in a rock, evidently the victim of a slide.
[Illustration: CROSSING THE MUZART GLACIER]
At the top of the cliff was a family of five Kirghiz who stayed there
all the year round and acted as a rescue post. They lived in a square
stone building perched on an almost naked shoulder of rock at one
side of the glacier. Around it were half a dozen graves. They were
mere piles of stone into which poles with horses’ tails attached had
been stuck. At the base of the poles were heaped the horns of wild
sheep and ibex. I could not find out who lay buried there. All my
questions brought out were, first, the statement that they were “big
men” and, second, the fact that they “died long ago.” It was a wild
and lonely spot for a graveyard.
Beyond through the snow the glacier stretched in a series of weird
shapes. We pushed on past green icy streams that ran down through
channels in the ice. We skirted small lakes and crevasses. Once we
went astray, and after going nearly a mile out of our way, brought
up against a fissure we could not pass. There was nothing to do but
grope our way back through the whirling snow. At last after nearly
six hours’ work, we turned sharp to the west, left the glacier, and
crossed over a low ridge which is the pass proper.
The ridge was covered with green turf and was easy going. The snow
had turned to rain again, but we were all thoroughly cold and
uncomfortable. Five miles farther on we came to a lower valley where
a caravan from Kulja was camped. The pony men were squatted under
a rude shelter made of bales of wool and blankets. With the ready
hospitality of the travellers on lone trails, they gave us hot tea
and bread. Our caravan, which had fallen behind, now joined us and
we marched on down the valley. Soon the grassy slopes gave way to
spruce woods that pushed up the little ravines toward the crests like
an invading army. In the valley were green meadows.
We turned a shoulder and came to our camping-ground. It was a broad
stretch of grass by the river. On it stood three log huts. They were
built much the same as the log cabins of our own West. Their roofs
were covered with earth, on which grass was growing. The rushing
stream, the snowy mountains, the fir-trees, and the log cabins all
made me feel as if I were in the Northern Rockies.
The huts belonged to the Beg with the wife and child. As we
approached them a number of men and women came out to meet us, with
the usual escort of snarling pie-dogs. We were given a warm welcome.
Numdahs were spread and tea, curds, bread, and fresh butter were
served us. We did them full justice, especially the fresh butter. The
women bustled about and prepared the food for us, with no sign of
embarrassment and no attempt to cover their faces.
Shortly after we arrived they started to put up a native tent, or
yourt, for us to use. A yourt is circular and dome-shaped, with a
diameter of about twenty-five feet and a height in the centre of
nearly twelve feet. Considering its size, they built it remarkably
quickly. First they brought out a latticework of wood, fastened
together with leather thongs. It was collapsible, like the gates
on our ferry-boats. They arranged it in a circle. Then a man stood
in the centre, holding on the end of a pole a circular bit of wood,
like the rim of a wheel pierced with holes. Next the women took long
poles, fitted them into the holes in the centrepiece, and lashed
the other ends to the latticework. It looked for all the world like
some complicated May-pole dance. This completed the framework. Over
it they draped great pieces of felt and fastened them with bands of
woven horsehair. A hole was left in the middle of the dome for a
chimney, and a regular door-frame about five feet high was fitted
into a gap in the latticework. The yourt was finished in less than
twenty minutes. The floor was covered with soft numdahs except for
a place left bare for the fire. It made a most comfortable shelter
after our very diminutive tent, or the serais where fleas made the
night one continuous desperate battle.
The whole meadow where we camped was covered with bright-colored
flowers, as if it had rained confetti. Within forty feet of our tent
I picked sixteen different kinds. There were golden poppies like
those of California, there were blue forget-me-nots, daisies of all
colors, and many others which were like none I had seen before. Last,
but not least, there was the good, broad, honest face of the yellow
dandelion. The flowers were not confined to this meadow. They were
under the trees in the woods and high on the mountains as well. We
crossed slopes of shale in the passes where the gray of the rock was
only broken by the brilliancy of mats of pansies and violets. Once
I came out of a stretch of spruce forest and saw before me a glade
literally frosted with snow-white blossoms. I longed for my mother,
who loves flowers, knows them, and from whom I learned the very
little I know about them.
The evening we arrived we were sitting in the yourt. I had already
taken off my wet boots and Kermit was writing letters. Suddenly
Khalil ran in very much excited, exclaiming “illik! illik!” the
local name for Siberian roe. We were outside in an instant. We found
Rahima studying the opposite side of the valley with field-glasses.
He showed us where there were two roes feeding just above a grove of
trees. They could be seen quite plainly through the glasses. One was
a doe, but the other was a nice buck. It was clearly a case where
only one man could shoot, so we flipped a coin. I won and hastily put
on my wet boots again. Meanwhile the horses were saddled. Khalil, a
local man and I cantered off down the stream to the ford. We splashed
through the water and rode up the other side as far as we could
through the woods. At last it became so thick that we left the horses
and went ahead on foot. Both Khalil and the local man went through
the underbrush and up the hill like deer. I panted after, calling
to them in a hoarse whisper to go more slowly or when we got there
I would be too much out of breath to shoot. At last Khalil put his
head cautiously over a clump of bushes and beckoned to me. I crept
up, and there about seventy yards away, just vanishing into a grove
of trees, were the two deer. There was no time to lose, so I shot as
quickly as possible at the buck. By the time I got my rifle up, all I
could see of him was his rump. He went down but was up again and off
in an instant. We ran over to where he had been, and found a heavy
blood-trail. We followed it in the failing light for 200 yards until
it got too dark to see and we had to give up for the day. I mounted
my horse and rode back to camp very disconsolately, for I hate
leaving a wounded animal. It was nearly nine o’clock when I reached
the yourt.
The local men said there were good ibex near by, so we decided to lie
over a day. Next morning Kermit went with Rahima to look for ibex,
and I went back over the river to try to find the wounded buck. We
were able to pick up the trail, but after following it for 400 yards
through the thickest kind of jungle we lost it. We quartered through
the brush for a couple of hours but could not find it.
Later in the morning we had a roe drive, mainly to please Ishmael
Bey, the “Big Beg.” Personally, I would rather still-hunt my game
wherever it is conceivably possible. Four men went whooping over the
hillside, while the Beg and I sat solemnly near a rock where there
was an open glade. All that went by was one doe, which I would not
shoot, much to the grief of the Beg. Of course we intended to collect
a doe for each group for the museum, but it seemed to us more fitting
that in this case it should be “gentlemen first,” and that ladies
should follow only in the interests of science.
At noon Kermit and Rahima came back. They had seen nothing worth
shooting, although they had found a number of ibex. There was a
herd of thirty feeding on the mountain, just across the river from
camp, but no good head. They had, however, come on a fairly fresh
bear-track, which surprised us, as we had understood bears were very
scarce.
The local shikaries were an interesting lot. Our men called them the
“jungli wallahs,” literally, “men of the woods,” but a term generally
used for a wild rough fellow. They were a little bit of everything—a
native of Bokhara, a Kalmuk, and a Kazak. Perhaps the most unusual
among them was the Bokharan. He was a tall, good-looking fellow, well
built, and active. As far as we could gather he had come from Bokhara
about eight years before, driven out as the result of some turn of
the war. After wandering over much of central Asia, he had worked his
way to these mountains and stopped. He had married a Kirghiz woman
and was raising a hybrid family. Our means of communication were so
limited that this was all we could gather. He recited a number of
names to us, such as Baku, Samarkand, and Tashkent, evidently to show
he was a travelled man of the world. He wore a wadded coat and long
voluminous trousers. My shorts amused him. At the halts he would
sometimes pat my bare knees, shake his head, and smile. The Kalmuk
was thick-set, dark, and wore a pigtail. He was indefatigable. The
Kazak was chunky, short, and rather light-colored. He was a jovial
little fellow, always grinning. He looked like a jolly goblin.
They were all tough as nails. They could climb all day over the
mountains, and come in at night to all intents and purposes as fresh
as when they went out. As far as mountain work was concerned, they
were hardier than the men we had brought from Kashmir. They also
had eyes which were crosses between a telescope and a microscope.
They would pick up game when it was difficult for me to see it even
with field-glasses. Their real fault was that they knew nothing of
stalking, and tended to feel that the way to approach game was to
charge it.
In the afternoon I went out again with Khalil and the Kazak. We went
down the stream, crossed a ford, and lay down in the grass on top of
a high shoulder. From there we watched the woods and hills on either
hand. We had been there about an hour when the Kazak saw some roe
browsing up a little valley. We started toward them, but the wind
had shifted, and when we reached a ridge and looked down we saw
that they had scented us. There were five does and a buck. The buck
was disappearing over a ridge out of range. The does scattered and
went off in all directions. There was no use trying to follow, so we
threaded our way quietly through the woods. We found many more does.
Once we saw seven with one little buck. We also heard a buck calling.
I was surprised at this, for I did not realize their calling season
began so early. Finally, “over the last ridge,” the Kazak pointed to
a brown spot on the other side of the valley and said it was a good
buck. It was too late to stalk, so I decided to try a long shot. Luck
was with me. Over he tumbled and rolled down the slope. We scrambled
down and found he was a nice six-pointer with fourteen and a half
inch horns. After we tied him behind the saddle on the Kazak’s horse,
we rode back to camp, well satisfied by the afternoon’s work.
Next day we had broken camp and the caravan was ready to march,
when Rahima came up to say he had just seen a herd of ibex in which
there were a number of really good heads. There was no question of
what to do. We ordered the caravan to unload and started at once
for the place where he had seen the game. We went as far as we
could on horseback, and that was much farther than we could have
gone on any plains-bred ponies. Finally it got too steep even for
our mountain-ponies. By this time the ibex had crossed a ridge and
lain down to rest through the heat of the day. We took the second
nullah down-wind from them, and crawled up it. When we got on a level
with the animals, we crossed into the nullah next to them, and very
carefully climbed up the rocks to where we could look into the next
ravine. There they were, about 150 to 200 yards away, lying strung
out like a row of brown stones down a stream-bed. Some were resting
their heads on the grass, more were looking around. There were
sixteen animals, and four of them, according to Rahima, had horns
better than fifty inches in length. Kermit had won the first shot by
our old-established method of flipping a coin. He selected an old
black male and fired. I followed suit at another. In an instant they
were up and away, but not before we had had a chance for more shots.
We had shot badly, for none of the animals fell. We were confident,
however, that we had not missed, and we followed to the point where
they had crossed the first ridge. There two blood-trails up the
mountain showed where two of them had gone. Here we separated, Kermit
and Rahima going to the left in the direction taken by the first
animal at which Kermit had shot. Khalil, the “jungli wallah,” and I
followed the blood-trails. They led straight up the mountain, and
when I say straight I am not speaking metaphorically, but literally.
The climb seemed all but perpendicular. After an hour’s hard work
Khalil suggested, ostensibly in my interest, that we give my gun to
the “jungli-wallah,” and tell him to get the wounded animals while
we went to camp ourselves. My pride would not permit this except
as a last resort, so on we went. Shortly the two trails split. We
held to the clearest and climbed on. If I had been told beforehand
that I could have crossed some of the places I did, I would not have
believed it. Soon it was “every man for himself and the devil take
the hindmost.” Khalil and the “jungli wallah” treated me as if I were
one of themselves, and paid no attention to me at all. We climbed
along the edges of precipices “with a drop into nothing below us as
straight as a beggar can spit.” We climbed up shoulders where every
other rock was rotten and crumbled under our weight. Across gullies
where rivers of slide rock lay we ran in order that we might not be
caught in the avalanches we knew we would start. Once I very nearly
was. I got out by going with the avalanche and working to one side
where a firm rock jutted out, upon which I jumped. We got above the
snow-line and plodded across drift after drift. High on the mountain
we found the ram-chukor, birds something like the capercaillie. They
had a very musical whistle and seemed quite tame. I suppose they had
never seen people before. Three times that blood-trail crossed the
top of the mountain. For five hours we followed it. Then it began
to grow fainter and fainter, and finally pinched out. We were sure
the animal was close, so we quartered around, but without success.
By this time it had begun to snow and was getting late, so there
was nothing for it but to start to make our way back. Climbing up a
bad place may be difficult, but, as all mountain-climbers will bear
me witness, it is nothing to climbing down that same place. We had
good hard work getting down, and finally ended up on a glacier. We
scrambled to the foot and were more than glad to see the horses below
us. The telescopic eyes of the man who led them had served us well.
He had seen us and had brought them around some five miles to meet
us. It was now nearly seven and we were famished. With the exception
of a cake of chocolate which I had had, and which I had divided among
the three of us, we had eaten nothing since a six-thirty breakfast.
The pony man had brought some cold mutton and bread, which we wolfed
down. While we were doing it the “jungli-wallah” spotted some roe and
immediately suggested that we go after them. He then proceeded to map
out a plan of campaign for us which gave him two fords of the river
and two hills to climb. While he was talking the deer vanished in the
dusk. It showed, though, what a tough man he was to want to take on
such work in a sleet-storm at dusk, after the day we had had.
We got back to camp in the pitch-dark. I found that Kermit and Rahima
had not come in, so I sent out men with lanterns to help them.
Finally, about nine I got worried, fearing that something had gone
wrong with Kermit’s bad knee, and was about to start out to look
myself when I heard them coming down the trail. They had had much the
same day as I, with the notable exception that they had found their
wounded animal, a fine fifty-two-inch head. They also saw another of
the ibex just at dusk. On the way back Kermit had shot a fine buck
roe. They had carried the ibex skin and horns for a long way, and
were both glad of camp and hot food.
Our hard work on the trail of my wounded ibex was not waste effort,
however. The “jungli-wallah,” who had been with me, found him
stone-dead a short distance from where we lost the trail. He was
a splendid big fellow, his horns measuring fifty-five and a half
inches. The other wounded animal was also found dead, close to the
same place. He was not so large, but still was a good head, the horns
measuring forty-seven inches.
[Illustration: ISMAIL BEY WITH K. R.’S SIBERIAN ROE DEER]
[Illustration: RAHIMA WITH AN IBEX SHOT BY K. R. NEAR KHAN AYALIK]
On August 4 we resumed our march down the valley. The stream scolded
over the rocks at our feet. The hills on either side were wooded,
save where they thrust great rocky shoulders like buttresses through
the forests. For one long stretch the trees on the left bank had been
killed by fire. Their tall, bare skeletons, black and disconsolate,
gave a sombre note to the landscape. In the late afternoon we came
to a place where the stream bent sharply to the right, and almost
without warning the Tekkes Valley lay before us. Behind us and on
either hand lay the tree-clad hills set off by the snow-capped
mountains. In front lay the plain, an unbroken stretch of shimmering
grass. Beyond it again were the mountains.
A few miles more brought us to Shutta. The town consists of a few
rather well-built log cabins and some barracks where a detachment of
Chinese troops are stationed. We had the usual yourt waiting for us.
After we were settled, the General called on us. He is a “general,”
although I suppose his total command does not exceed twenty men. The
poor fellow had a bad wound in his back. It looked like a stab from a
knife, but as he did not volunteer any information, we felt that good
manners would not permit any questions. We looked him over and did
what we could for him, but I am afraid another winter will see him
gazetted to another world.
Even though he was in real pain, he was as curious as a child,
and, sitting beside me on the rug, he would lean over and feel
the hobnails in my boots, or gaze with rapt attention at my
tobacco-pouch when I filled my pipe. Curiosity is one of the
principal characteristics of the people in this part of the world.
The traveller soon gets used to rows of solemn faces gazing at him
with as absorbed interest as if he were an animal in the zoo.
We spent but one night at Shutta. Across the Tekkes plain our guard
consisted of four mounted soldiers. They were the first real “soldier
men” we had seen. They were better mounted and better equipped than
those of the plains of Turkestan. Above all, they had the swagger
that is so indispensable to a good soldier. These soldiers were a
mixed lot racially. Some were Chinese, some evidently Kalmuks, and
some of racial blends it was impossible to guess. One in particular,
a captain at Shutta, was lean and tall with an aquiline nose, high
cheek-bones, and straight black hair that hung half-way to his
shoulders. If he had been in the United States, he would have been
classed unhesitatingly as an Indian.
The population of the Tekkes Valley is scant. It can be divided
roughly into four groups—Kalmuks, Kirghiz, Kazaks, and strays and
mixtures. The Kalmuks are not very numerous. There is only one small
settlement at a town called Azak-Karaul. We were told they did not
number more than a few hundred. Their dress is much the same as the
others—fur cap, long coat caught in at the waist with a scarf, and
high boots—but they wear pigtails, and no other natives do. They are
Buddhists, but, contrary to the tenets of their religion, are great
hunters and real fighting men. The day after we left Shutta we were
accompanied by one little Kalmuk not more than fifteen years old, who
rode like a centaur. At the town where we stopped that night we did
not get a very friendly reception. The Kirghiz headman, not wishing
to be held to account, tried to escape to the woods. The little
Kalmuk galloped after him and brought him back like a diminutive
David leading in a Goliath.
The Kirghiz and Kazaks are more numerous and scattered over the
valley. They tend to be less nomadic than the Kalmuks. In their
villages there are frequent log cabins. They cultivate small patches
of ground on the plain. Both are Mohammedans. They are, on the whole,
rather timid.
As for the last group, it consists of a few Chinese in or attached
to the army, men like the Bokharan and cross-breeds of all kinds.
In this group come some very interesting people whom we met our
first night out from Shutta at a village called Agyas. They were
Russians. We noticed them first when we saw, in the group that
gathered when we got to the village, a man as blond as a Swede. There
were four men, three women, and their families. They came from just
north of the Black Sea. As far as we could gather, for we spoke no
common language, they were driven out during the war. They had put
up neat little houses and were a part of the community. They were
not slipping into the shiftless ways of the local tribesmen, but
were adapting the wilderness to their needs like a “Swiss Family
Robinson.” They gave us the best bread we had had since we left
the Residency in Srinagar. They were weaving cloth. They had a
milk-separator. They had a sled, the first we had seen. Above all,
they had a numerous family of delightful children, blue-eyed and
fat as butter-balls. It made us very homesick for our own children,
particularly as one very beguiling baby was just about the age of
Kermit’s youngest. We wanted to help them, but we had little or
nothing to give until we found that they were anxious for medicine,
when we gladly shared our rather scant store with them. It would be
very interesting to be able to look ahead three generations and see
what effect they have on the community. Perhaps they are the pioneers
of an immigration, for the Tekkes is “white man’s country.” Perhaps
they will be absorbed like a few drops of rain on a parched desert,
and all that will remain will be some blue-eyed Kalmuks.
We made good time over the Tekkes plain, for we travelled at the
cowboy jog, which “eats up the long miles like fire.” The plain
itself, during the first couple of days’ travel, was not unlike many
of our Western prairies over which I have ridden. It was covered with
grass which would have supported great numbers of cattle. It seemed
about ten or fifteen miles broad where we started and gradually
spread out as we travelled down the valley. By the time we reached
the Kooksu, it had changed to rolling ridges, which in turn gave
place to steeper hills near the Kargaitash. Through its length it was
cut by streams running north to the Tekkes River. Especially toward
the Kargaitash these had worn picturesque and rugged canyons down
which the water poured with a musical tumult. In the canyons were
fir-trees which were not visible until the edge was reached. They
formed such a sharp contrast with the treeless prairie that we felt
as if a small bit of another country had been cut out and planted
there. The main river looped and twined down the centre of the valley.
On the plain there were not many different species of birds, but
certain types were plentiful. There were quite a number of larks and
sparrows and a great many hawks. The hawks were of three kinds: a
large bird, a medium bird, and a small bird, like the three bears of
the story. They varied in frequency in inverse ratio to their size.
The small hawks followed our marching column every day, like gulls in
the wake of a ship, waiting for the larks and sparrows we flushed.
The small birds seemed to know exactly what was going on, for they
lay close and flew only a short distance before diving into the grass
again. Some would lie so close that the horses nearly stepped on
them. One little brown fellow refused to fly at all, and Kermit had
to rein up his horse to let him scamper out of the way. The hawks
were very graceful. They swept in great curves over the caravan. When
they stooped they did so swifter than thought but with no apparent
effort. Their swing was not interrupted when they struck their prey.
There would be a few feathers floating in the air, and the hawk
sailing many yards away with the little bird in its talons. Along
the line of march we flushed coveys of partridges which whirred up
and away. Occasionally we found quail. Once a female pheasant rose
ponderously and rumbled off.
As we crossed one stream, a very little one, we saw lots of small
fish darting about. We stopped and fished in the oldest and most
primitive fashion. Where the stream split, we dammed one channel at
both ends. When the water had largely run out, we splashed among
the stones and caught the fish in our hands. The largest was about
four inches long. We got a couple of pounds. There were two kinds.
One was like our catfish, with a rather broad mouth and barbels, but
much thinner and longer in proportion. The other was also a slender
fish, silver-sided with black dots, but with a fleshy, underhung,
bottom-feeding mouth. They came in very handy, for that evening the
pack-animals took the wrong trail and did not get in until nearly
midnight. Those little fish were our supper, and very good they were
too.
All across the valley we saw tumuli. They were low grass-covered
mounds often arranged in a row. In a couple of places spring freshets
had torn some to pieces and laid bare the rough stones of which they
were built. They were evidently very old, for no one we met knew
what they were or who had made them. For all we knew they might have
looked on the armies of Ghenghiz Khan swirling down from the north
to conquer the Eastern world.
On August 12 we reached Chin Ballak. It was a lovely evening. During
the day it had rained, but as we made camp it cleared. The sun set
banked in clouds of delicate pink and pearly gray. The mist-mantles
gradually rolled up the mountains, leaving bare the rocky snow-ribbed
peaks. The sky changed to a dull green, the light faded. Kermit and I
sat in our roorkee chairs and smoked. We were content, for we had at
last reached the heart of the hunting country of the Tian Shan.
CHAPTER VI
IN THE HEART OF THE HUNTING COUNTRY. IBEX, SHEEP, AND BEAR
Our knowledge of the geography of the Tian Shan range was very hazy.
We had been unable to get any good maps, and what we could gather
from the Kazaks and Kalmuks through the medium of our shikaries, only
further confused us. Kargaitash had always been our goal for hunting
ovis karelenyi, but whether it was a nullah or a mountain we could
never make sure. The small-scale maps which we possessed showed it as
a somewhat indefinite range of mountains; but from our questionings
we gathered that that was not what the Kazaks meant when referring to
Kargaitash.
After leaving our camp in the Kooksu we headed gradually into the
hills, through pine forests where we were told the wapiti lived,
and over one or two small passes. On the crest of these barren
passes, amid the rocks and snow, wild flowers ran riot—yellow and
purple pansies, dainty primula, and many whose names we could not
approximate. It was hard to say where they were most effective—in the
glades of the pine forests or among the lonely rocks. Rahima summed
up the situation in laconic fashion when he remarked: “Here jungle
all same as garden.”
Ever since crossing the Muzart we had been doing our best to get
in touch with one or another of the natives, Kazak or Kalmuk, with
whom Rahima had hunted on his previous expeditions in the Tian Shan.
He had been here twelve years ago, and as far as we could learn
there had been no sahibs in the country since then; first there was
the war, and afterward the approach through Russia was closed. Of
his two Kalmuk friends, Namgoon had died and Nurla was away, but
eventually there turned up one Tula Bai, a Kazak, of whom Rahima
thought very highly. He was a short man and walked doubled over,
giving a gorilla-like appearance. The first few days he was our
guide, his mind, to put it kindly, seemed elsewhere, for we doubled
about every which way, much to the disgust of our head pony man, who
did not hesitate to explain to Tula Bai with some warmth the error of
his ways. Ted and I reserved judgment, which was about all we could
do; but when once we got straightened out and really in the hunting
country, we found that Rahima had not overrated the old fellow.
We stopped at a number of Kazak khourgas to bargain for horses, for
we wished to spell our riding-ponies when we started in hunting. We
also had sheep to buy for food for ourselves and the men. In one
khourga we found a large hooded eagle. Its owner told us that he
used it for coursing roe-deer and also for wapiti; but in the latter
case he can only have meant partly grown wapiti. The eagle was not
a silent bird; it called out incessantly, but the other occupants of
the khourga paid no attention to it; there was a fat baby asleep in
a cradle right beside the perch. At another halt we came on a young
bull wapiti, perhaps eighteen months old and entirely friendly with
his captors.
As we climbed, the weather became colder; the rain, which had been an
almost daily occurrence, changed to snow and sleet on the passes, and
one could imagine how bitter cold it must be in the winter months if
this was what we found in midsummer. The wandering Kazaks had come
far up the valleys with their horses and cattle and sheep to take
advantage of the summer pasturage. The cattle in particular were fine
big animals, but apparently they are rarely slaughtered for food.
The chief use made of them seemed to be for riding. In these high
pastures there is a poisonous grass to which the herds pay toll, and
more than once we came upon dead sheep.
Unexpectedly one afternoon the riddle of Kargaitash was solved for
us when Tula Bai pointed out a long, flat-topped butte crowned with
tall, irregular pencils of black rock. This was Kargaitash, the stone
trees, as the words signify in Turki. Near its base, at an altitude
of slightly more than 9,000 feet, we pitched our camp. The cold rain
and the mist-clad mountains made it evident that hunting could not be
continuous.
Rahima was greatly disappointed when we found that several bands of
Kalmuks had preceded us by ten or twelve days and were engaged in
shooting marmots. They had old single-shot rifles of the model of
1876, and though they confined their attentions to the marmots, he
was afraid that they would have disturbed the country and driven
the sheep elsewhere. Kazak and Kalmuk are in continual feud, and it
behooves the sahib to watch out that whichever is with him does not
make use of the shadow of his wing to oppress the enemy. Our Kazaks
did their utmost to persuade us to allow them to confiscate the
rifles and ponies of the Kalmuks on the plea that they had disturbed
our hunting country.
On August 15 Ted and I set out in opposite directions from camp.
Khalil and Tula Bai were with me, while Ted had Rahima and a shenzi
named Nurpay, the possessor of a remarkable pair of eyes. Our Kazaks
wore hide breeches, and many a ride in the rain had bagged them
abnormally at the knees. They reminded us of Father’s story of how on
the station platform at Medora, North Dakota, a slightly intoxicated
stranger walked round and round his ranch foreman eying his leather
trousers, and finally broke out with: “Well, if you’re going to jump,
jump, damn you!”
