by Mary Morris
There the scenery was grand beyond all description. Behind extended the waste I had crossed. In front of me was a precipitous fall of the mountain. Stretching far below, black undulating crests vanished into the darkness. The moon rose as I looked around in a trance of admiration. Its rays touched the glaciers and the high snow-robed peaks, the whole white plain, and some silvery unknown valleys toward which I was to proceed. The impassive landscape of the day seemed to awaken under the blue light which metamorphosed it, sparks glittered to and fro, and faint sounds were wafted by the wind.… Maybe elves of the frozen waterfalls, fairies of the snow, and djin-keepers of mysterious caves were to assemble and play and feast on the illuminated white tableland; or perhaps some grave council was to take place between the giants whose heads wore helmets of cold radiance. What mysteries could not have been discovered by the inquisitive pilgrim who, hidden, dared remain there motionless till dawn. Not that he could ever have related the wonder of the bewitching night, for his tongue would soon have been stiffened by the frost!
Thibetans do not shout “lha gyalo” after dark. I complied with the custom and threw only in six directions the old Sanskrit mantra, “Subham astu sarvajagatam [May all beings be happy].”
Yongden, who, after having understood that he neared the latza, had taken courage and quickened his pace, caught up with me. We began to descend. Traces of a track were visible now and then, for on that side of the mountain the snow was not deep and the ground, a yellowish gravel, was often visible.
What might have been the exact level of the pass we had crossed I would not venture to tell, as I could not make any observation. Still, from the comparison of the plants and various other particulars, one who has tramped for years through many mountain ranges, in the same country, may make a rough guess. I had carefully looked at the lichens, and observed a few other things; and I felt nearly certain that the pass was about 19,000 feet high, even higher perhaps than the Dokar la I had crossed about two months before, higher than the Nago la and others that reached from 18,299 to 18,500.
Although we knew that we should have to walk a part of the night before we should reach a spot where fuel would be available, we rejoiced at having found the pass open and at having crossed it safely. In this agreeable mood we reached a valley whose bottom was almost entirely covered by a frozen stream. There, on the ice, no trace of a track was of course visible, and we began again to roam to and fro in search of some sign to show us our direction. To follow the course of the frozen river was the safest way, if we did not find any better one. It would take us to a lower level, no doubt, but it could also happen that the stream would disappear into a narrow gorge or fall over a cliff. Still, I had decided to continue on the ice—at least as long as the valley was open. But then I found the track again, near the foot of the hill, and we had only to follow it down, proceeding slowly.
The walk was rather agreeable beneath a beautiful moon. Here and there we began to see a few bushes scattered in pasture grounds. Otherwise the country was quite barren. We could not think of stopping without lighting a fire, for motion alone kept us warm. No shelter whatsoever was in sight, and the cold wind from the snow rushed through the valley, which had now become rather wide.
We tramped until two o’clock in the morning. For nineteen hours we had been walking, without having stopped or refreshed ourselves in any way. Strangely enough, I did not feel tired, but only sleepy!
Yongden had gone in the direction of the hills in search of fuel, and I found some near the river, in a flat place, which must have been a camping-place in the summer, where travellers from the Po country go to the Dainshin province, either to trade or on robbery expeditions.
I called the young man back, gathered as much fuel as I could, and, certain that nobody was wandering in that wilderness, we decided to pitch our tent in a low place among a few bushes. The flint and steel which, according to Thibetan custom, Yongden carried attached to his belt in a pouch, had become wet during our passage across the snow fields, and now it did not work at all. This was a serious matter. Of course we were no longer on the top of the range and we had only a few hours to wait before the sun would rise; but even if we escaped being frozen, we were not at all certain that we should not catch pneumonia or some other serious disease.
“Jetsunma,”* said Yongden, “you are, I know, initiated in the thumo reskiang practice. Warm yourself and do not bother about me. I shall jump and move to keep my blood moving.”
