The Last Barbarians

by Michel Peissel

  Now, as I looked at the horses before us, I dreamt of introducing them to Europe. At the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket, England, and at the INRA, the French agronomical research institute, I had spent many hours describing the Nangchen horse, trying to establish with scholars what other research should be carried out by specialists in the field to further pinpoint the breed. They wanted to know its heart size, its volume of blood, its cardiac rhythms and regulation rates, and a hundred other details.

  The Chinese had made it impossible for my team to carry out DNA studies by forbidding us to take and export blood samples. I had then run into financial problems as promised funds had not been forthcoming. To lead an expedition to the remote parts of Tibet is an expensive proposition indeed, which explained why I had been forced to return without the veterinary surgeon we needed. We would have to put off a larger scientific expedition for another year.

  It was for lack of greater resources on this return journey to the heartland of Nangchen that I had decided to concentrate primarily on geography and finding the source of the Mekong, limiting our research on the horses to testing their stamina and trying to establish their distribution and regional variations inside Nangchen. We had hoped Jacques could double as a vet, a hope shattered when he was unable to locate the horse’s heart behind its forelegs.

  Not very far from Nangchen to the east lies the land of Ling, the home of Kesar, or Cesar, of Ling, the most popular legendary hero of Tibet. There are thousands of verses about him recited by Tibetan bards, and his life story, in a dozen versions, is printed in large books that tell of his adventures. Most scholars agree that he might have existed, and some have suggested that he was in fact the well-known minister Gar, who served the great king Song-tsen Gampo.

  What is certain is that Ling exists as a district and that, like the district of Gar, it is named for a man (real or imagined) who rose to power because of his skill as a horseman and his winning record in horse races. Today, horse racing is still the favorite pastime of the nomads of Nangchen, who practice all year round and then select their fastest horses to take to the annual fairs like those at Zadoi or Jeykundo.

  * * *

  The moment the herd of fine horses disappeared over the ridge, we drove on, up the broad grassy valley that slowly led us to another pass. On the way we encountered yet another caravan of nomads, but this time they were neither taking their wool to market nor returning with barley—they were simply on the move in search of better grazing. Two yaks were loaded with a heavy tent whose post scraped the ground. Most of the other yaks carried nothing but their empty wooden pack saddles. I admired the elegance of the horses and the ease with which the nomads, including the women, handled them. Along with the herd of yaks, the nomads were accompanied by a large flock of Tibetan sheep with long flat horns twisted like a corkscrew, famed for their wool because it is their fine undercoat that produces cashmere.

  No sooner had the caravan passed than a wolf strutted across the trail so slowly and unconcerned that it was almost an insult. It did not so much as give us a second look or accelerate, but just loped on its way, stopping twenty yards to our left to examine calmly the kind of motor-yak we were riding.

  As we rose ever higher, the landscape began to open up, the peaks to sink below the horizon, the red earth momentarily giving way to gray soil with patches of short grass intertwined with edelweiss and moss. The wolf, coming just after the fox, was the first clear signal that we were entering a land more familiar to wild animals than to man. Now and again, looking across the flat expanse of the plain, we could see peaks so distant, they seemed miniature mountains. We were soon back upon the flats of the world’s highest plateau. Not a bush or tree or plant in sight—even eagles had to light on the ground for lack of anything like a perch.

  We were nearing yet one more pass, or, more precisely, one more watershed, when we came upon a little stream. We stopped and our drivers committed the terrible crime of catching the little fish that swarmed in the pools beside the stream (the worst sin for Buddhists because fish cannot cry to defend themselves). Fish living at close to 16,500 feet above sea level seemed something like a record. I duly photographed them, praying for forgiveness, thinking how strange that the adepts of the Buddhist religion should be so kind toward all living creatures, yet consider human life of little worth, as a mere “illusion of the senses.” But then of course I have been so corrupted by materialism that I had trouble understanding that respect should in no way be proportionate to worth. The most humble creature is just as worthy of respect as the most formidable of beings.

