Just As They Threatened To Sweep Gyalpo
Away, They Threw Their Horses On Their Haunches, In One Moment Were
On
The ground, which they touched with their foreheads, presented me
with a plate of apricots, and the next vaulted into
Their saddles,
and dashing up the valley were soon out of sight. In another half-
hour there was a second wild rush of horsemen, the headman
dismounted, threw himself on his face, kissed my hand, vaulted into
the saddle, and then led a swirl of his tribesmen at a gallop in
ever-narrowing circles round me till they subsided into the decorum
of an escort. An elevated plateau with some vegetation on it, a row
of forty tents, 'black' but not 'comely,' a bright rapid river, wild
hills, long lines of white sheep converging towards the camp, yaks
rampaging down the hillsides, men running to meet us, and women and
children in the distance were singularly idealised in the golden glow
of a cool, moist evening.
Two men took my bridle, and two more proceeded to put their hands on
my stirrups; but Gyalpo kicked them to the right and left amidst
shrieks of laughter, after which, with frantic gesticulations and
yells of 'Kabardar!', I was led through the river in triumph and
hauled off my horse. The tribesmen were much excited. Some dashed
about, performing feats of horsemanship; others brought apricots and
dough-balls made with apricot oil, or rushed to the tents, returning
with rugs; some cleared the camping-ground of stones and raised a
stone platform, and a flock of goats, exquisitely white from the
daily swims across the river, were brought to be milked. Gradually
and shrinkingly the women and children drew near; but Mr. -'s Bengali
servant threatened them with a whip, when there was a general
stampede, the women running like hares. I had trained my servants to
treat the natives courteously, and addressed some rather strong
language to the offender, and afterwards succeeded in enticing all
the fugitives back by showing my sketches, which gave boundless
pleasure and led to very numerous requests for portraits! The gopa,
though he had the oblique Mongolian eyes, was a handsome young man,
with a good nose and mouth. He was dressed like the others in a
girdled chaga of coarse serge, but wore a red cap turned up over the
ears with fine fur, a silver inkhorn, and a Yarkand knife in a chased
silver sheath in his girdle, and canary-coloured leather shoes with
turned-up points. The people prepared one of their own tents for me,
and laying down a number of rugs of their own dyeing and weaving,
assured me of an unbounded welcome as a friend of their 'benefactor,'
Mr. Redslob, and then proposed that I should visit their tents
accompanied by all the elders of the tribe.
CHAPTER V - CLIMATE AND NATURAL FEATURES
The last chapter left me with the chief and elders of the Chang-pas
starting on 'a round of visits,' and it was not till nightfall that
the solemn ceremony was concluded. Each of the fifty tents was
visited: at every one a huge, savage Tibetan mastiff made an attempt
to fly at me, and was pounced upon and held down by a woman little
bigger than himself, and in each cheese and milk were offered and
refused. In all I received a hearty welcome for the sake of the
'great father,' Mr. Redslob, who designated these people as 'the
simplest and kindliest people on earth.'
This Chang-pa tribe, numbering five hundred souls, makes four moves
in the year, dividing in summer, and uniting in a valley very free
from snow in the winter. They are an exclusively pastoral people,
and possess large herds of yaks and ponies and immense flocks of
sheep and goats, the latter almost entirely the beautiful 'shawl
goat,' from the undergrowth at the base of the long hair of which the
fine Kashmir shawls are made. This pashm is a provision which Nature
makes against the intense cold of these altitudes, and grows on yaks,
sheep, and dogs, as well as on most of the wild animals. The sheep
is the big, hornless, flop-eared huniya. The yaks and sheep are the
load carriers of Rupchu. Small or easily divided merchandise is
carried by sheep, and bulkier goods by yaks, and the Chang-pas make a
great deal of money by carrying for the Lahul, Central Ladak, and
Rudok merchants, their sheep travelling as far as Gar in Chinese
Tibet. They are paid in grain as well as coin, their own country
producing no farinaceous food. They have only two uses for silver
money. With part of their gains they pay the tribute to Kashmir, and
they melt the rest, and work it into rude personal ornaments.
According to an old arrangement between Lhassa and Leh, they carry
brick tea free for the Lhassa merchants. They are Buddhists, and
practise polyandry, but their young men do not become lamas, and
owing to the scarcity of fuel, instead of burning their dead, they
expose them with religious rites face upwards in desolate places, to
be made away with by the birds of the air. All their tents have a
god-shelf, on which are placed small images and sacred emblems. They
dress as the Ladakis, except that the men wear shoes with very high
turned-up points, and that the women, in addition to the perak, the
usual ornament, place on the top of the head a large silver coronet
with three tassels. In physiognomy they resemble the Ladakis, but
the Mongolian type is purer, the eyes are more oblique, and the
eyelids have a greater droop, the chins project more, and the mouths
are handsomer. Many of the men, including the headman, were quite
good-looking, but the upper lips of the women were apt to be 'tucked
up,' displaying very square teeth, as we have shown in the preceding
chapter.
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