sembling the dreary waterless deserts of the north, so
well described by Sven Hedin and others, and it must
also be admitted that it in no way substantiates the impression
left upon the mind by the reports sent in by
the secret surveyors. Apart from the fact that the
native of India has no eye for the beauties of nature, and
would as soon make a day’s journey across a desert as a
park, it must be remembered that the very manner in
which these invaluable men were obliged to carry out
their work precluded the possibility of much observation.
To go on walking from day to day, intent only
upon counting every footfall and faithfully registering
the hundreds and the thousands upon a Tibetan rosary,
naturally debars a traveller from such observations
as would have suggested to the Indian authorities
both the stored-up and the potential wealth of the great
alluvial river-flats of southern Tibet.
I do not know that there are many feats in the world
of adventure, endurance and pluck that will compare
favourably with that of the Indian native entrusted
with the work of secret exploration in Tibet. In the
first place it must be remembered that to secure the
brains necessary for the work a class of native has to
be employed which, by tradition at least, is not the
pluckiest in the peninsula. The wonder therefore is
doubled when one remembers the splendid' work of
such men as Krishna (better known as A.K.) or Kintup
(K.P.), for the moral courage needed to persist in an
enterprise like this can hardly be overestimated. The
men employed are of necessity entirely without companions
and without resources ; they are engaged upon
one of the most hazardous occupations that remain in
the world, that of a spy in a barbarous country, and
should they fail for one minute in all those months
and years of exile, they know that no mercy will be
extended to them ; and I t'hink it but fair to add that
not one of them would in any emergency betray the
Government whose servant he is. There is a known case
of a man who actually consented to be betrayed by
his colleague as a spy in order that one at least of the
two might be able to escape and bring back to India
the priceless notes and calculations collected during a
year of travel. For three years Kintup was sold into
slavery and endured it without complaining.
But this is not a l l ; a life of exploration, apart from
the dangers and hardships of it, is one of unremitting
toil ; the mere physical endurance needed to travel in
this brain-benumbing way, counting each step, hardly
daring to raise the eyes from the track at one’s feet lest
a number should be missed, or lest suspicion should be
aroused, is incredible. One man measured the length
of the Ling-kor, the road round Lhasa, by counting
the prostrations necessary, afterwards solemnly repeating
the whole process over a measured mile.
Another man is known to have travelled 2,500 miles,
counting every footstep over mountain ranges. Atma
Ram did the same thing in one of Captain Bower’s
expeditions for a distance of 2,080 miles. Nain Singh
counted his steps from Leh to Assam— look at it on the
map. When the story of Asian exploration is finally
and worthily written, the work of these lonely spies,
twirling incessantly within their wheels rolls of blank
paper instead of prayers which are laboriously and
minutely filled up night after night with the day’s
observation, must receive a place of honour second to
none. Hurree Chunder Mookerjee in “ Kim ” is a