The valley of eyes unseen
have lived native for long periods together, and beyond the consuls
who have registered my name--though I never yet had to ask any other
service of them--I do not suppose a dozen men in all China know me.
Those that do, know me, I fear, only too well. The gentry who chased us
last night in the launch are among that number. But to my story. At one
time and another I have done much exploration in the interior. I have
been in many places where I am convinced no white man has been before
or since. The routes taken by travellers like Huc and Sven Hedin and
the Prince of Orleans across the so-called "unknown" regions of Tibet
I would guarantee to follow blindfold. There is not much to be found
up there except snow and ice and scenery--that is, at least, by people
who are obliged to hurry straight across, on the stretch about their
food supply all the while. If the climate and the nature of the country
allowed one time to explore, I fancy a lot of strange things would
turn up. I found something very strange indeed, but it was only by the
merest accident.'
'What was it?'
'An _obo_. You know what that is, of course?'
'A Tibetan prayer-mound, isn't it?'
'Exactly. They are to be found sometimes even in the uninhabited
regions, having been erected by pilgrims crossing the heights. The
_obo_ consists of slabs of slate--which often lies ready to hand on
the mountain sides--set up like a house of cards and inscribed all
over with Tibetan characters. Most European explorers who come upon
one of them for the first time imagine they have got hold of something
noteworthy, but disappointment awaits them. That historic record they
thought they had discovered turns out, on examination, to be no more
than an endless reiteration of the Tibetan devotional formula, _Om Mane
Padme Hum_--"O the Jewel of the Lotus."'
'Yet you say it was something strange you found?'
'It was, indeed. At first, of course, I thought I had merely stumbled
on one of those conventional monuments of piety, put up by some
pilgrim on his way to Lhassa from the north and no more distinctive
than a roadside crucifix in Italy. But then it struck me that this was
well off the route that any pilgrim would be likely to take. There
is no recognised track, of course, in those wild regions, but there
are long grooves between the ranges of heights, and it is to these
enormous gutters that the traveller keeps if he values his life. Even
here progress is arduous in the extreme, for the surface is terribly
rough even when free from ice-crusts, and many of the grooves run
for hundreds of miles at an altitude never less than sixteen thousand
feet, with the accompaniment of constant hailstorms and snowstorms and
terrific cold. The _obo_ I found was not in one of these gutters. It
stood on a small patch of level rock at the end of a pass, in the midst
of a waste of rugged peaks looking for all the world like monstrous
frozen waves of the sea.
'I saw beside the monument what appeared to be bleached sticks of
wood, but I discovered my mistake as I came nearer. They were human
bones--the skeleton of one man. Now thoroughly curious, I examined the
inscription on the plaques of slate, and you may picture my excitement
when I found it was not the usual text, but a longish legend scratched
on the surface with, apparently, some sharp splinter of rock. I at
once made an exact copy of the whole--no easy task, I may say, for
the scratches had been very feebly made. At that time I did not know
Tibetan well, but I knew enough to realise that this inscription had
been written by the dead man--and not long before his death, to judge
by the quavering way the letters were formed--for the purpose of
leaving some message behind him. But what the message was, neither I
nor any man of my party could fathom.
'That expedition was the most disastrous I ever knew. We had abominable
luck with the weather and everything else; snowstorms beleaguered us in
the mountains so long that our supplies ran out, and we were reduced
to living on steaks--raw for the most part--hacked from the ponies
as they dropped dead one by one. My bearers treacherously deserted
me, and when at last I, the only white man of the party, staggered
down into the Tsaidam marsh country with one faithful usbeg who had
accompanied me from Kashgar, the pair of us were much nearer dead than
alive.
'My first move after getting back to civilisation was to seek an
interpretation of that legend. There are one or two European works
on Tibetan, and I collected these and brushed up my knowledge of the
language thoroughly; but after much hard study I found I was still
unable to make sense of the inscription. The words were simple enough,
but they seemed to resolve into phrases that would not come out by
any ordinary method of translation. I could see far enough into the
fog, however, to understand that this legend had been composed by a
monk, and I assumed that the wording must be couched in some secret
phraseology known only to the Tibetan priesthood. Without special
knowledge I could get no further. What was I to do? I dared not show
the inscription to any Tibetan of my acquaintance, for I had already
a shrewd suspicion that it contained facts I should desire to keep to
myself.
'I bethought me of Lhassa, the headquarters of the Tibetan faith.
Thither I went, posing as a Chinese convert anxious to qualify for
monastic orders, and by virtue of a handsome solatium to the abbot
of a big monastery I gained admittance. There I learned many strange
things, Mirlees, but little that was of any use to me. Before long
I became convinced that the peculiar form of language in which my
legend had been written was not known at Lhassa. But the time I spent
there was not wasted. I discovered the monastic meaning of two vitally
important words in the inscription, which, translated into ordinary
Tibetan, came out as "Phagspa" and "Shigatse." That gave me the clue.
