By mid-February he was back in the relative shelter of Tsaidam. The first harbingers of spring, red-necked thrushes, widgeon and geese, were already heading north. Przhevalsky retrieved his supplies and hurried on: he liked to spend his springs on lake-shores, to observe the birds’ migration. Another month’s travelling brought him to Kuku Nor, 2,000 feet higher than Tsaidam and still completely frozen. But there was grass for the horses and tamarisk to fatten the camels, in spite of the kulan and gazelle who had trampled the yellow pastures. The atmosphere was dry, and the lake was one snowless mirror of ice. The Bukhain Gol, however, was not frozen and Przhevalsky fished. Unwisely, Pyltsov and Przhevalsky ate the poisonous roe of the Schizopygopsis; both lay prostrate for some days. Their more cautious Mongol guide nursed them with poultices and stomach drops.
Early in April a storm struck Kuku Nor and broke up the now thawing ice. But the temperature stayed low and only thirty-nine species of bird had appeared by the middle of the month. Przhevalsky guessed that the migrant route must divert eastwards to the Huang Ho valley and avoid the mountain barriers of the Nan Shan and Ta-t’ung around Kuku Nor. He decided to move on to the rich, wet, hunting grounds of Kansu.
The direct route to Kansu through the town of Donker had been cleared. But Przhevalsky preferred to avoid populated centres and follow his old route, dispensing with guides, surveying the mountains without fear of being discovered. On the way he exchanged his ger for new camel saddles and, for want of money, exchanged some revolvers with the Tangut for new camels and a little silver. He arrived at Choibseng to find the ground sodden and the countryside lifeless. April was as wet as October here; he went on to the friendly lamasery of Chörtentang.
At Chörtentang every afternoon brought rain or snow. But the flowers of the alpine zone flourished in the soaking cold. Unknown species of iris, gentian and primula lured the collector over the mountain pastures; in early June spring brought out paeonies, wild strawberries and the fragrant blossoms of Daphne altaica. It was not just the novelty of the Kansu flora, but the mixture of Altai, Himalayan, Mongolian and Manchurian species that made Kansu botanically the most rewarding of Przhevalsky’s fields of exploration for Russian scientists. By the middle of June, Przhevalsky had found seventy-six species of flower, including several honeysuckles, Himalayan poppies and rhododendrons new to science.
Kansu was poorer in bird-life; Przhevalsky collected only a few eggs. After many days’ stalking, he shot a specimen of the rare eared pheasant, Crossoptilon auritum, a bird all the more elusive for being silent and shot-resistant. High up, from a camp at 12,000 feet, Przhevalsky watched the snow vulture and Himalayan vulture drop like bombs on a carcase that must have been a mere speck on the ground beneath them. He baited them with carrion and with great difficulty added a few to his collection. But the most curious animal of Kansu eluded him. The Tanguts told him of a beast called hung-guresu, the man-beast, quite distinct from a bear. Przhevalsky offered a reward for information that would lead him to it, dead or alive. He was soon taken to a temple ten miles north of Chörtentang. There stood a hung-guresu, which turned out to be not a Yeti—the abominable snowman, a humanoid ape allegedly sighted in the Himalayas and in the Gobi—but an ordinary, badly stuffed Himalayan bear. There was nothing now to keep Przhevalsky in Kansu, where even in June there could be six inches of snow and five degrees of frost.
In a few days Przhevalsky had descended 6,000 feet into the burning sands of the A-la Shan desert. He had only a few notes on the route, taken surreptitiously when he had crossed the sands with the Tangut caravan. Not surprisingly, he lost his way in the almost trackless dunes. After a day’s march, with only five gallons of water left for four men and the pack animals, and these gallons evaporating fast through the porous water-barrels, Przhevalsky set out his bearings and found they had wandered too far east. The horses were in distress. The next morning Przhevalsky piled up and mounted his packing cases. Luckily he located a group of mountains in the distance, for which they headed. Six miles farther they found an obo—a stone shrine—and they knew they had found the track. A few hours later they had water.
Near Ting-yüan-ying Przhevalsky met a group of Mongols from Urga. They were part of an immense caravan that had set out to fetch the new incarnation of the living Buddha, the Kutukhtu, from Lhasa, the first caravan to dare attempt the journey since 1862. They had left in echelons by different routes, for the wells between Urga and A-la Shan were silted up or poisoned by the Tungans, and a large convoy would have died of thirst; they were to meet up at Kuku Nor. They warned Przhevalsky of the devastation that lay between him and his goal, the Russian consulate at Urga: he had to choose a new, less-frequented route hoping for water and fodder.
