'I'm sure you did, Huree. But we are not dealing here with ordinary criminals, as I have had occasion to point out before. This organisation is unique in the annals of crime.' Asterman scratched his pink pate and remarked cheerfully, 'Well, Mr Sigerson, you need not worry about them once you enter Thibet. I doubt if these criminals, unique though they may be, can succeed in entering this country when hardened explorers have failed. But it still puzzles me as to why the Thibetan authorities gave you and the babu here a pass to enter Thibet. Ah, well, Tsering will explain it to your sooner or later. He will be escorting you to Lhassa.'
'Why do you think they gave us a road pass, Mr Holmes?' I enquired that night, in our small tent. I was warmly ensconced inside my sheep-skin sleeping sack, but the memories of the events and revelations of that exciting day prevented sleep. Sherlock Holmes was half inside his sleeping sack, and, leaning back against his rolled up poshteen, was smoking his pipe.
'It is a piquant question, is it not?' A blue spiral of smoke rose from his pipe. 'But it will have to remain a mystery, at least till we get to Lhassa, for I do not have any answers. Still, we could possibly venture to discount any malevolence in their intentions, for if they were laying any kind of trap for us, why go about it in such a deuced round-the-corner way? Why send Asterman to rescue us from Moran's hired ruffians, and then lure us into something else? No, it cannot be that. Anyhow, there is insufficient data for the problem to be capable of an immediate solution. We shall just have to trust in a merciful providence, Huree, when we cross our Rubicon – that pass – tomorrow.' He put away his pipe and leaned over to blow out the candle. 'Good night.'
'Good night, Mr Holmes.' I could see that we were going to get into a good many dam'-tight places before all this was over. I sighed and pulled the top of the sleeping sack over my head.
14 On the Roof of the World
The next day we set out for Shipki la. We were to be escorted to Tholing, the chief town of the first Thibetan district across thefrontier, by the soldiers and the young official, Tsering. Tsering wore his hair long in a top-knot and disported the long turquoise earring that denoted his status as an official and a gentleman. He was a conscientious young man, ever alert to our needs, but rather nervous. No doubt the responsibility of looking after the guests of the Grand Lama himself was an onerous one. Mr Holmes was also the first European he had ever met, socially, apart from Asterman, who in any case was not really a sahib.
Asterman bade us farewell. He was thankful to have concluded his part in the affair and looked forward to setting up a prosperous business with the rich reward he had received. As far as Mr Holmes and I were concerned, he had earned every pie of it, and more. We wished him well in his proposed venture, and watched him trotting off on his goose-rumped mare, down the long winding road back to Simla.
The Shipki pass is not a very impressive one, as far as Himalayan passes go, being only 15,400 feet above mean sea level, but the tightening I felt in my lungs, and the slight fibrillation in my heart told me that once again I was in a land where I really had no business to be. The pass was excessively windy and beastly cold. The Thibetans, alongwith Kintup and Jamspel, piled up stones on a cairn as an offering to the mountain gods, and shouted their salutations.
'Lha Gyalol Victory to the gods!'
The more pious ones strung coloured prayer flags of cheap cotton from wind-weathered poles stuck on the cairns. This custom of the Thibetans has been much misunderstood by European travellers to the Himalayan frontiers, some of whom have observed that the natives were wont to worship mountains and stones. In truth, the Thibetans consider such inanimate objects sacred only by virtue of their being a residence of a god or lha who is present as animus assistentis and not as animus animantis. Some of these lha have their counterpart in the Roman numina.
Mr Holmes also laid a khatag on the top of a cairn. He noticed me looking at him and chafed me in a light- hearted way. 'Come on, Huree, pay your respects to the gods, like a good babu. We are in their provenance now. From here on, science, logic and Mr Herbert Spencer simply cease to exist. Lha GyaloV
I had never seen him quite so cheerful and light-hearted before. It could have been the rarity of the air. Altitude affects people in strange ways. While it just gave me occasional headaches, it appeared to make Mr Holmes happy. He had also gradually stopped taking those injurious drugs.