We rode cautiously along, dismounting below the crest of each hill
and crawling to the top, field-glasses in hand, to spy out the
country. The first wild animal to be sighted was a marmot sitting
at the mouth of its burrow. These dark-skinned little fellows are
much sought after by the Kalmuks, and we were told that at Kulja a
good hide would bring three dollars. At Ayalik, when after ibex, I
saw three of them tumbling about in the grass. One adult female I
measured was thirty inches over all.
The next game we caught sight of from a subsequent rise was
a roe-deer. Tula Bai informed me that it was a tika-illik—an
ibex-roe—that its mother had been an ibex and its father a roe; but
as a careful examination failed to show us any signs of this unusual
mésalliance in the offspring, we decided to leave it alone for fear
of disturbing any Karelini that might be within hearing.
[Illustration: LOOSE LEADING A PONY LADEN WITH PRODUCTS OF THE TIAN
SHAN]
[Illustration: TULA BAI AND KHALIL SPYING FOR OVIS KARELINI]
Not long after this Khalil made out a small ram climbing up a steep
hill. When it had topped the crest, we hurried after it. There
were a great many crows on the hillside wheeling and clustering
most agitatedly. It was evident that there were some disturbers of
the peace in the offing. As we got nearer, we found that a brown
hawk, lighter in body than any crow, was endeavoring to make a
kill. He invariably attacked the crows upon the ground; six times
I saw him swoop unsuccessfully. Half a dozen crows followed in his
wake, attempting to mob him, but he paid little attention to them,
avoiding them with the greatest of ease whenever they seemed to be
uncomfortably close. Our way led through the scene of the combat, so
we dispersed the gathering.
At the brow of the hill Khalil and I had our field-glasses ready,
and soon picked up three Karelini rams, feeding on a patch of grass
a mile or more away. Our first stalk was a failure. Verily in this
country “the wind bloweth where it listeth,” and a sudden eddy made
our quarry suspicious. They could have got only a very faint whiff,
for they trotted off slowly while we watched them from behind a rocky
ridge. We saw that in addition to the three marked down there had
been as many more hidden. One was Khalil’s small ram, and the others
were clearly big fellows; Khalil and Tula Bai estimated them as all
having horns more than fifty inches in length. Although they were
between five and six hundred yards from us, Khalil was eager for
me to open fire, insisting that I would get no second chance. His
judgment of the proper time to shoot was very often faulty. Trotting
across a narrow valley, they climbed a long, easy, sloping ridge. As
they crossed a stretch of snow their horns stood clearly outlined,
and we realized that those of the last one were larger than the
others; but it was when he clambered upon a rock on the ridge crest
and framed himself against the blue sky that we saw him in his full
glory and appreciated his true size. Khalil turned to me: “If master
get him, I give God twenty rupees at Bandipur!”
Tula Bai, although ready to go anywhere on horseback, was not of
much use on foot; in addition, he was inclined to be crotchety and
opinionated, so I sent him back to the ponies. When the sheep passed
out of sight, Khalil and I made all speed toward where we had last
seen them. We found that they had stopped seven or eight hundred
yards farther on; some were lying down, others were feeding. The only
way to get within range involved a long détour, and included some
stiff climbing. An hour’s work, the most disagreeable part of which
was the crossing of two wide and steeply inclined snow-fields where
we started a couple of small avalanches and felt in a very precarious
and uncomfortable position, brought us to a ridge running down near
where the sheep lay. Now was the time to make haste slowly, for a
misstep and a loosened boulder would give us away. All went well and
at a short 150 yards I fired.
We had picked out the old ram; he was lying down facing away from
me, and I made precisely the same shot as I had with my ibex at
Khanayalik. A bullet entering from behind and ranging forward is
almost inevitably fatal. Although he ran, I knew he could not go far,
so I turned my attention to his companions. I wanted four sheep.
They ran off quartering and then swung around, uncertain whence the
trouble came. Part of the time they were hidden in a ravine. I did
some rapid shooting, fifteen shots, and when we hurried down to take
stock we found that I had bagged five instead of four; one had
fallen in the ravine without my knowing it. Only the small one got
away. Ted said that whenever we shot at a number of animals it was,
according to our shikaries, invariably a case of “The boys with their
rakes killed twenty-five snakes, but the biggest one got away!” This
time I had made any such theory untenable.
Upon measuring the heads we found that, although the four smaller
heads were not as large as we hoped, ranging from forty-four to
forty-six inches, the large one was bigger than we had dared to
think possible. Around the curve these horns taped sixty-one inches.
More than an inch larger than any head yet recorded. There was a
great difference in coloration in these sheep. Our shikaries and the
natives had told us that the darkest sheep were the largest, but in
this case the big one had the lightest coat; three of the others were
dark, and one light-colored.
It was four o’clock by the time we began the measuring and the
skinning. We made out three Kazak herdsmen in a valley two or three
miles away. Tula Bai gathered them in and we were glad of their
help. Rain and sleet set in; skinning was bitterly cold work; but
eventually I had two entire skins and three head-skins ready, and we
packed them all over to the ponies across some very broken ground.
On the ride back to camp Tula Bai took the lion’s share of the load.
On his pony he piled the two whole skins, leg-bones and all, roping
a head on each side of the saddle, and perching himself on top. It
was quarter to seven, very dark and cold and wet, but he set out
undaunted in the lead. In places the ground was boggy and the ponies
sank and struggled; elsewhere there were only rocks and holes,
and dimly discerned precipices, along the very edges of which we
skirted, but through it all Tula Bai’s white pony, “like the crested
plume of the brave Navarre,” glimmered in our van. A white pony is
a conspicuous hunting companion, and in the morning I had looked
upon it with a very disapproving eye, but at night my feelings were
altogether reversed. Khalil sang in Kashmiri and I in English and
somehow or other the long, cold hours passed until half past nine,
when we caught the glimmer of our camp-fire, after fifteen hours’
hunting.
Ted had had a most interesting time, for although he had seen no
heads worth shooting, he had counted a great quantity of game—three
herds of Karelini ewes and young, totalling thirty-five animals,
and two herds of ibex, totalling eighty. It certainly seemed as if
we were in a country teeming with game, but the promise was not
fulfilled. We were at a loss to understand the subsequent scarcity;
the best explanation we could contrive was that the Kalmuks, coming
up from the valleys after marmot-skins, had driven the large game
to distant and unknown feeding-grounds. Ted hunted long hours every
day for the ensuing week without getting a shot at a sheep. He was
usually off twelve to fourteen hours and scoured the country in every
direction, while camp was shifted hither and yon as seemed most
likely to put us in the sheep country.
Ted never saw another herd of ewes; twice he caught sight of rams,
once of ten and once of four, but on neither occasion could he and
Rahima get within range, although using every effort and the greatest
caution in watching the treacherous air-currents.
Twice he came upon ibex, on each occasion getting three; out of the
first lot the best head measured forty-six inches, out of the second
the best was fifty-two. Ibex-hunting, unless you have the time and
inclination to wait for ideal conditions, involves an immense amount
of hard climbing with a distinct spice of danger thrown in. One day
Ted took out a pair of rubber-soled shoes to try and they proved
most unsatisfactory, almost costing him his life when he slipped and
started rolling.
These long hunting-days were not attended by ideal weather. There
was generally a potpourri of sunshine, rain, sleet, and snow, the
various elements predominating upon different days. Fords, too, were
obstacles, swelled by snow-water in the afternoon and evening, and
on a certain night Ted and Rahima were nearly washed away. The only
insect pest was a large fly, bigger than a horse-fly but with a
sting not so severe—indeed, no worse than a mosquito. It was their
multitude and their buzzing that caused most annoyance. Fortunately,
they were late to rise and early to bed. When the sun was hidden they
miraculously disappeared, but when the sun came out they equally
miraculously reappeared. If you tried to use your field-glasses, they
bustled about your face and neck and entangled themselves in your
beard. Then you would call for clouds, but when the sun was darkened
it became so cold that you felt ready again to undergo the fly pest.
Our battery consisted of two Springfields and two Hoffman .375’s.
Both were admirably suited to our work. The Hoffman is a beautifully
turned out firearm, excellently balanced and sighted. One felt that
with it there were no alibis available when one missed.
After getting the Karelini rams I turned my attention to collecting
females to complete the various groups. I was fortunate enough to
find a herd of about twenty ewes late one afternoon. There was a
long plateau skirting a river with deep ravines running down to
the valley. The sheep were moving along from one draw to another,
feeding. A long but comparatively simple stalk brought me within easy
range, and to our Karelini group was added its female.
The long day’s hunting always showed something of interest. Twice I
came upon foxes—big red fellows with white tips to their tails. The
first was hunting field-mice, and was very graceful as he pounced
upon his quarry. He was entirely unaware of us, and I could have had
an easy shot but that I was afraid of frightening some particularly
fine ibex that had been seen near by. Parenthetically, I never did
find the ibex, but had I shot the fox I would undoubtedly have laid
it to that; it was just one of those cases when you are wrong either
way. The second fox I met was stalking a covey of fourteen ramchukor,
the big mountain-grouse, larger than a pheasant; a marmot sitting at
the entrance to his burrow was an interested spectator, playing the
part of innocent bystander. This time I had no chance for a shot.
The hawks as well as the foxes must have lived largely upon mice.
Their runways were everywhere; we collected two kinds, one larger
than a common house-mouse and with a very short tail, the other only
half the size but with a tail almost as long as its body. The former
the men caught one night in camp, the latter I saw in the grass and
captured by throwing myself off my pony on top of it. It was a good
many years since I had prepared any small mammals, and Ted was vastly
amused at the pride I took in the skins when I had them stuffed and
pinned out, looking, I must own, very plethoric and misshapen.
We constantly felt the lack of a .410 shotgun. On the heights we
saw numerous ramchukor, and on the grassy uplands many a covey of
partridges. I shot one of the former with my Springfield. A .410 or
a .22 Winchester makes so little noise that there is, as a rule, no
danger of disturbing the country.
I got a female ibex for the group after a long day among the canyons
and ridges of Kargaitash. The columns of rock had been worn into
every fantastic shape. Some were like sphinxes, others like strange
birds and beasts. Often erosion had left a great rock perched
precariously upon the top of a tall, slender column. Sometimes a
solitary stem would arise like a great factory chimney. Ted described
the whole scene, as he saw it lighted by the sunset, as reminding him
of the sky-line of New York. I came upon some ibex lying on isolated
rocky pedestals just as the chamois is always shown in the school
geographies.
It is most difficult to judge at all correctly the length of the
horns of any animal. A ram’s horn with its convolutions is naturally
more difficult to estimate than that of an ibex; but even the latter
presents enough room for error. One evening when we were riding down
a deep gulch, with a female Siberian roe for the group as the day’s
contribution, we saw a herd of ibex grazing on the mountains. An hour
and a half’s stalk would have been called for to put us in range,
and by that time it would have been long after dark, so we contented
ourselves with studying them through field-glasses and telescope.
Khalil felt certain that there were no heads better than forty-five
inches in length, but we nevertheless determined next day to go
after them, for time was passing and we had the wapiti group still
unstarted. We felt that it would be a very difficult one to get and
would require as many days as we could manage to devote to it.
The following morning Ted set off with Rahima across the Kooksu in
the hope of coming on ovis karelini, while Khalil and I went to look
up these ibex. We had not been gone long when we got a glimpse of six
wild pig bustling through the undergrowth on the opposite side of the
ravine. Some hasty shots resulted mainly in misses, but the big boar
turning back and away from the rest gave us the idea that he might
be hit. The underbrush was chiefly made up of a dwarf juniper with
wide and low trailing branches. The boar disappeared into a dense,
isolated bit of jungle and, upon his failing to reappear, we started
toward the clump in which we had last seen him. The mountainside was
a maze of pig trails and up it we toiled; the going would have been
easier had we been closer to the pig in stature. At length we reached
the boar’s retreat, to find ourselves in a warren of big burrows,
down one of which our quarry had gone.
We were now well up the mountain, and decided to keep climbing and
then make our way as best we could along the ridge, for it was on
this side of the nullah that we had seen the ibex. A lammergeyer
circled above us; Khalil remarked that that “big bird” always brought
him luck; also he had dreamed propitiously during the night. All this
was encouraging, but it didn’t make our path any easier. Around
rocky peaks, over runways of slide rock, among heaped-up broken
boulders we scrambled and slid until we came to a vantage-point from
which we could see the mountainside where we believed the ibex would
go for their day’s siesta. They were so much the color of the gray
rocks that it was a long time before we could pick them out; but
gradually we discovered one after another. An ibex sleeps in the most
outlandish positions; here one was sprawled along the ledge with
his head hanging down between two rocks; there one lay flat on his
side on a sand slide so steep that he seemed through the glasses to
be standing up; you would not find more postures in a barrack-room
of sleeping soldiers. We were about 800 yards away, and examined
their heads carefully. Khalil said that there was none with horns
fifty inches in length, but I was inclined to disagree with him. The
females lay between us and the big males in such a manner as to make
stalking impossible until they moved, so there was nothing to do but
wait.
We had become very hot in the course of our three and a half hours’
climb, so of the two evils we rather preferred the flies and the sun
to shivering in the flyless cold. A marmot came out on a near-by peak
and sat up chattering and wagging his tail like an automaton. Some
ramchukor sailed whirring by, but the ibex showed no desire to move.
It started to rain, then it sleeted, then it snowed. I went a little
way down one side of the hill in order to walk up again and get
warmed. At length the ibex got up; exasperatingly slowly, with false
starts, hesitating and retracing their steps, they picked their way
down-hill. Noting their direction, we made all haste to cut them off.
We topped a ridge and saw them 250 yards away. If I had used better
judgment I could have gotten a hundred yards closer, but it is hard
for a shikarry to realize some of the difficulties of the sahib with
the rifle; he may be winded, but he needs no steady hand; and seen
with his keen eyes game looks close and a very satisfactory target.
Khalil always wanted me to shoot at longer ranges than necessary.
This time, however, I was committed; the ibex were suspicious and I
must shoot. My first bullet took effect; my second misfired and lost
me an excellent chance. There followed a fusillade as they dodged
about among the rocks. Summed up, I had wounded two, one of which I
finished with my last two cartridges. Even when he lay dead we didn’t
realize his size; I judged fifty inches, Khalil less, but the tape
showed fifty-nine and a half. This made him the largest of recorded
heads by an inch and three-quarters.
Darkness was rapidly approaching. Nurpay had heard us and followed
up the valley. We got the skin off and down the mountainside. It was
packed on Nurpay’s pony, and how, hampered by the great sweep of the
horns, he steered his way through the thickets and the boulders
in the pitchy blackness, I failed to understand. Of course it was
raining. Once more I was glad for a white hunting-pony, as I prodded
my old horse along just managing to keep in sight. At half past eight
we reached our most welcome camp-fire. Ted was not yet in, but at
nine he rode up, drenched but cheerful with a fifty-two-inch ibex.
He had been all but washed away in fording the river, and we had a
busy time drying his kodak first and then his other belongings that
required less urgent attention.
Next day camp was moved in the direction of the Kensu country. It was
not to be a long march, so Khalil, Nurpay, and I went off after the
wounded ibex. We were convinced that he had not gone far, but by the
time we had reached the mountain crest where we had last seen him
lying down, snow and hail came pelting down, washing away all tracks,
and the mist billowed up the ravines, closing in on every side. A
rumbling of avalanches and some dimly seen skipping boulders bound
toward where we had left our ponies did not add to our comfort. After
a few hopeless casts we felt forced to abandon the search, and very
wet and bedraggled we finally reached our new camping-grounds late in
the afternoon.
[Illustration: KHALIL WITH THE WORLD’S RECORD IBEX HEAD. THE HORNS
ARE 59½ INCHES IN LENGTH]
[Illustration: KHALIL WITH THE WORLD’S RECORD OVIS KARELINI. THE
LONGEST HORN MEASURED 61 INCHES]
Another short march planted us on the banks of the Kensu in what
was to be a five days’ hunting-camp. A lovely valley closed in by
high mountains, pines on the lower slopes, then junipers and low
bushes, above them the débris of landslides, broken barren boulders,
with an occasional flower in the crevices, and, crowning all, the
eternal snows. Edelweiss grew in profusion, and many other flowers
were familiar Alpine friends.
From here we had ibex, mountain-sheep, and wapiti shooting all
within reach, but it was pre-eminently ibex ground. Nomenclature of
game has always interested me. Father was keen on preserving native
names wherever possible, but pioneers and settlers are apt to call
an animal after the beast it most nearly resembles back in their
homeland. Sometimes the similarity is far from close, as with the
mighty rapier-horned antelope that the Boers christened the gemsbuck.
An _onomatopoetic_ name always pleased Father, such as quagga for
zebra in imitation of the animal’s barking cough, or bwehar for
jackal, copying its howl. Father did not at all approve of the
American wapiti being called an elk after the Norwegian moose, and
there can be no question but that his hunting-books have had a great
deal to do with fastening the native Indian name upon that handsomest
of the existing deer family.
It would have both interested and amused Father to find our native
American name bestowed upon the wapiti’s Asiatic cousin. Our Kashmiri
shikaries, getting the name from British sportsmen, referred to the
big deer as wapiti. The general native name was boogha, a slight
variation, if any, of the name for Yarkand stag. Our Kashmiris called
ibex “ibuckus,” and it was as that we usually referred to them. Their
native name in the Tian Shan is “tikka.” Siberian roe is known as
“illik,” and when Rahima first talked of it we believed that he was
Kashmirizing elk and was speaking about the wapiti.
Accompanying us we had a small flock of fat-tailed sheep, whose
number was decimated to fill the needs of ourselves and our
followers. The mutton was excellent, very different from the stringy
stuff with which we had wrestled on the trek across the plains of
Turkestan. A most agreeable addition to our larder were the mushrooms
that abounded in the valley. Ted measured one that was twelve inches
in diameter, but the little button fellows were the better eating.
There were two kinds; one pinkish beneath and seemingly identical
with our home mushroom we greatly preferred to a larger sort, white
underneath, tasting not unlike the fungus beloved of Italians.
With a lucky shot from the Springfield I knocked over a ramchukor,
but Rousslia was not much of a hand at preparing game, and the big
bird was not the success we had hoped. At all events I prepared his
skin, so we did not feel he was lost.
Each day brought its individual interest, a glimpse of some new
mammal or bird, a difficult ford to cross or crag to scale. We needed
another ibex for the group, and one day when Khalil was feeling
crocked up and needed a rest in camp, I took Nurpay with me and
started off for the ibex grounds.
As we were climbing up the mountain I twice saw ferrets, little
brown-and-white fellows, far too spry for us to catch, although we
did our best. They lived in burrows among the rocks. Farther on we
came upon several places which wolves had been using as open-air
dens. There must have been a good-sized pack, for between the
boulders we traced many hollows where they had bedded down. They had
been killing ibex and had dragged their quarry some distance down the
mountain, for we were still way beneath the ibex country. Of the ibex
heads scattered about the rocks, none were of more than thirty inches
in length. I only once heard wolves. It was early one frosty morning
when the lower hills were covered with a light snowfall. The wolves
were in full cry, a musical though sinister sound, with occasional
breaks that reminded me of a chorus of hyenas with their insane
laughter.
We did a lot of climbing before we sighted ibex, but we were well
above them and could study them at our leisure. I made up my mind
that there was no head much better than forty-five inches in length,
but there were several with fine, massive horns. Selecting the
handsomest for my target, I let drive. He went off almost as if
unhit, but Nurpay was not to be deceived and said that I had got him.
Cautiously we clambered down and found our ibex hanging by one horn
from a narrow ledge of rock. Beneath was a sheer drop of 500 feet.
The horn was jammed so hard into a crevice that it took our united
strength to free it. It had, however, not only saved us a long and
most difficult climb down and back, but almost certainly the fall
into the canyon would have hopelessly smashed the ibex, rendering
both hide and head useless to the museum. We found it no slight task
to skin the animal in the little niche into which we dragged it. One
slip nearly cost Nurpay his life.
The morning after we reached our Kensu camp Ted took the side of
the valley on which our tent was pitched, while I crossed over and
started up the mountains opposite, accompanied by Khalil and Nurpay.
We had been climbing for about an hour and a half when we came upon a
marmot burrow scored with the claws of a bear. He had slipped in his
attempt to catch the little rodent, and it was clear that the tracks
were of the night before. Hitherto we had seen a great deal of bear
sign, but nothing more recent than three or four days old. Here was
a chance for the dogs, so I sent Nurpay back to camp for them while
Khalil and I climbed on up the mountain, partly to look for game and
partly with the idea that we would be above the dogs, and able to
watch their line and get to them quicker in case they came to terms
with the bear.
While we were watching a herd of ibex—there were no good heads
among them—I thought I heard the dogs give tongue. Khalil was sure I
hadn’t, so we continued to rake the country with our field-glasses
until the time we had allotted for Nurpay’s return was almost up. We
hurried back to the vantage-point whence the marmot hole was visible;
there were Nurpay’s and Fezildin’s ponies, but neither riders nor
hounds to be seen. I had told Nurpay to put the dogs on the trail
and loose them. We called out but there was no answer; we felt sure
the hunt had gone away without us, but we had commanded one possible
direction while watching the ibex, so off we boiled in the opposite,
heeding little for falls. My bad knee was thrown out but not
seriously. Every little while we stopped to listen for the hounds,
and each ridge we topped we hoped to catch sight of the chase; but
ridge succeeded ridge and nothing could be seen. Disconsolately we
returned to the ponies. We reached them exasperated and breathless at
quarter past one, to find men and dogs asleep in the grass. Through
a misunderstanding the dogs had not been loosed and the men had not
heard our hallooing.
The trail was now far too stale to follow, for there had been a
scorching sun all morning, so after a very brief tiffin, I sent
Fezildin and the dogs back to camp, and plodded once more up the
mountain. We had moved from one ridge to another when, at four
o’clock, Khalil announced that he saw a bear. Nurpay brought the
telescope to focus on it, and at first insisted that it was a
tungus, a pig; but it only took a good look for me to feel sure he
was mistaken. It was a bear right enough, walking up a grassy nullah
far off on the opposite side of the mountain from that up which
we had climbed. There was a long stalk before us, and no time to
lose. We slithered and slipped down the bed of a ravine which was
floored with slide rock. It was almost as much work as climbing.
We had started from Srinagar outfitted with beautiful steel-shod
khud sticks, but they had all but one succumbed to the vicissitudes
of mountain-trekking, and the one remaining was sadly cracked and
weakened. We usually trusted to picking up a makeshift stick, but
to-day I had none, and badly did I miss it. There were two steep
hillsides up which to pant and struggle before we reached the nullah
in which we had seen the bear. Cautiously we pushed ourselves through
the dwarf junipers. We could see nothing, and separated to different
vantage-points. I kept a sharp eye on the other two, and soon saw
Khalil signalling. On reaching him he pointed out the bear, lying
curled up in the undergrowth a hundred and fifty yards away, on the
other slope of the nullah. As I fired, it jumped up and rolled over
and over into the bed of the ravine, shouting and howling. Khalil
said it was finished, but wishing to make certain, I fired a couple
of shots at the rolling bear but scored no hit. We launched ourselves
down into the nullah, though Nurpay kept exclaiming that there was
no way down and we would all fall. In safety we landed, but the bear
was gone. We caught a fleeting glimpse of something running through
the underbrush and once more I opened fire. Nurpay turned cautious;
he was manifestly a great respecter of bears, but he was too loyal
not to follow in our wake. Two hundred yards down the ravine we
stopped to reconnoitre, and then it was that Nurpay caught sight of
a bear’s ears well up the side down which we had come. He had some
difficulty in making Khalil and me see it, but at last I did. With
the second shot, down came the bear, shot through the heart, bounding
from rock to rock, to bring up stone-dead within thirty yards of us.
It was an old he-bear, very fat. We had no time for taking stock and
congratulating ourselves, for it was after six. I hastily jotted down
the measurements, tried a time exposure with my kodak, and we settled
down to the skinning with desperate earnest. Daylight was about gone
when we started back up the ravine, but of a sudden Nurpay stopped;
his keen eyes had picked up a blood-trail. “Yekke aya,” “two bears,”
he said. Khalil stoutly maintained that there had been but one; I
sided with Nurpay, for a number of details, hitherto unnoticed,
came back to me. First there was the color; the original bear had
seemed almost white, while the one we were carrying was dark brown.
Then thinking back over the hasty skinning, I could but recall one
bullet-hole. Last of all, I was sure that the bear could not have
been down in the nullah here and have climbed so far when I shot him.
Still, for the night it was purely an academic discussion; it was far
too late to hope to follow a trail.
[Illustration: THE RECORD KARELINI]
[Illustration: NURPAY AND THE BEAR]
We turned our attention to the serious work of getting ourselves
and the bearskin back to camp. First Nurpay and I tried to carry it
tandem, but one would slip and drag down the other, and but little
headway was made. On a perpendicular hill slope we halted and I
skinned out the head, mainly by feel. The head with the flesh on it
must have weighed twenty pounds. I hung it like a pendant round my
neck. With our mufflers we slung the skin about Nurpay, and once
more got under way. A quarter-moon appeared, but in half an hour it
was hidden by clouds. We struggled along with frequent halts. Part
of the time we walked upright, except for frequent falls among the
rocks; up the steeper bits we crawled on hands and knees. There was
no chance to pick our path; we got over or round whatever appeared
in front of us. It was after eleven before we won our way back to
the ponies, but fortunately the threatening rain had held off until
we were mounted. Still once more I had cause to see the advantages
of a white hunting-pony. Nurpay on his white mare threaded his way
down the mountainside as only a Kazak can, over country that might
well give pause in daylight. The ponies seemed by instinct to avoid
the marmot holes, and when they did step into one, they showed the
utmost calmness in extricating themselves. When we came upon small
patches of upland meadow, there were always hidden springs and the
ground was boggy; by night we could only trust to Nurpay’s instinct
and our ponies’ experience. I had a long inward debate as to whether,
if I groped around for pipe, tobacco, and matches, the discomfort of
lighting my pipe would be compensated for in the subsequent comfort
of a smoke. I made the effort and was rewarded, although my pony
all but came down when I loosened the reins to strike a match. At
half past twelve we rode into camp, and tumbled from our saddles to
thaw ourselves round a blazing fire of spruce logs, and recount our
adventures to the sleepy men who had rolled out of their blankets
when they heard us coming.