True, I had studied under two Thibetan gompchens the strange art of increasing the internal heat. For long I had been puzzled by the stories I had heard and read on the subject and as I am of a somewhat scientific turn of mind I wanted to make the experiment myself. With great difficulties, showing an extreme perseverance in my desire to be initiated into the secret, and after a number of ordeals, I succeeded in reaching my aim. I saw some hermits seated night after night, motionless on the snow, entirely naked, sunk in meditation, while the terrible winter blizzard whirled and hissed around them! I saw under the bright full moon the test given to their disciples who, on the shore of a lake or a river in the heart of the winter, dried on their bodies, as on a stove, a number of sheets dipped in the icy water! And I learned the means of performing these feats. I had inured myself, during five months of the cold season, to wearing the single thin cotton garment of the students at a 13,000-foot level. But the experience once over, I felt that a further training would have been a waste of time for me, who, as a rule, could choose my dwelling in less severe climates or provide myself with heating apparatus. I had, therefore, returned to fires and warm clothes, and thus could not be taken for an adept in the thumo reskiang, as my companion believed! Nevertheless, I liked at times to remember the lesson I had learned and to sit on some snowy summit in my thin dress of reskiang. But the present was not the time to look selfishly after my own comfort. I wanted to try to kindle a fire that had nothing miraculous about it, but which could warm my adopted son as well as myself.
“Go!” said I to Yongden, “collect as much dry cow dung and dry twigs as you can; the exertion will prevent you from getting cold. I will see after the fire business.”
He went, convinced that the fuel was useless; but I had got an idea. After all, the flint and steel were wet and cold. What if I warmed them on me, as I had dried dripping sheets when a student of thumo reskiang? Thumo reskiang is but a way devised by the Thibetan hermits of enabling themselves to live without endangering their health on the high hills. It has nothing to do with religion, and so it can be used for ordinary purposes without lack of reverence.
I put the flint and steel and a pinch of the moss under my clothes, sat down, and began the ritualistic practice. I mentioned that I felt sleepy on the road; the exertion while collecting fuel and pitching the tent, the effort to kindle the fire, had shaken my torpor, but now, being seated, I began to doze. Yet my mind continued to be concentrated on the object of the thumo rite. Soon I saw flames arising around me; they grew higher and higher; they enveloped me, curling their tongues above my head. I felt deliciously comfortable.
A loud report awakened me. The ice on the river was rending. The flames suddenly died down as if entering the ground. I opened my eyes. The wind was blowing hard and my body burned. I made haste. The flint and steel and moss would work this time; I was convinced of it. I was still half dreaming, although I had got up and walked toward the tent. I felt fire bursting out of my head, of my fingers.
I placed on the ground a little dry grass, a small piece of very dry cow dung, and I knocked the stone. A spark sprang out of it. I knocked again; another sprang out … another … another … a miniature fireworks.… The fire was lighted; it was a little baby flame which wanted to grow, to eat, to live. I fed it and it leaped higher and higher. When Yongden arrived with a quantity of dry cow dung in the lap of his dress and some branches between his arms, he was joyfully astonished.
“How have you done it?” he asked.
“Well, it is the fire of thum
o,” I answered, smiling.
The lama looked at me.
“True,” he said. “Your face is quite red and your eyes are so bright …”
“Yes,” I replied, “that is all right. Let me alone now, and make a good buttered tea quickly. I need a very hot drink.”
I feared a little for the morrow, but I awakened in perfect health when the sun touched the thin cloth of our tent.
* “Jetsunma” or “Jetsun Kusho”: “Reverend lady” or “your reverend ladyship,” is the highest honourific title of address for a woman belonging to the religious order.