The prince of A-la Shan had left Ting-yüan-ying with his sons for Peking, but the expedition was received well; letters and newspapers from Vlangali were waiting for them, as well as 1,000 liang. The papers brought Przhevalsky up to date with the news of 1872. They confirmed not only that the Russians had taken over the Ili Valley ‘to restore order’, but that they had begun to treat with Yakub Bey. Yakub Bey had come from the khanate of Kokand, to become the Emir of eastern Turkestan. Now, as ruler of the breakaway state of Jeti Shahr (Seven Cities) or Kashgaria, he was the focus of rebellion against the Chinese. Many Tungans had taken refuge in an uneasy alliance with their fellow Moslems, the Uighur Turks of Kashgaria. If the Russians recognized Yakub Bey as the ruler of an independent state, Chinese hostility against the Russians would be kindled. Przhevalsky must have been astounded, as were the Russian newspapers, at the successes of the Chinese army under General Tso Tung-t’ang. General Tso had turned a rabble into an army more efficient and no less murderous than the ill-led Tungans. There was every prospect that General Tso might restore order in Dzungaria and the Tien Shan and that China would then demand the return of the Ili Valley. The situation was becoming tense, and it was to affect, even determine, the nature of Przhevalsky’s future expeditions.
But before hurrying home to present his reports and display his collections, Przhevalsky wanted to rest. He took Pyltsov and just two horses into the A-la Shan mountains for three weeks’ hunting. They stayed high up, fetching water on horseback from the valleys. But there were few animals or plants. The sparse forests were composed only of spiraea and potentilla, and a few dianthus grew at the edge of the alpine zone. Rain rushed down the steep stream beds to evaporate in the desert or vanish in the Huang Ho, without moistening the soil. Once Przhevalsky and Pyltsov nearly lost everything, even their lives. A storm brought a torrent of water carrying uprooted trees and boulders along the gorge where they were encamped. Luck saved them: at the last moment, inches from the tent, the rocks and tree trunks piled up, damming the water long enough for them to climb out of danger.
At the end of July, with his camels—some restored to health, the rest newly purchased—and two guides to take him as far as the country of the Öröd Mongols, Przhevalsky set off north. The temperature was often forty-five degrees centigrade in the shade, the ground too hot to touch. Forty-four such days had to be endured. Even at night the tent could not keep out the super-heated air. There was no dew. Rain clouds came but the water turned to steam long before it reached the ground. They tried to start in the cool of first light, but the Cossacks and Mongols took so long to finish their tea that they still had to ride mostly in the heat. After crossing the low hills of the Khang Ula, where the track to the east forked off the Urga route, the Mongol guide missed a well. Sure that a second well was within reach, the expedition went on. But the guide seemed rather vague. In the afternoon, with only ten pints left, everyone was in agony. The dogs could go no farther. Faust was lifted up on to a camel. Water, the guide assured Przhevalsky, was only three miles off. But Faust was in convulsions. Przhevalsky laid him down under a tuft of grass on a saddle blanket; the dog came to, then howled and, after two yawns, died. Przhevalsky picked up the setter’s body and rode on. There was less than a pint of water left and he was almost fainting.
He handed a Cossack a kettle and ordered him and the Mongol to gallop ahead to the well. If there was no well, or the Mongol tried to run for it, the Cossack was to shoot him dead. Fortunately for all, the guide was right, the Cossack galloped back in half an hour and after twenty-two miles—nine hours—men and beasts could slake their thirst. But Przhevalsky and Pyltsov were too miserable to eat or sleep. In the morning, crying like children, they buried Faust.
Crossing a corner of Öröd country and taking on two new guides, they passed through the bare clay Galbyn Gobi into the Khalkha Mongols’ lands. They crossed the post-route that once linked Kuku Khoto and Pao-t’ou with the oases of Hami and Dzungaria; it was still deserted, its wells destroyed by the Tungans. Then the Hörh mountains, the south-east extremity of the Mongolian Altai, broke the desert. A few twisted shrubs and an occasional partridge struggled to live in the dry gorges. Bharals on the crags tempted the hunter. But Przhevalsky’s homemade yak-hide boots were useless on the rocks, and he had to call off the hunt. Another 200 miles brought the expedition to the parallel tracks that connected Peking with western Mongolia; they were now in use again, military convoys taking supplies by a circuitous route to reinforce the Chinese army fighting in Dzungaria. The previous winter, unknown to Przhevalsky, the English explorer Ney Elias, alone but for a Chinese servant, had made the journey through rebel-held areas from Peking to the Siberian town of Biysk along this very route.
