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When we marched on September 22 over the old terraces of the lake and up to the threshold of the pass separating its basin from that of Yeshil-kul, the view of Lake Lighten opened up more the higher we rose, and at length the whole of the great blue lake in all its beauty lay before us at the foot of the snowy mountains. The pasturage was excellent everywhere, and the Pantholops antelopes in their surprise and perplexity often did not know in which direction to make their escape, and prompted by curiosity came thoughtlessly to meet us. The pass has a height of 17,392 feet. We had proceeded only a few paces on the other side when a complete change of scenery presented itself, as though a leaf of a large book had been turned over. The forms which had hitherto riveted our attention vanished forever, and new mountains lay before us, a new basin, and a new turquoise-blue lake—the Yeshil-kul. To the south and south-west of the lake extend great flats of pure white salt; concentric rings and isolated pools indicate that Yeshil-kul also is contracting (Illustration 75).

During the following days we encamped in a country where the grazing was good but the water slightly salt. On the wide, flat plains on the west side of the lake stand long rows of cairns, heaps of earth or skulls, piled up at a distance of two or three yards apart. They look like boundary marks, but, in fact, have been erected by antelope hunters of the Changpa tribe, Tibetan nomads, who are the “Northmen,” or natives of the northern plateau, Chang-tang, and who in this way drive the game into their nooses laid in a hole. It should be explained that antelopes have a decided objection to leaping over such lines, and will rather run along them till they come to the end. But before they reach it one of them has had the misfortune of putting his foot in a ditch with a noose in it. Only a son of the wilderness, who passes his life in the open like the wild animals, could devise such a mode of capture. My Ladakis informed me that the Changpas no longer hunt here, for fear of the people of Eastern Turkestan, who have often shown themselves hostile.

The 24th of September was another memorable day—my sails on Tibetan lakes, curiously enough, almost always ended in adventures. Of my Ladakis five had been in the service of Deasy and Rawling, and two of them affirmed that a shiny spot east-south-east was the spring where Captain Deasy had encamped for ten days in July 1896, and which he names in his narrative “Fever Camp.” Their indication agreed with Deasy’s map; so Muhamed Isa was ordered to lead the caravan thither, light a large beacon fire on the nearest point of the shore as soon as darkness set in, and keep two horses in readiness.

Our plan was to sail in an east-north-easterly direction for the northern shore, and thence southwards again to the signal fire. Rehim Ali was on this occasion assisted by Robert, who subsequently developed into an excellent boatman. The lake was nearly quite calm; its water, owing to its small depth, is greener, but quite as clear as that of its western neighbour. It is so salt that everything that touches it, hands, boat, oars, etc., glitters with crystals of salt. The shore and bottom of the lake consist chiefly of clay cemented together by crystallized salt into slabs and blocks as hard as stone, so that great care must be exercised when the boat is pushed into the water, for these slabs have edges and corners as sharp as knives. The lake is a salt basin of approximately elliptical outline with very low banks; nowhere do mountains descend to the strand. The three-foot line runs about 100 yards from the shore; but even 650 yards out the depth is only 15 feet. We executed our first line of soundings across the lake in the most delightful calm, and I steered the boat towards the point I had fixed by observations. At one o’clock the temperature was 49° F. in the water, and 50½° in the air. The depth increased very regularly, the maximum of 52.8 feet occurring not far from the northern shore. Robert was much delighted with the sail, and begged that I would always take him with me in future, which I the more readily granted that he was always cheerful and lively, and that he gave me valuable help in all observations. A little bay on the north shore served us as a landing-place. We surveyed the neighbourhood, and then hurriedly ate our breakfast, consisting of bread, marmalade, pâté de foie, and water. My companions had brought sugar, a tea-pot and enamelled bowls, but left the tea behind; but this forgetfulness only raised our spirits.

Then we put off again to make for the spring to the south-east. A row of stone blocks and lumps of salt ran out from the landing-place east-south-eastwards, and the water here was so shallow that we had to propel our boat with great care. Just as we had passed the last rock, of which I took a specimen, the west wind got up, the surface of the lake became agitated, and a couple of minutes later white horses appeared on the salt waves.

“Up with the sail and down with the lee-boards.”

The lake before us is tinted with shades of reddish purple, a reflexion from the clayey bottom; there it must be very shallow, but we shall soon pass it.

“Do you see the small white swirls in the south-west? Those are the forerunners of the storm, which stirs up the salt particles,” I said.