ISAK DINESEN
(1885–1962)
Isak Dinesen told close friends that she could do two things—cook and possibly write. Karen Blixen used the pen name Isak, Hebrew for “one who laughs,” and Dinesen, her maiden name, for books published in English and did not claim authorship until her first book, Seven Gothic Tales, published in 1934, became a success. Out of Africa is often called the best travel book ever written and perhaps the best pastoral of our time. A storyteller who compresses images into small powerful sentences, Dinesen works to rout “the brute realities of the twentieth century from her prose,” as one reviewer wrote. Blixen operated a coffee farm, first with her husband, Bror Blixen-Finecke, and then, after they divorced, for ten years alone. Falling commodity prices forced her to abandon the farm in 1931 and to return to Denmark. Denys of the following excerpt was Denys Finch-Hatton, a longtime companion who joined her on many of her African adventures.
from OUT OF AFRICA
One day Denys and I flew to Lake Natron, ninety miles South-East of the farm, and more than four thousand feet lower, two thousand feet above Sea level. Lake Natron is the place from where they take soda. The bottom of the lake and the shores are like some sort of whitish concrete, with a strong, sour and salt smell.
The sky was blue, but as we flew from the plains in over the stony and bare lower country, all colour seemed to be scorched out of it. The whole landscape below us looked like delicately marked tortoise-shell. Suddenly, in the midst of it was the lake. The white bottom, shining through the water, gives it, when seen from the air, a striking, an unbelievable azure-colour, so clear that for a moment you shut your eyes at it; the expanse of water lies in the bleak tawny land like a big bright aquamarine. We had been flying high, now we went down, and as we sank our own shade, dark-blue, floated under us upon the light-blue lake. Here live thousands of Flamingoes, although I do not know how they exist in the brackish water—surely there are no fish here. At our approach they spread out in large circles and fans, like the rays of a setting sun, like an artful Chinese pattern on silk or porcelain, forming itself and changing, as we looked at it.
We landed on the white shore, that was white-hot as an oven, and lunched there, taking shelter against the sun under the wing of the aeroplane. If you stretched out your hand from the shade, the sun was so hot that it hurt you. Our bottles of beer when they first arrived with us, straight out of the ether, were pleasantly cold, but before we had finished them, in a quarter of an hour, they became as hot as a cup of tea.
While we were lunching, a party of Masai warriors appeared on the horizon, and approached quickly. They must have spied the aeroplane landing from a distance, and resolved to have a close look at it, and a walk of any length, even in a country like this, means nothing to a Masai. They came along, the one in front of the other, naked, tall and narrow, their weapons glinting; dark like peat on the yellow grey sand. At the feet of each of them lay and marched a small pool of shadow; these were, besides our own, the only shadows in the country as far as the eye reached. When they came up to us they fell in line, there were five of them. They stuck their heads together and began to talk to one another about the aeroplane and us. A generation ago they would have been fatal to us to meet. After a time one of them advanced and spoke to us. As they could only speak Masai and we understood but little of the language, the conversation soon slackened, he stepped back to his fellows and a few minutes later they all turned their back upon us, and walked away, in single file, with the wide white burning salt-plain before them.
“Would you care,” said Denys, “to fly to Naivasha? But the country lying between is very rough, we could not possibly land anywhere on the way. So we shall have to go up high and keep up at twelve thousand feet.”
The flight from Lake Natron to Naivasha was Das Ding an sich. We took a bee-line, and kept at twelve thousand feet all the way, which is so high that there is nothing to look down for. At Lake Natron I had taken off my lambskin-lined cap, now up here the air squeezed my forehead, as cold as iced water; all my hair flew backwards as if my head was being pulled off. This path, in fact, was the same as was, in the opposite direction, every evening taken by the Roc, when, with an Elephant for her young in each talon, she swished from Uganda home to Arabia. Where you are sitting in front of your pilot, with nothing but space before you, you feel that he is carrying you upon the outstretched palms of his hands, as the Djinn carried Prince Ali through the air, and that the wings that bear you onward are his. We landed at the farm of our friends at Naivasha; the mad diminutive houses, and the very small trees surrounding them, all threw themselves flat upon their backs as they saw us descending.
