'This is your favourite yintsieu — the honey wine,' the father said. 'I bought it in Likiang last week specially for you.'
Typical Minkia dishes were put on the table, all in small saucers, according to local custom. There was home-cured ham, fried chicken, fried water plant, small fish, roasted eels, fried potatoes and salted pork. There was much joking and laughter and some mandolins were produced. How I enjoyed their sweet, slightly monotonous music and plaintive singing! It was very romantic — all about love, beautiful women and brave men. Every time a new dish was placed on the table by Akounya, one of the young men blushed.
'I think he must be Akounya's future husband.' I nudged Ahtseng. There was a roar of laughter, the young man turned crimson and others nodded knowingly.
The early morning was very cold and hoar frost covered the grass. We breakfasted heavily. I mounted my wild Tibetan horse; Hozuchi strapped on a basket with food and hand baggage, and we started. Almost at once we came to the sheer face of the mountain. There was a cobbled road, extremely steep, zigzagging upwards through the scrub. I dismounted and, parting from Hozuchi, I took a small path which was a short cut. It was a very long climb through rhododendrons and pines. Brightly plumed pheasants crossed the path now and then and hid in nearby bushes: distant trumpeting of deer and calls of mountain birds were the only sounds. The higher I went the colder it became and the more difficult to breathe. Whistles and catcalls came from above. Somebody was there. The view was magnificent: high mountains and dark green forests surrounded me, and on both sides of the path there were deep, rocky ravines. Far below there was an emerald lake and the yellow thread of the caravan trail to Taku. At last, panting, I reached the top of the pass where a dark, sinister gap led to the plateau beyond. Five shivering youths with old-fashioned guns were waiting for me. 'Are you the escort?' I inquired, and they nodded. We sat for a while waiting for the horse and Hozuchi.
Then we started to walk along a narrow trail clinging precariously to the side of a breath-taking ravine. Soon we emerged on vast highlands pitted here and there with the devil's sinkholes. These were typical of the countryside around Likiang and were huge funnels with clusters of trees which camouflaged bottomless holes into the bowels of the earth. There was not a soul to be seen, nothing but a sea of pine forests and mountains around us. It was agreed that the escort would return home when we had passed the notorious 'Robbers' Temple', where the trail begins to slope gently towards Likiang. It marked the highest point on this plateau of 11,000 feet. Plodding hour after hour in the oppressive silence and utter loneliness, we stopped talking.
At last we came to a turn, after which the dreaded temple should have been visible. A band of ten men, poorly clad but each carrying an old gun, appeared as if from nowhere. We did not stop and they fell in with us. At last one of them spoke.
'Zeh gkv bbeu? (Where are you going?)' he asked me in Nakhi.
'Ggubbv bleu (Going to Likiang),' I answered brightly. He pondered.
'Nakhi kou chi kv (You understand Nakhi),' he smiled.
A flood of conversation followed with my boy, the guards keeping discreetly silent. Hozuchi explained who I was, where I lived and where we were travelling from. I guessed at once who the strangers were, but kept my own counsel. I was not afraid of being killed, but I hated the idea of appearing in Likiang in only my underwear. We came to a pretty little clearing among the pines, where I dismounted and asked everybody to sit down. From Hozuchi's basket I extracted a jar and a bowl, filled it to the brim and said, 'Zhi teh (Drink wine).' Round and round went the bowl and everyone became warm and mellow. The interest in my baggage and inquiries of how much money I had with me gradually abated. I prudently slipped in a word that I had no money with me at all as my funds had gone ahead with the caravan.
'We are poor people,' said one of the strangers, 'and have to live by our wits.' He took another draught of wine. 'However, you are a good man. We know much about your work. I have not met you before. But once you saved my life and that of my friend. Do you remember an old woman who came to you last year to ask for medicine for the men who had been burned by gunpowder explosion?" Saying this, he let his trousers fall down, exposing his scarred legs and abdomen. I remembered at once.
'So that was you!' I cried.
'Yes,' he said, slowly tying up his trousers.
The whole picture came back to me clearly. Once I came home late in the evening and found an old woman from a mountain village in my courtyard, crying bitterly. Between sobs she explained that her son and two friends had been making gunpowder, for hunting purposes, in a large cauldron that very afternoon. A man, absent-mindedly, had thrown a lighted cigarette into the cauldron....
They are still breathing,' she informed me, 'but all the skin on the thighs and abdomen is burnt off.'
As Likiang had no hospital, she could only think of me and walked forty li (thirteen miles) to get medicine. This was an extremely grave case, I thought, and the men must surely die with so much skin destroyed. What could I do? If I gave them medicine and the men died, I would be considered a murderer and my life would not be worth a penny at the hands of an enraged family and clansmen. Such was the custom here. And yet, I must do my best. I made the old woman swear, before my servants and neighbours, that the family should not hold me responsible for the death of these men and, I told her frankly, die they must if the injuries were so great. She understood and swore by the great god Saddok of the Snow Mountain, all other gods, and the spirits of the mighty Nagarajas dwell in the mountains, lakes and trees. I gave her a generous supply of powdered sulphanilamide and cottonwool, and told her to powder the men gently every day.
'But', I insisted, 'you must see that they drink water by the bucket all the time.'
She grabbed the drug and left. A week afterwards she appeared with a few eggs.
'They are still breathing and drinking the water,' she said.
I marvelled. Another week passed and she came again with a few eggs.
'Now they can eat a little,' she informed me.
A fortnight later she brought a small pot of honey and more eggs —
'Now they can walk a little. Thank you! Oh, thank you!' Weeks later she came yet once more, carrying a chicken. She beamed.
'Now they can sleep with their wives,' she said exultantly.
So these were the men. They helped me gently to mount, wished us all a pleasant journey, and disappeared among the pines.
At the Robbers' Temple near by — a small half-burned shrine — we said good-bye to our escort, thanked them and gave them a small tip as is the custom. Meaning glances were exchanged, but nobody spoke about the encounter.
Again we travelled in utter solitude through a rolling country with nothing but forests and great mountains in the distance. Soon, however, the majestic Mount Satseto moved into view, with its glittering glaciers reflected in the beautiful blue lake of Lashiba. The village of Lashiba with its white, orange and red houses could be seen in the distance. When we reached it we stopped for a quick meal, and then followed up the shallow valley that holds the lake hemmed in by green mountains. Slowly we climbed up to the gap that led to Likiang.
CHAPTER II