of the mighty peaks covered with glittering snow from the top to the bottom was sublime in the extreme, incomparably more so than what one sees from Darjeeling or Nepāl. As for the Brahmapuṭra, it looked like a shining streamer hung out from the bosom of a great mountain, and waving down and across an immense plain, till the eyes could follow it no more. The sight gave me an uta:
The distant clouds about the snowy range
Pour forth the mighty Brahmaputra stream,
That darts into the farthest skies which meet
The far horizon of the distant lands.
The river in its pride majestic seems
The waving standard of the Buddha, named
Vairochana, all Nature’s Brilliant Lord.
Like all the others of my production, this may not be worth the name of uta. Call it a silly conceit of imagination, if you like; but when I made these lines, I was feeling so jubilant that I could not help giving vent to my emotion; for, conceit or no conceit, the imagination would have been impossible to me, had I not succeeded in penetrating into the untrodden wilderness of Tibet.
The sheep had now finished grazing, and dividing the burden of my luggage among the three—myself and the two sheep—I started making easy progress onward. I found the country around full of pools of water, varying in size all the way from a hundred yards to a mile or so in circumference, and I gave it the name of Chi-ike-ga Hara—Plain of a thousand Ponds. About four o’clock in the afternoon I finished the day’s journey by encamping near a good-sized pond. I then went about to collect the usual fuel, but found none, except the dung of the wild horse, and I concluded that the neighborhood was never visited even by yaks. The night was extremely cold, so much so that I could not sleep at all, and the following is an uta that occurred to me in the midst of shivering:
On these high plateaux here no sound is heard
Of man or beast, no crickets sing their tunes,
The moon above, and I, her friend, below.
The following day I made about twelve miles before noon, over a country much the same in topography. Proceeding north-west in the afternoon, I came to the base of a huge mountain of snow, which I could not think of crossing. For a while I went into meditation, and then wended my way in a direction which fortunately proved to be the right one for my purpose, as I found out afterwards. Right in the direction, but all wrong in other respects, as what I have to tell will show.
As I pushed onwards, I soon came upon a region which was quite the opposite of the country I had traversed in its entire absence of water supply; neither a pool nor a brook was to be seen within the eye’s range. I continued my progress until about seven o’clock in the evening—I had walked about twenty-seven miles, all told, that day—but not a drop of water could I find, and I felt as withered up as could be. As for my sheep, there was some green grass growing for them to graze on. I had no tea—in fact could not have any—that evening before I went to sleep. It is wonderful how one gets accustomed even to hardships; I slept well that night.
NEARLY DYING OF THIRST.
Before sunrise the next morning, on resuming my journey, I thought I espied a stream of water coursing through a sandy country at a distance which I judged to be about seven miles in the direction of my progress. Not having had a drop of water, or anything whatever in liquid form, since the afternoon of the previous day, I was of course thirsty; but now I had prospect at least of obtaining some quenching draught, and allaying the thirst with a pinch of hotan, now and then, I made good headway. On reaching the supposed river, what was my disappointment and dismay! Instead of a stream of water, I found there the dry bed of a river, strewn with white pebbles glittering in the sun! Then I could not help imagining myself to be a mere shadow, wandering in mad quest of a soothing draught in the hot region of the nether world, where all water turned into fire when brought to the mouth. Once more I stood me unto my full length, and looked round for water; but none could be seen, nothing but some blades of grass growing here and there to the height of about five or six inches. I could do nothing but endure the thirst, and wend my way on in the direction I had chosen—north-west. After proceeding for some distance, I once more thought that I perceived a body of water in the midst of another desert of sand, but on coming to the spot the glittering specks of sand once more disillusioned me only to intensify my thirst.
CHAPTER XXI.
Overtaken by a Sand-Storm.
The tormenting thirst which I experienced after my second disappointment simply beggars description. To say that I felt as if my entire internal system were becoming parched is only to put it mildly. But, however excruciating the torture might be, there was no help for it after all but to move on in the hope of finding some water; even the hope itself was now almost deserting me. I really felt that I should die of thirst if I should fail to get some moisture during the rest of the day, and were to pass another night waterless. I had been constantly taking some hotan; but even that cooling fragrance seemed to increase the distressing dryness. Thank heaven! about eleven o’clock I came within sight of a declivity, and somehow I felt sure that I should find some water at its bottom. Buḍḍha be praised! I was right: there was some water. But alas! such water! To take the luggage off my back, get out a wooden bowl, and run down into the hollow was the work of an instant. But when I fetched out a bowlful of the water, lo and behold! it was vermilion red, thick and (what was worse) alive with myriads of little creatures! In short, it was a stagnant pool of water, which for all I knew might have been becoming putrid for years. Imagine how I then felt! I was dying with thirst, but the very look of the water was forbidding. Then my religious scruples disallowed my swallowing any water with living things in it. It was not long, however, before I remembered a teaching of the Blessed Buḍḍha, in which the Lord telleth that when water which is to be drunk contains living things, it should be strained through a piece of woven stuff. I went through the process; but the water remained red. There were no more moving things in it, however, and I took a good long draught of the vermilion liquid. That quenching draught, how delicious it was! I imagine God’s nectar could not be sweeter. But a second bowlful—no, I could not take it. In the usual manner, then, I built a fire and went about boiling the filtered water. It was well-nigh twelve o’clock, however, before the kettle began to boil, and it being against my rule, as already told, to take any meal after noon, I prepared baked flour with the red lukewarm water. And the lunch I then took was one of the most enjoyable I ever had in Tibet.
A SAND-STORM.
I had proceeded over the sandy desert for about two and a half miles, after that memorable lunch, and it was now past three o’clock in the afternoon, when a terrific sand-storm arose. A sand-storm is something which one can never experience, or form any idea of, in Japan. As strong gust after gust of wind arose, the loose sand actually surged into big billows, tossing, dashing, tumbling, and sweeping, like the angry waves of the mighty ocean. The wind burrowed deep into the ground here and built high hills of sand there, filling the air with blinding particles, which rested in heaps on the luggage, penetrated down the neck, and made impossible any progress forward, while to stand still was to risk being buried alive. Not knowing what else to do, I kept moving just to shake off the sand, and to avoid being inhumed, while reciting in silence some passages of the Holy Text.
Fortunately