When Denys and I had not time for long journeys we went out for a short flight over the Ngong Hills, generally about sunset. These hills, which are amongst the most beautiful in the world, are perhaps at their loveliest seen from the air, when the ridges, bare towards the four peaks, mount, and run side by side with the aeroplane, or suddenly sink down and flatten out into a small lawn.
Here in the hills there were Buffaloes. I had even, in my very young days—when I could not live till I had killed a specimen of each kind of African game—shot a bull out here. Later on, when I was not so keen to shoot as to watch the wild animals, I had been out to see them again. I had camped in the hills by a spring half way to the top, bringing my servants, tents, and provisions with me, and Farah and I had been up in the dark, ice cold mornings to creep and crawl through bush and long grass, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the herd; but twice I had had to go back without success. That the herd lived there, neighbours of mine to the West, was still a value in the life on the farm, but they were serious-minded, self-sufficient neighbours, the old nobility of the hills, now somehow reduced; they did not receive much.
But one afternoon as I was having tea with some friends of mine from up-country, outside the house, Denys came flying from Nairobi and went over our heads out Westwards; a little while after he turned and came back and landed on the farm. Lady Delamere and I drove down to the plain to fetch him up, but he would not get out of his aeroplane.
“The Buffalo are out feeding in the hills,” he said, “come out and have a look at them.”
“I cannot come,” I said, “I have got a tea-party up at the house.”
“But we will go and see them and be back in a quarter of an hour,” said he.
This sounded to me like the propositions which people make to you in a dream. Lady Delamere would not fly, so I went up with him. We flew in the sun, but the hillside lay in a transparent brown shade, which soon we got into. It did not take us long to spy the Buffalo from the air. Upon one of the long rounded green ridges which run, like folds of a cloth gathered together at each peak, down the side of the Ngong mountain, a herd of twenty-seven Buffalo were grazing. First we saw them a long way below us, like mice moving gently on a floor, but we dived down, circling over and along their ridge, a hundred and fifty feet above them and well within shooting distance; we counted them as they peacefully blended and separated. There was one very old big black bull in the herd, one or two younger bulls, and a number of calves. The open stretch of sward upon which they walked was closed in by bush; had a stranger approached on the ground they would have heard or scented him at once, but they were not prepared for advance from the air. We had to keep moving above them all the time. They heard the noise of our machine and stopped grazing
, but they did not seem to have it in them to look up. In the end they realized that something very strange was about; the old bull first walked out in front of the herd, raising his hundredweight horns, braving the unseen enemy, his four feet planted on the ground—suddenly he began to trot down the ridge and after a moment he broke into a canter. The whole clan now followed him, stampeding headlong down, and as they switched and plunged into the bush, dust and loose stones rose in their wake. In the thicket they stopped and kept close together, it looked as if a small glade in the hill had been paved with dark grey stones. Here they believed themselves to be covered to the view, and so they were to anything moving along the ground, but they could not hide themselves from the eyes of the bird of the air. We flew up and away. It was like having been taken into the heart of the Ngong Hills by a secret unknown road.
When I came back to my tea-party, the teapot on the stone table was still so hot that I burned my fingers on it. The Prophet had the same experience when he upset a jug of water, and the Archangel Gabriel took him, and flew with him through the seven heavens, and when he returned, the water had not yet run out of the jug.
In the Ngong Hills there also lived a pair of eagles. Denys in the afternoons used to say: “Let us go and visit the eagles.” I have once seen one of them sitting on a stone near the top of the mountain, and getting up from it, but otherwise they spent their life up in the air. Many times we have chased one of these eagles, careening and throwing ourselves on to one wing and then to the other, and I believe that the sharp-sighted bird played with us. Once, when we were running side by side, Denys stopped his engine in mid air, and as he did so I heard the eagle screech.
The Natives like the aeroplane, and for a time it was the fashion on the farm to portray her, so that I would find sheets of paper in the kitchen, or the kitchen wall itself, covered with drawings of her, with the letters ABAK carefully copied out. But they did not really take any interest in her or in our flying.
