In the Forbidden Land/Chapter XCVII


 * Suna&mdash;Wilson and the Political Peshkar across the frontier&mdash;A messenger&mdash;Our progress stopped&mdash;Diverting us over the Lumpiya Pass&mdash;Condemned to certain death&mdash;We attack our guard&mdash;Lapsang and the Jong Pen's private secretary&mdash;A document&mdash;Nearing Kardam&mdash;Retracing our steps&mdash;Dogmar.

WHEN we had been marching for several hours, our guard halted to have their tea. A man named Suna, and his brother and son, whom I had met in Garbyang, halted near us, and from them I heard that news had arrived in India that I and my two men had been beheaded, and that thereupon Doctor Wilson and the Political Peshkar Karak Sing had crossed over the frontier to ascertain the facts, and to attempt to recover my baggage, &c. My joy was intense when I heard that they were still at Taklakot. I persuaded Suna to return as fast as he could, and to inform Wilson that I was a prisoner, and tell him my whereabouts. I had barely given Suna this message when our guard seized the man and his brother and roughly dismissed them, preventing them from having any further communication with us. As soon as we were on the march again, a horseman rode up to us with strict orders from the Jong Pen of Taklakot not to let us proceed any farther towards the frontier by the Lippu Pass, which we could now have reached in two days, but to take us round by the distant Lumpiya Pass. At this time of the year the Lumpiya would be impassable; and we should have to make a further journey of at least fifteen or sixteen days, most of it over snow and ice, during which we, in our starved and weakened state, would inevitably succumb. We asked to be taken into Taklakot, but our guard refused, and in the meantime the Jong Pen of Taklakot had sent other messengers and soldiers to ensure the fulfilment of his orders, and to prevent our further progress.

Our guard, now strengthened by the Taklakot men, compelled us to leave the Taklakot track, and we began our journey towards the cold Lumpiya. This was murder, and the Tibetans, well knowing it, calculated on telling the Indian authorities that we had died a natural death on the snows.

We were informed that we should be left at the point where the snows began, that the Tibetans would give us no food, no clothes and no blankets, and that we should be abandoned to our own devices. This, needless to say, meant certain death.

We determined to stand no more, and to play our last card. After travelling some two and a half miles westward of the Taklakot track, we declined to proceed any more in that direction. We said that, if they attempted to force us on, we were prepared to fight our guard, as whether we died by their swords and matchlocks, or frozen to death on the Lumpiya, was quite immaterial to us.

The guard, in perplexity, decided to let us halt there for the night, so as to have time to send a messenger to Taklakot to inform the Jong Pen, and ask for further instructions.

During the night the order came that we must proceed, so the next morning our guard prepared to start us again towards the Lumpiya. Then we three semi-corpses collected what little strength remained in us, and suddenly made an attack on them with stones; whereupon, incredible as it may seem, our cowardly guard turned tail and bolted! We went on in the direction of Taklakot, followed at a distance by these ruffians, who were entreating us to make no further resistance and to go with them where they wanted us to go. If we did not, they said, they would all have their heads cut off. We refused to listen to them, and kept them away by throwing stones at them.

We had gone but a few miles when we met with a large force of soldiers and Lamas, despatched by the Jong Pen to prepare for our death. Unarmed, wounded, starved and exhausted as we were, it was useless attempting to fight against such odds. As it was, when they saw we were at liberty, they made ready to fire on us.

The Jong Pen's Chief Minister, a man called Lapsang, and the Jong Pen's Private Secretary, were at the head of this party. I went to shake hands with them and held a long and stormy palaver, but they kept firm and insisted on our turning away from the frontier, now that we were almost within a stone's-throw of it, and we must perforce proceed by the high Lumpiya Pass. Those were the Jong Pen's orders, and they, as well as I, must obey them. They would not give us or sell us either animals or clothes which even the small sum of money I had on me would have been sufficient to buy; and they would not provide us with an ounce of food. We emphatically protested, and said we preferred to die where we were. We asked them to kill us then and there, for we would not budge an inch westwards.

Lapsang and the Jong Pen's Private Secretary now cunningly suggested that I should give them in writing the names of the Shokas who had accompanied me to Tibet, probably with the object of confiscating their land and goods. As I said I could not write Tibetan or Hindustani, they requested me to do it in English. This I did, but substituting for the names of my men and my signature sarcastic remarks, which must have caused the Tibetans some surprise when they had the document translated.

As, however, they refused to kill us there and then, and as Lapsang showed us great politeness and asked us to go by the Lumpiya Pass as a personal favour to him, I reluctantly decided to accept their terms rather than waste any more time, now that we were so near British soil.

Escorted by this large force of men, we had nearly reached Kardam when, in the nick of time, a horseman came up at full gallop and hailed our party. We stopped, and the man overtook us and handed Lapsang a letter. It contained an order to bring us immediately into Taklakot.

We retraced our steps along the undulating plateau above the Gakkon River, and late at night we reached the village of Dogmar, a peculiar settlement in a valley between two high cliffs of clay, the natives of which live in holes pierced in the cliff.

Lapsang, the Jong Pen's Private Secretary, and the greater portion of their soldiers, having changed their ponies, went on to Taklakot; but we were made to halt here, when yet another letter came from the Jong Pen saying he had changed his mind and we must, after all, go by the Lumpiya Pass!