In the morning Khalil was feeling too done up to go out, so I took
two Kazaks and went off to look into the matter of the possible
second bear. Nurpay had been right; there had been two, and we
followed the one I had first wounded for three-quarters of a mile
down the ravine below where the other had fallen. The trail was most
difficult, and at length it was lost, even to Kasin’s sharp eyes. We
made futile casts in every direction, but at last we had to abandon
the chase. I had debated taking the dogs, and it would have been well
had I done so, but in the first place the existence of a second bear
was doubtful, and in the second I was afraid that a badly wounded
bear might so cut up our dogs as to destroy their further usefulness.
A few days later we both took the dogs out, thinking that if the
wounded bear were still alive we might pick up its fresh trail.
Either it or another had been working about in the nullah bottom,
for Lead immediately showed interest. He and Rollie puzzled a trail
out for a short distance, but it was evidently too stale to follow
through to a successful conclusion.
CHAPTER VII
THE ASIATIC WAPITI OF THE TIAN SHAN
“And they travelled far, and further than far.”
—OLD FAIRY STORY.
There are many ibex in the Tian Shan mountains, but any one who
believes that a good head is therefore easy to get makes a very real
mistake. It is one thing to see them through the field-glasses, and
another to get them and bring them back in triumph to camp. Stalking
the big ibex is hard and tricky work.
The day after we reached the Ken River, Rahima Loon and I started out
for our tenth day of fruitless search for the Karelini. “Here and
there like a dog at a fair” we wandered over rolling, turf-covered
hills. Whenever we drew near a place from which we could get a wide
view of the country beyond, we dismounted and crawled to the crest
like little boys playing Indian. It was almost dark and we had worked
up into the rocky mountains before we saw anything. Then it was not
Karelini but a large flock of ibex. At first there seemed to be
nothing but females, kids, and young males. I counted sixty-four,
and there may have been more, for some, like the little pigs in the
story, skipped around so fast I could not count them accurately. We
watched them as they wandered down through the rocks to browse in
the grassy nullahs. At times the young males would spar and butt one
another, for all the world like their domestic cousins the goats.
They were thoroughly alert, nevertheless, and the advance-guard
of the troop as they stepped daintily along would pause every few
minutes, look carefully in all directions, and snuff the air.
Suddenly Rahima Loon nudged me and whispered: “Burra wallah!” (big
fellow). They were lying around a large rock. Some could be seen
entirely. Others were half hidden by the rock. At times they would
get up, stretch, and look around. At times they would lie on their
sides with their horns resting on the ground. There was no doubt that
they were big, for the horns showed the sweeping curve that comes
only with age and size.
There was no chance to stalk them. Long before we could have reached
their rocky stronghold, it would have been too dark to shoot. We
watched until the light failed, and planned our campaign for the next
day.
Early next morning we left camp. For seven long hours we toiled over
ridges and, like the wizards, “peeped and muttered,” for the ibex had
shifted their ground during the night and we could not find them.
It was afternoon when we finally sighted them again. The big males
were lying high on the hillside with the rest of the flock spread
fan-wise around them. Two stalks lay open to us: one over the top of
the mountain, the other up a nullah to a point where the small fry
that surrounded the big animals were fewest. We chose the latter, as
it was shorter, and for nearly three hours we worked our way toward
them. The last half-mile was over slide rock. Trying to walk over
slide rock without noise is like trying to cross a room in the dark
without upsetting a chair. Careful as we were, an occasional rock
would clatter down the slope. Before we got within range the noise
alarmed the females, and the whole herd began moving away over a
ridge. We made a desperate eleventh-hour attempt to cut them off but
failed, and rode disconsolately into camp in the dark.
By this time, however, I was reasonably sure that I knew the general
habits of these particular ibex. Next day Kermit and I decided
to hunt them together. We started with our shikaries and “jungli
wallahs” about five next morning. A thick hoarfrost covered the
grass. It was nipping cold. The ponies shivered as they stood hunched
up under the saddles. As we rode up the nullah that led to the
hunting-grounds the sun had reached the mountain crests, painting
their snow-caps a delicate rose pink. By contrast the dark cold
valley where we were seemed even darker and colder.
We rode up the side of a ridge that would in many circles be
considered very fair mountaineering on foot, for a Kazak pony climbs
as if it had a monkey in its ancestry. Just below the crest we
dismounted and tied our horses. Then we got out our field-glasses and
searched the mountainside. In a short time we found the flock, tiny
light-brown specks on the slate-gray rock. A few minutes later we
spotted our big fellows. They were in the same relative position they
had held on the two previous days, in the rocks two or three hundred
yards below the snow-line, with the rest of the herd in a crescent
around them. After a hurried discussion, we decided that the best
approach was to work up the reverse slope of the shoulder on which we
were to the crest of the mountain, then to push our way through the
snow until we were directly above them. Accordingly, we set out for
a preliminary four miles of what Kermit calls “side-hill grouging,”
that is, walking diagonally across the face of a slope with an angle
of forty-five degrees. There are different kinds of grouging. There
is, for example, walking along the side of a partially turf-covered
hill. This is not bad. Then there is walking along a slide-rock slope
where it is possible to diagonal in two directions. This is harder,
for there is always the danger of starting a rock-slide. Last and
worst is grouging a slide-rock slope for a long distance in the same
direction. Here there is not only the danger of a landslip but, in
addition, the up-hill side of the feet become very sore. On this
stalk the first four miles were on the right sides of our feet and
mainly over slide rock.
As we walked along the west slope of the ridge, three great ramchukor
zoomed over us from the opposite side. Kermit and I both started, for
they sounded exactly like seventy-seven shells. I believe if there
had been a shell-hole handy, we would have instinctively run to it.
After two hours’ climbing we reached the snow, and through it we
ploughed for another mile to a point we had marked as nearest the
animals. We worked cautiously over a jutting rock and saw the big
ibex below us. They were nearly 300 yards away, and were half
concealed by the overhang of the rock around which they were lying.
A hasty whispered conference ensued. We decided to go on through the
snow until we were on the other side of them, and then work down a
rocky buttress to a point from which they would be about one hundred
yards distant. Going through the snow it was reasonably easy to be
quiet, but when we got to the rocks it was very different. We were
so close that any noise might alarm the game. We watched every step
and tested the footholds before putting weight on it. The wind was
treacherous and gusty, as it generally is in the mountains, and this
was an additional source of worry. Fortune was with us, however, and
we got to the spot we had picked without frightening the ibex. After
cautiously looking them over, we prepared to shoot. At this critical
moment one of our shikaries lost his head and ran like a wild man
along the sky-line. The game saw him and were alarmed. There was no
time to be lost. It was my first shot and I fired just as they were
moving off. Kermit followed suit immediately. We wounded but did not
stop our animals. In a moment we caught sight of them again as they
ran swiftly in single file through the rocks somewhat farther away.
Again we fired in the same order. Luck perched on our shoulders, for
both ibex fell and rolled head over heels down the steep slope. My
animal was dead but Kermit’s, though very groggy, was up and away
again. Kermit finally stopped him with a phenomenally long shot near
the mountain crest. We started for our kills at once. Rahima and a
Kazak went with me, Khalil and another Kazak with Kermit. My buck had
rolled some three or four hundred yards down-hill. It is surprising
how far animals will roll down these steep mountainsides, sometimes
with disastrous results to their horns. Several times I have nearly
rolled down a mountain with an ibex while trying to skin him where he
had fallen.
When we got to my ibex we found he was a fine animal with horns
measuring fifty-one and a half inches. While we were skinning him
we heard a rumbling roar above us. We knew instantly what it was.
Without even stopping to look up, Rahima and the Kazak started
running as fast as they could to a buttress of rock that jutted up
a short distance away. I paused just long enough to glance in the
direction of the noise and saw, silhouetted against the sky, rocks
leaping like ibex. For the first time I understood the Psalm “Why hop
ye so, ye high hills?” I joined the other two as quickly as I could,
and from the safe shelter of the great rock we watched the avalanche
churn by taking our ibex with it. A short distance below, on less
steep ground, it slowed up and stopped. We gingerly made our way down
to it and were delighted to find the head of the animal uninjured.
The body skin, however, was so badly torn that it was useless to try
to save it.
I had been carrying around some strychnine to poison the carcasses
of such game as we might shoot in order to get specimens of the
scavenger birds and animals. This seemed to me an excellent
opportunity to use it. While I was putting in the poison I heard a
long-drawn whistle. There was Kermit on a neighboring ridge making
his way down with his ibex, an animal about the size of mine. He
waved to me and evidently wanted to know what I was doing, so I got
up and shouted to him. Then I went on with my work. After a few
minutes Rahima remarked: “Kermit Sahib and Khalil, they come down.”
I looked up and, sure enough, Kermit and Khalil were scrambling down
the side of the ridge toward us as if they were running a race.
I could not imagine why they were doing this, but put it down to
exuberance of spirits on the part of Kermit. I remarked to Rahima
that it showed what a tough man Kermit was when, at the end of a long
hard stalk such as we had just made, he would run down a mountainside
for fun. Then we turned again to our work. In a few minutes there
was a clatter of rock and Kermit called: “How do you feel, Ted?” I
replied in some surprise that I felt perfectly well. It turned out
that when I called he had understood me to say I had been poisoned.
He had been hurrying down as fast as he could scramble, expecting to
find me in a very bad way. Rahima thought it was all a great joke.
Kermit naturally did not look at it from that point of view.
Kermit waited until we finished, and we walked down together to the
ponies, mounted, and rode to camp through the gathering dusk. We had
both shot other and larger ibex, but we were as much pleased with
these two as with any. We felt that they had taken hard work and real
skill to get, and that is what gives the flavor to shikar.
Next morning the boy we sent out to look at the poisoned carcass came
back with an enormous vulture, a lammergeyer. Its body and wings were
white shading to buff, except the tips of the wing and tail feathers
which were brown shading to black. It measured ten and a half feet
from wing-tip to wing-tip. Unfortunately, the Kazak who brought it to
camp had used it in part as a saddle, so that it was too much torn to
be worth skinning.
Here in the Kargaitash our caravan was a more complete,
self-sustaining unit than it had been at any other time. We had a
flock of sheep. They were fat-tailed sheep, with a ridiculous bustle
of wool on their hindquarters which flounced around as they trotted
along. It gave them an even sillier appearance than sheep usually
have. On cold nights they coughed exactly like fussy old men. Two or
three times I was on the point of asking which one of the men had a
bad cold when I realized what it was. We had also a cow and a calf.
The former was brought along to give us milk, the latter presumably
to share the milk with us. We never found out who came first, but we
got little milk and the calf prospered.
In recognition of our letters to the Chinese officials we had an
indeterminate guard of Chinese soldiers. We used them for carrying
messages. Like all troops of their type, they were always practising
petty oppressions on the natives. We would hear sounds of shrill
altercation in some village we were passing, and know that something
was going on that should not. Then soldiers and villagers would
troop out, all talking at once, to lay the case before us. It was
difficult to administer justice, for with our very limited means of
communication it was impossible to find out just what had happened.
Among the soldiers, however, were two good men. The first was a
captain, the second in command at Shutta, who joined us as we reached
the Kargaitash. He was a good-looking man, tall and slight, with
aquiline features. He took a personal interest in our success and was
always willing to help. The second was a square-built mustached Kazak
named Suffa, who officiated at times as our shepherd. True to his
blood, he was a natural hunter, and often pointed out game while we
were on the march. As guides we had three Kazak jungli wallahs headed
by old Tula Bai, reputed to be eighty-six years old, but as spry as a
cricket. We became genuinely fond of all three, and were really sorry
to part with them when the time came for them to leave us.
[Illustration: A KIRGHIZ GRANDMOTHER MOVING HOUSE]
[Illustration: A KALMUCK MARMOT-HUNTER]
Our pony men came from Aksu. They were a cheerful lot, who almost
invariably seemed in a good temper, rain or shine, snow-covered
glacier or sun-scorched plain. They were very hardy, and I often saw
one or more of them stripped to the waist striding along through a
snow-storm. Last but not least came our own men whom we had brought
with us from Kashmir. The best of these was Rahima Loon, our head
shikarry. He had the dignity that is peculiar to the best type of
Oriental. He was tall and slight, with a black beard and hawk nose.
He knew game and its habits thoroughly. He also had courage. Rarer
than all these in the East, he was economical with our money. He
unquestionably saved us many hundreds of rupees during the trip. He
had been taken to England by one of the “sahibs” with whom he had
hunted, and had a general knowledge of the world that far exceeded
that of any of the others. He was cautious in his statements and
refused to prophesy as to game. When we asked him what we should find
in any particular place, he almost invariably would reply: “We go
lookum see!”
Fezildin, the dog boy, had changed greatly on the trip. When he came
with us he was a timid, unassertive little fellow with the usual
Indian pipe-stem legs. He never showed any initiative or mind of his
own, but slunk around in the background like a small black shadow. On
the way up from Yarkand he began to expand and develop until he had
metamorphized into a regular jungli wallah. He discarded his pugri,
and blossomed forth in a Turki cap with a fringe of waving black
goat hair that framed his face and made him look like the “Wild Man
of Borneo” of the circuses. He turned in and helped with the horses
and did well. He forded the worst streams without a sign of fear.
Indeed, he was generally one of those sent out with a lantern to
help Kermit or me when we came back after dark from hunting and had
to cross bad water near camp. He was taught skinning, and under the
tutelage of Kermit became quite good. His specialty was skinning out
the legs, which, next to the head, are the most difficult parts of an
animal to prepare. More than all this, when there was work to do he
did not have to be hunted out of some corner. Barring the time when
poor Foxie died, there was no possible fault to find with his care
of the dogs. He was very fond of them and very kind. To hear him when
they had done something wrong, however, you would have thought he was
an ogre. He bellowed at them like a bull of Bashan, but often while
shouting with the utmost ferocity would beat them with a wisp of
straw.
Our gamble with the dogs did not turn up trumps. To begin with, the
death of Foxie was a severe blow, for we considered him our mainstay.
Then there were very much fewer varmints in the Tian Shan than we
had anticipated. The bears that Kermit and Cutting shot, and one
snow-leopard that we picked up with the glasses some two miles away,
were the only ones we saw. In all the hunting that we did, we only
came on fresh signs once. As far as the tiger were concerned, we were
told that they existed no longer in the Tekkes. Natives are only too
willing, as a rule, to say that there is lots of game when there is
none, but in this case they all said there were no tiger now. They
said that during the last ten or fifteen years the native hunters had
killed them off with poisoned meat. Though we tried, we were never
able to get the dogs on any varmint trail that was fresh enough to
follow. Naturally, this disappointed us, not only because we missed
the hunting, but also because we became very fond of the dogs and
felt they deserved a chance to make good.
To get good hunting with dogs there should be better conditions
than we had, and also a man in the party who gives them constant
attention. This man should be an expert on dogs, and should spend his
time handling them and searching for country where they will get a
chance. Kermit and I were not experts with dogs, and we were far too
busy to give them the unceasing attention they needed.
I was not very fluent in Urdu. Kermit was a good deal better than I
was, which is merely damning his Urdu with faint praise. Rahima Loon
and Khalil spoke English which in quality much resembled our Urdu.
The result was that at times we had difficulty in understanding each
other. This was particularly so when one of the shikaries would try
to point out game to us. At best it is hard to see the game they have
found. Their eyes are so good that a tiny dot which looks like a rock
to the white hunter is recognized at once by them as an ibex. Their
favorite method of placing animals was to say in English: “There,
just by white e-stone” (stone). As the entire mountain to which they
would point was covered with rocks that might have passed as white
stones, this was like trying to point out a lark in a meadow by
saying it was by a blade of grass. Eventually we would get them to
rest the rifle on some rocks and sight it. We would look over the
rifle, find the exact spot at which it was pointed, and then search
with field-glasses until we found what they had seen.
Sometimes other amusing mistakes occurred. About four-thirty one
cold morning we were getting up to hunt. I was already dressed and
had washed in water warmed over the fire. Kermit was still snugly
cuddled in his bedding-roll. I had the virtuous feeling common to
all on such an occasion, combined as it always is with a rancorous
jealousy of his more comfortable condition. In an attempt to be
humorous I told the native servant, in my best Urdu, that I wished
some cold water to throw over Kermit Sahib to make him get up. A
basin of warm water was waiting for Kermit by the tent flap. The
native promptly took it away, brought it back filled with ice-cold
water from the stream, and solemnly placed it by the washing things.
He thought that I had told him that Kermit wished cold water for
washing. It seemed an odd taste at four-thirty of a bitter cold
morning, but then sahibs are proverbially odd.
All through this region the hawks, vultures, and eagles were
numerous. There were generally one or more in sight, floating over
the country with far-seeing eyes. Often I lay on my back between
stalks, and through my field-glasses studied “the way of an eagle in
the air.” I agree thoroughly with Solomon thereon, for I have rarely
seen anything that approaches these birds in power and effortless
grace. At times there would be a gale blowing and they would swoop
hither and yon simply by planning, or hold their position over a
certain spot by a flickering motion of the wings.
Among the small birds there were pigeons, sparrows, larks, and
swallows, but by far the most striking were the black-and-white
magpies. There were always two or three flashing about the landscape
with that swaggering dandyism peculiar to their breed. I saw them
on the grassy hills, in bush-covered slopes, and down among the
pine-trees. I watched very carefully and never saw a hawk molest a
magpie. Kermit saw a hawk make one unsuccessful attack. The magpies
did not seem to be really afraid of the birds of prey. This seemed
all the more remarkable, as they are certainly the most conspicuous
of birds. They seem to have swaggered themselves into immunity.
The insect life, like the bird life, was not diversified, but in
some cases was only too numerous. The chief offenders were the
horse-flies. I noticed three species of them. One was like a bee
covered with yellow down and corpulent; one like our horse-fly with
green eyes; and one the same except for brown eyes. They were most
plentiful on the grassy hills. On the slatey peaks of the mountains
and in the forest-clad valleys there were comparatively few. They
were only active during the sunshiny hours, disappearing like magic
when the day clouded over or the sun set. Their bark was considerably
worse than their bite. I did not feel them as much as those found
in the salt marshes of Long Island, but their numbers and ceaseless
buzzing made them at times unbearable. As Rahima Loon sadly remarked
to me after he, like David, had been killing his ten thousands: “Kill
one, come three.”
In contrast to the horse-flies the butterflies, though numerous,
were welcome. They were very lovely and we found them everywhere.
There was a deep-red variety with spotted wings that was particularly
common. It seemed as if every patch of flowers had one resting on
it, its wings moving gently, as if it were breathing. We found other
varieties high on the mountains among the slide rock. Those I noticed
were more slate gray in color like the rocks, possibly an instance
of protective coloration. They had small colored eyes on the wings.
A couple of times when I was riding into camp after dark I noticed
small white moths in quantities, fluttering about like the fairies of
bygone days.
We saw only one species of snake, a small one, twelve to eighteen
inches long. It was brown in color, the back banded with darker and
lighter stripes. All the men were afraid of them and said they were
poisonous. One of our horses that died was killed, we were told, by a
bite on the lip from one of them. This we did not believe, but their
fangs when dissected did show small poison sacs at the base. As we
had left Cherrie our reptile tank with the alcohol, we put two into a
bottle of arak given us as a present by an Amban. Taking into account
the quality of the liquor, this seemed to us very appropriate.
By this time we had collected the males of all the principal animals
that we expected to get in the Tian Shan with the exception of the
wapiti, the Asiatic cousin of our elk. It is the largest deer of
the Eastern hemisphere. Among living deer it is exceeded in size
only by our wapiti. It became known to Western scientists later
than the American variety and is named after it, for it is called
cervus canadensis songaricus. The mature males weigh between eight
and nine hundred pounds. The horns when in velvet are considered
a valuable medicine by the Chinese. Large prices are paid for
them. In consequence, all the native hunters, Kalmuks, Kazaks and
Kirghiz, hunt them continually during the late spring and early
summer. All along we had been worried for fear we would not be able
to get specimens of this animal, for it is scarce. Indeed, Church
in his book written in 1899 considered them to be on the verge of
extinction. They are easiest to get when they begin to call. They
do not call, however, until the middle of September, and we felt we
should start for the Pamirs by that date.
The wapiti live lower down the valley than the ibex and Karelini, so
we had to shift camp. We split our caravan, taking with us only the
barest necessities, and marched down the Kooksu. Here this river is
particularly lovely. Its turbulent and milky waters flow through a
rocky gorge. On the south bank the forests run from the edge of the
canyon up the hills. Occasionally there is a little grassy meadow.
On the north bank the hills are bare and unforested, except where
tributary streams run in through similar though smaller gorges.
We camped for the night in one of these small gorges. Through it ran
as clear and pretty a brook as any trout-stream of our own North
woods. The spruce forest around was virgin. Great fir-trees towered
gracefully above us. Beneath them the ground was brown and fragrant
with their needles and cones. Here and there the gray dead trunk of
some giant tree stretched full length through the undergrowth. On
all sides the hills framed us. Magpies flitted saucily around the
outskirts of the camp, watching for scraps. The gurgling of the brook
sounded ceaseless through all, like the underlying motif in a melody
of Mozart’s.
The morning after we arrived, Kermit and I shouldered our rifles and
went out by ourselves, while Rahima went to look for wapiti sign in
a nullah north of camp. We walked down the main river and enjoyed
ourselves thoroughly, but saw no game. When we got back to camp it
was noon and quite warm. The opportunity seemed heaven-sent. We took
our soap and towels and went to the brook for a much-needed bath. The
water was icy cold, and in order to get it to cover us we had to lie
down on very sharp stones, but we felt like fighting-cocks when we
were out drying on “a bar of sun-warmed shingle.”
[Illustration: WAPITI COUNTRY]
[Illustration: KHALIL, NURPAY, AND A TIAN SHAN WAPITI]
When we returned to camp we found Rahima was ready to start. He was
far from cheerful. He said he had seen no wapiti signs, and feared
that there were very few in the country. We flipped a coin to decide
which way each should go. I won, and chose the left branch of the
canyon, which seemed the better.
Rahima, a Kazak and I rode up a steep little path to a grassy
plateau. From the top we could see the country for miles. The short
fragrant summer of the Tian Shan was drawing to a close. The leaves
were already turning, and patches of red and brown dappled the green
of hillside and valley. To the south, the ridges and snow-crowned
mountains stretched like the foam-crested waves of some giant ocean.
We rode up to a point from which we could get a view of the
valley, dismounted, and through field-glasses studied woodland and
scrub-covered slope. We saw nothing and soon moved on to where we
could get another view. Again the result was the same. A cold,
drizzling rain was falling when about four-thirty we reached a hill
eight or ten miles from camp, from which we could look into a new
canyon farther to the west. We were thoroughly discouraged, for so
far we had seen the tracks of only one wapiti, and even they were
some days old. After we had been searching the country for about a
quarter of an hour, Rahima touched me on the arm and said “boogha,”
Turki for stag. He pointed up the valley. I looked as carefully as
I could but was unable to see anything. He said there were two and
that they were lying in the bushes. In a moment one of them got up,
and I was able to make him out through the telescope. He was a fine
big animal of a slate-gray color. He was standing toward the end of a
rather broad nullah just beyond a grove of stunted willows.
There was no time to lose, for they were a long way off and darkness
was coming. We had a hurried consultation about the stalk. With
the wind as it was there seemed to be only one course open, and
that was to skirt the small valleys to the right until we came to a
slight fold of ground near where they were feeding. It was a long
distance—some three miles. We started off at a jog trot along the
hillside—Rahima, Tula Bai’s son Kassein and I.
Generally I make my shikaries go slowly. All shikaries have far too
great a tendency to run their sahib up to the game. This makes the
man with the gun shoot when he is out of breath, and multiplies the
chance of a miss, for it is possible to be panting only mildly and
yet be entirely unable to keep the sight on the target. The shikarry
himself, of course, does not notice for he does not shoot. Those who
shoot only at a target often wonder why sportsmen miss the shots
they sometimes do. The answer is that the sportsman rarely shoots
under even approximately good conditions. He is tired or winded, or
his position is bad, or he is hurried, or the target is blurred and
indistinct. To say “the shooting was done under ideal conditions,” is
as accurate as the military phrase “at this point the general threw
fresh troops into action.” No “fresh troops” are ever thrown into a
big battle. They are always worn by long marches or lack of sleep, or
both. In the same way a sportsman never gets ideal conditions.
This time, however, there was no time to go slowly. It was a question
of “Root hog or die!” The three of us hurried over slippery wet
hillsides, tripping and falling every few minutes. We climbed over
loose rock. We threaded our way between patches of a tall, spiny,
cactus-like plant that is common in these mountains. It began to rain
in earnest and our clothes became sodden and heavy.
At last, after an hour’s hard work, we crept over a rise and saw our
game. They had moved up the ravine, and were feeding toward a crest
from which the ground sloped into another canyon. There was not a
minute to spare, as they were moving. We crawled on all fours to the
point we had marked for our shot. They were much farther away than
we had expected, and every moment took them still farther. I could
not see their horns with my naked eye. They must have been more
than 250 yards away, for I paced it afterward and made it 452 of
my rather short paces. I was blown, and the rain was beaded on the
sights. I raised my rifle, and, taking the most careful aim possible,
fired. Fortune tipped my bullet. I saw the stag falter and I knew
he was hit. Then I did what I never would have done had I not feared
this might be our only chance for wapiti. I switched and fired at
the other. Again I was in luck, for the bullet took effect and he
staggered. Immediately I switched back to the first, who was slowly
making his way up the valley, and with three more shots brought
him down. By this time, however, the second animal had gone quite
a distance and was moving through the scrub fully 400 yards away.
I fired at him a number of times as he showed himself between the
bushes. I could get no rest for my rifle as I was on the steep slope
of a hill. The range was far beyond any at which I am reasonably
sure, and I missed. At last I got Kassein, made him kneel down, and
using him as a rest managed to register another hit before the wapiti
disappeared over a wooded shoulder. Calling to the men to follow, I
started plunging down the hill to trail the wounded animal. The men
were far too excited to heed, and ran like lamplighters to where the
first animal had fallen in order to hallal him and make him legal
Mohammedan food, so I plodded on alone. The jungle was of willow and
thorn bushes from four to eight feet high and thickly matted. Beneath
them were boulders and cactus-plants. I tangled my rifle in the
branches. I slipped and fell. I tore pieces out of both my clothes
and myself. To make matters worse, it was now quite dark and I had
only two cartridges left. When I reached the crest over which the
wapiti had gone, I was blowing like a steam siren. About this time
Rahima and Kassein joined me. In a few minutes they pointed out the
wapiti some seventy-five yards away. I fired and missed. That left
me with one cartridge. I scrambled down the hillside through the
deadfall. At times I got a glimpse of a pair of antlers or a broad
gray back in the brush ahead, but I did not dare chance a shot, as
all my hopes were pinned to that last cartridge. All three of us
crashed down through the scrub-willow jungle. Kassein ran ahead.
