Journeys on the Silk Road

by Joyce Morgan

  Walking was impossible. He needed to be carried, but his guides refused to convey him on a makeshift litter. So first he was put onto a yak and later strapped onto a camel. His pain was excruciating as he was bounced and jerked around. Eventually an improvised litter was made with a camp chair suspended from bamboo tent poles fastened between two ponies. Four days later, he was relieved to be reunited en route with his cargo. Despite encountering flooded gorges and the challenge of the 17,598-foot Sanju Pass, every case was safe. But there was still a long way to travel. The caravan had to negotiate two even higher passes: the 18,176-foot Karakoram Pass and the 17,753-foot Sasser Pass. Word of Stein’s injury was sent ahead to the medical missionary in Leh as the explorer spent the next two days attending to vital tasks, issuing directives from his camp bed. The most important was to make onward arrangements for the cargo.

  The Karakoram Pass, along the highest trade route in the world, was notoriously difficult. One nineteenth-century British traveler estimated he passed the skeletons of 5,000 horses, near which were vultures “so gorged they could hardly move.” Men, too, perished on the deadly trail, their remains covered with piles of stones. Von Le Coq noted that if a caravan encountered misadventure, its cargo was left nearby in as sheltered a spot as possible until it could be rescued. A code of honor forbade any interference with these abandoned loads, according to the German, who reported seeing many, each with a tale of misfortune. Von Le Coq also witnessed the vestige of another misfortune along the route: a lonely memorial to the Scottish trader whose murder there in 1888 inadvertently sparked the manuscript race. It was a small marble pillar atop a cairn with a brief inscription: “Here fell Andrew Dalgleish, murdered by an Afghan.” These days there are other attendant dangers. The route lies just east of the world’s highest and most improbable battleground, the disputed Siachen Glacier, where nuclear neighbors India and Pakistan have fought intermittently since 1984. So far the greatest battle has been to survive the conditions; more soldiers have died in avalanches than armed conflict.

  Stein put Lal Singh in charge of transferring the antiquities onto yaks since parts of the steep, icy terrain ahead were impassable by camel. Stein watched as the caravan left to continue on its mountainous route before its descent into the safety of Ladakh’s fertile Nubra Valley. Meanwhile, the need for medical treatment was growing more urgent. Gangrene had set in to the toes on his right foot and he feared its further spread. The explorer shed most of his remaining party and baggage so he could be carried quickly along the same route as the antiquities. He crossed the Karakoram Pass on October 3, 1908, and the Sasser four days later. Like others before him, Stein witnessed how the skeletons of pack animals littered the route. It was a morbid sight at any time, but for a man with a life-threatening injury the sight must have appeared even more distressing. He had once dismissed the Karakoram route as a “tour for ladies”; now it was proving anything but.

  To distract himself, Stein attempted to read. He turned to writings by Renaissance philosopher Erasmus—the subject of Percy Allen’s years of scholarly study. Erasmus is credited with the adage, “In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” but as Stein contemplated the philosopher’s words, anxious questions about a different affliction must have preyed on him. Would his feet survive? Would he walk again? An explorer unable to walk was no explorer at all.

  A week later, on the evening of October 8, he approached Panamik, the first village of Ladakh’s Nubra Valley, where he was met by the head of the Moravian Mission Hospital. Alerted to Stein’s plight, Dr. S. Schmitt had traveled up from Leh to meet him.

  The missionary doctor examined Stein’s feet. The toes on the left foot would survive, but those on his right foot were doomed. They would have to be removed to prevent the spread of gangrene. Schmitt dressed the wounds but was unwilling to operate on his exhausted patient until they reached Leh. Today trucks, buses, and military vehicles make the journey from Panamik to Leh in about ten hours along the world’s highest motorable road. But for Stein, the town was still four days away. Once there, Schmitt amputated toes on Stein’s right foot. He removed two middle toes completely and the top joint of the other three. As he recovered at the Mission hospital, Stein wrote Allen a lengthy, if dispassionate, account in which he glossed over the seriousness of his “unlucky incident.”

