The Region Is The 'abode Of Snow,' And Glaciers Of Great
Size Fill Up Every Depression.
Humidity, vegetation, and beauty
reappear together, wild flowers and ferns abound, and pencil cedars
in clumps rise above the artificial plantations of the valley.
Wheat
ripens at an altitude of 12,000 feet. Picturesque villages,
surrounded by orchards, adorn the mountain spurs; chod-tens and
gonpos, with white walls and fluttering flags, brighten the scene;
feudal castles crown the heights, and where the mountains are
loftiest, the snowfields and glaciers most imposing, and the greenery
densest, the village of Kylang, the most important in Lahul as the
centre of trade, government, and Christian missions, hangs on ledges
of the mountain-side 1,000 feet above Bhaga, whose furious course can
be traced far down the valley by flashes of sunlit foam.
The Lahul valley, which is a part of British Tibet, has an altitude
of 10,000 feet. It prospers under British rule, its population has
increased, Hindu merchants have settled in Kylang, the route through
Lahul to Central Asia is finding increasing favour with the Panjabi
traders, and the Moravian missionaries, by a bolder system of
irrigation and the provision of storage for water, have largely
increased the quantity of arable land. The Lahulis are chiefly
Tibetans, but Hinduism is largely mixed up with Buddhism in the lower
villages. All the gonpos, however, have been restored and enlarged
during the last twenty years. In winter the snow lies fifteen feet
deep, and for four or five months, owing to the perils of the Rotang
Pass, the valley rarely has any communication with the outer world.
At the foot of the village of Kylang, which is built in tier above
tier of houses up the steep side of a mountain with a height of
21,000 feet, are the Moravian mission buildings, long, low,
whitewashed erections, of the simplest possible construction, the
design and much of the actual erection being the work of these
capable Germans. The large building, which has a deep verandah, the
only place in which exercise can be taken in the winter, contains the
native church, three rooms for each missionary, and two guest-rooms.
Round the garden are the printing rooms, the medicine and store room
(stores arriving once in two years), and another guest-room. Round
an adjacent enclosure are the houses occupied in winter by the
Christians when they come down with their sheep and cattle from the
hill farms. All is absolutely plain, and as absolutely clean and
trim. The guest-rooms and one or two of the Tibetan rooms are
papered with engravings from the Illustrated London News, but the
rooms of the missionaries are only whitewashed, and by their extreme
bareness reminded me of those of very poor pastors in the Fatherland.
A garden, brilliant with zinnias, dianthus, and petunias, all of
immense size, and planted with European trees, is an oasis, and in it
I camped for some weeks under a willow tree, covered, as many are,
with a sweet secretion so abundant as to drop on the roof of the
tent, and which the people collect and use as honey.
The mission party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Shreve, lately arrived,
and now in a distant exile at Poo, and Mr. and Mrs. Heyde, who had
been in Tibet for nearly forty years, chiefly spent at Kylang,
without going home. 'Plain living and high thinking' were the rule.
Books and periodicals were numerous, and were read and assimilated.
The culture was simply wonderful, and the acquaintance with the
latest ideas in theology and natural science, the latest political
and social developments, and the latest conceptions in European art,
would have led me to suppose that these admirable people had only
just left Europe. Mrs. Heyde had no servant, and in the long
winters, when household and mission work are over for the day, and
there are no mails to write for, she pursues her tailoring and other
needlework, while her husband reads aloud till midnight. At the time
of my visit (September) busy preparations for the winter were being
made. Every day the wood piles grew. Hay, cut with sickles on the
steep hillsides, was carried on human backs into the farmyard, apples
were cored and dried in the sun, cucumbers were pickled, vinegar was
made, potatoes were stored, and meat was killed and salted.
It is in winter, when the Christians have come down from the
mountain, that most of the mission work is done. Mrs. Heyde has a
school of forty girls, mostly Buddhists. The teaching is simple and
practical, and includes the knitting of socks, of which from four to
five hundred pairs are turned out each winter, and find a ready sale.
The converts meet for instruction and discussion twice daily, and
there is daily worship. The mission press is kept actively employed
in printing the parts of the Bible which have been translated during
the summer, as well as simple tracts written or translated by Mr.
Heyde. No converts are better instructed, and like those of Leh they
seem of good quality, and are industrious and self-supporting.
Winter work is severe, as ponies, cattle, and sheep must always be
hand-fed, and often hand-watered. Mr. Heyde has great repute as a
doctor, and in summer people travel long distances for his advice and
medicine. He is universally respected, and his judgment in worldly
affairs is highly thought of; but if one were to judge merely by
apparent results, the devoted labour of nearly forty years and
complete self-sacrifice for the good of Kylang must be pronounced
unsuccessful. Christianity has been most strongly opposed by men of
influence, and converts have been exposed to persecution and loss.
The abbot of the Kylang monastery lately said to Mr. Heyde, 'Your
Christian teaching has given Buddhism a resurrection.' The actual
words used were, 'When you came here people were quite indifferent
about their religion, but since it has been attacked they have become
zealous, and now they KNOW.' It is only by sharing their
circumstances of isolation, and by getting glimpses of their
everyday-life and work, that one can realise at all what the heroic
perseverance and self-sacrificing toil of these forty years have
been, and what is the weighty influence on the people and on the
standard of morals, even though the number of converts is so small.
All honour to these noble German missionaries, learned, genial,
cultured, radiant, who, whether teaching, preaching, farming,
gardening, printing, or doctoring, are always and everywhere 'living
epistles of Christ, known and read of all men!' Close by the mission
house, in a green spot under shady trees, is God's Acre, where many
children of the mission families sleep, and a few adults.
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