# Three Years in Tibet/Chapter 15

CHAPTER XV.
In helpless Plight.
Some hours after leaving the grey cliff I reached a river about 180 yards wide. Before plunging into it to wade across, I took my noon-meal of baked flour : it was then about eleven o'clock. The river was the one of which I had been informed, and I knew it could be forded. After the repast I took off my boots and trousers, and having also tucked up the other portions of my dress, went down into the river. Oh! that plunge! it nearly killed me; the water was bitingly cold, and I saw at once that I could never survive the crossing of it. I at once turned round and crawled up the bank, but the contact with the water had already chilled me, and produced in me a sort of convulsion. What was to be done ? I happened to think of ointment as a remedy, as well as a preventive, under the circumstances. I took out a bottle of clove oil I had with me, and smeared it in abundance all over my body. What with the sun shining and my giving myself a good rubbing all over, I felt better. Then, equipped as before, I made a second plunge. The water was cold, indeed cold enough to make my feet quite insensible before I had gone half-way across, and the rest of the fording I managed simply by the help of my two staves. The river was about hip-deep and the stream quite rapid, and when I reached the opposite bank I found myself almost a frigid body, stiff and numb in every part.
The next thing to be done was, of course, to recover the circulation of blood in the almost frozen limbs ; but I discovered this to be no easy task, for my hands were too stiff to do anything, and it took full two hours to put myself in shape to resume the journey. As it was, when I ​started out at about two o'clock, my legs were so flabby that I felt as if they were going to drop off. And my increased luggage weighed so heavily on my back, that I was now compelled to take it down and devise some new way of carrying it. This I did by dividing the baggage into two equal parts and, tying one to each end of my two staves (which I had tied together), I slung them across my shoulder. But two rough round sticks grinding against the untrained flesh of the shoulder, with eighty pounds of pressure, were not much of relief for a novice at this method of carrying burdens, and at every hundred or two hundred yards of my progress, which was tardy enough, I had to alter my mode of conveyance. In the two hours which followed, I made an ascent of half a mile and then a descent of about a mile, and when I had arrived at the bank of a river at about four o'clock, exhaustion made further progress impossible for me for the day.
Settled down for a bivouac, I set about making a fire to get tea ready. In Tibetan wilds the only kind of fuel accessible to travellers (except of course dead leaves of trees for kindling purposes) is the dry dung of the yak (these animals being set loose to graze for themselves) and the kyang, a species of native wild horse. I gathered some of these lumps, and built them up into a sort of partially hollow cone, with a broad base and low elevation, and then three pieces of nearly equal size placed tripod-like around this cone completed my arrangement for putting my tea-pot over the fire. But the fire was still to be made, and I may say that making a fire of this description is not a very easy performance until one acquires the knack of the thing; even a pair of hand-bellows is of little help, especially when the fuel is not sufficiently dry. Matches being unknown in those regions, I had to resort to the old-fashioned method of obtaining sparks of fire by striking a
A NIGHT IN THE OPEN AND A SNOW-LEOPARD.
To keep a fire burning brightly through the night was, however, to court a still greater danger, for it might attract marauding robbers, on the look out from far-off hill and mountain tops. Of the two dangers, that of robbers was the worst, for whereas a snow-leopard will sometimes leave a sleeping man alone, even with no fire, robbers will never leave him alone. Under these circumstances I left my fire smouldering, with a well-pressed layer of sandy soil over it, so that it would last till the morning, giving me at the same time enough warmth to keep me alive. When the moon rose that night I saw it was nearly full. Its pale light silvered the waters of the river before me. All was quiet, save for the occasional roars of wild animals. With all its dreary wildness, the scenery around was not without its charms that appealed to the soul.
When rising slow among the mountain heights,
The moon I see in those Tibetan wilds,
My fancy views that orb as Sovereign Lord
Of that Celestial Land, my country dear,
Those islands smiling in the far-off East.
The night was extremely cold, and I could not sleep. I sat up and fell to meditation; and while I was wandering over the borderland, half-awake and half-asleep, the morning came. With a start I got up, and on going to the river's edge I found its waters frozen. I then stirred up the fire, and after due preparations made a hearty breakfast. When ready to start on the day's journey, I could not recall the instruction given me before — whether to follow the river up its course, which would lead up to a high peak, or to proceed down stream. Here was a dilemma! but I felt sure of one thing, and that was that, weak and exhausted, I could not survive the ascent of the steep peak. By necessity, then, I proceeded down the stream, but I failed to come upon a rock upon which, as I had been informed, I should find an image of Buddha carved. No wonder! for I took the wrong direction, as I afterwards found out. Proceeding above five miles, I emerged upon an extensive plain, which I judged must be seventeen or eighteen miles by eight or nine, with the river flowing through it.
On consulting the compass I found that, in order to proceed towards the north-west, I should have to cross the river, a prospect particularly unpleasant just then, as I thought of the chilling effects of the icy waters. As I stood taking a survey of the river in an undecided frame of mind, I noticed a bonze wading across the stream towards me. As he landed on the bank, I hailed him, and eventually found him to be a pilgrim from Kham, bound for Gelong Rinpoche's cave. Then I negotiated with him to assist me across the river, after having astonished him with my generosity in giving him a comparatively large quantity of dried peaches and flour, articles particularly ​precious for a lonely traveller through those regions. I made him understand that I was ill and weak, and not equal to the task of crossing the river, heavily burdened with luggage as I was. Whatever was the effect of this piece of information, my liberality soon won him over to my help, and, taking all my luggage on his back and leading me by the hand, he assisted me to ford the stream. Having landed me and my luggage safely on the other side, and having also told me that, following the course he pointed out, I should come to an inhabited place after two days' journey, he bade me good-bye and once more crossed the river. I, for my part, started forthwith, heading in the direction prescribed for me.