  As we looked at the fish, a huge eagle owl started up from a rock outcropping, its six-foot wingspan casting a devilish shadow over the hundreds of burrows of glacier rats that dotted the landscape.

  A few hours later we found ourselves once again surrounded by red earth and two shades of green grass, then all of a sudden the track was gone and we were riding up a giant bright red dune—a sand dune. As we reached the summit of a pass we realized we were lost.

  A freezing wind was blowing from the west. Holding onto my hat I peered out to the horizon; contemplating the seemingly endless expanse of the great plain, I felt as if we had entered a new world, one disconnected from any I had known.

  8

  BUBBLES ON WATER

  I have always had a linear concept of my existence, the idea that wherever I stood I was connected by a path to my past, and that in relation to this trail of events, things lay to the left or right, north or south, backward or forward. Looking onto the horizon now, I had a feeling that this notion was dissolving around me, that the immensity of this great plateau was endless, shapeless, and all-encompassing.

  In their concept of the creation of the world, the Tibetans tell how demigods were born on earth, but linked to the higher gods in heaven or to the summits of mountains by a sacred thread or ladder called a mu. As the world evolved the mu was broken, the thread cut (at first by accident), and so man was born, severed from the gods.

  I suppose we all have some sort of mu, a mysterious thread that links us to nobler ideals and to our past. Here I felt totally disconnected and quite alone. We were in a land without towns or villages, a land whose population was elusive, ever-moving and changing camp, a world without signposts or fixed references, in which we had no place—we, who were out looking for a concept, something that did not exist, a nonplace, the point of extinction of the Mekong. We were in truth searching for an absence.

  Once again I asked myself why. Why bother, why come out here so far, for what purpose? I had no valid answers. At first I had seen our venture as something akin to sport, something to be racked up as “an achievement.” Then I had seen it as a way of indulging my pride, a frivolous vanity. Now I saw our enterprise as utterly meaningless or, at best, as an alibi to roam where few ever had the chance to, with the added hope of discovering a little more about ourselves.

  I am not a mystic—not anymore, anyway. Having been raised a Catholic, I used to believe with all my might in the teachings of the church. As a child I had learned not to let reason tamper with my faith. To believe, to have faith, is to stop the process of logic and analytical thinking. Faith is an act of will, a will to adhere to a belief regardless of everything. As a result I had been induced into a world of magic and miracles, of supernatural beings, of angels and saints; I never allowed my reason to interfere.

  My faith was lost to me when I grew to appreciate tolerance in the company of Tibetans. My eyes opened and I saw how intolerance was all too often the result of blind faith.

  Thus was my mu cut, my link with heaven severed as I realized that I was but a mortal and very much alone.

  In a nihilist vein of Buddhism, the great Tibetan mystic and poet Mila Repa proclaimed that “one was born alone, one lived alone, and one died alone.” I had never liked that view of existence, and I certainly hadn’t agreed with it, but up here it did have the sinister ring of truth.

  Since leaving Xining I had felt that e
ven the bonds of friendship that had united us—Sebastian, Jacques, and I—had vanished.

  Was it plain fatigue, or was it the uncomfortable proximity of being packed in and shaken together for hours on end in the backseat of a lurching jeep? We were no longer just friends on a journey together—our vehicle had reduced us to passengers, an abstraction, human objects living in that indefinite no-man’s-land between two destinations. Cooped up in a narrow metallic box on wheels, we couldn’t exist as normal individuals as we bounced past a vast, ever-changing, odorless, windless scenery, a world looked upon from a glass cage. Was it Matisse who commented, deploringly, that driving at speeds in excess of five miles per hour, one could no longer see “the leaves moving in the wind?”

  With no trees in sight, it was truly a dead landscape that we contemplated. On getting out of the jeep, I was struck by the wind, a wind from far, far away, the main denizen of these immense, desolate wastes.

