The Dream of Lhasa: The Life of Nikolay Przhevalsky (1839?1888), Explorer of Central Asia

by Donald Rayfield

  A terrible shock awaited Przhevalsky. Fateyev had sent news to Otradnoye that early in June Nikolay Yagunov had drowned while swimming in the Vistula. Przhevalsky was badly shaken; the death of Yagunov and the sultry summer of 1875 slowed down all his preparations. Yagunov, although only twenty-two, had proved to be one of the most brilliant young officers in Warsaw; he had taught himself to draw in order to be still more useful in the coming expedition to Tibet. Przhevalsky wrote to Fateyev (14/26 July 1875): ‘I still cannot get used to the thought that Yagunov no longer exists. I keep thinking he will come and see us in the country any day …’ All he could do was to send some money and the drawings that Yagunov had shown him to his widowed mother in Irkutsk. From Siberia Przhevalsky received a telegram from Dondok Irinchinov and Panfil Chebayev: they were ‘ready to go through fire and water’ with him. All that remained was to make a short trip to Warsaw and persuade Taczanowski, the ornithologist, to take over a little of the work, then in September to take Eklon to Petersburg and ensure the financial and official support needed for the coming journey.

  Meanwhile, Fyodor Eklon was put down for the Samogit Regiment and sent to Fateyev in Warsaw to be prepared for the entrance examinations which, thanks to Przhevalsky’s tuition that summer, he passed with flying colours. Przhevalsky had now to find a replacement for Nikolay Yagunov. He decided to invite Yevgraf Povalo-Shvyykovsky, the son of the very Povalo-Shvyykovskys who had cheated Przhevalsky’s uncles out of their estate and had thus become his neighbours. But Przhevalsky’s talent for quarrelling was surpassed only by his talent for befriending. Yevgraf’s enthusiasm for Przhevalsky and the fact that he was a cadet officer in a famous regiment were all that he had to recommend him. He was overwhelmed with delight at being chosen. Przhevalsky explained to Eklon: ‘I know you’ll be great friends, but then you will be thrashed together. Of course that won’t happen often, but all the same it will occur—nobody’s perfect.’

  Winter and spring 1876 were spent in preparations in Petersburg. From here Przhevalsky kept an affectionate, avuncular eye on Eklon’s progress in Brest, where the Samogit Regiment was stationed. ‘Have a whole dozen pictures taken if they’re good. Spend five roubles; after 2 February I’ll send you some money … Generally you can spend about twenty roubles a month freely, and don’t go without sweets. The weather in Petersburg is foul, though fairly warm; but in Brest spring will come quite soon; on good days go for walks, look at nature waking up after winter …,’ ran one of his letters. He bought Eklon a lightweight suit and a travelling rug, and gave him a rifle. In March he sent for Eklon and Yevgraf; they were to learn photography at the studio of Monsieur Dosse in Petersburg. Przhevalsky hated cameras for their bulk and vulnerability, but his explorations demanded some visual record and he now agreed to haul the equipment along.

  The plans were grandiose. Przhevalsky set before the Imperial Geographical Society a scheme for a three-year journey starting from Kulja in the Ili Valley, moving from the Tien Shan to Lob Nor and Lhasa, descending the Brahmaputra into India, before returning to Lhasa and Mongolia and, in 1878, going back to Tibet to take the Irrawaddy or Salween rivers down to tropical Burma—all at a cost of 36,000 roubles. The scheme was cut down to a two-year version which made no mention of penetrating British India; the Society’s council then approved it. In February 1876 Milyutin gave his support. All agreed that in Przhevalsky they had a unique combination of scientist and troubleshooter, a man who could not only fill in the blanks in geographical knowledge but, as the Society’s council put it, ‘teach the Chinese authorities and population to have relations with foreigners and thus open up the path for trade and industrial ventures’. To this the more cautious Ministers of Finance and Foreign Affairs gave their assent. Without waiting for the promised 24,740 roubles to materialize, Przhevalsky began to give his orders. He had boxes, kitbags, clothes, boots, copper dishes and ammunition belts made for himself and his companions. Mikhail Pyltsov was asked to look out for a setter to replace Faust and to make bullets (from molten lead poured into a mould). Yakov Shishmaryov in Urga was to find an interpreter; General Kaufmann in the Semirechiye was to pick five more Cossacks; Eklon’s commanding officer, Akimov, was to see Eklon through his junior officer’s examinations; Przhevalsky felt he had ‘one foot already in Tibet’.