The legend had been written by a monk of the monastery of Phagspa, in
the city of Shigatse, and thither I must go for further enlightenment.
I went. Here I found far greater difficulty in obtaining admission, and
it was only by heavy bribery I was able to do so at all. Also, I was
obliged to take a vow to reside in that gloomy monastery for ever. All
went well for a while, and most hopefully for my quest. There _was_
a secret form of language used by the inmates of that place, and it
was not long before I began to acquire the elements of a vocabulary
in it. Yet despite my utmost care, I could not remain there without
arousing suspicion. From the questions I was obliged to ask, put them
as artlessly as I might, the monks soon gathered that there was some
ulterior motive in my coming, that I possessed a secret which they
would very strongly desire to discover. I was watched night and day.
The position became unbearable. At last one of the priests who had
been detailed to instruct me in the religious observances of the place
intruded on my privacy in a most exasperating fashion, and it ended in
blows. Several other monks came to this fellow's aid. Well, you have
seen me in a ruction, Mirlees. I seldom enter such an affair without
leaving my mark on it. I knocked down two of the Tibetan clergy and
threw a third against a great wooden pillar so violently that I fear he
perished as a result. That was the end of my novitiate as a lama. I had
to run, barely getting out with my life and the precious inscription,
which I always carried sewn into my inner garment.
'I pass over my escape back into China, which was a ghastly experience
enough, and took months of forced marches. But I had what I wanted.
Arrived in Shanghai, I sat down to translate my legend, and found
I could now piece it together without difficulty. And here is the
translation.'
Philipson took from his wallet a small folded slip, but paused before
flattening it out.
'I must have your solemn promise of secrecy, Mirlees,' he said. 'I
have risked my neck twice for this little handful of words, and I do
not choose to share it with any human soul besides yourself. Are you
agreeable?'
I gave the assurance he wanted, and Philipson, leaning over the table,
read in a clear whisper the following remarkable statement:
"I, Sbrang Chikya Lama, being a priest of the holy brotherhood of
Phagspa in the city of Shigatse, having now come to the end of this
incarnation, do hereby declare:
"That having strayed from the caravan in which I journeyed with others
despatched by the Ocean Priest" (Dalai Lama) "from Lhassa to the Son
of Heaven" (Emperor of China) "who holds sway in the north, I lost my
way in the mountains, and was mad with the madness of high places"
(height-sickness) "and came at last after many wanderings and grievous
pains to the land of the beings of ghostly face, who dwell by the river
of white gems under skies where birds fly bigger than the children of
men. And I descended into the valley which lies towards the setting
sun, but having seen from afar the beings of ghostly face and becoming
greatly afraid lest they, evil spirits, should enthral me to an evil
_karma_" (conduct of life) "I fled swiftly into the mountains again
ere they beheld me, and crossed again the great snows, hoping that in
time I might meet pilgrims of our own faith who should relieve me of my
distress. But I have seen no men, only the yak and the eternal snows,
and being now blinded with the snows and ready to die for want of food
and shelter, have written these words for warning lest any of the true
brotherhood should stray from this spot towards the setting sun and
should meet the devils of ghostly face and come to evil at their hands.
"Now to the Jewel of the Lotus I commend my spirit and pray I may
be born again in seemly shape and nearer to the blessed Nirvana"
(nothingness) "which sets a period upon life and death and rebirth."
Philipson carefully folded and replaced the paper, and looked
searchingly into my face.
'What do you make of that?' he said.
'About the queerest statement I ever came into contact with,' I
replied. 'How do you interpret it yourself?'
'I take it to mean that somewhere amongst those tremendous ranges there
is a valley of which the world so far knows nothing. Also that that
valley is inhabited.'
'By "devils of ghostly face"?'
'A white race might be called so by the writer of the legend.'
'H'm. A pretty tall order, Philipson,' I said. 'Where could they have
come from?'
'That remains for me to find out.'
'But what can the fellow have meant by birds bigger than the children
of men?'
'Possibly some great vulture or eagle which he had never seen in his
own country. You must remember the poor wretch had been wandering
alone over the mountains--for how long we don't know, and that he was
starving and exhausted. No doubt to his fevered eyes the birds looked a
good deal bigger than they really were.'
'But the river of white gems?'
'Ah, there we come to a real difficulty. I have pondered that phrase
for weeks together, and the only explanation I can think of is this:
the strayed priest struck a mountain stream, which he could see flowed
down into the valley, and knelt beside it to drink. It must have been
then that he noticed the white gems in the water, and the white gems, I
take it, must have lain thick for him to notice them at all.'
'What do you suppose the white gems to be?'
'There is only one kind of white gem that is found in the beds of
streams, Mirlees--the diamond. That one fact ought to render this
valley a highly attractive locality, though for my part I may say I
intend to explore it quite independently of the hope of opening up a
new diamond field.'
'If there were diamonds there, isn't it likely the priest would have
brought some away with him?'