  Dr [Schmitt] assures me that the three toes left thus for the greater part intact will be ample to assure my full power of walking & climbing. The operations did not cause much pain [. . .] I am very sorry for the worry this unlucky incident at the very close of my explorations may cause you. But I have told you the details in all truth & hope you will join me in taking a philosophical view of the whole case.

  The version is at odds with his later accounts, in which he acknowledges the wounds from the amputation were both painful and slow to heal. No doubt he did not want to alarm his friend. But it was too late. News of Stein’s injury reached Allen long before the explorer’s nine-page letter. On the day Stein was penning his letter in Leh, The Times published a brief report. The one-paragraph article, published on October 16, 1908, stated simply that Stein was being treated in Leh for frostbitten feet following his return from an expedition to Central Asia. The article added to Stein’s distress. “I never thought of such a communication finding its way prematurely to London without any direct report on my part or else I should have sent you telegraphic news direct from Leh. Forgive the omission & all the worrying uncertainty which it must have caused you for weeks,” he wrote soon after to Allen.

  The inherently private Stein would hardly have been pleased that news of his injury had become public. Having worked so hard to keep confidential the details of his discoveries, this was news he could not control. The image of a crippled explorer—and the speculation such news would prompt—was not what he wanted just ahead of his return to Britain from an otherwise wildly successful expedition.

  With a view to the help he would need in London, Stein asked Allen to nudge their mutual friend Fred Andrews to seek a role at either the India Office or the British Museum, where Andrews could use his expertise in Indian and Oriental art. “If you have a chance of talking to the Baron [Andrews] discreetly about the need of urging his own case at both places, kindly use it. He is far too modest & shy about seeing people & writing makes little impression.”

  Stein convalesced in the autumn sunshine on the mission’s veranda, with its view of the majestic Leh Palace high on a barren ridge. The palace, like a smaller version of Lhasa’s Potala Palace, dominates the town. Stein regretted not being able to explore this corner of what he called Western Tibet. But he glimpsed a fascinating world. Had he been able to walk the maze of narrow alleys that lead up to the palace, he would have seen a Buddhist culture very much alive. Ladakh’s centuries-old monasteries, full of statues, sutras, and painted murals, continue to thrive.

  Immobilized, he used the time to write letters and make arrangements for the transport of his antiquities. They had arrived safely in Leh under Lal Singh’s care, and the surveyor was once again in charge as the convoy left for Srinagar in mid-October. The cases traveled in carts and then by rail south to Bombay. Stein knew that if he did not follow his antiquities soon, he would be stuck in Leh until spring. Winter was approaching and the first snows would close the pass between Ladakh and Kashmir. He maintained his optimistic tone in his letters to Allen, expressing a hope that he would be able to ride into Kashmir, walk soon after and be in Budapest for Christmas.

  The reality was different. Unable to ride—or even sit up—when he departed on November 1, he had to be carried on his litter for the two-week journey to Srinagar. He was carried over the Zoji Pass that separates the barren high desert of Ladakh from Kashmir’s fertile valleys. It was not how he had imagined his return to the area he so loved. He had to content himself with passing a night by the foot of Mohand Marg, his de facto home on whose meadows he had camped for years.

&nb
sp; In Srinagar he was treated by Dr. Arthur Neve, head of the Church Mission Hospital and a keen mountaineer, who already knew the toll the expedition had taken on its members. The blind handyman Naik Ram Singh had been taken to Neve just months earlier. Although the surgeon could do little for the Naik, Neve had reassuring news for Stein: the explorer would be able to walk and, most importantly, climb again once the wounds had fully healed. The ball of the foot, so vital for balance, was unharmed. And enough of his toes, including the big toe, remained to ensure he could cope with hilly terrain. “Things might have fared a great deal worse—& you know what walking means for me & my work,” he wrote to Andrews.