  But he was besieged with other cares. Proof-reading meteorological tables and further ornithological research left him hopelessly tired. He was put on a committee for the colonization of the Amur, which sat from nine in the evening until midnight, well past his bedtime. He even sat on a committee for the Jewish question. He was buying more fruit trees for the orchard at Otradnoye and sending regular presents of confectionery to his relatives. He had to find more money: fortunately he heard in the War Ministry that the Odessa railway was about to become a separate company and that the shares would then double their value—he invested 7,000 roubles.

  By now he had accumulated three tons of baggage. The photographic equipment alone weighed over half a ton and, as neither Eklon nor Yevgraf were making much progress in photography, Przhevalsky decided to abandon the cameras and plates. Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolayevich junior gave Przhevalsky a gun dog and on 7/19 May 1876 he left with his two companions to spend a fortnight at Otradnoye. They ate, slept, hunted and fired revolvers and Berdan carbines on Przhevalsky’s firing range. Then the party left for Moscow and Asia. Pyltsov saw them off as far as Nizhni Novgorod (Gorky).

  From the very start of his second Central Asian expedition Przhevalsky was bedevilled by bad luck. Spring was unbearably hot, and all but two of his five dogs suffocated to death in the airless baggage wagon. In mid-June they reached the end of the railway line at Perm. Here the expedition was to collect its ammunition. But the cartridges had not arrived. When at last the 12,000 cartridges came—‘for dealing with various animals in the deserts of Asia, not excluding man, if circumstances compel,’ as Przhevalsky put it—and when the bag of confectionery, the ‘constant appetite’, had been replenished, the expedition set off on the 1,600-mile crossing of Siberia, its baggage pulled by thirteen horses. A quarter of the funds had already been spent. On frightful roads, in terrible heat, they crossed the more and more desolate steppes, riding half naked, bathing in every stream they saw. Even the eager Eklon soon withdrew into prostration, his head aching with the dust and heat. Only Przhevalsky rejoiced: ‘My health is excellent … headaches, cough, throat catarrh—all gone. That’s the joy of a wanderer’s life, not like being cooped up in Petersburg’s climate in a little dog-kennel on the fourth floor.’

  At Semipalatinsk the first mountains of the Altai range came into sight. Here Dondok Irinchinov and Panfil Chebayev joined the expedition. Then, after another 500 miles, Przhevalsky left the party to visit Verny (Alma Ata) where he chose three more Cossacks. By August they had crossed the Russian frontier into the occupied territory of the Ili Valley around Kulja (I-ning). But another misfortune overtook them. In the words of Przhevalsky’s official complaint: ‘When my wagon, which was coming first, crossed on to the opposite bank of the River Khorgos and the baggage wagons had stopped because of a difficult sharp turn almost in the middle of the stream and the fast current had begun to keel them over, my driver, Yepifan Koshkin, disregarding my order, would not go and help the carriage stuck in the river and rudely retorted: “I shan’t get my head broken for your baggage.”’ In the event, six passing Kirghiz rescued the baggage from the river and the expedition reached Kulja intact.

  Przhevalsky had to wait there for a few weeks. Governor-General Kaufmann, virtually the satrap of the region, had secured from Yakub Bey a letter promising that the members of the expedition would be treated ‘like guests’ on their journey across Kashgaria to Lob Nor and Tibet. At the same time, the Chinese, who were about to invade Kashgaria, or Jeti Shahr, from the Tien Shan in the north, had to be placated. It took all the diplomacy of the Russian ambassador, Byutsov, in Peking to secure a passport for Przhevalsky.

  With twenty-four camels, four horses and two
dogs, Bai and Oskar, the ten-man expedition set off up the Ili Valley south-east to the passes over the Tien Shan. The valley had been depopulated, from 300,000 to 100,000, by the Tungans, but it was still an island of prosperity in a desolate region. ‘It’s the Lombardy of Asia,’ said Przhevalsky, ‘in climate and fertility. Really we ought not to hand back such a nook.’ The expedition feasted on peaches, pears and melons; each man got through two pounds of mutton a day. But after thirty miles they passed into nomad country, peopled with Buddhist Turghud Mongols (Kalmyks), many of whom were refugees who had fled from the atrocities of Yakub Bey’s Moslems. Here Przhevalsky relaxed in the cool mountain air and hunted bears.

