FILLIPO DE FILLIPI (1909)
Byicha – 7 January
The wheeling and dealing worked: by ten o’clock this morning Rachel was in possession of a fourteen-hand, Rs.700 pony, at once named Hallam after her favourite man friend. He came complete with bit, bridle and namdah. The namdah has a sewn-on covering of what must once have been pretty flowered cotton, and the disintegrating but still serviceable reins are made of soft plaited leather with a filling of cloth.
As we concluded the deal it began to snow lightly and there was some doubt about whether or not we should leave. Finally it was decided that whatever the weather did we could make this tiny hamlet, which is only eight miles from Thowar. Mazhar also left for Skardu this morning, in a merchant’s jeep.
Zakir carried Hallam’s load to Dambudass; with the advent of tipping-time he had become a model of zealous endeavour and solicitude for our welfare. In the bazaar I bought a worn old sack for Rs.8; absurd prices are put on all objects that come from down-country. I then divided Hallam’s load between the sack and our canvas bag, keeping the bag lighter because to it was tied our kerosene supply. A local expert judiciously adjusted the load and showed me how to tie it across the saddle, which has special iron accessories for the purpose. My own load consisted of our bedding and emergency high-altitude tent, while in her mini-rucksack Rachel was carrying a first-aid kit and Squirrel Nutkin. The capacious pockets of my parka held map, compass-pedometer, diary, pen, handkerchief, thermos of tea and the sustaining dried apricots without which no one travels in these areas.
It was noon when Rachel mounted again, to the cheers of the populace, which had assembled, seemingly in its entirety, to see us off. Already, without any load up, Hallam had proved incapable of more than 2 m.p.h. – half my own normal walking speed – and I had reckoned, correctly, that it would be about 4.30 p.m. when we arrived here.
A mile or so from Dambudass we came on three coolies ‘tidying’ the track; because of frequent landslips and rockfalls this is a daily task. They were Hotel friends who greeted us warmly and downed shovels to escort us across a long stretch of ice just ahead. One man lifted Rachel down while another took Hallam’s bridle and the third firmly held my arm. We could easily have managed on our own but I appreciated this farewell gesture from people among whom we had been so happy.
We saw no further trace of humanity for over two hours. Then we came on an improbable youth sitting wrapped in a blanket by the edge of the track. He looked so like a large clump of thyme that I noticed him only as we drew level and his astonishment on seeing us rendered him incapable of returning our greeting. The weather did not deteriorate as expected – the sky even cleared a little for a time – but the afternoon wind blew sharp-edged and remorseless and one could sense snow in the air.
Hallam goes slightly less slowly if left in Rachel’s control. Unfortunately, however, he has been trained (or prefers) to walk on the extreme outside edge of the track and this did the maternal nerves no good at all, with the Indus racing along anything from 100 to 1,000 feet below his neat little hooves. So I led him, taking care that the inner half of the load was not damaged by protruding hunks of cliff.
[Here I had to pause to thaw my hands over our oil-stove, though while writing I am wearing ski-gloves. The cold is so intense in this shack I can scarcely think through it.]
For much of the time we could see the mountain-wall at the foot of which we have come to rest. A tremendous wall it is, of pointed, oddly symmetrical peaks well over 20,000 feet but so sheer they have only a light covering of snow – just enough to enhance their austere, cruel beauty. For miles the brown cliffs on the far side of the Gorge run towards this wall at right angles, rising straight up from the water and looking as though hewn by man, so regularly are they formed. Despite their steepness, two isolated and quite tall pine-trees have somehow found root-holds, hundreds of feet above the river, on ledges that were invisible to us. These were the first green things we had seen since leaving the plains and they looked like mistakes – as if Nature had absent-mindedly put something down in the wrong place.