With the usual hardiness of his kind, he seemed as fresh as if he
were just starting. By the time we got to the foot of the slope he
was well in advance, ranging to left and right like a bird-dog. Well
behind, I ploughed along like a very old broken-winded horse with
the string-halt. Behind me in turn was Rahima. A shrill whoop from
Kassein told me he had our game in sight. Breathless as I was, I
could no more have replied than I could have made the proverbial leap
over the moon. I headed for him as rapidly as possible, and saw him
pointing to a clump of bushes just ahead. Suddenly I found myself
within twenty yards of the wapiti, who was looking in the direction
of Kassein. My shot took effect, and the fine animal rolled over dead.
One antler of the dead wapiti showed above the grass. For a moment
I thought he was a “stag royal,” for there were seven tines on this
horn, but when I looked at the other I found there were only five
tines on it, which made the head a twelve-pointer. The first stag
that I had hit was a splendid big animal but had only ten points.
Thoroughly happy, I sat down and lighted my pipe.
It was now pitch-dark and raining. Under the circumstances, with the
wapiti a mile apart, we could not skin them that night. Kassein took
off one of his multitudinous ragged shirts and I took off my leather
jacket. We hung these over the carcasses like scarecrows to keep any
wolves or scavenger-birds away, and started back to the ponies. When
we got to the place we had left them, we found they had strayed, and
as far as I was concerned were hopelessly lost. Kassein added to his
other admirable qualities owl-like eyes that could see in the dark.
He wandered off over the hills, and soon called from the inky black
that he saw the ponies. We rounded them up and, shivering but happy,
got into the wet saddles.
After two hours’ riding we came to the head of the valley where our
camp was. Just at this moment the rain stopped, and the moon shone
out through the hurrying clouds. The black shapes of the spruce-trees
clothing the hillsides contrasted sharply with the bare slopes where
the wet grass shimmered in the moonlight. Below us in the valley our
camp-fire glowed through the clustered shadows. Rarely have I seen so
welcome a sight.
Kermit had seen nothing during the day, so we started early next
morning, he to make another attempt to get a stag, I to skin the two
I had left in the nullah. Rahima, Kassein, and two of the pony men
came with me, with extra horses to carry the heads and hides.
When we got to the valley we found the wapiti undisturbed. In the
morning light they looked very big. The larger measured nearly
nine feet in total length. This was the ten-pointer, not the
twelve-pointer. As so often happens, the size of the horns did not
indicate the size of the body. The wapitis’ summer coat is red. Their
winter coat is gray. The two that I shot had practically completed
the change to their winter pelage. They looked to me grayer than our
wapiti in the United States, and their antlers seemed less massive.
The men all turned to and helped skin, chattering like monkeys. While
they were working I noticed Rahima cut the secretion out of the
tear-duct, wrap it carefully in paper, and put it in his pocket. I
asked him why he did it, and was told that if a woman mixed it with
water and drank it she was sure to be fertile.
We got back to camp about two o’clock. Shortly after, Kermit came
in with a good bull wapiti he had shot early in the morning. That
gave us all the stags we needed for the museum. The wapiti, which
we feared would be very difficult to get, had taken only two days’
hunting. The men were delighted, for they were much afraid of the
Pamirs in early winter, and knew that this piece of fortune would
make it possible to start sooner after the ovis poli.
That evening they built a rousing spruce-wood fire. Its flames
danced and flickered in the shadows of the towering evergreens that
walled the camp. They squatted around it; the hookah was passed from
hand to hand, its gurgle at times audible above the crackling of
the logs. Old Tula Bai, his bent form, wagging beard and peaked hat
giving him a gnome-like appearance, presided as dean of the Kazaks.
Rahima Loon, his eyes gleaming from his dark, clean-cut face, was the
central figure among the Kashmiris. The ruddy firelight shining on
the bronzed faces threw the whole scene into a bold relief of lights
and shadows. Kermit and I drew our chairs up to one side of the
fire, smoked our pipes, and listened to stories of stags with great
antlers, shot by sahibs whose last trek was made twenty-five years
ago.
Having shot our male wapiti, we still had before us the necessary but
uninteresting task of getting a female, or maral, as they are called
locally, to complete the group for the museum. Rahima Loon, who was a
true sportsman, could not quite understand this. He always regarded
the fact that we shot females for the museum as a rather serious blot
on our otherwise amiable characters. He now suggested that, instead
of waiting in the Tian Shan for the maral, we should start back at
once for the Pamirs. He explained that there were plenty of female
deer in India which we could send the museum for the group. We told
him that three male wapiti with a female deer from India would not
do. He accepted this rather gloomily as simply an illustration of the
weak spot in our intelligence.
After much discussion, we decided that the best way to get maral was
to camp at the junction of the Kensu and the Kooksu, and hunt from
there. Next morning we moved our baggage-train to this point. In the
afternoon we forded the Kooksu and hunted the wooded slopes beyond
till dark, without success. When we got back to camp, we found a
soldier had arrived from Shutta with a message for us. He also told
us that Cherrie and Cutting had been at Shutta for ten days. This
put them in the Tian Shan nearly three weeks earlier than had been
planned. We had had no letters from them, and we feared something had
gone wrong. After talking it over, we decided that we had better go
back and join them at once. As for the maral, we would have to try to
get it somewhere near them.
Next morning we collected our entire caravan and took to the road
again. No one must be deceived by this use of the word “road.” A
road in the Tian Shan does not bear the slightest resemblance to a
road in the United States. It covers anything passable by a clever
mountain-pony. The roads here range from the trails across the
plains, which are the best, to mountain tracks over glacier and
cliff, which take either an ibex or a Tian Shan pony to negotiate
successfully.
We pushed on as fast as we could. We crossed a couple of snowy
divides, dropped through the spruce-clad foot-hills into the plain,
and at the end of the fifth day came to the Moon Tai River. Here we
got news that “two sahibs” were in the neighborhood. We camped and
sent out men to bring them to us. As we were sitting in front of our
tent in the late afternoon, we heard a shout and saw Cherrie and
Cutting riding toward us. They both were thin, Cutting particularly
so. He was still wearing his enormous regulation British army
sun-helmet. In it he looked like a very small candle under a very
large extinguisher. We all thoroughly enjoyed our reunion after
nearly two months’ separation.
CHAPTER VIII
CHINESE TURKESTAN: THE TEKKES TO KASHGAR
We found that there had been a great deal of friction between the
Punjabi and Kashmiri elements in Cherrie’s caravan. Fortunately,
matters did not reach too acute a point before we joined them. Upon
going into the matter we learned that the Punjabis in coming with us
had undertaken a separate mission that had become generally known,
and it rendered their continuance with us impossible. They were
excellent men and we parted with very friendly feeling on both sides.
Cherrie had been sick during the two months that had passed since
we left Yarkand. A long-drawn-out bout of dysentery had dragged him
down and greatly hampered him in collecting, but his usual pluck had
pulled him through.
Suydam had done a great amount of work with his Akeley camera, and
was particularly satisfied with what he had taken since coming into
the Tian Shan, for he had made pictures of almost every phase of
Kirghiz, Kalmuk, and Kazak life. The few days which he had put in
hunting had proved amazingly lucky. On the second morning he came
upon a she bear and two well-grown cubs—the adult he brought down,
but the young ones disappeared into the forest. This gave us a male
and a female bear for mounting in the museum. The following day
he saw a large boar. His rifle had acquired a habit of hopelessly
jamming, so that it could not be counted upon with any certainty for
more than a single shot. In addition the rear sight had been knocked
off and was only tied on with string. He took his Kazak shikarry’s
rifle and fired a couple of times at the boar without result. The
boar disappeared into a patch of jungle and after it hurried the
Kazak. He killed it with a well-placed shot. Suydam said that he had
never seen any animal so fat, and Cherrie estimated the weight at 400
pounds.
Ted and I were now preoccupied with the unromantic task of filling
out the groups for the museum with the requisite number of females
and young. When one is not hunting an animal, it always seems so much
more common and easily attainable. You watch a female ibex and think
how simple it would be to shoot one, without, of course, considering
an actual stalk and visualizing the difficulties. Then when you are
stalking a ram, and a herd of ewes intervenes, you say to yourself
how easy it would be if only it were ewes that were in demand. When,
however, you set off in cold earnest to shoot a ewe, it is not long
before you begin to swing around, and wonder whether, after all, it
isn’t just as difficult to bring in a female as a male. A long stalk
after a female ibex seems much more wearisome, for there is not
the same incentive that makes the hard work light. In the accepted
ethics of the big-game hunter, there is quite rightly nothing to be
proud of in bagging a female, but when you are engaged in scientific
collecting the female is of equal importance.
We were much concerned over the prospects for shooting a hind wapiti.
We had seen only two; they were running through spruce woods, and the
bullets I sent after them were without effect. The upper Mointai was
regarded as likely ground, and we planned to have as many strings to
our bow as circumstances would permit. Many hunters, when they have
wounded an animal and it makes off over particularly rough country,
will give a gun to a native shikarry and tell him to follow and
finish their quarry; this neither Ted nor I would ever do, so the men
were much surprised when we not only did not object to their shooting
the group females, but even offered them a reward for so doing. To
begin with, they could not understand why we wanted females. We soon
gave up trying to explain, and although we thought that Rahima had
grasped the situation, our faith was somewhat shaken when he insisted
that if we only waited until we were back in Kashmir we could without
any difficulty secure several female barasingh which would serve
admirably to fill out the wapiti group! Our first attempt after
joining Cherrie and Suydam took the form of a very loosely organized
drive. It was a lovely day, and the smell of the spruce woods took
one back to distant lands and times. On the way out we caught sight
of half a dozen black cock, and Ted brought one down with Cherrie’s
shotgun. The only thing in the drive was a female illik which passed
by Suydam’s stand and was bagged by Ted. We were in need of it, but
there were many around and we had not been at all preoccupied over
the difficulties of shooting one. We saw no recent wapiti sign, which
was disheartening, for the local Kazaks had felt that they were
taking us to their best hunting-ground.
We next went with them to a ridge in the heart of what they
considered their best spying land, and we raked the ravine side with
our field-glasses, without picking up anything save illik. Two buck
were calling; Ted first heard illik calling at Khan Ayalik about the
first of September. We had been told that wapiti started about the
same time, but this the Kazaks denied, assuring us that they did
not begin until the third week in September, and they certainly had
not begun when we left the Tekkes around the middle of the month.
Discouraged with our failure to find any wapiti sign, we decided to
move to Akyas as our last chance.
Cherrie went down to the junction of the Mointai and the Tekkes
rivers to put in his last few days collecting in the valley, while
Ted, Suydam, and I rode across the rolling prairie to Akyas.
Somewhere about half-way we dipped down into a grassy ravine
apparently quite like any one of a dozen others through which we
had passed. We noticed that the drop was more abrupt, and caught
the sound of falling water. We found ourselves in a fairy dingle. A
profound and cool cavern, rock-walled and partly screened by tall
trees, concealed a deep, clear pool of water, fed by a sizable stream
that descended in a shimmery mass through a hole in the rocky roof.
Through the hole we glimpsed a patch of blue sky, but within the
grotto all was cool and dark. On the grass beneath the trees was
charred wood remaining from Kazak fires. We hoped it would be many
a day before civilization invades the country and the cavern is
strewn with papers and empty sardine cans. What served to make the
whole scene particularly refreshing was the unexpectedness of it as
we rode unsuspectingly over the plains. The natives call the place
Keerkool-douk.
At Akyas we renewed acquaintance with the Russian family and the
cheerful small baby, upon whom we bestowed more of the great, gaudy
buttons we bought in Paris.
We found that most of the men were down in the valley, making ready
the winter supply of hay, a primitive process with sickle and scythe.
We managed, however, to gather together a few hunting Kazaks and
Kirghiz, among them the two men who had been with Suydam when he shot
his bear. Next morning early, taking supplies for a few days, we set
off up the Akyas valley, crossing a rough mountain shoulder, where
the river had cut its way in a deep and lovely canyon. Above, we
followed the widened valley until we came upon a rocky stream which
tumbled down into the Akyas from its left bank. A short distance
up this tributary we pitched camp amid some tall spruce-trees.
Rousslia picked a lot of red berries with a leaf very much like our
strawberries. He made them into an excellent shortcake for dinner.
We had no feeling at all about who should shoot the female wapiti. It
was a very necessary part of the museum group, but it was essential
that we should make all speed possible in order to reach the Pamirs
before it became too cold to hunt ovis poli, and we were quite ready
to have the maral bagged by Kazak or Kirghiz. We therefore divided
up into four groups for the hunting. Suydam took a Kazak; Khalil,
to whom I lent my second rifle, went with another Kazak, two more
went by themselves, while Ted and I went with Rahima and one native.
In addition we offered a reward of about ten dollars to any one who
would bring in a maral.
The first hunt proved blank, for although Ted and I saw a couple
of wapiti, the wind was gusty, and they were off before we had any
chance for a stalk. One of the other groups saw a wapiti but got no
shot.
Next morning we were away before daylight, and rode our ponies up
toward the mountain tops rimming the valley. Leaving the horses for
the long day’s doze, we climbed from one vantage-point to another,
conning the hillsides and valleys with our field-glasses. Except for
a few illik, we saw no game. At one spot an interesting engagement
took place close to where I was sitting. A magpie was perched in
the top of a tall spruce-tree, chattering away and admiring itself
in the usual jaunty manner, when all of a sudden its tone changed
and it fluttered hastily over to another dead spruce whose whitened
branches were closely matted together. Simultaneously the shadow of
a hawk flashed across the rocks. He was a brown fellow but little
larger than the magpie. Down he swooped toward the magpie’s refuge,
but the branches were too thick. The chattering magpie hopped through
them to the other side of the tree. Round went the hawk, and another
fruitless dive followed. This went on for some time; the hawk circled
about in the most graceful of curves; now head down, now banking, now
shooting up. He must have stooped more than a dozen times, and twice
he made a pretense of leaving in order to entice out the magpie. The
latter did not seem particularly frightened; its cry was not one of
alarm, and as soon as the hawk had really left, he returned to his
original perch upon the solitary tree. He was not destined to enjoy
it long, for almost immediately two brother magpies came and drove
him incontinently away.
The long noon hours when no game was stirring I passed in reading I
and II Samuel.
In the afternoon we separated, Ted and Rahima going one way, while I
took the Kazak Zeytoon and went in the other. We climbed cautiously
along an accidented wooded ridge, and had not gone far when, upon
reaching the top of a small hill, we saw an illik doe taking her
siesta on the far side. We watched her for some time before she
even became suspicious. As she jumped to her feet, every motion
was an epitome of grace. A few bounds and she stood stock-still.
We were careful not to frighten her, for she might alarm whatever
was ahead. When she was out of sight, we heard several loud, sharp
barks. “Maral, maral,” whispered Zeytoon. I thought it was the illik,
but Zeytoon insisted it was a wapiti. Topping another rise we again
sighted the illik, this time in the act of barking. It seemed a very
loud noise to come from so small an animal.
For an hour we held on along the ridge; I had dropped ten
yards behind, studying some tracks, when I heard Zeytoon hiss;
simultaneously there was a crashing below him on the mountainside.
Running on, I caught a glimpse of a wapiti through the scrub willow
and spruce. I opened fire immediately, but it was difficult sighting
at the maral’s fleeting shape through the trees. I was able to get in
six or seven shots before she got where I could no longer see her.
I felt that I had scored one hit, at least, but Zeytoon was certain
I had not. He was so positive that my own belief was badly shaken.
Nevertheless, I determined to take a chukker to where I had last seen
the wapiti. Before doing so I went on to a lookout point that I had
picked out before Zeytoon stirred up the wapiti. Seeing nothing, I
returned and dragged a very reluctant Zeytoon down through the fallen
timber and the débris of landslides. It was bad going and took time.
Farther down we separated to better pick up the trail. Not long after
this Zeytoon shouted “She is hit!” and almost simultaneously “Here
she is!” I was as much pleased as if it had been a stag. The man who
has done all his shooting as a sportsman only, thinks of shooting
females much as a man in a fox-hunting country feels regarding any
one shooting foxes. But if you have done much scientific work for
museums, you come to feel very differently about the distaff side of
the groups, and when after a long stalk you bag a female, you have a
genuine feeling of satisfaction. I set to work on the measuring and
skinning, while Zeytoon went to try and find Ted and Rahima, near
where they had agreed to meet us. When he came back with them they
were almost as pleased as I had been. To Rahima in particular it
spelled a speedy termination of the Tian Shan hunting, and a chance
to get into the Pamirs before it became too desperately cold.
Zeytoon set to work with a will to help in the skinning. First he
grabbed my rifle and dipped it into the bullet wound, a primitive
custom that I had met with among the natives in Africa and Brazil. In
pulling off the skin from the back, he seized a fold in his teeth
while working with both hands. With such measures we were soon ready,
but it was half past seven before we stumbled into camp. None of the
other expeditions had seen wapiti, except for Ted. He would have had
a shot at a maral had I not fired when I did. She was feeding slowly
toward him and would have soon been within close range. On hearing my
shooting, she disappeared in a moment. He also saw a male wapiti, an
eight-pointer, and could have had a good chance at him had he wished.
We had had amazingly good luck with our wapiti. Ted had seen three
male and five female wapiti; I had seen one male and five females.
Four of the females we had seen while hunting together, so all told
we had seen ten wapiti during the week we had been hunting them.
[Illustration: A KALMUCK WEDDING]
Next morning early we marched back to Akyas, and, picking up the
balance of our caravan, shoved on into Shutta, a long trek. On the
way we passed through the Kalmuk encampment at Aksu. A wedding was
about to take place, and all the inhabitants, gaily dressed, dashed
out upon their ponies. The bride was shrouded in a sheet, and was
riding double, held on the horse by a man whom we were told was her
father. Two girls carried a red banner fastened on a couple of tall
poles. The gaudy head-dress of the women, the brilliant coats and
sashes of the men, the shouting and singing, the wheeling ponies,
all combined to make a lively scene. Ted watched them through his
field-glasses as they rode off down the plains toward the Tekkes.
He saw the women and men divide into different groups, and then the
carrying off of the bride was enacted, for her husband dashed in
among the women and seized her and bore her away on his horse.
A group of Kazak graybeards whom we shortly afterward met amused us.
There were six of them, and each held a small grandson in front of
him on the saddle; the children were, some of them, scarcely more
than a year old, chubby and solemn. We had seen similar cavalcades
before; verily the children are brought up on horseback!
At Shutta our friend the Dauran came out to greet us. Cherrie had
dressed the abscess in his back, cleaning it out and putting powdered
calomel into it. The treatment, although both novel and drastic,
had been most successful and he was now well. He did his best to
persuade us to stay over a few days in Shutta, and when we with
much difficulty convinced him of the impossibility of our doing so,
he said that he would come on with us as escort next day. All the
soldiers wished their photographs taken, and Loya brought out his two
pretty wives and his roly-poly son. There was a young illik in one
of the compounds, very friendly and wandering everywhere at will.
He was, however, not so eager to pose for his portrait as were the
soldiers.
We planned to complete the ibex group at Khan Ayalik. We did not
have the same concern about our ability to do so as in the case of
the wapiti. We felt reasonably certain that with some hard climbing
and lucky shooting we could secure the female and young without
unreasonable delay. It was on the 13th of September, Ted’s birthday,
that we set off for the mountain tops—Ted, Suydam, and myself, with
Khalil and two Kirghiz. Rahima stayed in camp to pack the skins and
horns for the crossing of the Muzart glacier.
We went up along one of the side glaciers where Rahima and I had
put in our first day after ibex. The elapsed six weeks had wrought
great changes; there was more snow on the mountains and the flowers
had almost completely disappeared. We were not long in picking up a
herd of females; they were well up among the rocks and the wind was
tricky, necessitating a long détour and a good deal of climbing. I
had had an attack of fever hanging over me for the last three days;
with the help of plenty of quinine I had managed to head it off, but
I was not feeling up to much.
[Illustration: THROUGH THE MUZART GLACIER]
It was impossible to get within good range, and the nearest animals
were 250 yards distant when at last we were in a position to fire. We
had spread out behind a ridge, and though the range was long, fortune
favored us so that when we came to count heads we had a half-grown
male, two females, and two young. This topped off our big males
and gave us a really admirable group. We got the measuring and
skinning finished with all despatch, but it was well after dark
before we reached camp.
We found Cherrie waiting for us; he had had a most successful few
days collecting along the banks of the Tekkes. Ted now took over the
small-mammal trapping, and until we again separated at Maralbashi,
every night, no matter how late we got to camp, nor how rainy and
cold it might be, he set out twenty traps. Often he would have to
take with him a lantern when he was laying out the line, but in spite
of it all he added much exceedingly valuable and interesting material
to the collection.
Ted and I had worn shorts throughout the whole trip; they give
free action for the knee and help immensely where there is much
climbing to be done. Your knees soon become so tough that they are
as impervious to cold, as is your face. We each had flannel shirts
and leathern waistcoats, and I wore a canvas coat with many pockets,
for I always carry a varied assortment of odds and ends with me when
I am hunting. The best footgear for mountain work is the grass shoe;
with it you can walk more noiselessly and surely than with anything
else, but unfortunately its life is too short to make it practicable,
except when you are in its home country. I wore Kashmir chuplies—a
heavy sandal over a light leathern sock—a good deal, and found them
satisfactory except when they got wet; then they slipped about from
under your foot and were worse than nothing. They had another
disadvantage in that small stones often became wedged in between
the sock and the sandal. I had brought with me a pair of boots with
corrugated rubber soles. Hitherto no rubber shoe had lasted me long
when hunting, and I placed but little confidence in these. The soles
usually ripped off before long. This time I was agreeably surprised,
for these crepe-soled shoes stood up admirably under the roughest
kind of treatment. They were noiseless and gave a good grip upon rock
and hillside. In headgear we had made several shifts. From Srinagar
the whole way to Aksu we wore helmets, for of course they are the
only thing to wear when you have reason to fear the “sun overhead.”
Thereafter for the marching we adopted the Kashmiri puggree, or
turban; very comfortable and much more suited than a helmet for
travel in an araba. While hunting, Ted wore a balaclava helmet, and I
had an old corduroy cap which Mr. P. B. Van der Byl had given me in
London. We had been indebted to him for much friendly advice and help
drawn from his store of experience gathered in the big-game haunts of
every quarter of the globe.
[Illustration: THEODORE ROOSEVELT and KERMIT ROOSEVELT IN TIAN SHAN
HUNTING-KIT]
On the 14th of September we crossed the Muzart Pass, a very different
crossing from that we had made on the 2d of August. Now we had
glorious weather, with the bright sunshine dancing on the snowy
peaks and ice ridges. We were evidently in the height of the caravan
season. On the way from Shutta we had wound through three great
flocks of sheep, totalling 3,000 head. The buyers came from Aksu and
bought on the hoof, hiring the wild Kalmuk and Kazak herdsmen to
drive the animals over the passes. We also saw a big herd of ponies,
and innumerable caravans of donkeys. These later seemed to have
the preference as pack-animals on this route. The little beasts in
the main were loaded with great bales of cotton and cloth and felt
numdahs. We passed over the long glacier without incident, although
there were a number of moments when it looked as if we would lose a
pony; one in particular I made sure had fallen into a crevasse, but
he recovered himself in miraculous fashion. A cold rain set in just
as we reached the other side, but we soon had our tents up and could
retire into them with the comfortable feeling that the Muzart Pass
lay behind us.
Next day we continued down the Muzart River on the opposite side from
that we had ascended, for all was changed here as well as on the
pass, and we had no longer dangerous fords to deal with. We spent our
first night at Khailak, where I was very busy going over the last lot
of ibex skins and putting all the additional touches that you never
seem to finish to your own satisfaction. We went on past the Chinese
wall where we had previously pitched our camp and stopped at the
little village of Kizil Bulak. As we arrived, a cheerful little Beg
came up to greet us. He had come with us as a passenger from Yarkand
to Aksu and brought us out our mail to Jam when we were going into
the Tian Shan. Once again Sadi, for that was his name, appeared in
the rôle of Mercury, and never was more welcome than when he produced
a great packet of letters from the folds of his robes. According to
invariable custom, everything else stopped happening as suddenly as
it had in the palace of the sleeping Princess, while each took his
letters and retired to the nearest shady spot to read them. When you
are off on a hunting trip, especially in a far country, the really
formidable fly in the ointment is your continuous anxiety as to how
things are going with your family at home, and letters help immensely
even if they do not bring you very close to date. We could not have
been any farther away or more cut off from communication than we had
been. I had tried using the Chinese telegraph-line, sending a message
to a friend in Peking and asking him to relay it to New York. My
telegram took eighteen days to get from Aksu to Peking!
Another old friend who rode in to see us was Ismail Bey, the big
local landowner, who had helped us so greatly on our way over into
the Tekkes. We were genuinely glad to see him again, for he is a fine
fellow. Our men always pronounced Bey as Boy, and referred to Ismail
as Big Boy, in contradistinction to a Bey from Khan Ayalik who had
come across with us. The latter they called Little Boy. At first we
were much puzzled as to whom they meant by Big and Little Boy. The
confusion further increased when by a process of elision Ismail Bey’s
name was made to sound as if it were Small Boy.
In the morning we rode over with Ismail Bey to his little oasis,
where he lived in a true patriarchal style with a stalwart old father
and numerous brothers and sisters. The buildings were many and well
kept. We would like to have accepted his invitation and stayed a few
days with him. He had a big hooded eagle which we would have been
glad to see in action, but time pressed far too heavily to admit of
delaying. Ismail gave us a very fine riding pony, for he did not
approve of the one that I was riding, and when we parted we gave him
Ted’s Springfield, for he was now using his Hoffman entirely.
The Bey came on to Arbat with us, in order to arrange a
goitred-gazelle hunt. We were eager to get a group of the graceful
little creatures for the museum, provided it did not entail too much
time.
We had heard that there were a few sheep in the hills near by.
Church, in his book, mentioned seeing three; we had not been so
fortunate, but when Cherrie had come through he also had seen three
and Cutting had gone after them. We would have given much to have
had two weeks in which to hunt these sheep and determine just what
they were. There is a most interesting field open in the study of
the great Asiatic sheep. Some one should follow them straight down
from where they are found near northern Mongolia not far from Peking
to the Altai Mountains, the home of the ovis ammon typica, and then
throughout the length of the Tian Shan range, where there are the
Karelini and very probably one, or possibly two, undescribed species.