  But things went wrong. One dog, Bai, became so exhausted that he had to be sent back to Kulja as a gift to a colonel. Two Cossacks seemed lazy and they were dismissed and exchanged for two soldiers. Przhevalsky was now left with no interpreter for Turghud Mongol. The Kirghiz camels proved less hardy than the Khalkha camels of the previous expedition. Three were killed in a month while negotiating difficult fords and mountain passes. After crossing the Narat Pass, which brought them to the Yuldus (‘Star’) ranges of the Tien Shan system, an area so cool and rich in pasture that the Turghud guide Tokhta-akhun described it as ‘fit only for gentry and cattle’, Przhevalsky suffered one more disappointment. His diary entry for 20 September/2 October records:

  A depressing day. Today I sent Shvyykovsky back to Kulja and the regiment; he turned out to be absolutely useless to the expedition with his intellectual limitations and inability to do anything. Poor Yevgraf couldn’t prepare birds, shoot or take bearings—nothing … I found it hard to take the decision, Yevgraf is very fond of me personally and he is a good soul … yesterday evening and this morning I cried several times like a child … I gave him travel expenses and salary—800 roubles in all; I stated the reason for his return as sickness …

  The mountain sheep and the bears of the Yuldus consoled Przhevalsky; he came down to the Yuldus River into the domains of Yakub Bey in a cheerful frame of mind. The Moslems were alarmed by Przhevalsky’s arrival. Not without reason they suspected him to be the vanguard of a Russian invasion of Kara Shahr and Kurla, the base towns of Yakub Bey, and they held up the party until authorization for the expedition to proceed came from the Emir himself. Tokhtaakhun, a refugee from Kurla, had to flee again. Seven days later, a messenger came: the party was to stay away from Kara Shahr and go directly to Kurla, where it was put under hospitable house arrest on the outskirts of the town.

  Yakub Bey was compelled by circumstances to treat the Russians well; he sent them food and gave them camels. But he knew that his rule was coming to an end and that the Russians had only the most opportunistic interest in his fate. By autumn 1876 the Chinese controlled all the major oases on the north of the Tien Shan. Dzungaria was theirs, and it would be only a matter of months before General Tso captured the Kashgarian towns along the southern slopes of the Tien Shan. Yakub Bey known as the Badaulet, or Fortunate, was happy only in name. Although he had secured recognition from Turkey, Britain and Russia, his position was precarious. He had proved often as oppressive to his own people as the Chinese had been. Taxation was not always distinguishable from pillage. The non-Moslem Mongols were enslaved, driven out or murdered. Even the Moslem Tungans were uneasy allies: in the end they were to block off Yakub Bey’s retreat and threaten to hand him over to the Chinese army.

  The Russians used Yakub Bey as an anti-Chinese pawn. They sold grain to General Tso’s army and at the same time sent missions to Yakub Bey to amend the borders of Kashgaria and Russian Turkestan in their favour. One factor alone predisposed the Russians to Yakub Bey—his chief minister, Zaman Bek, a Russian citizen born in the little Caucasus who had emigrated to serve the Sultan of Turkey. When Yakub Bey asked the Sultan for military assistance, Zaman Bek was one of the advisers he received. Zaman Bek, though Moslem and Türki-speaking, was vehemently pro-Russian and well versed in European politics. While Yakub Bey was alive, Zaman Bek dared not show his pro-Russian leanings, for the Badaulet was a cruel and suspicious man, fearing poison and treachery, never going even to the mosque without his Winchester rifle. Only after Yakub Bey died did Zaman Bek openly join the Russians; he became a member of the Russian mission to Afghanistan in 1878.

  It was none other than Zaman Bek who was sent by the Badaulet to accompany Przhevalsky along the Tarim River across the desert to Lob Nor. Zaman Bek’s main task was to isolate Przhevalsky from the natives. He travelled with a suite of twenty men, outnumbering the expedition, and their shouts and the dust they raised frightened both inhabitants and wildlife. At first, Przhevalsky suspected Zaman Bek of choosing an unnecessarily devious and difficult path along the Tarim in order to discourage the expedition. But despite the drawbacks, he reluctantly came to appreciate Zaman Bek’s company; without it the Moslem Uighurs of Kurla and the Tarim might not have let the expedition pass.

