Louder Grew The Yells As The Torrent Raged More
Hoarsely, The Chorus Of Kabadar Grew Frantic, The Water Was Up To The
Men's Armpits And The Seat Of My Saddle, My Horse Tottered And
Swerved Several Times, The Nearing Shore Presented An Abrupt Bank
Underscooped By The Stream.
There was a deeper plunge, an
encouraging shout, and Mr. Redslob's strong horse leapt the bank.
The gopas encouraged
Mine; he made a desperate effort, but fell short
and rolled over backwards into the Shayok with his rider under him.
A struggle, a moment of suffocation, and I was extricated by strong
arms, to be knocked down again by the rush of the water, to be again
dragged up and hauled and hoisted up the crumbling bank. I escaped
with a broken rib and some severe bruises, but the horse was drowned.
Mr. Redslob, who had thought that my life could not be saved, and the
Tibetans were so distressed by the accident that I made very light of
it, and only took one day of rest. The following morning some men
and animals were carried away, and afterwards the ford was impassable
for a fortnight. Such risks are among the amenities of the great
trade route from India into Central Asia!
The Lower Nubra valley is wilder and narrower than the Upper, its
apricot orchards more luxuriant, its wolf-haunted hippophae and
tamarisk thickets more dense. Its villages are always close to
ravines, the mouths of which are filled with chod-tens, manis,
prayer-wheels, and religious buildings. Access to them is usually up
the stony beds of streams over-arched by apricots. The camping-
grounds are apricot orchards. The apricot foliage is rich, and the
fruit small but delicious. The largest fruit tree I saw measured
nine feet six inches in girth six feet from the ground. Strangers
are welcome to eat as much of the fruit as they please, provided that
they return the stones to the proprietor. It is true that Nubra
exports dried apricots, and the women were splitting and drying the
fruit on every house roof, but the special raison d'etre of the tree
is the clear, white, fragrant, and highly illuminating oil made from
the kernels by the simple process of crushing them between two
stones. In every gonpo temple a silver bowl holding from four to six
gallons is replenished annually with this almond-scented oil for the
ever-burning light before the shrine of Buddha. It is used for
lamps, and very largely in cookery. Children, instead of being
washed, are rubbed daily with it, and on being weaned at the age of
four or five, are fed for some time, or rather crammed, with balls of
barley-meal made into a paste with it.
At Hundar, a superbly situated village, which we visited twice, we
were received at the house of Gergan the monk, who had accompanied us
throughout. He is a zemindar, and the large house in which he made
us welcome stands in his own patrimony. Everything was prepared for
us. The mud floors were swept, cotton quilts were laid down on the
balconies, blue cornflowers and marigolds, cultivated for religious
ornament, were in all the rooms, and the women were in gala dress and
loaded with coarse jewellery. Right hearty was the welcome. Mr.
Redslob loved, and therefore was loved. The Tibetans to him were not
'natives,' but brothers. He drew the best out of them. Their
superstitions and beliefs were not to him 'rubbish,' but subjects for
minute investigation and study. His courtesy to all was frank and
dignified. In his dealings he was scrupulously just. He was
intensely interested in their interests. His Tibetan scholarship and
knowledge of Tibetan sacred literature gave him almost the standing
of an abbot among them, and his medical skill and knowledge, joyfully
used for their benefit on former occasions, had won their regard. So
at Hundar, as everywhere else, the elders came out to meet us and cut
the apricot branches away on our road, and the silver horns of the
gonpo above brayed a dissonant welcome. Along the Indus valley the
servants of Englishmen beat the Tibetans, in the Shayok and Nubra
valleys the Yarkand traders beat and cheat them, and the women are
shy with strangers, but at Hundar they were frank and friendly with
me, saying, as many others had said, 'We will trust any one who comes
with the missionary.'
Gergan's home was typical of the dwellings of the richer cultivators
and landholders. It was a large, rambling, three-storeyed house, the
lower part of stone, the upper of huge sun-dried bricks. It was
adorned with projecting windows and brown wooden balconies. Fuel -
the dried exereta of animals - is too scarce to be used for any but
cooking purposes, and on these balconies in the severe cold of winter
the people sit to imbibe the warm sunshine. The rooms were large,
ceiled with peeled poplar rods, and floored with split white pebbles
set in clay. There was a temple on the roof, and in it, on a
platform, were life-size images of Buddha, seated in eternal calm,
with his downcast eyes and mild Hindu face, the thousand-armed Chan-
ra-zigs (the great Mercy), Jam-pal-yangs (the Wisdom), and Chag-na-
dorje (the Justice). In front on a table or altar were seven small
lamps, burning apricot oil, and twenty small brass cups, containing
minute offerings of rice and other things, changed daily. There were
prayer-wheels, cymbals, horns and drums, and a prayer-cylinder six
feet high, which it took the strength of two men to turn. On a shelf
immediately below the idols were the brazen sceptre, bell, and
thunderbolt, a brass lotus blossom, and the spouted brass flagon
decorated with peacocks' feathers, which is used at baptisms, and for
pouring holy water upon the hands at festivals. In houses in which
there is not a roof temple the best room is set apart for religious
use and for these divinities, which are always surrounded with
musical instruments and symbols of power, and receive worship and
offerings daily, Tibetan Buddhism being a religion of the family and
household.
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