On our side of the Gorge numerous buzzards and eagles strutted and squabbled among colossal boulders and shattered rock-slabs on the slope above us. Their colouring blends so well with the grey-brown-black of this landscape that often one doesn’t notice them until they move. Some were splendidly unafraid and perched twenty yards away to watch our passing. They seem to commute frequently to the far side of the Gorge, which is doubtless stocked with all sorts of unsuspected delicacies, and Rachel was thrilled to see their majestic wing-span as they planed close overhead, with great trousered talons spread for the descent.
It suddenly gets very cold at about 3 p.m., even on a day when the noon sun has been warm, and at 3.15 I suggested to Rachel that she should walk the rest of the way. Being obsessed with the joy of riding her own pony she vigorously denied feeling cold, yet when I insisted on her dismounting she was so numb she could scarcely stand up.
We saw Byicha from some way off, as a brown smudge of leafless trees relieving the desolation. Here trees always mean people. At Byicha the Indus swings west and on its right bank, where it curves, the Gorge widens for about a mile, allowing some cultivation; enough, apparently, to sustain life for the inhabitants of a score or so of stone hovels that seem to have grown out of the mountain and are almost invisible from the track. As one draws near, tiny fields and frozen irrigation channels and wildly writhing vines appear amidst the trees. A few goats, sheep and dzo, and one magnificent yak, were diligently searching for dead leaves; in Ronda they would all have been stabled by three o’clock but the poorer a settlement the more self-sufficient its animals have to be.
We were now at the foot of that symmetrical mountain-wall and could no longer see its peaks. The track climbed steeply for a quarter of a mile before slightly swinging away from the river to cross a nullah full of icy boulders and leaping, foaming water. We were approaching the new wooden bridge when we saw on our left, a little above track-level, two incongruous jeeps parked outside a shack in the shade of several tall trees. But for this evidence of its status, we would certainly have by-passed our hotel without recognising it. It consists of an eating-house and this store-room-cum-bedroom where we are sleeping.
When Hallam had been stabled and fed – for this I had to lead him back to the main part of the settlement – we had a surprisingly good supper in the eating-house: chapattis, curried dahl soup and outsize omelettes. The standard was much higher than in Ronda’s Hotel and having eaten nothing but dried apricots since 8 a.m. I relished every mouthful. The proprietor has not yet recovered from the shock of our arrival. A gaunt, elderly Pathan with a straggling beard, he wears a purple skull-cap that slightly gives him the air of a down-at-heel bishop. It was dark by the time we ate but the little room was adequately lit by the flames of the fire – lovely tongues of scarlet and orange leaping high around the giant dechis. The only other guests are the two Pathan jeep-drivers, on their way back from Skardu. I had expected them to share the storeroom with us but they are sleeping in the eating-house where the embers will remain aglow all night. They and the proprietor can huddle together under quilts on the square mud platform in front of the fire where customers sit cross-legged to eat their food. One jeep has broken down and a huge bonfire is now blazing outside to warm the driver as he lies under it, struggling with its infirmity. The other jeep is its mate and won’t continue to Gilgit without it. Many drivers prefer to do the Gorge trip in convoy.
Our room is another of those depots where jeeps can unload, before turning back to Gilgit, when the weather suddenly worsens on the route to Skardu. It is about ten feet by fifteen and piled almost to the low roof with sacks full of something hard, sharp and lumpy, and tea-chests so heavy they can’t possibly contain tea, and large cartons of condensed milk from Holland. A central tree-trunk supports the mud roof and the stone walls have been ineffectually mud-plastered by way of making them draught-proof. The floor non est: as in all l
ocal hovels it is untreated ground – i.e., sandy earth and pebbles. Nor is there any window at present, though an aperture blocked with loose stones obviously serves as such in summer and now admits draughts of icy air which conflict around my person with similar draughts entering from sundry other unplanned ventilation holes. When we were shown into our suite three charpoys were standing on end against the piles of sacks and the two put down for us took up most of the vacant floor space. Filthy but warm bedding is provided and as we ourselves are already so filthy there seems little point in being fussy and unpacking fleabags.
Tonight the song of the Indus is loud. We are quite close to it here though we were climbing steadily on the way from Ronda. Between Skardu and Ronda the fall of the river is twenty feet per mile.