That night we halted at a little village at the foot of the pass. We pitched our tents by the side of a small brook, under an enchanting grove of apricot trees. Unfortunately it was not the right season for the fruit, but the sweet scent of the blossoms was sufficient to make our repose pleasurable.
But from then on the land became increasingly waterless and desert-like, what geographers would describe as a dorsum orbis. After two days we reached the town of Tsaparang, once the capital of the ancient Thibetan kingdom of Guge, abandoned around 1650 because of incessant wars and a drop in the water table. The citadel of the kings, an impregnable fortress, stood on the top of the sheer cliffs that rose above the ruins of the city. I had learned from certain records in the archives of the Asiatic Society that the first Catholic mission station had been founded here in 1624. The Portuguese Jesuit, Antonio de Andrade, had formed a Catholic community and is reported to have built a church. I told Mr Holmes this strange story and both of us searched for traces of a Christian building in the ruins, but found nothing.
'Did the good father succeed in converting many of the natives?' asked Holmes, knocking the ash out of his pipe against the side of a broken wall.
'Not very many, I would think. Thibetans are notorious in missionary circles for their obstinacy in clinging to their idols and superstitions.'
'They revel in their original sin, do they?' chuckled Mr Holmes. 'Anyhow, there is a surfeit of religion in this country already. Why should the missionaries want to bring in another?'
Next day we rode into Tholing, the other capital of the kingdom of Guge. This town is more populated and relatively prosperous. It has a picturesque monastery with golden canopies and spires, and is considered to be the largest and the oldest monastery in western Thibet. Unfortunately we could not visit it as we had to meet the governor of the district.
His servants were waiting for us outside our allocated quarters, a small whitewashed structure made of sun- dried bricks. As we dismounted they all doffed their caps and bowing low stuck out their tongues. It seemed to me to be an excellent example of the 'self surrender of the person saluting to the individual he salutes,' which Mr Herbert Spencer has shown to lie at the bottom of many of our modern practices of salutation. They had presents for us from the governor: entire carcasses of sheep, bags of cheese and butter, trays of eggs, and sacks of tsampa, which is the staple food of all Thibetans. After resting for a while and refreshing ourselves, we went to pay our respects to the governor at his official residence, a gloomy stone mansion on the edge of the town.
His name was Phurbu Thondup or'Thursday Wish-Fulfilled', and he was a man of Falstaffian proportions, larger even than myself. He was dressed in yellow silk robes and wore the long turquoise earring and top-knot, like Tsering. But to indicate his superior rank – he was a fourth ranker to Tsering's sixth – he had a small gold amulet in his piled-up hair. The nobles in Thibet are ranked in seven classes, to the first of which only the Grand Lama belongs. Yet in spite of his apparent seniority, the governor was very deferential to Tsering and addressed him with great politeness. There was something more to our young friend than met the eye. Phurbu Thondup cleared his throat noisily and ceremoniously before relating the latest instructions he had received from the Grand Lama's secretary.
We were to travel as swiftly as possible to Lhassa. Advance arrangements had been made at all the villages and nomadic encampments on the way, and also at the isolated tasam houses, the small caravanserais in which one can change a mule and find lodgings. But we were to try and be as inconspicuous as possible. We were to be especially careful, he continued, when we got to Shigatse, and on no account should we go anywhere near the Chinese consular office there.
Oh ho! So it is politics, I thought. Could our entree into Thibet have some kind of connection with the troubles that the Thibetans are having with the Manchu Amban in Lhassa?
I confided this to Sherlock Holmes on our way backfrom the governor's mansion, but he did not seem too impressed with my conjecture.
'I am not saying you are wrong, Huree, but as I gave you to understand before, it is a cardinal error to theorise without sufficient data. Consider the contrary. Wouldn't inviting a foreigner to Thibet, if discovered, cause a more