“If the storm is bad, the boat will be broken on the sharp ledges of the bottom before we can reach land,” remarked Robert.

“That is not clouds of salt,” said Rehim Ali; “that is the smoke of fires.”

“But Muhamed Isa should be camping at Sahib Deasy’s source; that lies towards the south-west.”

“There is no smoke there,” replied Robert, who had the field-glass; “perhaps they have not been able to cross the salt flats on the south of the lake.”

“Then it is their beacon fires which we see; but we cannot cross over in this boat in a storm.”

“Master,” suggested Robert, who always addressed me thus, “would it not be more prudent to land again before the storm reaches its height? We should be safe behind the stones, and we can gather a quantity of fuel before sunset.”

“Yes, that will perhaps be best; this lake is much more dangerous in a storm than Lake Lighten. We have, indeed, no furs, but we shall manage. Take in the sail and row behind the boulders. What are you gazing at?”

“Master, I see two large wolves, and we have no guns.”

He was right; two light, almost white, Isegrims were pacing the shore. They were so placed that they must be able to scent us in the boat; the odour of fresh live meat tickled their noses. When we stopped they stopped too, and when we began to move they went on close to the margin of the water. “Sooner or later you must come on shore, and then it will be our turn,” perhaps they thought. Rehim Ali opined that they were scouts of a whole troop, and said it was dangerous to expose ourselves to an attack in the night. He had only a clasp-knife with him, and Robert and I only pen-knives in our pockets; we had, therefore, little chance of defending ourselves successfully. Robert, for his part, preferred the lake in a storm to the wolves. I had so often slept out of doors unarmed, that I no longer troubled myself about them. But in the midst of our consultation we were suddenly compelled to think of something else. The storm came whistling over the lake.

77. Death in the Jaws of Wolves—or Shipwreck.

Fortunately, the sail was still standing and the centre-boards were down; the wind caught the canvas, the water began to rush under the stern, and we shot smoothly southwards with a side wind. Robert gave vent to a sigh of relief. “Anything but wolves,” he said. I made Robert and Rehim Ali row to save time, and soon the two beasts were out of sight. “They will certainly gallop round the lake, they know quite well that we must land somewhere,” said Robert. He was quite right, the situation was exceedingly unpleasant; we had only a choice between the storm and the wolves. We could not depend on our people; they were evidently cut off from us by salt morasses, which it was dangerous to venture into. We would therefore try to reach a suitable point on the south shore before dark (Illustration 77).

The hours fled past, and the sun sank in glowing yellow behind the mountains. For two hours we held on our course towards Deasy’s camp, but when the beacon fires became more distinct in the gathering twilight we changed our direction and steered southwards to reach our people. The distance, however, was hopelessly long, and just from that direction the storm blew, and in the broken, freakish light of the moon the waves looked as weird as playing dolphins. Sometimes I was able to take some rapid soundings; they gave depths of 32 and 36 feet. Our fate was just as uncertain as on the former occasion on Lake Lighten; we steered for the shore, but did not know how far off it was. Rehim Ali judged from the length of the path of moonlight on the water that it was a long distance. Two more hours passed. I gave my orders to the oarsmen in English and Turki. We had now the waves on our quarter, and if we did not parry their rolling, foaming crests they would fill the boat and sink it; so we had to sail straight against them.

The situation was not a little exciting, but good luck attended us. The boat cut the waves cleanly, and we got only small splashes now and then. The spray trickled down our necks, was pleasantly cool, and had a saline taste. I again took soundings, and Robert read the line: 33 feet, then 25, and lastly 20.

“Now the southern shore cannot be very far,” I said; but my companions remained still and listened. “What is it?” I asked.

“A heavy storm from the west,” answered Rehim Ali, letting his oar fall.

A regular humming noise was heard in the distance, which came nearer and nearer. It was the storm, which swept over the lake with redoubled violence and lashed up foam from the waves.

“We shall not reach the shore before it overtakes us. It will be here in a minute. Master, we shall capsize if the waves become twice as high as they are now.”

The waves swelled with incredible rapidity, the curves in the streak of moonlight became greater and greater, we rocked as in a huge hammock. The sounding-line had just marked 20 feet. How long would it be before the boat would ground on the hard, salt bottom, if it found itself in a trough between two waves? The lee-boards beat against the sides, the boat pitches and rolls, and any one who does not sit firmly and stiffen himself with his feet must go overboard. A terrible wave, like an all-devouring monster, comes down upon us, but the boat glides smoothly over it, and the next moment we are down in a trough so deep that all the horizon is concealed by the succeeding crest. We were not quick enough in negotiating this new wave; it ran along the gunwale and gave us a good foot-bath (Illustration 78).

