In the Forbidden Land/Chapter LXXIV
- Chanden Sing's plucky resistance—Mansing secured—A signal—A treacherous Lama—Confiscation of baggage—Watches, compasses and aneroids—Fear and avidity—The air-cushion—Dragged into the encampment.
THEY lifted me and made me stand up. The brave Chanden Sing had been struggling with all his might against fifteen or twenty foes, and had disabled several of them. He had been pounced upon at the same moment as I was, and had fought gallantly until, like myself, he had been entangled, thrown down and secured by ropes. During my struggle, I heard him call out repeatedly: "Banduk, banduk, Mansing; jaldi, banduk!" ("Rifle, rifle, Mansing; quick, my rifle!") but, alas, poor Mansing the leper, the weak and jaded coolie, had been sprung upon by four powerful Tibetans, who held him pinned to the ground as if he had been the fiercest of bandits. Mansing was a philosopher. He had saved himself the trouble of even offering any resistance; but he too, was ill-treated, beaten and tightly bound. At the beginning of the fight a shrill whistle had brought up four hundred[1] armed soldiers who had lain in ambush round us, concealed behind the innumerable sandhills and in the depressions in the ground. They took up a position round us and covered us with their matchlocks.
All was now over, and, bound like a dangerous criminal, I looked round to see what had become of my men. When I realised that it took the Tibetans five hundred men[2] all counted to arrest a starved Englishman and his two half-dying servants, and that, even then, they dared not do it openly, but had to resort to abject treachery; when I found that these soldiers were picked troops from Lhassa and Sigatz (Shigatze), despatched on purpose to arrest our progress and capture us, I could not restrain a smile of contempt for those into whose hands we had at last fallen.
My blood boiled when, upon the order of the Lama, who the previous night had professed to be our friend, several men advanced and searched our pockets. They rifled us of everything we possessed, and began overhauling our baggage. The watches and chronometer were looked upon with suspicion, their ticking causing anxiety and curiosity. They were passed round and round and mercilessly thrown about from one person to the other, until they stopped. They were then pronounced "dead." The compasses and aneroids, which they could not distinguish from watches, were soon thrown aside, as "they had no life in them," but great caution was displayed in touching our rifles, which were lying on our bedding when the tent had been torn down.
Great fears were entertained lest they should go off by themselves; and it was only on my assurance (which made our captors ten times more cautious) that they were not loaded, that at last they took them and registered them in the catalogue of our confiscated property. I had upon me a gold ring that my mother had given me when I was a child. I asked permission to retain it, and with their superstitious nature they immediately thought that it had occult powers, like the wands one reads of in fairy tales.
A man called Nerba, who later on played an important part in our sufferings, was entrusted with it, and warned never to let me see it again. As we three prisoners sat bound and held down by guards it was heartbreaking to see the Lamas and officers handle all our things so roughly as to spoil nearly all they touched; but particularly disgusting was their avidity when, in searching the pockets of the coat I wore daily, and which I had not put on that morning, they found a quantity of silver coins, some eight hundred rupees in all. Officers, Lamas and soldiers made a grab for the money, and when order was re-established, only a few coins remained where the sum had been laid down. Other moneys which they found in one of our loads met with a similar fate. Among the things arousing greatest curiosity was an india-rubber pillow fully blown out. The soft, smooth texture of the india-rubber seemed to catch their fancy, and one after the other they rubbed their cheeks on the cushion, exclaiming at the pleasant sensation it gave them. However, in playing with the brass screw by which the cushion was inflated, they gave it a turn, and the imprisoned air found its way out with a hissing noise. This created quite a panic among the Tibetans, and many were the conjectures of their superstitious minds as to the meaning of the strange contrivance. They regarded it as an evil omen, and naturally I took advantage of any small incident of this kind to work judiciously on their superstitions and frighten them as much as I could.
The Tibetans, having examined all except my water-tight cases of instruments, photographic plates and sketches, seemed so upset at one or two things that happened, and at some remarks I made, that they hurriedly sealed up all my property in bags and blankets, and ordered the things to be placed on yaks and brought into the guard-house of the settlement. This done, they tied the end of the ropes that bound our necks to the pommels of their saddles, and, having loosed our feet, they sprang on their ponies and rode off, with shouts, hisses and cries of victory, firing their matchlocks in the air, and dragging us prisoners into the settlement.