Each day the heat was intolerable, but the earth became slightly less barren. The lifeless pebbles of the Hörh Ula imperceptibly gave way to semi-desert and to steppe. Rainfall had left pools of water, but the nomads had brought their cattle to the water and it was so saturated with dung as to be undrinkable. Desperate birds flocked to the pools, so tired that Przhevalsky and Pyltsov caught them in their hands. Hardly less tired themselves, they redoubled their efforts as they approached Urga. At last they were in the Russian consulate, too weak to stand. The relief is obvious in Przhevalsky’s diary: ‘To us, who had become utterly unused to European life, everything seemed strange at first—fork, plate, furniture and mirrors and so on. But by the next day we felt we had been living among them for a week. The expedition we had been on and all its deprivations now seemed a strange dream. The mass of new impressions was so great and had such a strong effect that we ate very little that day and hardly slept that night …’
In a few days their appetites returned. Przhevalsky began to evaluate his achievement. He wrote to Fateyev to boast that, for a mere 18,000 roubles, with the loss of twenty-four horses and fifty-five camels, he had penetrated areas which other explorers, the American Pompelly and the German Baron Richthofen, had tried and failed to approach; he had surveyed some 3,000 miles of route and collected several tons of specimens of fauna and flora. The climate, orography and hydrography of an area the size of Western Europe were no longer mysteries. Politically and scientifically, Przhevalsky had achieved more than any previous explorer in Central Asia. He arrived at Kyakhta a hero. By October 1873 he was in Irkutsk, writing reports on China and the Tungans for the General Staff, lecturing weekly to the public and planning the first volume of his next book, to be based on his diary and his copious field notes. He had left Russia an exceptionally promising young officer; he returned a conquistador.
5
Lob Nor Rediscovered
Desperate passions, aching hours
L. PIGOT JOHNSON
Przhevalsky spent Christmas 1873 at Otradnoye with his mother, his stepfather and their children. But there was little respite for him or for Pyltsov, who was now almost one of the family. Early in 1874 they were summoned to Petersburg. The newspapers poured out eulogies on the explorer, monthly magazines competed for an account of the journey, and Przhevalsky was showered with invitations to dine and to lecture. Even he, who shunned crowds and ceremonies, was overwhelmed. The military-topographical section of the General Staff set out Przhevalsky’s zoological collection for Tsar Alexander II and for the visiting Emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph, to inspect. Many government ministers, among them the most influential Milyutin, Minister of War, also came to look. Milyutin noted in his diary (9/21 January 1874): ‘By the way, Captain Przhevalsky, just back from a bold journey to Tibet, was there in person … Przhevalsky has amassed an enormous zoological collection: the whole hall was filled with countless stuffed birds and animals. The Emperor Franz Josef, as a passionate sportsman, looked over all this collection with great attention.’
A month later, Milyutin heard Przhevalsky lecture and was greatly impressed. His diary records: ‘… Przhevalsky, more than anyone else, can attract listeners and even more, lady listeners; you can see in his whole figure and in his every word an energetic nature. After the lecture I invited him home for a cup of tea and to introduce him to my family.’
The threads of Przhevalsky’s career and of Milyutin’s strategies were about to interweave. Yakub Bey had sent a roving ambassador, Sa’id Yakub, to establish closer relations with the Russian government. Przhevalsky’s next expedition in Kashgaria was an embassy to Yakub Bey as well as a service to geography in the frontier lands of Tibet.
With Milyutin’s help Przhevalsky became a lieutenant-colonel on the permanent General Staff. He was given a pension of 600 roubles a year; Pyltsov became a lieutenant with a pension of 200. ‘My funds are growing from day to day,’ Przhevalsky wrote to Fateyev. The Minister of Finance gave 10,000 roubles to the Academy of Sciences so that it could buy Przhevalsky’s zoological collection. The Imperial Geographical Society provided another 10,000 roubles for the publication of Przhevalsky’s next book. This was to be a three-volume account, Mongolia and the Country of the Tanguts, the second volume to be devoted primarily to the ornithological specimens, the third to the botanical results. The new lieutenant-colonel had indefinite leave to write his book; the gentle, self-effacing Pyltsov, to whom Przhevalsky gave a fifth of the proceeds to date, was given eleven months’ leave to be with him.