I am dithering now about keeping our stove going all night. The temperature certainly justifies such extravagance but not knowing what situations may arise before we get to Skardu, where kerosene will next be available, I think I had better stick to my Spartan principles.
On her way to bed by the light of a guttering candle Rachel tripped over the corner of a sack and remarked mildly, ‘I don’t think this room is very convenient, do you?’ But all that really concerns me about our accommodation is whether or not one can write fairly comfortably and I have no complaints this evening – apart from the cold, which does diminish concentration. When Rachel was in bed I got myself organised by pulling a tea-chest into the middle of the floor for use as a table, and heaving a sack into position for use as a chair – with a folded quilt on top, to give that little touch of luxury required by ageing bones. Then I placed the stove between my feet, stuck a candle on to our tin of Nivea, took my diary from my pocket and off I went …
Byicha – 8 January
We had a very good night, enlivened only by a little grey rat who made several heroic but unsuccessful attempts to get at Rachel’s precious cheese supply. Our crudely-made door has a wide crack down the middle and when I woke I could see that the dawn light was uncommonly bright; there had been such a heavy snowfall that no one could go anywhere this morning. The drivers were disconsolate, having worked so hard to mend that engine, but we were entirely happy to spend another twenty-four hours here. Also the delay suited Hallam. We left him all day in his snug stable – a good deal snugger than our own – and saw that he had generous feeds of hay. He really needs grain, but none is available.
After breakfast we explored the very steep nullah and glimpsed fearsome peaks with needle-sharp summits standing in skirts of vapour at the head of the valley; the map tells us that we are close to the massive Chogo Lungma glacier. At noon the tributary began to thaw; I wonder how many degrees of frost are needed to freeze a river of its volume and power. When our tiny goat-path died amidst an upheaval of rock and soft sandy cliffs, overhanging the nullah, we returned to base and enjoyed two more king-sized omelettes.
After lunch we descended to the Indus, crossing half-a-mile of pale grey sand decorated with patches of snow and strewn with smooth, light brown boulders, some so vast we felt like beetles beside them. The scale of this landscape can be very deceptive; yesterday I would have said the Indus was about fifty yards from the track, not half a mile. And it is only on standing beside the river that one appreciates its width and its speed and force, as it churns whitely down a perceptible slope between boulders the size of cottages. All those boulders were covered with canopies of ice, delicately snow-powdered, and Rachel noticed that between these solid canopies and the rocks there was room for water to flow. This observation reduced her to an agony of scientific curiosity which I was, as usual, unable to satisfy. While we were collecting bright pebbles close to the ice-fringed bank we saw two minor rockfalls, one just across the river, another on our side a little way downstream. Somehow the sound of a rockfall – the thudding and bounding and slithering – is much more alarming than the sight. Again, because of the Himalayan scale, several tons of falling rock and earth look like a trickle of pebbles down the side of a sand-pit.
Altogether it was a memorable scene there by the turbulent water, enveloped in the grandeur of the Gorge. The dark rock walls showed great zig-zag scars of white – one could fancy lightning had been painted on them – and their strangely square tops, as though dressed by giant stonemasons, were in extreme contrast to the tangle of jagged summits just visible beyond. Then on all sides there was ice in unimaginable shapes and forms. The infinite variety of ice, and the exquisite grotesqueness of its formations, delights Rachel more than almost anything else here; but not more than the prodigious chenar tree near our ‘hotel’, which is twenty-nine of my long paces in circumference and reputed to be 600 years old. It still flourishes, though it has had its centre burnt out to make a large room, floored with dry leaves, which serves as the hotel latrine; and very welcome that shelter was early this morning, especially as our present limited diet has reduced me to an unprecedented state of constipation.