“Master, it looks dangerous.”

“Yes, it is not exactly pleasant, but keep quiet. We cannot land in such a sea. We must turn and make for the open lake. About midnight the storm may abate, and then we can land.”

“If we can only keep on rowing so long.”

“We will help ourselves with the sail.”

“I am not tired yet.”

To land on the southern shore would be certain shipwreck; we should all be drenched to the skin, and that is dangerous on this night when we cannot reckon on the slightest help from the caravan. We shall be frozen before the dawn. To look for fuel before the sun sets is not to be thought of, for the saline plains in the south are absolutely barren. No, we will turn.

At the same moment we felt a violent blow, which made the boat tremble. The larboard oar, which Rehim Ali worked, had struck against the ground and started loose from the screw which fastened it to the gunwale. Rehim Ali managed to catch hold of it just in time, while he shouted, “It is only a stone’s throw to the land.”

“Why, how is this?—here the lake is quite smooth.”

“A promontory juts out into the lake. Master, here we shall find shelter.”

“All right, then we are saved; row slowly till the boat takes ground.” That soon happened, the sail was furled, the mast unshipped. We took off our boots and stockings, stepped into the water, and drew the boat on to dry land. My feet were so numbed in the briny water, cooled down to 41°, that I could not stand, and had to sit down and wrap my feet in my ulster. We found a patch of lumps of salt, thoroughly moist, indeed, though drier than elsewhere, and the best spot to be had; for water lay all around us, and the bank was extremely low. How far it was to really dry ground we could not ascertain; the moon threw a faintly shining strip of light for a considerable distance farther towards the land.

While I endeavoured to restore life to my feet by friction, the others carried our belongings to our wretched salt island. Then the boat was taken to pieces, and the two halves were set up as shelters. At nine o’clock we noted 31° on the thermometer, and at midnight 17½°; yet it was warmer now than on the previous days, for the water of the lake retains some of the heat of the summer air. Muhamed Isa had made a new roller for the sounding-line, with frame and handle, out of an empty box; it was of course immediately utilized as fuel.

The provision bags and the water-cans were brought out again, and we drank one cup of hot sugar-and-water after another, and tried to imagine it was tea. As long as the fire lasted we should not freeze—but then, what a night! Towards ten o’clock the wind abated—now came the night frost. We lay down on the life-buoys to avoid direct contact with the briny soil; Robert had the fur coat, I the ulster, and Rehim Ali wrapped himself in the sail. He slept huddled up together, with his forehead on the ground, as is the Mohammedan custom, and he did really sleep. Robert and I rolled ourselves together in a bunch, but of what use was it? One cannot sleep just before freezing. My feet were, indeed, past feeling, but this consolation was a sorry one. I stood up and stamped on the salt patch, and tried to walk without moving, for the space was very limited. I sang and whistled, I hummed a song, and imitated the howl of the wolves to see if they would reply. But the silence was unbroken. I told anecdotes to Robert, but he was not amused by them. I related adventures I had had before with wolves and storms, but they had little encouraging effect in our present position. We looked in vain for a fire; there was nothing to be seen in any direction. The moon slowly approached the horizon. The wind had sunk entirely. Little by little the salt waves, splashing melodiously against the shore, also sank to rest—an awful silence reigned around. We were too cold to think much of the wolves. Twice we raised a wild scream, but the sound of our voices died away suddenly without awaking the slightest echo; how could it reach the camping-ground?

“Now it is midnight, Robert; in four hours it will be day.”

“Master, I have never been so starved in my life. If I get back to India alive, I shall never forget this dreadful night on Yeshil-kul and the hungry wolves on the shore, though I live to a hundred.”

“Oh, nonsense. You will think of it with longing, and be glad that you were here.”

“It is all very fine to look back on, but at present I should be delighted to have my warm bed in the tent and a fire.”

“Life in Tibet is too monotonous without adventures; one day’s journey is like another, and we want a little change occasionally to wake us up. But we will take tea and firewood with us next time.”

“Shall you have more of such lake voyages, Master?”

“Certainly, if there is an opportunity; but I fear that the winter cold will soon make them impossible.”