By the time Przhevalsky left, Tibet was becoming a fashionable topic in Petersburg. Buryats such as Jamsaran Badmayev began practising Tibetan medicine in society. Curiosity about Tibet and the Dalai Lama was to develop over the next two decades into an obsession. But Przhevalsky’s scientific results, naturally, took longer to permeate. In one particular Przhevalsky was unfortunate: Petersburg had no nurserymen comparable with Hillier of Winchester or Vilmorin of Paris who might propagate and introduce his botanical discoveries into horticulture. Regel, the nurseryman of Petersburg, was interested primarily in plants of economic value; neither the Russian climate nor Russian country life inclined the public to experiment with the flora of China in their gardens. The sad outcome is that while the discoveries of Père Armand David or of Fortune and Wilson fill the parks and gardens of Paris and London, the equally beautiful shrubs and perennials that Przhevalsky discovered in Kansu are, with few exceptions, known only to botanists.
Trusted in high places, widely adulated, Przhevalsky soon wearied of banquets and speeches: the old psychosomatic symptoms appeared. Early in May he fled to Otradnoye and was immediately at peace; he wrote to his Warsaw friend, Beltsov: ‘Nature’s becoming splendidly beautiful … the forest is in bud, everything is starting to blossom, a mass of nightingales are singing … The coughs and headaches of Petersburg are, as it were, lifted by a hand …’
Not long after arriving at Otradnoye, Mikhail Pyltsov proposed to Aleksandra Tolpygo and was accepted. Przhevalsky took it with better grace than one might expect: he had gained a brother-in-law, but he had lost a fellow explorer whom he had brought safely across the wilderness, through typhoid, concussion and frostbite. There is something sardonic in Przhevalsky’s reported remark: ‘Just like in a novel—shouldn’t I add it in detail to the description of my journey?’
He spent the summer happily fishing and shooting. Like many explorers of distant lands, he found more beauty and variety in his native countryside: it was the danger and the solitude of Asia that attracted him, rather than its exotica. But Otradnoye
provided such pleasant pursuits that Przhevalsky made no headway with his book. In September 1874 he forced himself to return to Petersburg. Living unobtrusively, working ten hours a day, he had the first volume of his book ready for the printers by November. The General Staff had printed the maps and all he had to do was to work through his collection of birds for volume two. He was now famous abroad. Correspondence was opened with geographers in London and Ney Elias in Calcutta; he was elected to the Berlin Geographical Society and invited to read a paper in Paris. The Imperial Geographical Society gave him its Konstantin Medal for 1875; Pyltsov and the Cossacks received medals too.
The next expedition could not, however, begin before volume two was completed; the work dragged on through 1875. Przhevalsky gave himself little relief. He spent Shrove Tuesday in Moscow with his brothers Vladimir (now a defence lawyer) and Yevgeni (an army officer teaching in cadet college). Vladimir was already a family man; now Przhevalsky’s relatives and friends began to annoy him with advice to marry. He spent Easter 1875 in Otradnoye, where he had the chance of testing out a present from his brother staff officers, a double-barrelled Lancaster Express carbine, ordered through the military attaché in London. It cost over £100 and the only other man in Russia to own one was the Tsarevich. It became an inseparable part of Przhevalsky: the gun soon had a pet name, ‘Lyan’, and was fired and polished almost to the day he died.
Back in Petersburg, Przhevalsky started to plan the details of the next journey: to break through to Tibet from the north-west, from the Russian-held Ili Valley, across the centre of Kashgaria, the terrible Takla Makan desert, via Lob Nor, if it could be found, and into unknown mountains. But Pyltsov was happily married and irretrievably lost to science, and Przhevalsky wanted to take not just Nikolay Yagunov, whom he had sent from the Ussuri to Warsaw to study, but a second assistant. While working in the museum of the Academy of Sciences he got to know an eighteen-year-old boy, Fyodor Eklon, who showed the qualities of unspoilt brightness and submissive resilience which Przhevalsky sought from his companions. In vain did qualified geologists from Vienna or botanists from Warsaw apply to join him. By July he was convinced that Fyodor Eklon, though a mere museum technician, had the makings of an explorer. He took Eklon that summer to Otradnoye, to teach him to shoot, to ride and to prepare specimens.
The Dream of Lhasa: The Life of Nikolay Przhevalsky (1839?1888), Explorer of Central Asia Page 10