Next he should go to the Pamirs, collecting Littledale’s sheep on
the way, and after getting ovis poli finish with ovis ammon hodgsoni
in Changchemmo and western Tibet. It would indeed be an interesting
study to trace the intergradations, from the great wide-spreading
horns of the poli to the heavy close-curled head of the ammon typica.
Ismail Bey had arranged a drive for gazelle in the foot-hills, so
early in the morning we rode down to our stations. Four men did
the driving. Three does came by me travelling like the wind, and I
knocked one of them over at a very close range.
We tried another drive but nothing came through, so Ted and I
separated and started off across the plains to hunt our way toward
Jam, whither the caravan had preceded us. We each of us saw about a
dozen gazelle, but they were exceedingly wary. I don’t believe I got
within 800 yards of one of them. At that distance they would start
moving off, with gradually increasing speed, and to follow them was
but a vexation of the spirit. Unless for the luck of a chance shot,
the most likely place to hunt them would be in the foot-hills, where
you would have some hope for a stalk. The heat-waves shimmered and
danced over the barren rocky floor of the desert, but as I got down
to the oasis the twilight was coming on, and in its magical fashion
lending an austere charm to even the bleak country through which I
was riding.
Another day brought us to Aksu, where we were greeted by our friend
the Dotai. He pressed us to stay over for four or five days, but we
were adamant, and compromised on invitations by asking him to dine
with us, and agreeing to breakfast with him in the morning, and leave
immediately afterward on our trek to Kashgar. Both affairs were as
pleasant as possible. The Dotai was much interested in the ibex and
sheep heads, and we dispensed with interpreters as much as we could
by using the sign-and-sound language, which Ted supplemented by
drawing pictures of the events of the chase, to the great delight
of all our friends. When we told of the bear-hunt the Dotai growled
and waved his hands most dramatically. At another time, in order
to explain the nature of the soup we were having at his breakfast,
he flapped his hands and quacked. Altogether every one had a fine
time, and the Dotai took particular pleasure before the breakfast in
showing us over his flower-garden, where there was every imaginable
flower, most of them in full bloom. In one corner of the garden
there was a Yarkand stag in a pen, a handsome animal but distinctly
short-tempered, in which it was quite different from another Yarkand
stag that had been brought around to our camp in the hope that we
might buy it. This last was tame and friendly, although its horns
were just coming out of the velvet, and at that time stags are
usually in bad humor. We were told of the different localities in
which these deer had been caught, and our informants spoke as if they
were in no way uncommon. Once more we wished we had a couple of extra
weeks in hand.
Some of our Shutta bodyguard had accompanied us to Aksu. They were
a far finer, more soldierly lot than any we met with on the plains.
Our men referred to them as “Peking” men, although of the two best
soldiers we had in the Tian Shan, one was a Kirghiz, and the other,
although he called himself Chinese, his “father’s father knew it
not.” Calling them “Peking” men reminded me of how Father found the
Indians with whom he hunted in the Cœur d’Alene region in Idaho still
calling Americans “Boston men,” in contradistinction to the Canadian
trappers who were French.
We couldn’t get away from Aksu until one o’clock in the afternoon
of the 12th of September, but the evening of the 24th found us at
Maralbashi. If you load your arabas not too heavily, you get across
the country surprisingly speedily. We had a fairly large assortment
of books with us, but the only good araba books were Cumberland’s
“Sport in the Pamirs” and Ted’s copy of “Omar Khayyam.” In all the
other books the print was too fine. Naturally enough, when you
select books for a hunting trip, size is a primary consideration, and
size and large type rarely go together. I found Green’s Hindustanee
Grammar a good araba companion, for in studying you do not read so
closely and continuously. One can read and enjoy books in the wilds
which at home would never occur to you to take on. In this class we
put Meredith’s “Egoist,” a small pocket edition of which kept me in
reading matter for a number of weeks. When in addition to hunting
you are writing articles and preparing museum specimens, you have
not very much time to read. Our library covered a large range of
taste; in the Tian Shan I read, besides “The Egoist,” “Westward Ho,”
“Pickwick Papers,” “Jorrocks Jaunts,” and the “Romany Rye.” We had
brought two volumes of collected poems; one was Kipling and the other
Edwin Arlington Robinson. Into them we would constantly dip, and they
proved admirable companions. They never went back in the yakdans, but
travelled in our bedding-rolls.
We found many changes in the plains. Instead of the great heat at
midday, it was now only pleasantly warm, and marching was more
agreeable in consequence. There is a great abundance of fruit in
Turkestan. The apricot season had passed, but in its place were
peaches and grapes and delicious melons of many kinds. In addition to
the red-fleshed watermelon, there was one with yellow flesh. I could
detect little difference in taste. Then there were various sorts of
muskmelon. Every one was eating melons; we saw one small boy clad
in the altogether eating a huge slice. He was covered with a thick
coating of dust, and down his whole length the trickle of the juice
had ploughed deep furrows.
Along the roadside squatted melon venders, and our araba drivers
were continually purchasing the fruit and sharing the slices among
themselves. When we halted at some dreary little serai in the middle
of the desert, we greatly enjoyed the big watermelons.
In some of the gardens where we camped there were walnut-trees. The
nuts were now ripe, and our host would knock them from off the trees
for us.
One march short of Maralbashi we left Cherrie and Suydam to spend a
few days near some swampy lakes where we hoped they would add some
interesting material to the birds and small mammals already forming
the collection. This promised to be a long parting, for if all worked
out as planned, they would return through Russia, and we would next
meet in New York, a far cry from the swamps of Maralbashi.
In Maralbashi we changed a couple of our arabas and redistributed
the loads. We got there on a Thursday, which is market-day, and as
we rode in we passed swarms of peasants returning from the bazaar.
One mother was holding a small child on the saddle in front of her, a
larger one was astride the pony’s quarters, clasping his mother round
the waist for support. An old couple were driving in a donkey-cart,
the first we had seen, and built on the lines of an araba. Women
were trudging along with children strapped on their backs, nodding
and asleep after the excitement of market-day.
There was still a lot of life in the bazaar; it was just before the
regular night life had started, and belated knots of country people
yet lingered. Two old men were playing chess, with Chinese chessmen,
which are just like checker-men, and are distinguished one from
another by the ideographs carved on them. Sometimes you find fine
ivory sets, yellowed with age and use. The moves are much the same as
in the chess we play. An interested crowd of onlookers were offering
voluble advice.
We were eager to get through to Kashgar in four days, and to do so
called for daily marches of little short of forty miles. In the
Orient stray individuals have a way of attaching themselves to
caravans in the desire of making a journey with more security and
economy; they also enjoy the advantages of companionship, and can
sit up all night chattering and then sleep at odd moments during the
day, a practice to which the Oriental is much addicted. We still
had with us Sadi, the little Yarkandi; so far as we could find out
he was travelling around with us for amusement; he understood a
little Hindustanee and made himself useful in a thousand ways. He
was invariably bright and cheerful at the end of the longest march.
We had also a solemn Chinaman who had joined us at Shutta. He
was evidently a humorist in his way and was a source of continual
amusement. He had a very loud voice and would hop out of his araba
when any wrangle started, and they were not infrequent; with many
gesticulations and loud bellows he would champion whatever he took
to be our cause; but his entering in served only to prolong the
argument, so he would be hauled away and put back in his araba.
The trail from Maralbashi to Kashgar we found very hot and dusty.
There was much desert, some of it barren and stony, and some of it
covered with scrub-tamarisks. When you walked you sank ankle-deep in
dust; it felt as if you were treading on sponge-cake. Hair and beard
turned gray, and dust filled our bedding-rolls. We had a new moon and
toward night we would begin to enjoy the march, for desert and jungle
became mysterious and eerie by moonlight. We usually marched for
twelve or fourteen hours, unspanning for an hour or two at noonday.
At Faizabad, our halt the night before reaching Kashgar, a pleasant,
thin little Chinaman, the Amban, came to call, and greatly surprised
us by addressing us in English. He knew but a few words which he had
learned years before in Peking. He proved most considerate by staying
only a few minutes, for it was ten o’clock when we reached town and
we were ready for supper and bed.
Next morning we hired riding ponies in order to ride into
Kashgar ahead of the arabas, and while waiting for the horses
to be made ready I strolled through the bazaar; there were many
prosperous-looking shops. Hearing some singing, I loitered toward
it. A sturdy fakeer in a white-and-gold embroidered robe, with his
begging-bowl strapped to his waist, was striding along, followed
by his three sons, ranging in age from six to twelve. They were
well-set-up boys, cleanly dressed, and with snowy-white turbans.
Father and sons had nothing cringing about them, nor were they,
on the other hand, insolent; they appeared merely independent and
self-respecting. At almost every shop something was put into the
big bowl. What was most remarkable, however, was the singing; the
father sang the verse and the sons joined in the choruses. It was
totally unlike any Oriental music I have ever heard; indeed, the
whole sounded more like what Meredith describes as “one of those
majestic old Gregorian chants, that wherever you may hear them, seem
to build up cathedral walls about you.” There was a glorious swing to
it, which the father brought out, beating the cadence by the raising
and lowering of a muscular arm. I would have liked to have known the
history of the little band, but could learn nothing of it.
The muezzins were calling the faithful to prayer as we rode into
Kashgar. We were greeted by the Dotai and other Chinese officials,
who had a most elaborate tea prepared for us in a terraced garden
where stood the Dotai’s summer-house. Thence we went on to the
British Consulate, where Major and Mrs. Gillan welcomed us with an
understanding hospitality. I had known Gillan in Mesopotamia during
the war.
The bazaar in Kashgar proved far more interesting than that in
Yarkand. Thursday being market-day, the country folk thronged in
from miles around. The silk and cloth bazaar, all roofed over, was
gratefully cool. One could not help being struck with the handsome
features and dignified bearing of the venders as they sat among
their wares. The twisting alleyways of the boot bazaar were dim and
mysterious. Never have I seen so much footgear gathered into such a
small compass. The sellers were pursuing customers through the crowd,
endeavoring to persuade them to raise the purchase price which they
had offered. The hat bazaar seemed to hold enough caps to cover every
head in Turkestan; some of the caps were elaborately embroidered in
gold and fur-trimmed.
In leisurely fashion, as befitted the occasion, I wended my way
through the fruit and vegetable quarters and into the squares where
squatted the kabab-sellers, with chunks of mutton strung on small
skewers roasting over their charcoal fires. If you felt hungry you
silently selected a skewer, and, buying a piece of unleavened bread,
pulled off the meat and ate with the bread for plate. Roast ears of
corn were also popular.
It was in the job-lot bazaar that I lingered longest. Here was
spread out every imaginable thing: bits of broken iron, lovely jade
snuff-bottles, old tin cans, altar ornaments of the Buddhist faith,
long daggers with turquoise studded handles, empty cologne-bottles,
old Chinese locks, copper jugs of every shape, and a thousand and one
heterogeneous odds and ends.
At length I found my way to the Hukta, an enclosed garden in the
centre of the town, not unlike a very large patio in a South American
house. The sheltered platforms beneath the walls were crowded with
sweetmeat sellers. Under the trees there were four or five groups
listening to story-tellers. In the middle of one gathering two men
were telling a story in dialogue with much gesticulation; near by a
man was holding forth alone, but making up in vehemence for the lack
of a companion. A venerable-appearing old man was reading aloud, and
his listeners were mostly graybeards. He never raised his eyes as
I and my native followers came up, and paid no attention whatever
when one of my men peered over his shoulder to see what it was he
was reading. The fact that his listeners showed much interest in us
disturbed the tenor of his reading not a whit. Not far away another
old man was entertaining a numerous group by reading from the “Elf
Leila Wa Leila”—the “Thousand and One Nights.” In town we found
copies of this classic in Arabic, Persian, and Turki.
Within hearing of the story-tellers and in the shade cast by a row
of elms, half a dozen men were busy massaging clients. At the
invitation of a cheerful old fellow I spread myself upon his quilt,
and enjoyed an excellent massage, while a small naked child sat
beside me, occasionally joining in with a thump in emulation of the
work of his elder.
We were glad to leave Kashgar, for it meant that we were launched
on the homeward stretch with our faces toward Kashmir, but I shall
long remember the many pleasant hours we spent with our friendly
and long-suffering hosts at the Consulate, and the careless rambles
through the bazaar.
CHAPTER IX
THE PAMIRS AND THE POLI
“And now there came both mist and snow
And it grew wondrous cold.”
—COLERIDGE.
We stayed four days at Kashgar, and gathered ourselves for the last
effort of the trip—our hunt for ovis poli. Round the horns of this
great sheep, story and legend have clustered for ages. Forgotten
for six hundred years after Marco Polo first noticed him, he was
rediscovered in the late thirties of the last century by a British
officer. Since then he has been the lodestar of big-game hunters. We
could get but little late news of him. Indeed, many of those best
posted considered the ovis poli nearly extinct.
During these four days we replenished our supplies, and packed the
heads and skins to be taken out by Cutting and Cherrie. These two
were following us more slowly, collecting as they travelled. At this
point our trails finally split, as they planned to go out through
Russia.
Every one was kind and helpful. Major Gillan, the British Consul, did
all in his power to aid us. The Dotai, the Chinese Governor of the
province, also was most kind. He was a cheerful old boy with a plump,
round face like a russet apple. We exchanged the usual formal calls,
our dinner-jackets making their last appearance. Mrs. Gillan did
her best to make them moderately presentable, but they were too far
gone. In spite of her efforts, we looked like dissipated waiters in a
third-class restaurant on the Bowery.
The social round finished with a luncheon given us by the Dotai on
the day of our departure. At the luncheon were the official family
of Kashgar. The talk turned on the long-haired tiger. The Chinese
General, a fine-looking old fellow with a strong, clean-cut chin,
told us how some twenty years before, a tiger was supposed to have
jumped into an araba just outside of Maralbashi. The driver jumped
out as the tiger jumped in, evidently feeling that in this case two
was not company but a crowd. The horses then bolted and dragged the
tiger through the city and out the other side. Other stories followed
of much the same type, interesting but suggesting Munchausen rather
than George Washington. As a matter of fact, we found that none of
the company had ever seen a tiger, alive or dead, and that their
information was mere hearsay.
After the meal was over, we took off our draggled finery, put on our
hunting-clothes, and rode after our caravan. It had started off in
the morning, so we did not catch up until night.
With our pony caravan there were, as usual, two Chinese soldiers.
This time, however, they were better men, or the natives of the
country were of a higher social status, for there were no cases
of oppression with which to deal. Our head pony man was a draggled
old gray-bearded Beg, who looked like Time in a primer. He wore a
long, faded red wrapper, which flapped around his thin shanks in
the bitter mountain wind like a torn sail round spars in a gale. He
fluttered along behind the caravan like a piece of paper in a windy
city street. Last but not least was Rah Tai Koon Beg, a fat, bearded,
jolly fellow, with a bright-blue coat belted in with a yellow scarf.
Very often he rode with us and carried one of the rifles. The
rifle-sling was not long enough to suit his figure, and the rifle was
half hidden in the clothes and fat that covered his broad back.
For a couple of days we travelled through the plains. We passed from
oasis to oasis. Burned and forbidding, the desert lay between. There
was an endless succession of scrub bushes and sun-scorched rock, with
dust-devils dancing between. Time and again we passed small oases
on which the desert was marching. On their outskirts were houses
half buried in sand, and dead trees whose gray, gnarled upper limbs
alone stuck out of sand-dunes. Closer in, where the sand had not yet
conquered, were half-submerged fields and partially covered trees
whose tops were still green with leaves.
On the third day we turned due south. Soon we were among the
foot-hills. The plains of Turkestan were behind us.
Turkestan, though it has been comparatively civilized for a long
time, has changed but little in the last thousand years. The leaders
still practise mediæval directness in dealing with those they
dislike. Last year the General at Kashgar became too efficient and
raised too large an army. The Governor of Turkestan descended on
Kashgar unannounced, and the General’s head presently appeared over
one of the gates of the city.
Perhaps the most unpleasant sight we saw in this country were the
prisoners. The state considers that it has done its duty when it has
thrown them into prison. It does not provide them with food. They are
led each day to the gates of the city, chained there, and left to beg
their food from charitable passers-by. Mowing and gibbering in their
chains, their wild eyes peering from beneath their tangled black
hair, their gaunt limbs showing through the filthy rags in which they
were clothed, they were a gruesome sight.
The hills were more than welcome after the long weeks we had spent in
the plains. Bare and red, they suggested the buttes of Colorado. We
marched up the bed of a rocky stream, the trail weaving from side to
side over numerous fords. About noon we saw two men approaching on
horseback, who turned out to be Nadir Beg and the mail-runner from
India.
Nadir Beg was the native that Gillan had got us as a guide for the
ovis poli country. He was an important citizen of the town of
Tashkurgan, a fine-looking man with a light complexion, a black
beard and a hawk-like nose. He was a Sarikol, one of a people who
live in the valleys and mountains of that name. These Sarikoli,
because of their Aryan features and light complexions, are said to be
descendants of the soldiers of Alexander the Great, whose “distant
footsteps” still echo down the corridors of time in northwestern
India. In the East, where nothing is entirely forgotten, and little
remembered with accuracy, the tradition of the great Macedonian
remains as the myth of a demigod.
That evening we camped by a little Kirghiz settlement on a small
plain in the valley. The principal building was a mud-walled square
around a great cottonwood-tree. In it was bivouacked a caravan from
Tashkurgan on its way to Kashgar. The men were good-looking lean
fellows and very friendly.
Around the camp-fire we worked out our plans for the poli-hunting.
Nadir Beg said that though goolja (rams) were scarce, he had seen
a fine head shot by a Kirghiz near Subashi the previous winter. We
accordingly decided to try that point first.
For the next two days we pushed on up the river. At times the trail
was very bad. It wound along the steep sides of the mountain.
The valley narrowed into a gorge through which the stream rushed
so rapidly that fording was very difficult. A small boy, perhaps
fourteen years old, led the head pony of our caravan. At one of the
fords he fell in, but was pulled out by Nadir Beg and some of the
others. After the water had been tilted out of him he seemed all
right. His clothes, however, could not be worn wet in the bitter
cold, so he was fitted out from various surplus stores. As he was
by all odds the smallest of the party, the fit was far from good.
The final touch to his attire was given by an enormous pair of
knee-high boots which made him look, as he paddled along, like the
Puss-in-boots of the fairy-tale.
After crossing the ford where the boy fell in, I noticed the head
pony man stoop down and put a stone on a small pile that was there.
That was Tauism, or nature-worship. The people of this country
are nominally Mohammedans, but, like most people who live in the
lonely places of the world, their religion is largely overlaid with
primitive nature-worship. Wherever there was a bad ford we saw these
piles of rocks. At times we saw trees with bits of rag or paper
fluttering from their branches.
At one place we were delayed many hours because a part of a bridge
had been destroyed. Before we could get the caravan over, we had to
rebuild much of the road. Even then it took the efforts of three or
four men, pushing and pulling, to get each pack-pony across. Just
beyond, on the other side of the river, there were holes sunk in the
rocks. I asked Nadir Beg what they were. He told me they were the
remains of a bridge built in Yakoob Beg’s time. Yakoob Beg was a very
competent Mohammedan who headed a successful revolt some sixty or
seventy years ago. He ruled in Turkestan for a number of years. It
was only after his death that China regained her control. I noticed
that improvements and public works were very often credited to him by
the natives. It would seem that he must have been a very able man,
but perhaps it is only a case of the far hills being the greenest.
As we wound our way along, we met an occasional caravan moving toward
the plains. The men were generally so bundled up that they looked
like animated bolsters. A number of times we noticed poli-skins,
either on their saddles or covering their bales. This encouraged us
very much. When we questioned them they told us that these were the
skins of arkal (female sheep) from both the Chinese and the Russian
Pamirs.
Sometimes we came on great woolly Bactrian camels, which lifted
their heads from their grazing and eyed us incuriously. They were in
splendid shape, fat and strong. It was a constant source of wonder to
us that these great animals were able to keep in such good condition
feeding on the withered bushes and scant dry grass of the country.
Here we saw a type of shelter we had not seen before, a mud-and-stone
yourt. The bottom was built of rough rocks, the top was of dry clay.
Generally they clustered in the lee of some large rock, like chickens
around a hen.
One bitter cold morning Loosa brought in a small gray mouse
that he had caught in his hands. It was a new species so Kermit
conscientiously skinned it, though skinning is far from pleasant when
the steel cleaves to your hands from cold.
One afternoon as we were riding along we noticed a hawk pursuing
a large blue rock pigeon. The latter took refuge in a hole in a
crumbling mud-bank by the side of the trail. Nadir Beg and Fezildin
galloped up, and a chase for the pigeon started. They scrambled down
and tried to catch it by reaching into the hole where it had gone. It
was really very heavy odds, for whenever they scared the pigeon out
of the hole the hawk would swoop at it. At last, I am glad to say,
it got off scot-free, eluding all pursuers bird and man alike, and
disappeared behind a cliff.
It had now begun to be bitterly cold. The snow lay thick on the
mountains. Snow flurries and sleet-storms swept across the valley
nearly every afternoon. The wind blew with gusty fury. At night the
tin cup of water that Kermit and I had left between us in the tent
froze solid. As the trees and large bushes had all disappeared, our
fires consisted nearly entirely of yak dung, with occasionally a few
scrub-bush roots called burtsa by the natives. Yak dung burns with a
pungent odor that is rather pleasant. It serves only for cooking, and
does not warm you when the weather is really cold. It is one thing
to camp in our own North woods where fuel is plentiful, and where,
when the hunter comes in chilled and tired, he builds a roaring fire
of birch and pine; but it is a very different matter in the Pamirs,
when he arrives in camp to no fire at all. We went to bed immediately
after getting to camp, for it was the only place where we could be
reasonably comfortable. Even there all we could do was to lie still
and think, for it was too cold to hold a book even if a candle could
be kept alight in the wind. Getting up in the gray light of early
morning was also far from pleasant. Everything was frozen. Very often
the snow was deep outside of the tent. Every piece of clothing was
damp and cold. As time wore on, we took off less and less when we
went to bed, until the phrase “undressed for the night” might better
have been changed to “dressed for the night.”
The evening of the fourth day out we reached Bulun Lake. Our caravan
had been travelling very slowly, and we had decided to speed it up.
Accordingly, we marched ahead and told the leaders not to stop until
they caught up with us. We reached the lake just before dusk. There
was but little water in it. Indeed, it consisted mainly of sand-bars
with shallow channels between. At sunset the brown of the sand, set
off by the shining winding strips of water, made the whole seem like
some gigantic plaque of bronze inlaid with silver.
It was after dark when we reached the small settlement that goes
by the name of Bulun. In the gloom we saw the shadowy shape of a
square, half-ruined mud fort, with a few yourts clustered around it.
After much chattering of shadowy figures that flitted through the
dark, we got off, and were shown into one of the yourts to await the
arrival of the caravan now well behind us.
Inside the yourt a Kirghiz family was gathered around the dung fire,
which cast a glow rather than a light upon them. There were the man,
his wife, a rather handsome, worn woman, and three brown, bright-eyed
children, who sat as quiet as little mice. The air was so filled with
smoke that it was almost impossible to keep our eyes open. This is
the way these Kirghiz must spend fully twelve to fourteen hours a day
through many of the winter months. There was neither room nor light
in the yourt to do anything. I do not believe they think much, so
like the North country farmer, I suppose they “just set.”
We and our men crowded in, completely filling the yourt. We were very
grateful for the shelter from the wind, and the comparative warmth
from the huddled humanity and the tiny fire. When the caravan arrived
some hours later, we were sorry to have to go to our flimsy canvas
tent.
Next morning we were up at daylight. The lake was cupped by
snow-covered hills. Frost lay heavily on the brown sparse grass.
Suddenly, through a gap in the mountain wall, a great level ray of
sunlight fell, painting the low-lying clouds gold. A flock of ducks
flew over, their wings flickering in the golden morning light.
While the cold-stiffened ponies were being caught and loaded, I
noticed the old, white-bearded Beg in charge of the pony-train
standing near a building around which swallows were flying.
Unexpectedly he stretched out his hand and caught one as it flew
by. He looked at it for a second and then threw it into the air,
and away it sailed. Though these swallows swooped very close to me,
it would have been impossible for me to have duplicated his feat.
Unfortunately, as our ability to communicate with the natives was, to
put it mildly, limited, I was unable to find out whether this was the
first time he had done anything of the sort, or whether he was in the
habit of doing it.
We marched to the Little Kara Kul, where, after talking with the
natives, we decided to stop and hunt for a day. The village of
Little Kara Kul consisted of a stone karal in which are three or
four yourts. We were now in the land of the yak again, and the great
shaggy beasts grunted and shuffled around our tent all night.
A yak is not an uncomfortable animal to ride, but patience is
necessary. He goes very slowly though his gait is reasonably smooth,
and he always gets there. Also, he goes over the most impossible
country imaginable about as fast as he goes over level ground.
He plods unconcernedly through snow up to his belly, or up a
boulder-strewn slope of forty-five degrees. He moves over obstacles
with the same deliberate unconcern with which I have seen a tank in
the war negotiate a shell-hole. He is guided with a rope through
his nostrils, and steers like a dray. He blows like a porpoise,
keeps his mouth open a large part of the time, and lolls a long
anteater-like tongue from side to side. I have seen a small icicle
form from the saliva on the tip of his tongue, but could not see that
it inconvenienced him at all. Once we rode our yaks into a valley
where there was a herd of the same animals. The beast I was riding
began to give curious throaty bellows. The old bulls of the herd at
once waltzed up, holding their tails in the air like feather dusters.
They made no attempt to attack, but played around us like ungainly
puppies. There were dust wallows near by in which the great shaggy
creatures would lie and roll.
[Illustration: KICHIK KARA KUL]
[Illustration: AN EARLY MORNING START AFTER OVIS POLI]
When we got up next morning it was bitterly cold. The sky was the
monotonous gray of winter. Everything was white from a light snow.
After a hurried breakfast, we started for the hunting-grounds,
mounted on yaks. Their black woolly backs were incrusted with frost.
On the first lake we passed a flock of geese settled, spiralling
down from the sky with a musical honking. They stood in a row on a
sand-bar like sentinels. The next lake was frozen except at one
end. In the open water were myriads of ducks and geese. As we came
up they rose into the air with a sound like ocean surf on a shingle
beach.