A hamlet above the Indus (name unknown) – 9 January
We left Byicha at 9 a.m., as early as is practical in this climate, and had covered eighteen miles by 4.30 p.m. Hallam was much more sprightly today, after his few good feeds, and we brought a picnic lunch for him. The truss of aromatic hay strapped to the top of my rucksack was not planned to act as a spur but it had that effect: whenever I slowed down or paused for a moment he broke into a trot to snatch a snack. Then we discovered that he is hooked on wild thyme, however hard and dry the clumps may be, so we let him have a few mouthfuls whenever the opportunity arose. After two miles it arose quite often for at last the Gorge widened. On our side the mountains withdrew, so that we were crossing a long, wide ledge at their base, and for much of the time the river was out of sight though never out of hearing. As we climbed gradually the snow and ice became thicker underfoot and the dramatically broken landscape became whiter. A few tiny hamlets lay on our way but all morning we saw nobody.
We stopped for lunch where thyme was plentiful, so that Hallam could have a two-course meal while Rachel ate her cheese and I ate my apricots. Now the sky was a deep blue and towards the north-west a dazzling peak – one of the true giants – was visible. To Rachel’s great annoyance I could not identify it from the map; when actually in the middle of all these legendary mountains it is impossible to recognise them individually. Nor is it always wise to listen to the locals: in Ronda many people insist that K2 may be seen from Gomu.
As I chewed my apricots and looked at that proud pure peak, rising solitary and brilliant above the nearer mountains, I despaired of ever being able to convey in words any adequate picture of this region. Everything is so extreme here that language loses its power. Today each furlong offered a variation on the Karakoram theme; I could walk forever on such a path without any risk of boredom. Every feature contributes to the wonder and the glory of these mountains – their scale, texture, colouring, shapes, arrangements – and the clarity of the light is itself unique. Then when clouds come it seems that all the gloom of the world has been concentrated in this one profound chasm.
By three o’clock the wind had risen and new snow lay a foot deep all around us. Hallam now proved how sure-footed and sensible he is and I let him show me the least treacherous route. (For most of today it was unnecessary for me to lead him as we were not overhanging the Indus.) Our level ledge was about two miles wide at this point, from the edge of the Gorge to the precipitous slopes on our left.
Here the Indus displays adolescent moodiness, turning and twisting unexpectedly between the mountains, and when it again came into view we saw a long, new suspension footbridge leading to a comparatively large village. By that time the wind was blowing cruelly against us and Rachel, who needed to restore her circulation, was unable to keep her footing on a track that had become like a skating-rink. I, too, was feeling cold, despite my exertions: this was the sort of searching wind that conquers all. Yet I was afraid to take Hallam across a long, swaying bridge over a noisy stretch of Indus. He might have accepted it, but he seems not to
o happy while crossing the many short bridges over nullahs on this track. So we pressed on, hoping our US Army map was correct (it often isn’t) when it showed a hamlet some three miles further upstream on the right bank.
After a fortnight in the narrowest part of the Gorge the world here seemed very wide and bright, with the sun shining until four o’clock. The mountains on either side were about 16,000 feet and between us and them the snowy waste was scattered with huge dark boulders in white cloaks. Underfoot conditions slowed our progress and we became colder by the minute. Then we got the incense-like smell of a burning thyme-bush and came in sight of four men warming their hands: to ignite a bush gives instant though short-lived heat and is a popular device among shepherds and coolie-gangs. These coolies had been half-heartedly throwing shovelfuls of sand across the track; they live in this hamlet and accompanied us over the last few gruelling miles.
Every moment the cold became more intense but here the Gorge is so dramatic that discomfort seemed unimportant. Where the river again curves abruptly we had to ascend steeply and descend slightly before climbing at a sensational angle around a towering complex of dark, rocky precipices overhanging a boisterous Indus – roaring, raving and churning. These manoeuvrings of the track also brought into view the opening out of the Gorge into the Skardu Valley, some eight or ten miles away. Then suddenly the late afternoon light acquired a strange blue tinge such as I have never seen before, and over all that desolation of mountain, river, rock and snow lay this unearthly radiance. It may not have been magic but to us it seemed so.
Where the Indus is Young Page 11