  But the wounds would not heal overnight, and he had to remain in Srinagar until they did. He stayed at the elegant British Residency near tranquil Dal Lake. In the summer, when British officials fled the heat of India’s plains and headed for the hill stations, the Residency was one of the Raj era’s most enchanting social hubs. At the height of the season its gardens were hung with Chinese lanterns for moonlight gatherings. The Resident’s canopied barge glided by on the lake, rowed by liveried oarsmen. By late autumn, when Stein arrived, the glittering social set had long departed, no doubt to his relief. Nonetheless, he enjoyed what seemed to him luxurious trappings. After more than two and a half years of sleeping under canvas and writing his notes by candlelight, he had the novelty of a bed, furniture, and electric light. He took his meals in his old camp chair, and his two Turki servants, Muhammadju and Musa, remained with him. Although the Resident, Sir Francis Younghusband—Macartney’s former superior at Kashgar—was absent, Stein was cared for by a young assistant as though he were a family member.

  He rode in the Resident’s carriage along the banks of Dal Lake, admiring the autumn colors and encircling mountains reflected in its calm waters. After a couple of weeks he began to hobble around on crutches. His injuries healed slowly, particularly the wound to his big toe, which reopened shortly before he left India. Despite the brave face Stein put on his injury, medical reports tell a different tale. The hardships of the expedition had caused “nervous overstrain, owing to his prolonged exertions and hardships; and of late owing to sleeplessness,” according to Neve. Stein’s health had been permanently damaged, in the opinion of another Indian-based doctor. He would need to rest aboard the ship to Europe to facilitate the healing, he was warned.

  But before his departure, he wanted to ensure those who had served him so loyally were duly rewarded. As well as lobbying for Naik Ram Singh’s pension, he sought recognition for his two surveyors, the rheumatic Ram Singh and his replacement, Lal Singh. For Chiang he arranged another watch—this time of gold—which was presented with much ceremony at an official dinner in Kashgar.

  There was also his own future and that of his antiquities to consider. The two were intricately connected. Before he left India, he received news that the Viceroy, Lord Minto, who had taken an interest in his exploration, had granted him extended leave to work on his discoveries in England. Stein arranged to ship his ninety cases of manuscripts, silks and murals from Bombay to London aboard the P&O steamer Oceana. Stein’s treasures set sail on December 19, 1908. “May kindly divinities protect them on their way,” he wrote as the cases embarked on their two-and-a-half-week sea voyage via the Suez Canal and Gibraltar.

  But what to do with Dash? Over two and a half years, the little fox terrier had trotted through deserts and mountains—dodging the feet of camels, horses, and yaks—and ridden on Stein’s saddle. At night he had jealously guarded Stein’s camp bed and snoozed under his master’s blankets. He had chased gazelles and hares, detected a tiger, and survived a mauling by savage dogs. Since leaving Dunhuang, Stein had resigned himself to leaving his canine companion behind in India, as he had with Dash I, in 1901.

  Then Stein had a change of heart. He could not face parting with his plucky companion who had traveled so far with him. Dash the Great would join him in England. It meant a temporary separation, for the dog was not allowed to accompany Stein from Bombay. Instead, Dash was put aboard the steamer Circassia to Liverpool and quarantined for four months in London. Quite how the peripatetic Stein would care for him in England he didn’t know. He parted from Dash in Bombay on Boxing Day 1908 and later that day set sail for Europe.

  The Oceana, with Stein’s antiquities aboard, berthed in London on January 9, 1909. Forwarding agents Thomas Cook advised the British Museum three days later that it would deliver the ninety cases. Meanwhile, Andrews, who had secured a part-time role to help catalogue the mountain of treasures, was quick to telegram Stein, holidaying in mainland Europe en route to Britain, with the happy news of the Oceana’s safe arrival. It could easily have been otherwise. The Oceana sank en route to Bombay just three years later when it collided with the German bark Pisagua in the English Channel. The P&O ship was carrying a £750,000 cargo of gold and silver ingots when it went down, just a month before the Titanic sank. Divers can still see the wreck of the Oceana off England’s south coast today (although most of the ingots have been recovered).

  After narrowly escaping incineration in the flames of civil unrest at Anxi, Stein’s cargo of sacred relics—far more fragile than silver and gold ingots—had survived. Stein may well have had good reason to thank those kindly divinities.