“Will it, then, be still colder than now?”

“Yes, this is nothing to what the cold will be in two months.”

“What time is it, Master?”

“Two o’clock; we shall soon have been lying six hours on the morass.”

78. A Dangerous Situation on the Yeshil-kul. In Moonshine.

We nodded a little once more, but did not really sleep for a minute; from time to time Robert told me how badly his feet were frozen. At three o’clock he exclaimed, after a long silence: “Now I have no more feeling in any of my toes.”

“The sun will soon come.” At a quarter past four begins a faint glimmer of dawn. We are so chilled through that we can hardly stand up. But at length we pull ourselves up and stamp on the ground. Then we cower again over the cold ashes of our fire. We constantly look to the east and watch the new day, which slowly peeps over the mountains as though it would look about before it ventures out. At five o’clock the highest peaks receive a purple tinge, and we cast a faint shadow on the bottom of the boat, and then the sun rises, cold and bright-yellow, over the crest to the east. Now the springs of life revive. Rehim Ali has disappeared for an hour, and now we see him tramping through the swamp with a large bundle of wood, and soon we have kindled a sparkling, crackling fire. We undress to get rid of our wet and cold clothes, and warm our bodies at the flames, and soon our limbs are supple again.

Then Muhamed Isa’s tall figure appears on horseback in the distance. He ties a cord to the foreleg of his horse and leaves it at the edge of the swamp, while he proceeds on foot. When I was suffering most severely from cold I had composed a sharp curtain-lecture for him as soon as we met. But now when I caught sight of my excellent caravan leader I forgot it all, for I had to admit the validity of his reasons for delay. The caravan was long detained in dangerous, unstable ground, and the men had to carry everything. We went together to Deasy’s camp, which the caravan reached also. When the sun attained its highest altitude at mid-day, it found me still in the arms of Morpheus. I take it for granted that my two companions also requited themselves for the loss of their night’s rest.

On the morning of September 26 two horses were nearing their end; they could not get on their feet and had to be killed; one had died in the previous camp, and one fell on the march. We had lost 15 horses out of 58, and only 1 mule out of 36; these figures are distinctly in favour of the mules.

We now rode along the great longitudinal valley, where favourable ground made our progress easy, and passed a salt basin, with a pool in the middle surrounded by concentric rings of desiccation as regular as the benches of an amphitheatre. Before us in the distance was seen the caravan in two detachments, appearing like two small black spots in the boundless open landscape. I was deeply impressed by my own insignificance compared to the distances on the earth’s surface, and when I remembered that we travelled at most 13 miles a day, I was overwhelmed at the thought of the length of way we must traverse before we had crossed Tibet. Wolves were seen at the foot of a hill; perhaps they were our acquaintances of yesterday. We had to leave them, much against our will, an abundant banquet at the last camp, where six ravens had swooped down on our fallen horses.

One of the uppermost “benches,” which stood some 160 feet above the surface of the pool, afforded a capital road. Round about the soil was chalky white with salt. To the right of us was a low, brownish-purple ridge. Soon, with my usual companions, Robert and Rehim Ali, I came up with a worn-out horse. He did not look at all emaciated, but he had been relieved from duty for several days in hopes of saving his life. His guide came into camp in the evening, and reported that he had collapsed on the road and expired. The country is somewhat hilly, but solid rock seldom crops out, and then it is limestone and light-green clay-slate.

The camping-ground on this day, No. 22, had an interest of its own. Captain H. H. P. Deasy, on his remarkable expedition through West Tibet and Eastern Turkestan during the years 1896–1899, had great difficulties to contend with, and lost so many animals that, in order to save the expedition and its results, he had to leave behind a large part of his baggage and provisions, in short, everything that could be spared at all. In the year 1903 Captain Cecil Rawling made an equally meritorious journey of exploration through the same parts of Tibet, and as he found himself in a very critical situation through want of provisions, he decided to search for Deasy’s depôt, which, according to the map, must be somewhere in the neighbourhood. Two of Rawling’s men, Ram Sing and Sonam Tsering, had also accompanied Deasy, and Sonam Tsering was able to point out the place where the baggage and provisions had been buried. Thanks to the stores of rice, meal, and barley, found there in the wilderness, Rawling was able to save his horses, which would otherwise have been lost, and a small bag of horse-shoes and nails came in very usefully for their hoofs.

