the course of the Optchu and rested there at noon. Overhanging rock walls flanked the valley like a canyon. The valley was absolutely uninhabited and only a wooden pole showed that men sometimes came there. The other side of the valley consisted of slopes of shale up which we had to climb. It was evening before we reached the plateau and we bivouacked in icy cold. Our fuel during the last few days had been the branches of thorn bushes, which we found on the slopes. Here there was nothing growing, so we had to use dry cow-dung, laboriously collected.
Before noon next day we reached our first Tibetan village, Kasapuling, which consisted of six houses. The place appeared to be completely deserted and when we knocked at the doors, nothing stirred. We then discovered that all the villagers were busy sowing barley in the surrounding fields. Sitting on their hunkers they put each individual grain of seed into the ground with the regularity and speed of machines. We looked at them with feelings that might compare with those of Columbus when he met his first Indians. Would they receive us as friends or foes? For the moment they took no notice of us. The cries of an old woman, looking like a witch, were the only sound we heard. They were not aimed at us, but at the swarms of wild pigeons which swooped down to get at the newly planted grain. Until evening the villagers hardly deigned to bestow a glance on us; so we four established our camp near one of the houses, and when at nightfall the people came in from the fields we tried to trade with them. We offered them money for one of their sheep or goats, but they showed themselves disinclined to trade. As Tibet has no frontier posts the whole population is brought up to be hostile to foreigners, and there are severe penalties for any Tibetan who sells anything to a foreigner. We were starving and had no choice but to intimidate them. We threatened to take one of their animals by force if they would not freely sell us one—and as none of the four of us looked a weakling, this method of argument eventually succeeded. It was pitch dark before they handed to us for a shamelessly high price the oldest billy-goat they could put their hands on. We knew we were being blackmailed, but we put up with it, as we wished to win the hospitality of this country.
We slaughtered the goat in a stable and it was not till midnight that we fell to on the half-cooked meat.
We spent the next day resting and looking more closely at the houses. These were stone-built with flat roofs on which the fuel was laid out to dry. The Tibetans who live here cannot be compared with those who inhabit the interior, whom we got to know later. The brisk summer caravan traffic with India has spoilt them. We found them dirty, dark-skinned and shifty-eyed, with no trace of that gaiety for which their race is famous. They went sulkily to their daily work and one felt that they had only settled in this sterile country in order to earn good money from the caravans for the produce of their land. These six houses on the frontier formed, as I later was able to confirm, almost the only village without a monastery.
Next morning we left this inhospitable place without hindrance. We were by now fairly well rested and Kopp’s Berlin mother-wit, which during the last few days had suffered an eclipse, had us laughing again. We crossed over fields to go downhill into a little valley. On the way up the opposite slope to the next plateau we felt the weight of our packs more than ever. This physical fatigue was mainly caused by a reaction to the disappointment which this long-dreamed-of country had up to now caused us. We had to spend the night in an inhospitable sort of depression in the ground, which barely shielded us from the wind.
At the very beginning of our journey we had detailed each member of the party for special duties. Fetching water, lighting fires and making tea meant hard work. Every evening we emptied our rucksacks in order to use them as footbags against the cold. When that evening I shook mine out there was a small explosion. My matches had caught fire from friction—a proof of the dryness of the air in the high Tibetan plateau.
By the first light of day we examined the place in which we had camped. We observed that the depression in which we had bivouacked must have been made by the hand of man as it was quite circular and had perpendicular walls. It had perhaps been originally designed as a trap for wild beasts. Behind us lay the Himalayas with Kamet’s perfect snow-pyramid; in front forbidding, mountainous country. We went downhill through a sort of loess formation and arrived towards noon in the village of Dushang. Again we found very few houses and a reception as inhospitable as at Kasapuling. Peter Aufschnaiter vainly showed off all his knowledge of the language acquired in years of study, and our gesticulations were equally unsuccessful.
However we saw here for the first time a proper Tibetan monastery. Black holes gaped in the earthen walls and on a ridge we saw the ruins of gigantic buildings. Hundreds of monks must have lived here once. Now there were only a few living in a more modern house, but they never showed themselves to us. On a terrace in front of the monastery were ordered lines of red-painted tombs.
Somewhat depressed we returned to our tent, which was for us a little home in the midst of an interesting but oddly hostile world.
In Dushang, too, there were—when we came—no officials to whom we might have applied for leave to reside or travel. But this omission was soon to be rectified, for the officials were already on their way to find us. On the next day we resumed our march with Kopp and myself in front, and Aufschnaiter and Treipel a little way behind us. Suddenly we heard the tinkling of bells and two men on ponies rode up and summoned us in the local dialect to return to India by the same way as we had come. We knew that we should not do any good by talking and so to their surprise we just pushed them aside. Luckily they made no use of their weapons, thinking no doubt that we too were armed. After a few feeble attempts to delay us, they rode away and we reached without hindrance the next settlement, which we knew was the seat of a local governor.
The country through which we passed on this day’s march was waterless and empty with no sign of life anywhere. Its central point, the little town of Tsaparang, was inhabited only during the winter months and when we went in search of the governor we learned that he was packing his things for the move to Shangtse, his summer residence. We were not a little astonished to find that he was one of the two armed men who had met us on the way and ordered us to go back. His attitude, accordingly, was not welcoming and we could hardly persuade him to give us a little flour in exchange for medicine. The little medicine chest which I carried in my pack proved our salvation then, and was often to be of good service to us in the future.
At length the governor showed us a cave where we could pass the night, telling us once more that we must leave Tibet, using the road by which we had come. We refused to accept his ruling and tried to explain to him that Tibet was a neutral state and ought to offer us asylum. But his mind could not grasp this idea and he was not competent to take a decision, even if he had understood it. So we proposed to him that we should leave the decision to a high-ranking official, a monk whose official residence was in Thuling, only five miles away.
Tsaparang was really a curiosity. I had learned from the books I had studied in the camp that the first Catholic mission station in Tibet had been founded here in 1624. The Portuguese Jesuit Antonio de Andrade had formed a Catholic community and is said to have built a church. We searched for traces of it, but could not find any remains of a Christian building. Our own experience made us realise how difficult it must have been for Father Antonio to establish his mission here.
Next day we marched to Thuling to lay our case before the monk. There we found Aufschnaiter and Treipel, who had followed a different route. We all visited the Abbot of the Cloister, who happened to be the official we wanted, but found him deaf to our prayers to be allowed to proceed on our way eastwards. He only agreed to sell us provisions if we promised to go back to Shangtse, which lay on our road to India. There was nothing for it but to agree, as we were without food.
There was also a secular official in Thuling, but we found him even less accommodating. He angrily refused all our attempts to approach him and went so far as to arouse the hostility of the people against us. We had to pay a high price for some rancid butter and maggoty meat. A few faggots cost us a rupee. The only pleasant memory that we took with us from Thuling was the picture of the terraced monastery with its gold-pointed roof-pinnacles