  Wherever this sutra is kept is a sacred site enshrining the presence of the Buddha or one of the Buddha’s great disciples.

  VERSE 12, THE DIAMOND SUTRA

  13

  Yesterday, Having Drunk Too Much . . .

  In ancient China, the value of a domestic slave could be measured in silk. A petty official and his wife, having fallen on hard times in 991, relinquished their twenty-eight-year-old servant to settle a bill. She was worth three pieces of raw silk and two of spun. The deal was formalized on a single sheet of pale, coarse paper and signed with the brush marks of the slave and her owners. Once the pact had been witnessed by two Buddhist monks, her future was decided.

  The contract to sell the young slave was among the thousands of documents sealed in the Library Cave. The material spans more than 600 years, and while not every manuscript is dated, many show not only the year of their creation, but also the month and day. Some fastidious scribes even recorded the time.

  Although the cave was predominantly filled with religious texts, the secular documents are particularly revealing. They give poignant, amusing and remarkable detail about life along the Silk Road over hundreds of years. The documents range from ways to entertain the living (such as hints for playing the board game Go) to funeral speeches for the dead (including a eulogy for a donkey). Stein’s haul contains a list of ten reasons why children should be grateful to their mother, not least because she has endured the agony of childbirth and the stinky tedium of toilet training. Another manuscript sets out the punishment for disrupting proceedings at a women’s club: the rabble-rouser had to provide wine-syrup for an entire feast. This hardly seems the ideal way to prevent such brawls—especially for a club probably comprised of nuns. And lest an offender try to abandon her membership, the penalty for leaving the club was three strokes with a bamboo stick.

  Among the more frivolous manuscripts is a debate between Tea and Wine in which each beverage claims supremacy. Lionel Giles, who spent decades cataloguing Stein’s collection, offered a translation in his book Six Centuries at Tunhuang. The debate begins with Tea introducing itself: “Chief of the hundred plants, flower of the myriad trees, esteemed for its buds that are picked, prized for its shoots that are culled, lauded as a famous shrub—its name is called Tea!” But Wine dismisses Tea’s boasts as ridiculous. “From of old until now Wine has always ranked higher than Tea. What cannot Wine singly achieve? It will intoxicate a whole army; it is drunk by the sovereigns of the Earth, and is acclaimed by them as their god.” Tea responds, Wine retorts. And the dispute continues as the two immodestly engage in self-promotion until Water finally intervenes, telling both Tea and Wine that
their argument is pointless—without Water, neither could exist.

  The cave also surrendered a series of model letters designed to resolve matters of etiquette. Some letters suggest a choice of words for offering condolences, others provide suggestions on inoffensive topics such as the weather. Among the trickier situations addressed is a pro forma apology for drunken behavior. Giles translates: “Yesterday, having drunk too much, I was so intoxicated as to pass all bounds; but none of the rude and coarse language I used was uttered in a conscious state.” The letter continues, explaining that the writer did not learn of his lack of decorum until others told him, at which point he wished “to sink into the earth for shame.” The writer then promises to apologize in person, signing the letter: “Leaving much unsaid, I am yours respectfully.”

  If such letters are evidence of a pressing need, it must have been considerable, for another form letter offers the recommended reply: “Yesterday, Sir, while in your cups, you so far overstepped the observances of polite society as to forfeit the name of gentleman, and made me wish to have nothing more to do with you. But since you now express your shame and regret for what has occurred, I would suggest that we meet again for a friendly talk.” Presumably not over a bottle of wine.

  When sifting through the Library Cave manuscripts, a moment of time, seemingly lost among the centuries, can return to life. Sometimes all that survives is a fragment. One such scrap mentions Ming Sha—the Singing Sands—and confirms that the rumbling dunes were as entertaining for men and women in the tenth century as they were for Chiang and Stein in the twentieth century. Another telling fragment is a pledge signed by sixteen men who swear to care for the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas. “Even if Heaven and Earth collapse, this vow shall remain unshaken,” the document says. Given the date of their promise—March 25, 970—it is unlikely any of the men lived to see the Library Cave sealed early in the next century, but they may have helped amass the documents placed inside.