It was typical Pamir country, sandy valleys dotted with tufts of
dried grass, and snow-covered hills and mountains. For so barren
a country there was a surprising amount of wild life. We saw
snow-buntings, pigeons, vultures, and hawks. There were many tracks
across the snow. I noticed much wolf sign, tracks of marmots, tracks
like those of some small cat, and the trail where a little mouse
had run hither and yon, dragging its tail in the snow, evidently in
search of roots. We flushed four or five large hares which loped off
with deceptive speed. To the latter Kermit and I, mindful of the old
Southern custom, solemnly took off our caps in order that we might
have luck with the poli.
As we were plodding along, Khalil jumped off his yak, calling out
“goolja!” and pointing to a slope some 600 yards away. Along it were
running two small poli rams, with horns about twenty inches long.
They were too small to shoot, but it gave us a thrill to see the ovis
poli in the flesh for the first time. Though they had seen us they
seemed but little frightened, and, cantering gently up the slope,
disappeared over the crest. They were very handsome with their gray
backs and white chests and legs.
Shortly after this we separated, Kermit going to the left and I to
the right. Only a few moments after I left him I saw some animals
among the rocks about 700 yards away. After studying them with the
field-glasses, I found them to be six female poli with four young.
Our first care was for the males, so we left them undisturbed, and
hunted up a nullah to one side. We found nothing and worked our way
back in the hope that some male poli had joined the females. None
had, and, as we wished to hunt the country beyond, we walked toward
them over a great snow-bank. They soon saw us and cantered gracefully
away over the mountain. We then plodded through the deep snow to the
crest of a saddle. Again we saw females but no males. We tramped
along the ridges without success until dusk began to fall. Two native
hunters were with us. They seemed to tire quicker than either Rahima
or I, and at intervals protested that the hunting should end for the
day. Just as the sun was setting we caught a glimpse of Kermit, who
was following the same tactics with the same lack of success. He and
his shikaries showed up as tiny black dots against the white of the
opposite mountain crest. Night fell as it falls in the mountains,
suddenly. The shadows lengthened, and we found ourselves in the cold
darkness. Far across the valley white mountains still blazed in a
golden light. Ten minutes more and night closed like an extinguisher
over all. Kermit and I met in the valley and rode to camp together.
As we passed the lakes, we heard from the black the querulous
quacking of the ducks who had settled there again.
On the whole we were not discouraged by the day’s work, for though we
had seen no good heads, we had seen enough females and young to make
us reasonably certain that there were some mature males near by. That
evening, after talking with the natives in camp, we decided that the
ravines we had hunted that day contained no mature rams and agreed to
move to Subashi the next day. Accordingly, we sent a native forward
that night to look the country over with a pair of our binoculars and
to report when we arrived there.
We got to Subashi about one o’clock the following day. It was a
valley with a little stream in the centre from which the land sloped
up rather abruptly to surrounding hills. The ground was sandy, the
vegetation sparse, but camels, sheep, and yaks seemed to be able to
eke out a reasonable existence there. As it was evidently a place
where there was no room for two separate guns, we decided to hunt
together. Twice on our way up the valley we saw herds of female and
young poli on the hillsides.
Soon we met the “jungli wallah” sent out the night before. He was in
a state of great excitement. He told us that he had found a herd of
eight goolja. We were delighted, and pushed forward cautiously to
a point where the nullah forked. With our field-glasses we could
just see them lying among some rocks toward the end of the right
branch. The ravine, where the poli were, ended in some stiff-looking
mountains. The left fork, slightly longer, ended near a divide beyond
which lay the Russian Pamirs. Between the two branches was a high
ridge of slide rock covered with snow.
Two stalks were possible, neither good; one over the top of the
mountain on the extreme right, the other up the left nullah and over
the dividing ridge. We chose the latter, for we were afraid we would
not have time to complete the former. After riding a short way up the
nullah, we left our horses and started climbing. As we approached the
foot of the hill a very handsome red fox jumped up and trotted off.
We wanted it for our collections, but did not shoot at it for fear
of scaring off our poli. Somehow in hunting this very often happens.
Smaller game always seems to show up during a stalk for big game.
[Illustration: A 53-INCH OVIS POLI]
The hill was a steep one. We zigzagged to and fro, floundering in
snow and slipping on rock. The altitude was high, over 16,000 feet,
and it cut our breath badly. At last, after an hour and a half of
hard work, we reached the summit and peered over. To our sorrow we
found that the poli, for some reason unknown to us, had moved and
were slowly filing up a shoulder nearly 800 yards away. They were not
really frightened, they were apprehensive. As it was now four-thirty,
and there was no chance to try another stalk, we settled ourselves
on the ridge for what Rahima called a “lookum see.” Through the
field-glasses and telescopes we could see the sheep plainly. They
were very handsome as they stepped delicately along, now stooping
to nibble a tuft of grass, now halting to glance around and sniff
the wind. Occasionally one would clamber on a rock and stand
sentinel-like, his head thrown back until the massive spiral horns
seemed to rest upon his shoulders. Standing thus they looked like the
very spirit of the mountains. We studied them carefully. They were
eight in number. Six had horns about forty-five inches in length. Two
were splendid animals with horns measuring fifty or better.
A knife-like wind had risen and we were getting the full force of it.
To make the climb we had stripped off our heavy coats. We were soaked
with sweat and were soon chilled through and through. Every one was
shivering. It was hard to hold the telescope steadily enough to see
the game. Kermit and I agreed that if we had had to shoot then, we
would have been as likely to hit the moon as a poli. In spite of
this, we stayed until almost dark in order to mark down where our
game stopped.
Through the dusk we plodded down the hill. When we reached the foot,
we saw down the valley the red glow of some yak-dung camp-fires. This
at once explained the behavior of the rams. Our caravan had moved up
to where the valley forked, and were in plain sight of the heights
where the poli had been. Cold, weary, and rather disconsolate, we
made our way to camp, determined to start again early next morning.
All night long the wind blew down the valley, singing and whistling
around our camp. Our light canvas tent bellied in the wind, and time
and again we thought it would blow over. The cold from the ground
came right through our bedding-rolls. Toward midnight it began to
snow, and fine powdery flakes whirled in on us. I had my shoes in bed
with me to prevent them freezing stiff.
At 4.30 A. M. we got up. The snow had stopped, but the whole country
was sheeted in white. We pulled on with numb fingers, the few clothes
we had taken off, gulped down some coffee, and started up the nullah
where we had last seen the animals. Soon day began to break. A
cold, steely-gray sky, heavy with unshed snows, arched over us. We
dismounted and walked, partly from caution, partly because it was too
cold to ride even clothed as we were.
About six o’clock we saw our game. Unfortunately, one of the men had
turned a bend of the ravine too quickly and they had glimpsed him.
Again they were not frightened but only apprehensive, and they made
off slowly across the end of the valley and up the steep slope of
the mountain. We lay still and watched. At last they breasted the
crest, showed for a moment outlined against the sky, and one by one
disappeared on the other side.
As soon as they were out of sight we started to follow them. One
of the Kirghiz was sent back with our yaks, while Kermit, Rahima,
Khalil, a local hunter, and I tramped ahead. It was about half past
six. At first the way was only moderately steep. Then it changed and
we had to climb. We floundered through snow-drifts waist-deep on
slopes where it was difficult to believe snow could rest. We climbed
over shoulders of rock where the loose shale under its white covering
made every step a slip.
The altitude rapidly increased, and soon we were at least 17,000
feet high. We snatched gasping at every mouthful of thin air. When
we stopped to rest I threw myself flat, though Kermit only seemed
to need to lean on his stick. About eight we reached the crest. Our
hopes were high, for we felt from the way the poli were travelling
they might be just the other side. Very cautiously we worked our way
up to some jutting rocks and looked over. We saw nothing. By this
time the sun was shining. After looking around for ten or fifteen
minutes, the shikaries decided that they had gone beyond the next
range, and suggested that we start down the slope. Fortunately, at
this moment Kermit picked them up with the field-glasses. They were
on the opposite side of the valley, perhaps a mile away, lying on a
patch of snow. Had we gone down the slope, they surely would have
seen us and run off.
With the wind as it was, only one stalk was possible. This entailed
about five miles as the crow flies, during which we crossed two
mountains and numerous spurs. The stalk began at once. We struggled
across snow-banks many feet deep; we zigzagged over rock drifts; we
stumbled through corries where the snow concealed deep holes between
boulders into which we fell. We climbed hand over hand up rock
shoulders. At one place Kermit and I tobogganed down a steep snow
slope and nearly started a snowslide.
The sun on the snow had made a heavy mist that hung curtain-wise
across the valley. At last we reached a little ravine flanked by a
steep ridge from which we felt we would get a shot at our game. Up
the slope we toiled, looking about for the poli. It was a hard task,
for we had to snatch moments when gaps occurred in the mist as it
rolled by before the wind. We had sweated heavily and our clothes
were drenched. Now the knife-like wind cut us to the bone. More than
six hours had passed while we were climbing. In the beginning I had
consistently brought up the rear of the column, but toward the end,
one of the shikaries and the “jungli wallahs” dropped behind me.
After watching carefully for about twenty minutes, we made sure the
rams were not where we had last seen them. As Rahima put it, we
were “very mad-going,” for we had labored mightily on this stalk.
Suddenly the fog began to thin, shredded away, and we saw the sheep
opposite us in the Russian Pamirs. They were perhaps 700 yards
distant, but, as we were in plain sight on a snow-drift, we lay quite
still. It looked as if we were doomed to “the long day’s patience,
belly down on frozen drift,” when a cloud drifted up, and under cover
of the dim light we were able to crawl cautiously out of sight. We
started at once for a point nearer our quarry. The clouds began to
bank over us in real earnest.
When we had reached a position somewhere between three or four
hundred yards from the rams, we realized that a snow-storm, sweeping
up the valley, would be on us in a very few minutes, and make
shooting impossible. It was now or never. I had won the first shot,
so settling myself very carefully in the snow I fired at the animal
which seemed to me to present the best target. Kermit immediately
followed suit. At the crack of the rifles the rams were up and away,
but we thought our shots had hit. Fortunately they did not know where
we were, and headed back in our general direction toward the Chinese
Pamirs.
Running as hard as we could over the snow, we came to a point which
would give us a clear view of them when they passed. I had snatched
off my gloves to get a better grip on the rifle, and now my hands
were so cold that I could not feel the trigger. Suddenly the sheep
came into view from behind a huge buttress of rock. They were in
single file, the big rams leading. They were about 250 yards away,
going at a plunging canter through the drifts. Their great spiral
horns flared out magnificently, their heads were held high. Every
line was clear cut against the white of the snow.
We began firing at once at the two leaders. First one and then the
other staggered and lost his place in the line. Though hard hit, they
pulled themselves together, joined the herd, and all disappeared
over a near-by ridge. Clutching our rifles, we stumbled after them.
When we reached the trail we found blood-stains. We put every ounce
of strength we had into the chase, for these were the trophies we
had travelled 12,000 miles to get. The going was very bad. Every
few steps we floundered arm-pit deep in the snow. It was like the
foot-tied race of a nightmare. Try as we would, we could not make
time. Suddenly the wind rose, snow began to drift down, and the trail
was blotted out in the swirling white of the storm. We could do no
more and had to give up and make for camp.
Working our way down to the valley we found our yaks, so frosted
with snow that they looked like animated birthday-cakes. The two
native hunters with them had seen the rams cross the ridge and were
confident they were mortally wounded. They felt sure we would find
them next day if the storm did not obliterate their trails. This was
but poor comfort, as a blizzard was then raging, and even if we were
lucky enough to find the sheep the wolves would have destroyed the
body skins. From the sportsman’s standpoint, of course, the great
horns are the trophy, but for mounting in the museum the whole skin
is necessary.
It was growing late. Thoroughly tired out we rode back through the
storm to camp. The snow drifted in stinging particles against our
faces. It was a moment when we fully appreciated the beards we had
grown. Though far from ornamental they were a great protection. When
we got to our tent they were stiff and heavy with snow and ice. After
as hot a supper as we could get, we rolled up in our bedding. Storm
or shine, we made up our minds to be off early next morning to the
point where we had last seen our poli.
In the gray dawn we were up again. The storm had blown over during
the night. Stars were glittering coldly over the white mountains.
On our grunting yaks we plodded up the valley to the scene of
yesterday’s stalk. When we arrived the sun was just rising. Its rays,
as they came through the mountain clefts, struck the snow slantwise
and gave it a queer, unreal, coppery glow. The wind had blown much of
last night’s fall clear of the mountain slope in front of us. There
we could see fragments of the poli trail which led up and over the
crest.
The one thing to do was to follow the trail. Here we struck an
unexpected snag. Two of the three Kirghiz with us said that the
slope ahead was too dangerous to climb, because we would almost
certainly be caught in a snowslide. As these men had had a hard time
the previous day, we felt that in this case their wish was father to
their thought. Though the mountain looked steep and high, we insisted
that the climb could be made.
Rahima Loon was really tired, so we left him with the yaks and began
climbing. Our party consisted of Kermit, myself, Khalil, and three
jungli wallahs, one of whom was as game as a bantam, while the other
two were very sad. For four hours we plodded in zigzags up through
the snow. It was back-breaking work. The trail had to be broken
through drifts four to eight feet deep. The altitude was high, the
air thin, and when at last we panted to the top we looked as if we
had been in a Turkish bath.
On the other side of the ridge stretched a wide valley. It was seamed
with rocky spurs from the surrounding mountains. The snow lay thick
and undisturbed, for this side was sheltered from the wind which had
swept the slope up which we had climbed. We could see no tracks,
though we searched the country with our field-glasses for a long
while. The animals might be lying dead behind any one of a thousand
rocky shoulders, or be covered with snow.
The wind blew colder and colder. Even the Kirghiz huddled shivering
in the lee of some rocks. Apparently the poli were hopelessly lost.
Of the party, all shared our view but the cheerful “jungli wallah.”
He said he thought he stood a chance of finding them by circling back
and up the valley into which we were looking. By so doing he could
look up the ravines that ran down from the mountains. He said also
that he hoped to mark them by wolf-tracks.
As there seemed little else to do we told him to go ahead, though we
had but little faith in the result. Tramping down the slope again we
reached camp in the late afternoon, very downhearted.
The “jungli wallah” followed out his plan. He went up the other
valley, and, with some field-glasses we had lent him, studied the
country. He saw seven wolves near the head of a small ravine and knew
at once that one of our rams lay there. Going there he found not
one, but two. The sheep had lain down close together after passing
the ridge, and had died during the night. They were the two leaders
and had fine heads. The horns of one measured fifty-one and a half
inches, and the other forty-nine and a half. He brought them into
camp late in the evening. We were delighted. They were our first poli
and had good heads.
Though the wolves had served us well by making it possible for us to
find our game, they had, as we feared, completely destroyed the body
skins which made the rams of little value for exhibition purposes in
the museum.
We had, of course, to get mountable specimens not only of adult males
but of females and young males. If, however, we were not fortunate
enough to get adult males with large heads, these big heads could be
mounted on body skins of animals who were adult but whose horns were
smaller.
There seemed to be no more poli in this nullah, so we decided to
move our camp. We marched during the morning over the desolate plain
which stretches south from the Little Kara Kul. To east of us towered
Mustagh Ata in all the majesty of his 24,000 feet. Before us rose
occasional flocks of gray snow-birds that flitted away like dead
leaves before a November wind.
About noon we came to the village of Kara Su. Like the other Pamir
villages which figure in bold type on the maps, it consists of four
or five yourts. It lies at the foot of the valley of that name which
leads, after four or five miles, over a low pass into the Russian
Pamirs. Here the news we heard from the natives made us feel that
this would be a good place to hunt. Moreover, the Russian Pamirs
where we decided the poli would be were so close at hand that we were
able to camp in the village. This had the real advantage of giving us
a yourt to live in, which far outstrips a six-by-nine canvas tent as
a winter residence in the Pamirs.
The inhabitants of Kara Su were very friendly. They came and squatted
around our fire and nodded and smiled at us. We particularly liked
one small boy. He was clothed in a single cotton wrapper-like
garment. Just what its function was we could not decide. It certainly
was not ornamental, for if dropped among the refuse by the yourt it
could have been distinguished only with difficulty. It could not have
been worn for warmth, as it was of the flimsiest material. Nor was
it prescribed by modesty, for when standing by the fire the little
fellow generally wound it around his neck and toasted his bare brown
body before the coals. He was very friendly and cheerful, and much
delighted by an empty tobacco tin and some colored buttons that we
gave him.
As soon as we had made up our minds to camp at Kara Su, we left
word for the caravan to stop at the yourts, and we started for the
hunting-grounds. Our way up the valley of the Kara Su led through
heavy sand and snow-drifts. The going was so bad and the altitude
so high that the ponies we were riding were thoroughly blown, and
we longed for yaks. At the end of about two hours we came to the
pass, a low, sandy, wind-swept ridge. Beyond stretched rolling hills
separated by barren valleys.
Almost immediately after we crossed the divide, one of the Kirghiz
made out a herd of poli feeding on the dry grass-tufts in one of the
bottoms. A short easy stalk brought us to a point above them on the
hillside.
Something had alarmed them, and they were making off at a decorous
canter across the valley. The herd was composed of young males and
females. We wanted one or more of each for the museum so we fired,
killing one and hitting two others. The herd broke into a gallop and
disappeared. We trotted across the valley, and found that the animal
we had killed was a young male. Leaving Khalil to skin him we started
on the trail of the wounded. About a quarter of a mile farther we
came to where another had broken off from the herd, and was lying
down in a small ravine. I followed this animal, and Kermit went off
on the remaining spoor.
When I got up to where the game was, I found it to be an adult
female. Rahima was with me and together we skinned it. Here the
balance of the party caught up with us, bringing the skin of the
young male and the ponies. The first Kirghiz to arrive I sent off
after Kermit with one of the horses. By the time we had finished it
was dark and there was no sign of Kermit. I was worried, because
to be benighted on the Pamirs at this time of year, in the intense
cold, with the bitter storms that sweep them, is a very serious
matter. The men were tired and far more philosophical as a result.
“Kermit Sahib get back to camp, God give it,” was their view of the
situation. I explained that this placid attitude would not do, and
organized search-parties. Taking our two shikaries with me, I sent
out the Kirghiz who knew the country by themselves. In this latter
disposition I made a mistake, for I found later that after letting a
couple of whoops and getting no answer, they decided that their duty
was done and returned to camp. The two shikaries and I rode up to the
crest of the mountain and along it. Every few minutes we called but
got no response. At last we found a trail through the snow leading
back toward camp. We judged this was Kermit’s and abandoned our
search.
Arriving in camp at eight-thirty we found that Kermit had come in an
hour earlier. It looked like waste effort, but in early winter in the
Pamirs it does not pay to take a chance.
Next morning at three o’clock we were up and off again. Both of us
were shivering cold in spite of wearing nearly everything we had. I
felt much like the man in “The Hunting of the Snark,” who wore seven
coats and three pair of boots. We had changed our ponies for yaks,
which made us much more comfortable. Work such as we had had the day
before would have been play to a yak.
Before dawn we were on the hunting-grounds and had selected a point
of vantage. There we waited huddled up in our coats, while black
turned to gray, gray to pink, and the first rays of sunlight struck
across the hills. Through our glasses we picked up herds of females
in several places, but no adult males. Two or three times we thought
we saw rams, but each time a close scrutiny proved that we had
been mistaken. We changed our position a half a dozen times without
result. Once we did see two small rams trotting over a hill-crest,
but though we followed them we could not find where they went.
At last about noon we made out in a valley a large herd of females,
and near them four rams. After studying the latter our men said they
had heads measuring forty inches or better. We could see that they
were adults. They were strolling leisurely along the slope toward
the head of a ravine. As usual the wind was wrong, and we had to
make a long détour to head them off. By the time we had done so, and
reached the point where we had planned to intercept them, they had
disappeared. Though we looked as carefully as we could, we could find
no sign of them. Also the snow was too much marked with trails, old
and new, to help us. We held a council of war and decided that the
sheep must have gone up the ravine.
We made another détour, and climbed the ridge again. Our judgment
proved correct, for here Khalil picked up the sheep lying among some
rocks still farther toward the head of the valley. Again we climbed
through the snow and rock for a mile or so. Crossing the ridge, we
worked down a little rocky shoulder just above where we believed
the poli were lying. We could not see them and thought they had
moved again. We started down the ridge. Suddenly one of the native
Kirghiz, who was with Kermit on the left, called out that he saw them.
There was no time to lose for the sheep had seen us and were running.
Kermit started shooting at once and, as I came running up, dropped
one. A few seconds later I hit another who rolled down the steep
slope like an enormous rabbit. We knocked over a third, but he picked
himself up again and went off.
We scrambled down the steep hillside, and found to our disappointment
that the horns of Kermit’s animal were just short of forty inches,
and mine still smaller. They were, however, adults in body, and the
skins could be used by the museum for mounting the two large heads.
Kermit went with Khalil to look for the trail of the wounded ram.
Rahima and I started to measure and skin the two dead animals. While
we were doing so a Kirghiz man, a little Kirghiz boy, and a very
large yellow dog came up and joined us. Forgetting that they were
Mohammedans, and that the meat was unclean because the animals had
not been “hallaled” before death, I told them they could have some.
Here in the back mountains where food is scarce, religious precepts
were not so strict. They solemnly cut the throats of the long-dead
carcass and sawed off great chunks of meat, which they carried away.
By the time we were well started on our work, the yaks came plodding
solemnly over the hillside, led by the man with whom we had left
them. Many hands proverbially make light work. With his help we had
the skins off and the trophies slung over the yaks, when Kermit and
Khalil came back to say that the blood-trail of the wounded ram had
been lost in a corrie of rocks.
The sky had become cloudy and overcast. The forbidding gray of an
approaching snow-storm arched over us. The natives had been hurrying
as rapidly as they could, casting apprehensive glances at the
gathering clouds. We mounted and started for camp.
A short distance up the valley a debate took place between the two
Kirghiz. One wished to go back the way we came. The other wanted to
take a short cut over a mountain and try to get to camp before the
storm broke. The latter triumphed and we started to zigzag up a steep
slope. Every hundred yards the snow became deeper, until when we
reached the top it was up to the bellies of the yaks. At just this
moment the storm broke on us like a blizzard on the Montana plains.
The wind shrieked by with such force that we could lean against
it. The snow whirled down in blinding clouds. It penetrated every
crack and cranny of our clothes. I could just make out Kermit’s
yak a few yards in front of me. One of the Kirghiz dismounted and
stumbled ahead on foot. Even these natives lost their bearings. We
plunged through banks of snow and over concealed boulders. The
great yaks, white-crusted until they looked like moving snow-drifts,
plodded sturdily along. They crossed obstacles with the even calm of
caterpillar-tractors. Once we saw huddled under the lee of a rock
some ramchukor, the snow drifting in eddies around them. At last
after an hour’s work, we suddenly found ourselves on the brink of a
steep slope. The Kirghiz recognized it. Down it we slipped and slid
to the comparative shelter of the valley. In another hour we were
back at our yourt.
We had our sportsman’s trophies, the two big heads. We had our group
of poli for the museum. The essential part of our work with the poli
was done. We stood around the small fire in the yourt, the melting
ice and snow dripping from our beards and clothes. Rahima, who had a
healthy respect for winter in the Pamirs and passes of the Himalayas,
summed up his views by saying:
“All right, good morning, going!”
CHAPTER X
ACROSS THE WINTRY HIMALAYAN PASSES BACK TO KASHMIR
Leaving Karasu, we marched through a barren and desolate countryside
to Tagharma, in the Sarikol Pamirs. One feels that it is a very old
land, but there is little tangible evidence of its antiquity. The
mud-daubed stone houses of the villages are probably the counterparts
of those that stood here two thousand years ago; no doubt many of the
rocks used in the buildings are identical, but there is nothing to
tell one so. Everything of man’s handiwork has taken on the ageless
dun hue of the desert. On some big boulders near where we made our
noonday halt, there were scratched rough likenesses of the ovis poli.
Tagharma might claim title as an oasis because of the presence of a
few straggling willow-trees. Here the Rajah of Sarikol came to meet
us, a pleasant-appearing boy clad in a tunic of purple plush. His
retainers were a fierce-eyed, hawk-featured set; totally unlike our
Kirghiz friends in bearing and physique. Some travellers credit this
obvious Aryan race to Alexander the Great’s expeditionary force,
which must have been marvellously prolific if all the isolated Aryan
tribes found throughout this part of the Himalayas are really from
remnants of that army.
Next morning we rode in to Tashkurghan, running the gauntlet of a
series of refreshment booths set out for us by hospitable Beys.
Rustum Bey was the first to halt us and escort us into the dried
mud shelter in which he had spread carpets for our reception. Here
we drank the inevitable tea of ceremony from the grimy china bowls,
and ate a few nuts and watermelon seeds. We had already taken an
early tiffin in order to leave us free to start immediately on our
bundobust when we should arrive at Tashkurghan, so at each additional
gathering we dreaded still further the drinking and eating which the
acceptance of the courtesy would call for.
Last of all out rode the Amban, and of a truth “the nightmare Life
in Death was he.” It seemed impossible that he could sit upon his
horse unsupported, so emaciated was he. His skin was drawn tight over
his features, like old yellow parchment. The guard that accompanied
him was the most motley troop that I have ever in my wanderings come
across. In comparison with it, the raggedest group of South American
insurrectos would have appeared like a battalion of West Point cadets.
Tashkurghan has had a long and eventful history, but little remains
to show for it. It is mentioned in Ptolemy’s “Geography,” and way
before the days of Marco Polo it was a centre where the trade from
the Far East met that of Persia. The ruins of the ancient stone fort
(Tash—stone, kurghan—fort) can still be traced; the Amban inhabits
the modern one. Probably most of the material in the new fort was
originally used in the old. The bazaar is a single street a hundred
yards long, boasting perhaps six shops. The sentiments of Thangbrand,
Olaf’s priest, kept running through my mind, but, profiting by his
difficulties, I did not say:
“What’s the use
Of this boasting up and down,
When three women and a goose
Make a market in your town?”
The old gray-bearded Aksakal quartered us in his house, which stood
in what was the most extensive and attractive garden in town—there
were four small trees in it. Tashkurghan is Nadir Beg’s home, and he
brought to see us his small son, an attractive alert boy of eight.