  I remembered how thirty years before, on my way to Mustang, my companion, Tashi Karmay, had exclaimed on reaching a pass overlooking the arid kingdom, “Mustang appears as barren as a dead deer.”

  “The road is very bad, I do not think we should drive on!” Once again I felt that Ling was wavering in his resolve, influenced by the drivers, who both seemed even more worried than he was.

  I paid no attention to Ling’s remark. Plodding on, I beckoned the jeeps to follow me slowly as I searched for the trail that had vanished under the red sand. To my left I saw a ravine that fell away from the pass along the tilted flank of a dune. With unfounded assurance I signaled that the vehicles should drive on down, aware that any hesitation or discussion as to the state of the road could prove disastrous.

  Axle-deep in sand and tilting heavily, the first jeep slithered down the gully. Then came the second. As I chased after them, I remembered thinking it was easier going down than up; what if I had made a mistake? Was this the point of no return?

  At the bottom of the gully we had no choice but to drive in the water down a little stream. The road had vanished, so for about a mile we cautiously splashed our way between two near-vertical red cliffs. Rounding a bend we found ourselves confronted by two fine horses, which galloped off at our approach.

  Half an hour later, to our relief, we spotted a tracklike rut on the bank of the stream. Leaving the gully, we entered a broad plain of churned-up swamp grass. Turning north, we left the stream and began to rise toward yet another pass. It was getting late when at last we sighted a great black tent close to the road, the first we had seen since leaving Zadoi.

  I was quite excited, and thought we should stop and camp nearby, as I was keen to talk with at least one of the nomads of this godforsaken region. Immediately Mr. Ling objected, explaining once again, like a broken record, that “these people are dangerous liars.” Paying no attention, I addressed a handsome Khamba who had come forward, his braided hair hanging loosely down his neck.

  The man made no attempt to hold back his ferocious barking mastiff or understand what I was saying. He simply pointed down the track, repeating, “Go, go away.” Finally, when he realized I spoke Tibetan and wanted to pitch our tents close to his, he exclaimed aggressively, “Your tent, no, not here. Not here, just go away, pitch it somewhere else … go. Go away.” I was a little bit upset. Maybe Ling was right. Were not all Tibetans my friends? Why, then, such hostility?

  “The people here are very bad,” chirped Ling, victorious. Furious as I was, I had no way to argue with him.

  Three miles farther on, we encountered a bridge built by the PLA spanning the crystal-blue waters of a broad river that, upon consulting our GPS, we found to be the main course of the River A, which our maps had misled us into believing we had followed earlier on.

  Just beyond the ridge, a flat ledge seemed an ideal place to camp—beneath great romantic red and green mountains. Ling disagreed, stating we should drive in the dark if necessary to reach a Chinese checkpoint. I refused, knowing that doing so was sure to get us lost, and anyway, by my reckoning, we were still two days’ drive from the outpost of Moyun.

  Thank God the exhausted drivers agreed with me. Soon we were all fumbling together with poles in our first attempt to raise our mess tent.

  “Good practice,” I ventured. Jacques didn’t seem amused and looked tired, while Sebastian, on the other hand, was full of energy. He had bought the tent in New York and was eager to see what it would look like.

  I have always been a mess-tent man myself. I knew that a large tent was essential on any expedition, a shelter in which one can stand and sit all together. Although we had individual tents in which to sleep, the mess tent would shelter the crew: first of all the cook and drivers and later the muleteers. The trouble is that any tent large enough for ten to twenty people is usually very, very heavy, but Sebastian had found one that was extraordinarily light.

  One by one we assembled strange-looking U-shaped steel poles. After much trouble we finally had a rather elegant nylon cottage with screened windows. It looked a little bit too good to be true.

