Rescuing the Czar/Part One/Chapter XIII
Chapter XIII: An Enemy in Pursuit
[edit]47. Local color is given in this note:
"We have had an exciting day.... The strategy one must sometimes employ in traveling through a hostile country is based upon the principle of deception.... It was the work of Maria too, who had evidently been reading up on certain occult works of the Eastern magicians and brought them into play at a moment when we were surrounded by a band of marauders in the company of my 'Hindu' friend.... To explain: There is a certain kind of little animal held sacred among these strolling outlaws.... The possession of one of these animals is supposed to be a guarantee of future happiness as well as a protection against all danger.... They are very hard to entrap and the Ladakian Islamites will spend a month endeavoring to ensnare one.... We were quite a distance from the convent at Saspoula, where the road runs around among the rocks and turns back upon itself like a horseshoe in the wooded hills.... At one of these bends the pursuers had encamped ready to dash down upon us as we turned the bend and make away with the girls in the direction of their camp in the secluded mountain passes.... Maria had secured a number of those little animals, and, twisting a fine hairpin around one of their hind legs, she let one by one escape.... The animals clambered toward the higher elevations where the banditti lay in waiting.... Their movements being impeded by the hair pins on their legs they offered an apparently easy PRIZE to the superstitious Islamites.... Abandoning their present enterprise against our party they dashed after the deceptive animals and disappeared over the hills in a mad scamper for GOOD LUCK.... This little ruse cleared our pathway and permitted us to reach Saspoula before the sun had set.... Here we passed a number of shrines besides the French and Thibetan convents.... Avoiding the convent with the tri-color floating from its mast we approached the other.... Here again were the dusty idols, banners and flags thrown into one corner, the floors littered with ugly masks and prayer wheels and books and rolls upon rolls of sacred papers mutely breathing their delegated prayers.
"... As we had been informed, the lamas here were ready to receive us, with meal and beds prepared and our own apartments all in order.... The Lama who greeted us was about five feet tall, low flat forehead, flat nose, full thick lips, rather round small head and with a sweep of black whiskers falling from his chin.... In fact, NONE of these lamas are GRAY,--the only thing that suggests AGE is their stooped and slender bodies and bent and bony fingers.... AND THEY ALLOW THE PRACTICE OF POLYANDRY in their diocese!... One woman has a dozen husbands ... and every THIRD man we meet with is a lama.
"... Still the women we see here are more attractive than those we encountered in Cashmere.
"... Before leaving the convent we were again cautioned against holding conversation with STRANGERS we might encounter in the numerous caravans along the road to LEH.... We punctiliously obeyed these instructions during the rest of our journey until we reached the PETAK convent, which stands upon an isolated rock beside an abandoned garrison or fort, with its two towers looking like ant hills beside the majestic mountain that rises ten thousand feet above our resting place.... This mountain is the sentinel that protects our entrance into Thibet.... Six miles away is LEH, elevated eleven thousand feet above the lowlands and around whose shadowy convents rise those immense granite pinnacles to an elevation of eighteen thousand feet, where their frosty crests are enshrouded in the fezzes of eternal snows!...
"... Leh, with its circlet of stubby aspen trees, its succession of terraces, its old fort and the palace of its forgotten Moguls, has its arms outstretched for us.... The mystic word has been passed along our route and BEHOLD we are encamped in a well-furnished three-story white bungalow with odors oozing from the kitchen that promise a night of security and content!..."
48. The next entry gives a glimpse of the country through which our party passed:
"Traveling toward the east we have passed through a number of villages of neat two-story houses in these narrow walled-in valleys.... The inhabitants are, clearly, of a Mongolian race,--the homeliest I have ever seen!... They cultivate but little patches of the land, sit around all day and gain their hollow cheeks and shrunken chests and wrinkled foreheads by squinting at the sun.... Even the women are tiny things with a perpetual smile that pushes up their high cheek bones into a horn-like prominence and apparently belies their apparent gaiety.... The belts of these men are perfect arsenals of curious-looking things.... With their cloth caps with ear flaps hanging down, their knee breeches and their linen shirts hung with a dozen prayer wheels, they characterize this country well....
"... If it were not apparently made compulsory by law these fellows would not wash their faces once a year.... They seem never to have changed their clothing until it is beginning to fall off their indolent frames.... They are so lazy that their hair falls off their heads.... And I have not yet seen a coat that does not carry the smear of their dirty hair.... That characterizes the MEN.... The WOMEN are altogether different.... They are perfect water rats and like to bathe many times a day.... Their gowns are red, worn like a shirt-waist over well-rounded shoulders, and tucked into green pantaloons at their waist line, over which is thrown an elaborately plaited skirt that reaches to their red embroidered shoes.... A lambskin is thrown over the back ... the hair dressed in Italian fashion ... the veil festooned with beads and coins and trinkets of all description ... an oriental pelisse touched with its fringe of gold.... That's the type of woman of these silent places we are traversing.... MARIA HAS DISCOVERED THE ORIGIN OF THE BOLSHEVIKI TENET OF FREE LOVE AND MARRIAGE.... Today she explained to her father that the idea was imported into Russia from this country together with the mercenary hordes from a region east of here.... 'These women,' she said, 'do not understand what one means by love.... They think it is too great a luxury to be tolerated among self-respecting people.... They believe NO MAN is good enough to monopolize a whole woman to himself.... That sort of MONOPOLY is contrary to the ethics of a first-class Communism everywhere and it must not be tolerated in this blessed Bolsheviki world!'... 'Tut-tut!' said her father. 'Please discontinue comments on subjects that no longer interest us.'... Manifestly my 'prisoner' is becoming bored by this unending and dreary pilgrimage along the camel route in the direction of the rising sun.... However, his gallantry to Alice is inexaustible, unflagging and unfailing. If she stubs her toe he wants to kiss the bruise.... Maria's comment has apparently aroused the hostility of certain personages in this camp.... If I were not positive that the thing could not be possible I'd swear the TALL square-shouldered lama is well known in Constantinople...."