The Aksakal had six or seven children, one of whom, a round-eyed
youngster of some four summers, was quite evidently his favorite. He
was a solemn little fellow, and took deep interest in everything that
we did, following us about with great dignity. We gave him a store of
treasures in the shape of large red and green buttons, empty tobacco
tins, and other odds and ends.
We had decided that Tashkurghan would be the best place at which to
make the final cuts in our equipment before starting back across the
passes to Kashmir. Of necessity, having no idea how long we would
have to spend in the Pamirs after ovis poli, we had brought with us
from Kashgar a certain amount of surplus equipment. Now that we had
secured the group of the great sheep, we determined to put in only
two more hunting days. If fortune favored us and we got a couple more
rams, so much the better, but our followers seemed so apprehensive
of the snow-covered passes ahead that we did not feel justified in
spending much additional time on the Pamirs.
The process of cutting down was not accomplished without considerable
effort. The Oriental has strongly embedded in him the habit of
acquisition. If you throw anything away, it is ten to one that some
one of your servants will salvage it, no matter how utterly useless
it may be. Thus you will find that your endeavor to lighten loads
has merely meant a redistribution. Ted and I finally adopted the
principle of presenting anything that we no longer required, and
which we knew could be of no service to our men, to some needy or
deserving native. Vigilance could not invariably be relaxed even
then, for the gift might be requisitioned from its new owner.
The time had come when we no longer needed the evening clothes which
had served us so well for our ceremonial calls upon the Ambans of
Turkestan. Nadir Beg fell heir to mine, but Ted’s was kept and
presented to a follower of the Mir of Hunza, who made himself
particularly useful to us.
Occasionally we hid our lesser belongings as a sort of Easter-egg
hunt for the inhabitants of some village where we had spent the
night. In this way I concealed in the felt lining of a yourt in which
we had slept an old pair of cotton pajamas. It so happened, however,
that the yourt was dismantled upon our departure, and we had not gone
many miles before a Sarikuli came galloping after us, waving the
discarded pajamas. Still, in one way or another, our efforts were
crowned with success, for when we started down the Hunza we had only
twelve pony-loads all told, and among them were comprised six ovis
poli skins and eight heads.
After much consultation Rahima advised Payik Nullah as the most
profitable place to put in our last days after poli. The new caravan
which we had engaged in Kashgar had proved to be far and away
the least efficient of any of the caravans we had had. They were
hopelessly dilatory in getting under weigh in the mornings, and
marched at a snail’s pace when once they did get going. We hoped that
by making good marches and letting them come in after dark, we could
give them a practical lesson in the advantages of early starting and
steady marching. We explained this principle to them on the first
evening on which they came in, complaining and groaning, in the cold
and dark, but they were apparently hopelessly shiftless, and unable
to profit by even the most practical illustrations.
We determined, therefore, to give our slow-moving caravan the
advantage of the last days’ hunting, and by sending it on ahead we
hoped that it would reach Misgar before us. We were most fortunate
in having the very efficient Nadir Beg with us, for in putting him
in charge of this advance caravan, we knew that it would be capably
managed.
The first night out from Tashkurghan we halted at Jurgal Gumbaz,
and on the second at Jayloo, where we found a most welcome stone
hut in which we waited snugly for the shiftless caravan, instead of
shivering under the shelter of a rock, as we had anticipated.
A couple of hours’ marching next morning brought us to Payik Karaul,
and here, with a few horses bearing our bedding and food, we left
the main road. We followed up Payik Nullah for some fifteen miles,
until we came to where the yourts of Daoud Beg were pitched. He had
come to Tashkurghan to meet us, and his nephew Palang was reputed,
and rightly so, to be the best shikarry around. We had brought no
tent, but a roomy yourt in which a fire of yak dung burned proved far
superior to any tent. Daoud Beg’s numerous offspring crowded in to
look the strangers over, and on them we bestowed the gaudy buttons
which we always carried in our pockets to serve on such occasions.
Before daylight next morning Loosu brought us in the two cups of tea
that form chota hazri (little breakfast) and, inspirited by them,
we reluctantly crawled out of our warm bedding-rolls. Our saddles
had been put on yaks, for we had some steep and rocky climbing ahead
of us. The shaggy coats of the yaks were white with hoarfrost, as
we clambered stiffly into our saddles. Our path lay over a steep
pass, on the farther side of which we found ourselves in the Russian
Pamirs. By this time the sun was up, and, although we were still
most grateful for our heavy leathern coats with their sheepskin
lining, we felt less the necessity for concentrating our thoughts
entirely upon keeping warm, and were able to give some attention to
the neighboring mountainsides. The first thing we saw was a big red
fox homeward bound from his night’s rambles, and shortly afterward
Palang made out a herd of arkal or ovis poli ewes. It was not until
after we had seen still another lot of ewes that Khalil picked up two
rams. One was standing and the other lay stretched out on the rubble.
We could see that the former had a fine head; that of the latter was
only partly visible, and did not look as good. The wind, of course,
was wrong, which, together with the conformation of the country,
called for a long and roundabout stalk. We were able, however, to go
the greater part of the way on our yaks. Bos Grunniens has been well
named; he grunts and pants like an asthmatic patriarch as he climbs,
but he plods along regardless, and the minute you stop him he starts
eating snow, or boortsa, if there be any about. Before we came to the
last rise dividing us from our quarry, a fox jumped up and trotted
across ahead of us. We feared it would move the poli, and either it
or something else did, for when we had reached the vantage-point
from which they should have been visible and within range, they were
nowhere to be seen.
Cautiously we examined the country roundabout, but they had evidently
gone some distance, so we kept on along the ridge, making numerous
halts to spy out the land. We came upon a herd of females and young,
and watched them through our field-glasses as they pursued their
noonday occupation of feeding and sleeping. We had a little cold
mutton and bread with us, and while we were eating it, sheltered as
well as possible from the bitterly cold wind that whipped across the
ridge, Palang went ahead, scouting on his own. Half an hour later he
appeared on a ridge, waving to us to join him. We were not long in
reaching him, and he explained with whisper and gesture that he had
seen the rams lying down below some big rocks.
It was necessary to proceed very carefully and slowly, for, although
the wind for once favored us, the slide rock was treacherous and a
rolling stone would quickly put the poli on the alert and probably
send them off at the double. Step by step we picked our way among the
boulders. We came to where Palang had seen the rams, and, peeping
over, we caught a glimpse of the head of one of them. He seemed to be
standing up, but drowsing on his feet. Ducking back, we continued
along the ridge to a heap of rocks we had marked down as the end of
our stalk. We reached it in safety, and, peering over, saw a fine
poli ram only seventy-five yards away. Ted had won the toss for
first shot. As soon as I heard the report of his rifle, I also let
drive, quickly reloading in case the second ram should show up. Ted
had fired his second shot at his ram, when the other poli popped
into sight; I quickly let drive, and after that the shooting became
general. We each fired four times, and each bullet scored a hit. I
was able to get several snapshots of one of the wounded animals. They
were fine big fellows; Ted’s had a fifty-three-inch horn and mine a
fifty-two.
We were eager to secure another female for the museum group, so
after a last congratulatory look at our prizes, we left Rahima and
Khalil to take the skins off while we faced the main ridge again with
Palang. It was a stiff climb, and when we had made the ascent we
found that the ewes upon which we had designs had decamped. Climbing
or even walking on the level at these high altitudes involves much
more labor than can be imagined by those who have not experienced it.
In Persian this region is called the Bam-i-Dunya, the Roof of the
World, and from this is, I suppose, derived the name Pamirs, for “B”
and “P” are easily interchangeable. It is indeed a roof, and a high
one; we were often hunting at an altitude of 17,000 feet.
[Illustration: RAHIMA, PALANG, KHALIL, AND T. R. WITH T. R.’S BIG
POLI]
Palang was both indefatigable and cheerful, so on we went in search
of the ewes, but it was almost too dark to shoot before we came
upon a bunch. There was no chance for a stalk, so we chanced a few
long-range shots without success. It was a stiff pull back to camp;
there was no moon, but the white of the snow gave some light, and
the stars shone out in glittering brilliancy. Daoud Beg had sent
out two ponies, but we were glad to change back to our yaks for the
final descent from the pass. The dark and the hidden stones bothered
the yaks not a bit; the steepest and most uncertain short cut only
incited them to additional speed when they were headed down-hill.
However, you soon acquired a blind and unreasoning confidence in
their ability to keep their feet under any circumstances. On the
steep slopes the snow lay in strips and patches that shone with a
phosphorescent glow in the dark. In spite of the bitter cold we could
find thought to thoroughly enjoy the wild scene, doubly so with the
knowledge of the two fine poli that our shikaries had brought in
ahead of us. It was nearly half past eight before we were thawing
ourselves out at the welcome yak-dung fire in our yourt.
We had still one day more that we felt justified in allotting to
ourselves for hunting, and we determined to make a last try for the
extra ewe that we wanted. In the morning, therefore, we sent our
two shikaries down to Payik Karaul with the pack-ponies, while we
took Palang and a couple of other local shikaries and went off to
Gunjabat Nullah, reputed a most likely ground. Riding up the ravine
we came upon both sheep and ibex heads, all old and weather-beaten.
The first game we saw was a large herd of ibex; we watched them
through our glasses, and estimated two of the large males as having
horns at least forty-five inches in length, a very good size for
the Himalayan ibex. It was not, however, ibex that we wanted, so we
continued our search. It was only a few minutes later that we made
out four poli rams. They looked larger than any one we had yet seen,
so we immediately set out upon a lengthy and toilsome stalk which
if successful should bring us within good range. For four hours we
struggled along through deep snow and slide rock. Palang was most
distrustful of avalanches—he had lost four friends in one—and we did
our best to avoid setting anything in motion. The only restful part
of the stalk was when we tobogganned down a steep bit of mountainside
in the track of an avalanche. It would have been better fun had we
not realized that for every foot we gaily coasted we would have to
elsewhere plod upward a corresponding distance. Several immature
avalanches came down, while the two shikaries and I were making our
way along the foot of the hill, and I did not pay much attention
to them. Of a sudden I heard them shout, and looked up to see Ted
humming down in the middle of a small avalanche. Fortunately he
was able to keep on the surface, so that when the snow slowed up he
extricated himself without having suffered any damage.
It was tedious work winning our way up to the ridge from which we
hoped to make the tag end of the stalk, and disappointment was
awaiting us at the top; the sheep were no longer there. The man who
had stayed behind with the yaks, and who had been instructed to
watch the rams, told us that they appeared to get our wind when we
were about half through the stalk, and that by the time we appeared
on the crest they had been gone for two hours! Whatever it was that
disturbed them, it had done its work thoroughly, for the poli had
left the country at a round trot, and put a good day’s march between
us and themselves. During the rest of the day we saw nothing but a
herd of female ibex, so empty-handed we worked our way back to the
main nullah and headed down to Payik Karaul. For the latter part of
the ride Ted and I shifted back to ponies. Work as hard as we could,
it seemed impossible for us to keep our yaks going at any reasonable
pace, except when they were bound down-hill. The Sarikulis could keep
them going apparently without effort. Our escort, which consisted
of three men, also changed mounts; one climbed on to a huge camel,
another got on a pony, and the third shifted to a fresh yak. As they
rode along, all three abreast, ahead of us, we could only regret that
it was too dark to use the camera.
There are two passes from the Pamirs over into the Hunza Valley—the
Mintaka and the Killik. The former offers the more direct route, but
is much more difficult to negotiate in bad weather. Our Sarikuli
friends insisted upon taking us over the Killik, assuring us that by
so doing we would reach Misgar sooner than if we went the shorter
way. We marched from Payik Karaul to a group of yourts known as Khush
Bel; it was well over thirty miles and our Kashgar caravan men ran
true to form in getting off late, so that it was not until after nine
that they came in—a frozen and woebegone lot.
On the way we met the mail runner that comes through once a week from
Gilgit to Kashgar. The fact that he had chosen the Killik impelled
us to put more faith in the selection of our Sarikulis. This mail is
run through in relays, and takes about a month to get from Srinagar
to Kashgar. The runner told us he had seen poli rams near Khush Bel.
Of course they had decamped by the time we reached there, but not far
from the yourts we came upon the skulls of several big rams; they had
been killed by wolves when the snow lay deep and the weight of their
great horns wore them down when they tried to run from their foes.
It must have been several years ago, for there was one head just
short of sixty inches that I would have liked to have taken along
had it not been so weather-worn as to make it useless. We had been
continually on the lookout for good pick-ups, but this was the only
one that we came on which was larger than those we shot.
At Khush Bel we were lodged in a yourt for the last time; we saw
none after we had crossed the Killik. On the Pamirs we noted one
reversal of nature as we had hitherto found it. The cats were most
friendly and came up to be stroked and petted, while the dogs were
unchangeably savage, and showed no inclination to be conciliated.
There were only a few cats, but they were fine large fellows; one
tried to get into my bedding-roll with me on a particularly cold
night.
We crossed the Killik under favorable conditions; the ascent was long
but gradual; the altitude was only 15,600, which seemed low after the
great heights which we had topped between Leh and Yarkand. On the way
over it came on to snow, but when we started to descend, it was not
long before we left the snow behind.
The country for some time was unbelievably barren and desolate. We
had heard a place mentioned, Shirin Maidan, the translation being the
Polo Field. On reaching it we were disappointed to find it was merely
a small plateau a couple of hundred yards long and half as wide, the
only level spot of that size for miles around. The larger of the
stones had been dragged off and ranged on either side. The Hunza men
are very keen on polo, but as far as we could see, the only time when
they could use this field would be on their way across the pass.
Our halt was to be Mukurshi, the junction of the Killik and Mintaka
River, and a few miles before we reached it we quite unexpectedly
began to come upon small bushes and even trees—willows and stunted
cedars. Our two Sarikulis were mounted on yaks. They were riding
along in the lead, except for Rahima, who had left his pony and
walked on ahead. The trail was very steep and winding. Rahima sat
down beside it to wait for us just where it made a sharp turn. As
the leading yak pushed his head around the bend, he caught sight of
Rahima and took fright. I heard his snort, and saw him plunge off
the trail down the all but perpendicular mountainside. It seemed as
if nothing could save him or his rider; a pony could not have kept
his footing for an instant, but would have rolled over to be dashed
to pieces long before he struck the stream below. By some miraculous
process known only to yaks, the beast did keep his feet, and, after
plunging down a short way, straightened himself out and slanted
across the face of the mountain to reach the trail a little way on.
Neither yak nor rider seemed in any degree flustered.
Mukurshi we found uninhabited, but there were many willow-trees
growing in the small delta between the two streams, and plenty of
dead branches with which we made a roaring fire, a fine contrast to
the less spectacular but by no means to be despised fires of yak dung
to which we had been confined during our hunting on the “world’s
white roof-tree.”
Next day saw us at Misgar, a tiny village where we once more made
the acquaintance of telegraph-poles, that invariable harbinger of
civilization. There were a couple of lonely telegraph operators,
exiled for a year to this far-flung outpost. At Misgar we sent back
our Kashgar caravan. It was the first caravan from which we had
parted without regret. Its members had been thoroughly incompetent
without any disarming or redeeming features.
All down the Hunza gorge we used mixed caravans, a few ponies, a
donkey or two, and the balance in porters. The entire outfit was
generally changed twice a day, and as we got lower down the valley
we changed more often. The worst day we had in this respect was on
the march between Minapin and Chalt, only about fifteen miles, but
calling for six shifts. When we swapped transport at a village there
was never much delay, and the porters swung along at a round gait
which put them at their journey’s end in jig-time. The longest march
we made was of twenty-six miles; but we kept up a good average,
for with winter coming on we had no desire to delay in reaching
the passes over into Kashmir. On the fifteen-mile stretch which I
have mentioned, the multiplicity of shifts was further complicated
by the fact that they took place at the most inconvenient places.
Often the village where the coolies lived was some distance off up
the mountainside. The men who had finished their turn would squat
beside the loads and start upon a series of catcalls to summon their
successors from hut and field. We needed a lot of small change to
effect payment, for the coolies on the shorter hauls drew only an
anna—about two cents—apiece. The Hunza men we found to be marked
individualists; they rarely travelled in a long, sheep-like column.
Usually they hove up in the early morning, shouldered their loads,
and set off in groups of ones and twos. They were a cheerful,
uncomplaining set of men.
In spite of its cumbersome size, I had toted with me my old copy of
Knight’s “Where Three Empires Meet,” and the anticipated pleasure of
rereading it while passing through the country about which so much of
it had been written, more than repaid me for the space it had taken
in the yakdan. It is unfortunately very rarely that books of travel
and adventure are well enough written to hold the attention of any
save those who are intimately acquainted with or deeply interested
in the country with which they deal. Knight’s books have ever proved
such a happy exception; and I have followed him to many parts of
the world since my mother first gave me the “Voyage of the Falcon.”
Among the Himalayan hunting-books my personal favorite remains Major
Kennion’s “Sport in the Further Himalayas.” Rahima Loon in his
younger days hunted with Kennion and had many a tale to tell of the
remarkable stalks that the Major had made.
Between Misgar and Gilgit we passed through the countries ruled by
the Mirs of Hunza and of Nagar. The account of the campaign in which
they were brought to realize the advisability of allowing subjects of
the British Raj to pass unharmed through their dominions is vividly
told by Knight. Both rulers claim descent from Alexander the Great
through a mountain spirit that Alexander is supposed to have met on
the Hindu Koosh. The Hunza branch of the family is very European
in feature; all of its members with whom we came in contact were
red-headed. The present Mir dyes his red hair black, but his sons
leave it its natural hue.
We noticed a good deal of change in the color and profiles of the
inhabitants as we came on down the valley. In the upper part the
men were whiter in color and more aquiline in feature than were
those lower down. The Mir of Hunza’s subjects are usually known as
Kanjutis, and the upper reaches of the Hunza River below the junction
of the Killik and Mintaka streams is called the Kanjut River.
At Gircha, a short day’s march below Misgar, we were met by the Mir.
His travelling orchestra came out to escort us into town. It was led
by an old greybeard playing an abbreviated trumpet. There were two
other trumpets, two kettledrums, and two large drums. On one side of
the latter the drummer beat with his hand and on the other side with
a stick.
The Mir is a fine-looking man and a pleasant companion. He speaks
Hindustanee, so we could dispense with interpreters. He was on
his way up to a favorite hunting nullah, and had with him three or
four hawks which he used on chukor. He tried a few shots with my
Springfield rifle and made excellent practice.
That evening we dined in state with him, and an excellent dinner we
had, for although I have never known Rousslia’s superior as a Safari
cook, still a change, when not for the worse, is always agreeable.
We had now cut down our equipment to the extent that we had only the
clothes we stood in. The tuxedos which had served us so faithfully
at many an Amban’s feast we had given away as baksheesh. The Mir
presented each of us with a Hunza choga, a long, loose sort of
wrapper; Ted’s was made from goat hair and embroidered with silk,
mine was woven from ibex hair but unembroidered. These we slipped
on over our worn hunting-clothes, and felt greatly bettered in
appearance.
After dinner we adjourned to the garden to see some Kanjuti dances.
There were various kinds, ranging from a slow and stately affair
in which several men recited in Persian as they danced, to a wild
performance where two men rushed about whirling their swords, and
slashing the air so close to each other’s heads that it was a miracle
that no ears parted company with their owners. The whole scene was
lighted by a roaring bonfire; beside it were ranged the men who beat
their tomtoms in accompaniment to the performers, and massed behind
them were the wild-featured tribesmen. It was a savage picture
lit by the flickering tongues of flame one instant, and the next
only half discerned in the darkness. Now one of the swordsmen was
rushing about the circle in feigned flight, closely followed by his
victorious antagonist. The excitement mounted like strong wine to the
heads of the spectators, and they shouted mad encouragement. It was
easy to see that we were among a warlike people, who until recently
had made the greater part of their livelihood through raiding the Leh
and Yarkand caravans, and carrying off and selling as slaves such
members of the neighboring tribes as they could overpower or capture
by stealth.
Their warlike valor may be gauged by the fact that in the short
campaign against them in which Knight took part, out of the handful
of British officers engaged therein, no less than three won the
coveted Victoria Cross.
Since leaving the Tian Shan we had passed through various seasons.
Before coming over the Muzart Pass we had been in late autumn, in
Turkestan we had found ourselves in late summer, and then in early
fall. In the Pamirs it had been bleak winter, but now as we dropped
farther down the Kanjut Valley we were once more in the fall of the
year. The colors were particularly beautiful against the barren
background of the sterile mountains. The maple and poplar leaves
were yellow, and the apricot-trees were red; a few of the walnuts
were still green. At first the oases were small, but they steadily
increased in size; some, the larger, showed a perfect wealth of
color, reminding us of fall days on Long Island, with the dogwood in
full glory. We often watched the goatherds shaking a golden rain of
leaves from the trees, while their flocks waited expectantly beneath
to browse upon them.
The Kanjutis are far from rich; they lead a hand-to-mouth existence,
and during the summer months some villages subsist entirely on ripe
fruit. The wolf is never far from the door, even at the best of
times, and one of the reasons why there are so few foreigners allowed
in the Hunza country is that the use of the natives as porters takes
them from their work in the fields, and still further limits the
grain supply. Of course, there aren’t very many porters available,
anyway.
The trail down the valley we found in excellent shape; the worst
going we encountered was where it crossed the Batura glacier, and
there for two or three miles it was hard work for the coolies and
ponies.
At Gulmit the Mir has a house where he spends a couple of months
each fall, and here we met his eldest son. We had passed another
brother near Mukurshi. He was on his way to visit a wife who for some
reason chose to live near Tashkurghan. With the Mir there was a third
grown son and a small boy of five, a pretty dark-eyed little fellow,
quite evidently the Benjamin of the family, for the Mir kept the
child always beside him, and was obviously very proud of him. Old
Daoud Beg at Payik and the graybeard Aksakal of Tashkurghan also had
Benjamins. It seemed a common trait among these people to favor the
child of their advanced years above his elder brothers and sisters.
When we asked the Mir how many sons he had—in enumerating their
progeny our friends here never counted in their girl children—he
threw up his hands and said it was really impossible for him to say.
In a fairly literal sense he is reputed to be the father of his
country. I may add, however, that the sons whom we met all did him
credit.
The capital of the kingdom is Baltit, the centre of a group of
villages collectively known as Hunza. The Royal Palace overlooks the
whole from the eminence of a small hill. It is a roomy, rambling
patchwork Eastern affair, with no pretension to architecture of any
sort. Below it fell tier after tier of terraced field and orchard.
Deep lanes lined with high stone walls wove an intricate pattern
through the whole. On the tops of some of the low stone houses heaps
of golden red corn were lying, adding a glorious splash of color
to the already brilliant effect of the turning leaves. The Kanjuti
likes color, and many of them we passed on the road had yellow or
red chrysanthemums stuck in their caps. As a whole, they seemed a
cheerful lot, ever ready with a pleasant smile and a salaam. Many of
them struck us as being easy to mistake for Italians, and, curiously
enough, their language sounded much like Italian. In saying this, I
hasten to add that I am not trying to suggest any kinship between the
two peoples.
We rode on through Baltit and crossed the river over into the domains
of the Mir of Nagar, spending the night at an attractive little town,
Minapin. We were right beneath mighty Rakaposhi, towering above
us with its altitude of 25,550 feet. Ten days before a terrific
wind-storm had rushed down from its rugged slopes, cutting a swathe
400 yards wide through the edge of Minapin, but biting more deeply
into the adjoining hamlet of Pisan. Two men, four horses, and many
goats were killed, but more fatal than any loss of life had been the
damage done to the fruit-trees, mercilessly mowed down in scores
before the storm. Their loss meant that next summer starvation would
stare the villages in the face.
[Illustration: BALTIT IN THE HUNZA VALLEY]
Bird life was abundant in the lower valley. At Mukurshi we had seen
only a few finches, but near Misgar we met an old friend whom we had
first seen in the Sind Valley, a lovely little water-bird, with a
black head, white waistcoat, and red coat and tail. We came across
our first magpie sitting on an ice rock in the middle of the Batura
glacier, with not another live thing for miles around. Lower down
magpies became very common, flitting about on every side, uttering
their rusty chatter. Our best friends were the pigeons, but I doubt
if they reciprocated the feeling, for many was the good meal we made
from roasted pigeon. Chukor also helped supply the deficiencies of
our larder. We had with us an old three-barrelled gun. At first it
had a tendency to explode the shells whenever you snapped the breech
shut. Cherrie set about remedying this, and was so successful that
the gun would not go off even when you wished it to. Then the local
gunsmiths in the larger towns where we halted tried a hand at it.
After that it was “regularly irregular,” as Ted put it. Sometimes
both barrels could be fired, sometimes one, sometimes none. At last
it got so that Khalil was the only person who could coax a shot out
of it, and for some weeks he alone used it. After Gilgit a rapid
disintegration set in, and even Khalil had to abandon it.
We reached Gilgit on October 30, having come down from Misgar in
seven days. Major Loch, the Political Agent,—Administrator of
Native Affairs,—put us up at his most comfortable house, loaned us
his clothes to enable us to appear a little less disreputable, and
did everything to help us through to Kashmir. I think that what we
appreciated most of all was the delicious ale with which he greeted
us on our arrival. We objected only as much as bare politeness and
our knowledge of the difficulty with which all transport reached
Gilgit dictated, when he insisted in giving us some more for the trip
down.
The little willow-shaded European graveyard at Gilgit is a résumé
of what life on the far Asian frontier means. Among the few graves
there were that of Hayward the explorer, murdered by the tribesmen,
one of a young officer who had fallen over a precipice when hunting
ibex, one of another officer killed in a punitive expedition in
the mountains, still another of a political agent who had died of
enteric. Last there was the pitiful little grave of a baby still
born, with the mother so far from all comfort and assistance.
In front of Major Loch’s house stands a large cannon that was
brought back after the capture of Baltit in 1893. The story runs
that a Chinaman from Yarkand told the then Mir that he could cast
him a cannon larger than that owned by any of his neighbors. The Mir
accordingly confiscated all the metal pots and pans in his capital,
and from them the cannon was cast. The Mir next prudently insured
that none of his neighbors should possess a larger one by cutting off
the Chinaman’s head. The piece was certainly a triumph when the rough
facilities the maker had to hand are considered. It is far superior
to several smaller pieces that stood near it. Major Loch told us that
one of his predecessors had taken it out and used it on a punitive
expedition against some of the near-by tribesmen.