  Pale green and white nylon, it lacked guide ropes, and it seemed far too flimsy to stand the raging winds we were sure to encounter; furthermore, without a fly sheet (a double roof), I expected it to get drenched too easily. All that said, the tent was large and amazingly comfortable, with its vast screened windows, ground sheet, and an inner partition that turned it into a miniature suite. We found that we had no kitchen tent to go with it, however. The cook, Wang, thinking that he could operate in our large mess tent, had left it behind. He didn’t know that a big warning label sewn into the side of it made clear that any form of fire in the tent would be lethal. As a result, Wang battled for hours out in the wind beside a plastic sheet trying to light our primus stove.

  At dusk we hastily set up our small individual sleeping tents. As we huddled around our lanterns in the mess tent and ate a spartan meal of cold biscuits and slices of bright orange Chinese sausage, Ling’s censorious boyish face lit up with a smile for the first time. He was, he explained, “proud of our setup.”

  Later on, listening to the sinister call of a wolf, I rustled around in my small sleeping tent, wondering again what on earth I was doing out here. My Victorian ardor for exploration had somewhat paled. On top of everything else I hate sleeping bags, which inevitably corkscrew every time one turns around at night, ending up in a sort of body-length straitjacket. They are always either too hot or too cold and never seem long enough to cover one’s shoulders. Then there is the matter of dirty boots: Should they remain inside the tent and stink, or outside, at the mercy of the elements and blue foxes? I remember having had to wear frozen boots every day on a fateful journey to Mount Minyag Konka, the highest peak in eastern Kham. For hours every morning my feet were frozen, and when the ice thawed, my feet were wet for the rest of the day. I was finally relieved of the torture by breaking first one leg and then, seven days later, the other in an earthquake; my only consolation was that I no longer needed frozen boots.

  Such are some of the true delights of expeditions. There are also lice and fleas, which one can’t help catching (to paraphrase Ling) “on fraternizing with the enemy.” The transfer of fleas is greatly facilitated by the lamaist religion—believers aren’t supposed to kill them, but instead just pick them off their bodies and deposit them on the ground, usually within easy jumping distance of where I happen to be sitting. Prior to each year’s journey to Tibet, I go through my “big, big dog” routine. I visit pet shops in Paris and explain that my dog is nearly man-sized and needs the strongest flea powder available.

  The crime of killing fleas is, of course, committed secretly by many Tibetans. An old proverb says, “To bite a flea feeds not the stomach, but what delight for the soul.”

  As I pondered why I was doing all this, going over the masochistic routines of eating and sleeping poorly, I envied all those born in the days of elegant travel. Cheap air fares and the infamous forty-four-pound baggage allowance are responsible for eliminating luxurious c
amping.

  There are, in certain museums around the world, samples of the campaign kits of yesteryear, when kings and generals, administrators and judges, spent much of their life on the move. The kits included everything from boule cognac crystal decanter boxes to elegant velvet folding chairs and tents strung up with silk held by gold passementerie tassels. Those were the good old days when cases of claret were carried right over the Himalayas so that gentlemen need not suffer any more beastly discomfort than necessary. Alas, travel, even Himalayan travel, is a sport for gentlemen no more, but a pastime for the masses. Just as plastic miniature sailing boats have replaced the luxurious teak yachts of bygone eras, Pepsi has replaced claret in our spartan world of cut-rate hedonism. Living was an art then. Today it’s not even a hobby. People don’t hesitate to spend thousands of dollars on airfares but they skimp on service, bedding, and other basic comforts. It all comes from that distorted form of democracy whose object it is to convince the rich and the cultured that they are better off living like middle-class athletes. At high altitudes I admit I’m an elitist, and I yearn for the days when just being white was enough to save one a bad conscience as one sat in a sedan chair and complained about the tubercular cough of the coolies (“If only they would just shut up!”). Imperialism is so sweet—as long as you hold the right end of the stick—while democracy is tepidly tasteless, the middle road, dear to Buddhists who pray every day to be spared the excesses of too little or too much. Frankly, we live in a time of too little. I suddenly missed being called “Burrah Sahib” and having my porters fight to tie my shoelaces.