Sonam Tsering now accompanied me on my expedition. I had ordered him in the morning to halt at Deasy’s and Rawling’s camp, and therefore he marched on this day in the front with the mules. It was, of course, of great importance for my route survey to visit a spot so accurately fixed.

There was not the slightest difficulty in finding the spot, and when we reached the camp, which lay on a small flat space between gently rounded hills, Muhamed Isa had already digged out seven boxes. One of them contained flour, which had gone quite bad in the long interval, and probably was already spoiled when Rawling was here three years before. Only one box was of Tibetan workmanship, for Rawling, as Sonam Tsering informed me, had exchanged some of his worn-out Kashmir boxes for Deasy’s Turkestan chests, which were much better. But even Rawling’s boxes were better than the easily damaged wooden boxes from Leh, in which we kept candles and tinned meats. We therefore appropriated some of them and used our own as firewood. After all, Rawling had so thoroughly ransacked the depôt that there was very little left for me; but I was not in such urgent need of the goods. Some boxes of American beef were very welcome to the dogs, but the men despised them as long as we had fresh mutton. Cubical tins, which had contained Indian meal, lay all about the place. One of the boxes held a quantity of empty cartridge-cases; they had not been used, and Sonam Tsering believed that the Changpas had been here a couple of years after Rawling, and had picked out the powder; he pointed out to me one or two fireplaces, which seemed much more recent. In another box we found a shipping almanac and some map-sheets of Upper Burma—Deasy had planned to pass into that country, but had been prevented by sickness and death in his caravan. A packet of blotting-paper came in very handy, for Robert had started a herbarium for me; and Muhamed Isa discovered some ropes in good condition. Besides these things, we took only a couple of novels and Bowers’ description of his journey in Tibet in 1891, a welcome addition to my very scanty library (Illustration 79).

We were now in a country which several travellers had visited before me. Wellby and Malcolm, who discovered Lake Lighten, a lake already touched by Crosby, I have already mentioned. Dutreuil de Rhins, Wellby and Malcolm, Deasy, Rawling, and the Austrian naturalist, Zugmayer (1906), had been at Yeshil-kul. I crossed the route of the last a couple of months after his journey; he, like the Frenchman and the English explorer, has written a valuable book on his observations. At the time I knew nothing of his journey, but now I find that I crossed his route only at one point. Wellby’s and Dutreuil de Rhins’ paths I crossed only once, but Deasy’s at two points. In the following days it was harder to avoid the districts where Wellby and Rawling had been, and where the latter especially, with the help of native surveyors, had compiled such an accurate and reliable map that I had no prospect of improving it.

Consequently, I longed for country which had never been touched by other travellers. My camp 22 was identical with Rawling’s No. 27, and his expedition had skirted the lake Pul-tso, which lay a day’s march in front of us, both on the northern and southern side. Therefore, to avoid his route, I made for the middle of this lake, which stretches north and south, an unusual orientation.

When the great caravan is loaded up, and starts at sunrise, the camp is usually full of noise and commotion. In consequence of our daily loss of baggage horses the loads have always to be re-arranged; when, however, the crowd has moved off, all is quiet again, the iron brazier and the hot bath-water are brought, and in my tent, with its opening turned to the east, because the prevailing wind blows from the west, it is soon as hot as in a vapour bath. This heat often tempts one to put on lighter clothing, but one soon regrets it, for it is always cold outside. Then we go on through the desolate country where three expeditions have converged to the same point.

The soil is brick-red, the pasturage good everywhere. To the south lie low hills with arched tops, to the north stretches the immense mountain system of the Kuen-lun with several imposing mountain masses covered with eternal snow, and just in front of us rises the colossal dome-shaped, snow-covered massive, which Rawling named the “Deasy Group.” We had seen this gigantic elevation from Yeshil-kul, and it would serve us for a landmark for several days to come.

The caravan encamped on the bank of the Pul-tso (16,654 feet) near a small rock of limestone. Tundup Sonam, the “Grand Court Huntsman” of the caravan, begged to be allowed to go out shooting, and was given four cartridges. After a few hours he returned with three cartridges, and showed a yak’s tail as a proof that he had killed a huge beast, which he had found grazing peacefully by itself behind the hills to the south. Now the caravan had fresh meat to last ten days; “and when it is consumed, Tundup will shoot us another yak,” said Muhamed Isa, who was always much pleased when men he had picked out made a good job of their work. I had marrow from the yak’s bones for dinner—a dish that would not have disgraced the table of Lucullus (Illustrations 68, 69).