We left Gilgit on October 31, and marched thirty-five miles to Bunji.
The next day took us through what used to be the village of Ramghat,
but a year ago a great rock avalanche swept down and levelled the
greater part of the houses. Our march had taken us down the Gilgit
River to where it empties into the Indus; it is here that the great
bend of the Indus occurs, and this Haramosh country harbors on its
wild, barren mountains the best markhor. It was tantalizing to be
so near and yet be forced to hurry past. We soon left the Indus and
turned off up the Astore River, which we would follow now until we
came to the dreaded Burzil Pass.
At the little village of Astore we saw the solitary grave of
Lieutenant Davison, who had taken part with Knight in the Hunza
campaign.
Ted and I still had with us our faithful riding ponies that we had
brought from the Tian Shan. We had spared them wherever possible, but
they were fairly fagged, so we walked the greater part of each day’s
march. We were so hard by now that a fifteen-mile trek did no more
than give us a good appetite!
In the Astore Valley we were once more in the land of trees; that
is to say, what might be called wild trees, in contradistinction to
those that could grow only where man had through irrigation builded
an oasis. It was sad in the deserted oases to see the trees standing
gaunt and bare and dead. Now, for the first time since leaving the
Tian Shan, the hillsides were covered with evergreens—tall pines and
gnarled cedars. The smell of the cedar berries at one leap took me
back to childhood days in the Fairy Apple Orchard of Sagamore.
On November 5 we faced the Burzil Pass. The previous evening we
had reached the wind-swept Dak Bungalow at Chillum Chauki. It had
been snowing all afternoon, and the men shook their heads gloomily
at our chances for getting over the pass on the morrow. The Burzil
used annually to take a very considerable toll of human life, but
since the British took over the administration of the Srinagar-Gilgit
route, substantial rest-houses have been built at intervals along it,
and on the summit of each of the two passes stone shelters have been
set up. It is the peculiarly savage wind that is particularly feared
on the Burzil crossing; when this is accompanied by blinding snow, it
is a dangerous combination to take on. Add to both the constant dread
of avalanches.
[Illustration: CROSSING THE BURZIL IN WINTER]
At quarter to three in the morning I awoke and went out to look at
the weather. The snow had temporarily stopped, so we lost no time
in stirring up our men. The new ponies we had hoped to get at Godai
were not forthcoming, so we found ourselves dependent upon a troop
of unladen ponies which by a fortunate chance we met here, awaiting
a good opportunity to return to Gurez. Major Loch had instructed
Jemadar Jan Mohammed to go with us from Astore across the Burzil. He
proved invaluable in helping us rout out the pony men and persuade
them to try the pass. Even so, it was half past seven before we got
the first reluctant lot of ponies started. By then it had once more
started to snow, and before we had gone far on our way to the little
stone hut marking the first stage, the dreaded wind had risen,
and we could readily appreciate our followers’ feelings toward the
Burzil. Fortunately, the storm abated when we reached Sardar Chauki,
so after a slight demur we got the caravan under way to face the last
stiff ascent up the pass.
We had six local men with us to break trail and see that we did not
lose our way. They took turns in leading, and it was no light task.
We could not help thinking how invaluable web snow-shoes would have
been as we watched our guides plunge waist-deep into the snow. The
ponies struggled pluckily in their wake. We were shod in grass shoes;
failing snow-shoes there is nothing to compare with them for this
sort of work.
Just before we reached the top we came upon two mail-runners
floundering down toward us, and much surprised to see a pony-train
tackling the pass in such weather. At length we caught sight of
the stone hut that marks the summit. Here our trail-breakers used
every effort to prevail upon us to let them turn back, but by dint
of much persuasion and the thrusting of additional baksheesh into
their hands, we got them started down the other side. The snow was
once more falling thickly, and it was becoming colder every minute.
Ted caught a glimpse of a solitary marmot. Some of the ponies began
to show signs that they had gone far enough. One white horse in
particular kept floundering off the trail into drifts and evincing
every desire to remain where it lay. However, we were getting down;
we had passed a pill-box house built up on stilts twenty-five feet
above the ground. This was a landmark to the men. They explained that
the snow-drifts piled up level with its floor. A mile or so on, to
our surprise, we came upon a few lightly laden ponies attempting to
get over to Sardar Chauki. One of the trail-breakers glanced at me
out of the tail of his eye, and began groaning and humping his back;
as we reached the oncoming ponies he threw himself down beside the
trail in a dismal heap. It was really wasted histrionics, for on
seeing the approaching caravan, we had decided that we might as well
send our six voorloopers back with it. Upon being told of this, the
sick man made a most rapid recovery. They were all afraid that the
pass would now be closed for many days.
We now had an easy trail to follow and made the rest of the distance
without trouble. At the Dak Bungalow of Burzil Chauki we stopped at
half past five and made a cup of tea. We had breakfasted at five
in the morning, so we were very hungry. Then we pushed on down the
valley, another five miles to Minamarg, completing a twenty-four-mile
march, with every one in excellent spirits at having the Burzil Pass
behind us.
It was snowing hard next morning, and though we could look back
toward the Burzil with satisfaction, we could not but feel a certain
apprehension about the Raj-diangan. We rode down along a rushing
stream, with steep hills rising on either hand. Sometimes the trail
wound through fine forests; elsewhere there were open grass-covered
stretches. Sheltering beneath the tufts of grass were myriads of
finches; as they rose it seemed as if the hillside had in some
miraculous fashion started to life.
Two easy marches took us to the foot of the Raj-diangan Pass over to
Tragbal. This was the last barrier that separated us from Kashmir,
and the Weather Gods were kind. A brilliant frosty morning saw us
across. It was a long, easy ascent, but the ride along the ridge that
forms the summit proved bitterly cold. The strong wind that drove the
snow along, obliterating the trail under deep drifts, convinced one
of with what ease the pass could collect its toll from the caravan
rash enough to attempt the crossing in the face of a blizzard.
As we descended we could see stretched out beneath us the Vale of
Kashmir. Wular Lake was largely hidden by billowy clouds. At our
feet the men pointed out the village of Bandipur, and each showed
us the little hamlet in the valley where his house lay. We left the
pack-train and took a short cut down the mountainside; it was steep
and slippery, but we swung along, grabbing at branches and bushes,
jumping from rock to rock, and taking many of the falls that we
risked. Once in the valley we had a four-mile walk to the cluster of
houses where Rahima and Khalil lived. As we cut through the villages
the inmates hurried out to greet Rahima and ask him news of our
success. It was his triumphal homecoming, and, though enjoying it
to the full, he maintained a stoical and expressionless impressive
dignity throughout.
That afternoon the kitchens at Rahima’s and Khalil’s saw no idle
moment. There was no pause in the clatter of pots and pans, and no
halt in the roasting and boiling and basting and all the intricacies
of preparation of a Kashmir feast. That evening at dinner course
succeeded course, each complicated pilaff or roast or stew more
delicious than the last. All our stored energy and the physique built
by months of mountain-climbing were called upon to enable us to
survive the effects of such feasting.
Next morning we were ferried across the lake in dugouts. After seven
months we were back in the land of motor transport, but to us it
seemed outlandish to make in an hour what had been for so long the
distance of a long day’s march. That evening our wives met us at
Srinagar, and our expedition into central Asia was a closed chapter;
a memory of glorious days on the high Himalayas, of long stalks, some
successful, some otherwise, of bitter-cold days and snug evenings
in Kirghiz yourts; a kaleidoscope of toil and achievement that only
experience can purchase.
[Illustration: TERRITORY COVERED IN THE COURSE OF THE EXPEDITION]
APPENDIX
A SERAI
BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
(SUGGESTED BY KERMIT SAYING TO ME WHILE WE SAT IN THE SERAI AT SHAMBA
BAZAAR THAT PERHAPS MARCO POLO HAD BEEN THERE)
The day is gently drawing to a close;
The caravan, slow-plodding through the dusk,
With tinkling bells and creaking leather,
Leaves the rough jungle by the broad brown river
And turns into the cultivated land.
It jogs along by fields, bright green, mud-walled
And fringed with shimmering willows,
Which look to be embroidered on the landscape
Like figures in some ancient tapestry.
At length the dusty column sights a village
Whose rough gray walls are set in lofty poplars
Which seem to stroke the sky with slender fingers.
Down the long street it jingles,
Through the bazaar where ill-wove matting roofs
Add to the gathering gloom;
Where smells of every sort hang in the air,
And bare, brown babies splash in muddy gutters.
At last the dingy old serai is reached.
The tired ponies pass its battered gate,
Then packs are stripped and all is wild confusion;
Shouted commands and loud and shrill abuse,
And stallions neighing, blend in one great babble.
And now the horses fed, the baggage piled,
The fires begin to glow, and round them gather
Dim half-seen figures in the flickering light,
Who squat and eat and puff their gurgling hookahs.
Now in a near-by stall a singer twangs
On some stringed instrument of old design,
And drones an endless plaintive melody.
Out on the near-by roofs the women steal,—
Black silent figures ’gainst the flat gray sky.
So comes the night, and so has come the night
Through dim unreckoned countless generations
To those who travel the old trails of Asia.
In this same way old Marco the Venetian travelled,
And even then the trails were very old.
So Asia does, so she has done since time,
And when our great hotels are piles of stones
And all our railroads briar-grown embankment,
So Asia still will do.
APPENDIX
The following is an itinerary of the expedition from the time
we arrived at Srinagar to the day we returned. The mileage is
necessarily only approximate, for we had to depend upon information
from the natives of the country and check it up roughly with our
estimated speed and the number of hours spent in marching. The place
names are in general spelled as they sounded when repeated to us,
so they are, of course, subject to revision upon the opinion of any
hearer.
MILES DATE
Srinagar 12 Gandabal May 19
17 Camp (near Gund) ” 20
12 Camp (near Sonamurg) ” 21
18 Baltal ” 22
(Zoji Pass) 14 Camp ” 24
18 Draz ” 25
22 Shimsa Kharbu ” 26
16 Kargil ” 27
22 Mulbekh ” 28
15 Bod Kharbu ” 29
15 Lamayuru ” 30
17 Nurla June 1
25 Nimoo ” 2
12 Leh ” 3
10 Camp near Pass ” 6
(Khardong Pass) 18 Khardong ” 7
14 Karsar ” 8
14 Taghar ” 9
15 Panamik ” 10
14 Choong Loong ” 13
12 Tutyalak ” 14
13 Camp at foot of Saser Glacier ” 17
(Saser Pass) 10 Brangza Saser ” 18
16 Remo Glacier ” 19
24 Murgu ” 20
20 Kizil Tash ” 21
23 Daulat Beg Oldi ” 22
(Karakoram Pass) 22 Brangsa ” 23
12 Camp ” 24
24 Chibra ” 25
(Suget Pass) 25 Camp ” 26
6 Suget Karaul ” 27
16 Ulbek (Kara Kash River) ” 28
22 Camp at foot of Bostan Valley ” 29
20 Ali Nazar Khurgan ” 30
(Sanju Pass) 20 Ayalak July 1
18 Akas Aghzi ” 3
12 Kivas ” 4
16 Sanju Bazar ” 5
24 Kosh Tagh ” 6
31 Bora ” 7
18 Karghalik ” 8
35 Posgam ” 10
24 Yarkand ” 11
26 Tograghi ” 14
25 Merket ” 15
25 Akadong ” 16
21 Khandi ” 17
28 Beyond Aksak Maral ” 18
27 Maralbashi ” 19
16 Char Bagh ” 20
21 Akh Tam ” 21
23 Yakka Kudak ” 22
28 Chillam ” 23
22 Hangoon ” 24
28 Yangi Shahr ” 25
4 Aksu ” 26
27 Jom ” 29
16 Arbat ” 30
22 Khurgan ” 31
18 Camp Aug. 1
22 Tango Tash ” 2
(Muzart Pass) 20 Khan Ayalak ” 3
25 Shutta ” 6
25 Agyas ” 7
30 Moin Tai ” 8
18 Kukteruk ” 9
17 Kooksu ” 10
18 Chungtai ” 11
16 Chin Bulak ” 12
20 Camp at head of Jilgalong Valley ” 13
20 Kargaitash ” 14
15 Camp on upper Kooksu ” 17
6 Kargaitash Creek ” 20
15 Muzdumas Creek ” 21
10 Camp ” 23
14 Kensu ” 24
12 Wapiti Camp ” 29
8 Camp at junction of Kensu and
Kooksu Sept. 1
18 Camp ” 2
20 Lower Torotai Valley ” 3
25 Chilukteruk ” 4
22 Camp ” 5
16 Moin Tai ” 6
30 Agyas ” 9
8 Camp ” 10
33 Shutta ” 11
25 Khan Ayalak ” 12
(Muzart Pass) 20 Tango Tash ” 14
18 Khailak ” 15
20 Kizil Bulak ” 16
18 Jom ” 17
27 Aksu ” 19
20 Aikul ” 20
40 Chillam ” 21
28 Yakka Kudak ” 22
30 Toum Shouk ” 23
30 Maralbashi ” 24
30 Karakuchin ” 25
40 Kara Youlgoun ” 26
34 Faizabad ” 27
45 Kashgar ” 28
16 Tashmalik Oct. 3
15 Tookoi ” 4
20 Beyond Gezkaraul ” 5
25 Bulun Kul ” 6
15 Kichik Kara Kul ” 7
15 Subashi Nullah ” 9
16 Kara Su ” 12
24 Tagharma ” 14
17 Tashkurghan ” 15
20 Jurgal Gumbaz ” 16
20 Atjayloo ” 17
20 Payik Nullah ” 18
34 Khush Bel ” 21
(Killian Pass) 14 Mukurshi ” 22
16 Misgar ” 28
12 Gircha ” 24
25 Passu ” 25
22 Attabad ” 26
26 Minapin ” 27
17 Chalt ” 28
15 Nomal ” 29
17 Gilgit ” 30
35 Bunji ” 31
19 Mushkin Nov. 1
17 Astore ” 2
17 Gudai ” 3
16 Chillum Chauki ” 4
(Burzil Pass) 23 Minamarg ” 5
20 Gurez ” 6
13 Karagbal ” 7
(Tragbal or 27 Bandipur ” 8
Raj-diangan Pass) Srinagar ” 9
INDEX
Afghanistan route, the, 9
Agyas, 123
Aksu, 164, 197;
the start for, 82, 94 ff.;
departure from, 202
Akyas, journey to, 186;
arrival at, 187;
return to, 192
Ali-Nazar-Kurgan, 66, 67
Amban, the, of Karghalik, 76 ff.
Andrews, Roy Chapman, expeditions in Asia, 2, 3, 7
Antelope, the Tibetan, description of, 63
Arbat, 199
Arkal, herd of, spotted in the Russian Pamirs, 250
Asboe, Doctor and Mrs., 48
Asia, central, Mongol tribes in, 2
Astore, grave of Lieutenant Davison in, 269
Avalanches, in Baltal, 29, 34, 35
Ayalik, arrival at, 72, 79, 132
Azak-Karaul, Kalmuks in, 122
Bahadur Khan, the, 47, 48
Bai, Tula, 129 ff.; 164, 180
Bakker, Bob, 14
Baltal, avalanches in, 29, 34, 35
Baltistan, 36;
Rajah of, 35, 36
Baltit, 265 ff.
Bam-i-Dunya, 252
Bandipur, 273
Barr, 23
Bear, the great brown, 5, 34;
sighted by Khalil Loon, 149;
shot by Kermit Roosevelt, 150;
skinning of, 151
Bey, Ishmael, 104, 113, 198, 199
Bighorn, Rocky Mountain, 38
Birds of prey, 57
Blacker, Major, 24, 25
Bokharan, the, 114
Bombay, landing at, 22, 23
Bombay Natural History Museum, the, 22
Bulun, 219
Bulun Lake, arrival at, 219
Bunji, 268
Burden, Douglas, 25
Burrhel 53 ff.;
capture of, 55
Burroughs, John, 2
Burzil Pass, 269;
marmot spotted in the, 271
Butterflies, 29
Camels, 62
Chalt, 259
Cherrie, George K., 6, 11, 13, 17, 23, 28, 45, 49, 52, 56, 66, 67,
69, 82, 83, 94, 170, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 193, 195, 199,
204, 212; illness of, 183
Chillum Chauki, 270
Chin Ballak, 127
Chukors, red-legged, in Maralbashi, 91
Cock, black, collected, by Theodore Roosevelt, 186
Cutting, Suydam, 6, 17, 18, 26, 45, 49, 52, 56, 66, 76, 81, 82, 84,
89, 166, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 194, 199, 204, 212;
photography done by, 183
Daulat Beg Oldi, 62
Davies, Mr., 5
Deer, Siberian roe, 26
Depsang Plain, the, 67;
ducks in, 68
Dotai, the, 95, 96
Ducks, in Depsang Plain, 68
Faizabad, 206
Feroze, 25, 27, 82
Ferrets, glimpse of, 147
Fezildin, in charge of dogs, 59, 165
Field, Stanley, 5
Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, 5, 28
Finches, purple, at the oases, 33;
in Maralbashi, 91
Foxes, large red, 138
Foxie, death of, 75
Ganderbal, 27
Gazelle, search for, 94
Gilgit, 256; departure from, 268
Gillan, Major, aid of, 211
Gircha, 261
Godai, 270
Goitre belt, in Aksu, 95
Gulmit, 264
Gunjabat Nullah, ibex and sheep seen in, 254
Hawk, different species of, shot by Mr. Cherrie, 28, 33, 139
Hindustanee, 19, 26
Hounds cougar, 14 ff., 34;
method of shipping the, 17;
in the snow, 31, 32
Hunza route, the, 8, 26
Hunza Valley, passes into the, 256
Ibex, 5, 26, 113 ff., 139, 145, 155, 182;
first glimpse of, 107 ff.;
Gunjabat Nullah, 254;
collected, by Kermit Roosevelt, 160, 161;
by Theodore Roosevelt, 144;
female collected, 140
Illik, or Siberian roe, 112;
female bagged by Theodore Roosevelt, 186;
glimpse of, 189
James Simpson-Roosevelts-Field Museum Expedition, origin of the, 6, 7;
determination of route of, 8;
selection of literature for, 13;
selection of equipment for, 12, 13
Jayloo, 249
Jurgal Gumbaz, 249
Kadi, 57
Kalmuks, the, 115, 123, 128, 129, 130, 131, 171
Kanjut Valley, the, 263
Karachi, landing of equipment at, 23
Karakash River, the, 66
Karakoram Pass, the, 5, 6, 26, 68;
approach to, 62
Kara Su, 236;
inhabitants of, 237;
ovis poli spotted in valley of, 237
Karelini, search for, 155
Kargaitash, 124, 128, 130, 163;
female ibex collected in, 140
Karghalik, 74 ff.
Kargil, loss of a companion caravan at, 35
Karthar, meeting at, 52
Kashgar, 215,256;
desire to reach, 205;
arrival at, 207, 208, 210;
surplus equipment carried from, 247
Kashmir, 185, 210, 246, 259, 273
Kashmiri, friction with the Punjabi, and, 183
Kazaks, the, 115, 122, 123, 128, 129, 130, 160, 171, 186, 187
Kensu, the, 114 ff.
Khailak, 197
Khan Ayalik, 186, 193, 194, 198
Khardong, 50
Khardong Pass, the, the start for, 49
Khurgan, camping at, 101
Khush Bel, poli rams seen near, 256
Killik Pass, the, 256, 257
Kirghiz, 122, 123, 161, 187, 229, 234, 238
Kizil Bulak, 197
Kooksu, the, 124, 128, 171
Kunick, Doctor and Mrs., 48
Ladakhis, the, 32, 33
Lama, red, land of the, 34, 35
Lamayuru, 35
Lammergeyer, 33, 62, 141;
capture of a, 162
Larks, desert, in Maralbashi, 91
Leh, 43 ff., 257;
entrance into, 44, 45, 52;
the Moravian Mission in, 48
Leh-Karakoram route, the, 9
Little Kara Kul, 221, 236
Loon, Khalil, 25, 27, 54, 55, 82, 87, 112, 113, 115, 117, 118, 131,
132, 133, 136, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150,
151, 153, 160, 167, 188, 194, 223, 229, 234, 238, 240, 242,
250, 252, 274
Loon, Rahima, 25, 27, 38, 51, 54, 59, 69, 82, 83, 84, 87, 105, 107,
113, 114, 116, 117, 119, 128, 129, 131, 137, 141, 146, 155,
156, 160, 161, 162, 164, 167, 170, 173, 177, 178, 180, 185,
189, 191, 194, 224, 229, 234, 238, 243, 248, 252, 258, 260, 274
McHenry, Tom, 14
Maralbashi, 195, 202, 204, 212;
animal expedition at, 90;
bazaar of, 91;
red-legged chukors in, 91;
quail in, 91;
desert larks in, 91;
finches in, 91
Marmot, 132, 142
Minamarg, 272
Minapin, 259, 266
Mintaka Pass, the, 256
Misgar, 249;
arrival at, 259
Moon Tai River, arrival at the, 182
Moravian Mission, the, in Leh, 48
Mountain-rabbit, killed by Kermit Roosevelt, 51
Mountain-sheep, 26, 145
Muharram, festival at Ayalik, 72
Mukurshi, 258, 264
Murree, 23
Mustagh Ata, 236
Muzart Pass, the, 263;
crossing of, 196
Muzart River, the, 197
Nanga Parbat, 30
Nurla, Buddhist service in, 38 ff.
Ovis ammon karelini, the, 5
Ovis ammon littledalei, the, 5
Ovis karelini, 141
Ovis karelenyi, 128
Ovis poli, home of, 3;
discovery of, 3, 4, 18, 180, 188, 211;
first glimpse of, 223;
spotted in the Russian Pamirs, 231;
heading for the Chinese Pamirs, 231;
two of the largest collected, 235;
spotted by a Kirghiz in valley of Kara Su, 237;
skinned by Khalil Loon, 238
Pamirs, the, 3, 4, 171, 180, 188, 257, 263;
desire to reach, 191;
the Chinese, 231;
the Russian, 9, 18, 226, 236;
ovis poli spotted in, 231;
herd of arkal spotted in, 250;
the Sarikol, 244
Panamik, 52;
arrangement for ponies at, 53
Partridge, chukor, at Lind, 67;
in Aksu Valley, 103
Partridges, 139
Payik Karaul, 249, 253, 255, 256
Pig, wild, 141
Pigeons, blue, at the oases, 33
Pim, Captain, of Mesopotamia, 26
Pisan, 266
Poli rams, seen in Gunjabat Nullah, 254;
in Khush Bel, 256
Prater, S. H., 22
Punjabi, friction with the Kashmiri, 183
Quail, in Maralbashi, 11
Rabbits, crop-eared, 54
Rajah of Baltistan, 35, 36
Raj-diangan Pass, the, 273
Rakaposhi, 266
Raleigh, the black hound from Mississippi, 59
Ram, a small, 132;
capture of, 134
Ramchukor, 139, 142, 146, 159, 243
Ramghat, 268
Rams, 38;
Karelini, 133, 138;
seen by Palang, 251
Ravens, 28;
in Zoji La Pass, 33;
coal-black, 62
Rawal Pindi, 25
Reading, Lord, 9
Rifles, 12, 13
Rock-pigeons, large blue, shot by Mr. Cherrie, 49;
at Sind, 67
Roe, the Siberian, 5, 112;
capture of a female, 140
Roe-deer, 132
Roosevelt, Kermit, 1, 2, 11, 14, 17, 18, 45, 49, 50, 51, 53, 55, 58,
60, 62, 66, 68, 105, 106, 107, 112, 113, 114, 117, 119, 125,
127, 157, 158, 160, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172, 178, 179, 180,
223, 224, 229, 234, 238, 241, 242
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1, 26, 29, 34, 82, 93, 129, 131, 136, 137, 139,
141, 146, 148, 184, 185, 186, 188, 191, 192, 194, 195, 247,
252, 254, 255, 269, 271
Russian Trade Delegation, the, 18
Sanju Bazaar, entrance into oasis, 74
Sanju Pass, the, 68, 71
Sardar Chauki, 271
Sasser, the start for the, 56
Sevenoaks, Captain, 27
Sharpu, pursuit of, 38
Sheep, spotted in Gunjabat Nullah, 254
Shirin Maidan, 257
Shrew, a, trapped by Mr. Cherrie, 67
Shutta, 121, 193, 197
Simpson, James, 5, 6, 11
Sind Valley, the, 27;
beauty of, 28
Snake, brown, captured by native, 87
Snow-leopards, 5, 57, 64
Sparrow-hawk, shot by Mr. Cherrie, 49
Srinagar, 24, 25, 43, 256, 274
Stag, Yarkand, 5
Subashi, 215;
arrival at, 225
Suget, the, 63, 64
Suget Karaul, 65
Sze, Minister, 9
Tagdum-Bash Pamirs, the, 8, 67
Taghar, 52
Tagharma, 244, 245
Tango Tash, camping at, 107
Tashkurgan, 215, 245, 264
Tekkes, the, 65, 193
Tekkes River, the, 124
Tekkes Valley, the, 120, 124;
population of, 122;
species of birds in, 125, 126
Tian Shan, 129, 171, 173, 180, 183, 198, 263, 269;
range, the, 128
Tiger, rare, in Central Asia, 14
Tika-illik, 132
Tragbal, 273
Turkestan, 213 ff, 263;
abundance of fruit in, 203, 204
Vale of Kashmir, the famous, 24, 273
Van der Byl, P. B., 196
Vissers, the, 8, 9
Wagtail, the, along streams, 33
Wapiti, 26, 130, 145, 171;
season for the, 186;
shot by Theodore Roosevelt, 177;
shot by Kermit Roosevelt, 190;
skinning of the, 179, 191
Warbler, a, black and rusty brown, at Sind, 6, 7
Water-ouzels, 29
Water-wagtail, the little, 29
Wolves, gray, 57, 64
Wood, Lady, 27
Wood, Lieutenant John, 4
Wood, Sir John, hospitality of, 27
Wular Lake, 273
Yaks, 50, 51, 53, 57
Yangi Shahr, 94 ff.
Yarkand, 79 ff., 84, 257;
epidemic of goitre in, 80;
splitting of expedition at, 81, 82
Yarkandi, the, 59, 66
Zoji La Pass, the, 30, 35, 44;
bird life in, 33
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected
after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and
consultation of external sources.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and
inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Page 219: “placque” changed to “plaque”
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST OF THE SUN AND WEST OF THE MOON ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