  Riding on camels that Yakub Bey had confiscated from the unfortunate Turghud, the party left Kurla for the desert. Przhevalsky was disappointed not to have seen Yakub Bey, who was probably rallying his army at Turfan, 200 miles to the north-east. Zaman Bek led the way not, as a map would suggest, along the left bank of the Konche Darya, but across it. This was the first of several dangerous fords across freezing, fast-flowing rivers that the party negotiated before following the left bank of the Tarim. The camels suffered so badly while crossing the fords that the expedition began to construct rafts and pontoons. The Tarim was fed by the snows and glaciers of the Karakoram and Pamir mountains in the far south-west of Kashgaria, and its icy waters rushed through an immense sand desert, the Takla Makan, which separates the chain of oases along the Tien Shan from the chain of oases beneath the plateau of Tibet. Channelling its waters through the sand and thick reed beds, a few fishermen and farmers managed to live along the river banks, surrounded by desert that Przhevalsky found even more horrid and lifeless than the sands of A-la Shan or the salt clay of Ordos. Only the reeds provided fodder, building material, fuel, bedding, even food for the inhabitants. In the sand they dug holes in which pools formed, and these were used to trap fish and feed irrigation channels.

  The reeds sheltered the wildlife of the desert, the tiger being what Przhevalsky most sought. He believed he was the first European in the Tarim basin and he was determined to have his tiger, by gun, dagger or potassium cyanide. For two weeks he hid and he stalked. Only on the night of 18/30 November did he meet with any success: four large doses of cyanide went down with the bait, but there was no snow on which Przhevalsky could track down the poisoned animal. He turned his attention to the wild boar that roamed the impenetrable reeds, but they too, eluded him. By the end of November he had killed not a single animal since leaving the Tien Shan; this disappointment and Zaman Bek’s horde annoyed him so much that he wrote, ‘If it were not for the enormous importance of exploring Lob Nor geographically, I would turn back.’

  There was one distraction: the expedition stopped to celebrate Pyltsov’s birthday and the first anniversary of Eklon’s military service. They opened a jar of Yelena’s wild strawberry jam and ate about two pounds. But there were few such cheerful moments. Zaman Bek was hurrying them; Przhevalsky found he had too many camels and too many Cossacks to give him the mobility he needed.

  Scientifically, the expedition was achieving little. Even surveying the Tarim, with its lack of features and the Moslem’s suspicions, was all but impossible. At last, in December, Przhevalsky saw a tiger: it ate several mouthfuls of meat that he had spiced with cyanide, rolled over, vomited, and walked off, its tracks mixing with the footprints of other tigers. Przhevalsky found the Tarim the ‘worst place for sport’ he had ever seen.

  Taking just one Cossack and the dog, Oskar, Przhevalsky set off in a dug-out canoe for the west bank of the Tarim to try his luck there. The dug-out overturned; Przhevalsky, laden with guns, managed to struggle ashore out of the freezing water, but the Cossack clung to the boat and had to be rescued by some natives who flung
him a rope. They returned on a raft, and Przhevalsky warmed himself by a rub with spirits, a drink of hot tea and a brisk walk in pursuit of pheasants. His temper was not improved when the natives ventured to tell him that his misfortune was sent by Allah as retribution for stealing the horns of a maral deer from a saint’s grave.

  By the end of December, 400 miles from Kurla, Przhevalsky found the Tarim losing itself in the immense salty reed beds that surround Lob Nor. He had come to the ancient silk route and the mythical land of Lop, of which Marco Polo had been the first and last European to speak. But the excitement of discovering the legendary core of Central Asia soon faded: he preferred to visit lakes when he could watch the spring or autumn flight of the birds. For the winter he decided to travel south along the Cherchen Darya and the old, long-deserted silk road, to the foothills of the Altyn Tag (the Mountains of Gold), the first of the latitudinal ranges that walled off Tibet from the Takla Makan.

  Przhevalsky established a base at the little town of Charkhalyk, the last of the settlements on the track that used to lead from Turkestan and Lob to Kansu and China proper. Here Zaman Bek stayed, together with most of the Cossacks; Przhevalsky, Eklon and three Cossacks took the two most experienced local hunters they could find and went into the mountains to reconnoitre the route to Lhasa and to track down the wild camel reputed to live there. At last they were free of supervision. Early in January 1877 Zaman Bek was called back to Kurla: a Russian mission under Captain Kuropatkin had come to negotiate a new border with Yakub Bey.