The villager decided suddenly to give up the struggle. He dropped the harness and let the beast go free. We stood our distance as he turned towards us. We bowed, our eyes on his young, flat, glistening face. Meticulously he returned the salutation. The children watched silently. Kolemenos and I stepped forward a few paces, smiling. The children broke out into a chatter at the impressive stature of the big man, his long blond beard and hair. We stood in front of the man and bowed again. He talked and I talked but all the pair of us learned was that we could not understand each other. The children grouped themselves behind the man and listened to the exchange. All the time they kept darting glances at the blond giant. The villager turned round, walked a few paces, turned and motioned us to follow. The children ran past and ahead of him to spread the news through the village of our coming.
As we trod close on the heels of our guide I looked about me. I saw a few cultivated patches but nothing was now growing on them. I saw a woman leave a goat she was milking and hasten indoors. More children came out of houses and shyly scrutinized the strangers. Beyond the last house, some twenty or thirty yards from it, I saw the village was bounded on the eastern side by a stream. I thought how well the place was sited. I noted how quickly the children lost their shyness: soon there were a dozen pattering along beside us. At about the middle of the uneven row of houses the guide stopped. This dwelling followed the same unassuming pattern as the others, but it was distinguished from them by being slightly larger and having a porch formed of two sturdy timbers at its door.
‘This looks interesting,’ Mister Smith whispered to me as the man disappeared through the door.
‘I think he’s gone inside to fetch the Mayor,’ said Zaro.
There was not much time for further speculation. Almost as though he had been waiting behind the door, a new figure emerged through the porch. I judged him to be about fifty and he wore the normal dress of the country topped with a loose sheepskin jacket. He was a little taller than the average Mongolian and, though as dark as any of them, his features were not of so pronounced a Mongolian cast. We exchanged the usual greetings before he spoke in the language of the country. I shook my head and replied in slow, precise Russian. His face lit up, he beamed at me.
‘Welcome,’ he said in Russian. ‘Now we shall be able to talk.’
We were rather taken aback. He spoke Russian easily and without hesitation. I had to remind myself that there could be no danger so far south of the Soviet Union in a chance encounter with a Russian.
He waited a moment for me to reply and when I did not he went on eagerly, ‘I am a Circassian and it is a long time since I met anyone who could speak Russian.’
‘A Circassian?’ I repeated. ‘That is most interesting.’ I could not think of anything less banal to say.
His questions tumbled over themselves. ‘Are you pilgrims? It is not many Russians who are Buddhists. You came through the Gobi on foot?’
‘Yes, on foot.’
‘It must have been a terrible experience for you. Once I nearly died myself on that journey.’
He was going to ask more questions, but suddenly recollected his duty as a host. He apologized and invited us into his home. We trooped inside. A stone partition divided the one big room and I caught a glimpse of a woman I took to be his wife hustling three or four children out of the front half to presumably the kitchen at the rear. Little details leapt into notice — a few shining tin mugs, a row of wooden spoons on a shelf, a bunch of hanging dried herbs and, most oddly, in one corner a framed six-inch-square lithograph of Saint Nicholas in the Russian Orthodox style, much faded behind its glass pane. Underneath the lower edge of the frame was a metal stand on which stood a miniature oil lamp of simple construction with a red glass. There were wooden benches, solidly made, a stone cooking range, a heavy wooden bucket with a boat-shaped dipper, a flour mill, a primitive wool-spinning machine. The small amount of space available was well utilized. Around the walls were wooden bunks covered with home-woven rough wool blankets.
We sat, rather awkwardly in such unusual surroundings, on the benches. The Circassian — either designedly or perhaps forgetfully, he never gave us his name and we never volunteered ours — addressed himself to me again. The first question startled us.
‘Are you armed?’
‘No, none of us is armed,’ I answered.
‘Have you nothing even to chop wood with, for instance?’
‘Oh, yes. We have an axe and a knife between the six of us, unless you count the sticks we carry.’
‘Is that all? It isn’t very safe to travel in this part, you know.’
I was puzzled. ‘I don’t understand you. We have met with no trouble up to now.’
He paused a moment, looking us over. ‘Have you seen any Chinese? I mean armed Chinese, Chinese soldiers.’
‘No, not a sign of one.’
Then he got up and went from the room. Smith leaned over to me and urged me to find out some more about the mysterious Chinese.
He came back in about five minutes. I think he had been out to give instructions about the preparation of a meal. He listened gravely to my question.
‘I thought it right to warn you,’ he said, ‘that Chinese troops occasionally pass through this village. Sometimes they buy fowls from us. They seem to be exploring the area, although this is Tibet. I have seen them go off to the south in the direction of Lhasa. Since you speak only Russian they would be suspicious of you. If you see them it would be best to stay out of their way.’
It was well-meant advice and I thanked him for it, but we never did run across any Chinese soldiers.
Within half-an-hour of our arrival we were being regaled with tea and oaten cakes. Nobody spoke much until the food had gone. We were too busy filling our empty stomachs. Then our host produced a pipe and a bowl of tobacco and handed round the bowl. Soon the place was a haze of blue smoke which drifted out through the open door.
‘So you are going to Lhasa,’ he said between puffs of his pipe. He said it politely as a conversational gambit. I do not think he necessarily believed it.
‘Don’t forget,’ he warned us, ‘that the nights are fiercely cold, especially on the heights. You must never be tempted to seek sleep without adequate shelter. You must never be too tired to build yourselves a fire. If you go to sleep unprotected on the mountains you will be dead in the morning. It is a swift death and you will never know it is happening to you.
‘You are going in the right direction for Lhasa. There is a track from here for the next stage of your journey which you will find easy to follow. Tonight you must all stay here and in the morning I will show you how to go. These tracks can be confusing and in following them you must keep your sense of direction. Some of them lead only from village to village in a small area and you would waste a lot of time on them. They are almost family affairs, trails beaten out over centuries.
‘If you come across any village towards nightfall, stay there until the morning. You will always have a roof over your heads and be given a meal. No one will ask you for payment.’
‘Our trouble,’ Mister Smith broke in, ‘is that we do not know the language.’
Our host smiled. ‘That is not such a handicap. If you bow to a Tibetan and he bows back, no other introduction is needed. You are accepted as a friend.’