Evening Star Newspaper, August 2, 1925, Page 71

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. Defeat Before Victory, as Told by Woman Who Entered Lhasa C., AUGUST 2, 1925—PART 5. BY ALEXANDRA DAVID-NEEI HIS time, do not come back € adopted again,” says m son, the Lama Yongden luding to my two previous attempts to cross Tibet that have both faiied. The imperative tone with which these words are uttered does mnot deceive me. It is emotion, anxiety that led my son to depart from the respectful way in which he May you this time, he means, reach the termination of the troubles and hardships of all kinds that you have horne during several years; this time may your lLazardous adventure end successfully. I turn the good black mule I am 1 at the village at the foot of the hill, at the small Chi- always addresses me. rtding toward Jakyendo, the plac ata leaving. I Ic nege fort isolated in the valley and es pecially at the gompa (lamaist mon astery) standing proudly unknown enemies. crowd of th where, amid of disciples or brethren in initis at Jakyendo. where T have spent five eventful months. Will, this time, the occult power that seemed tet me free? Shall I to bind me ther *‘come back again’? I started half-heartedly on that new nd rather extravagant journey. Ex periences of various natures had con vinced me that so-called “independent Tibet” is more strictly forbldden to foreigners than old Tibet had ever reen under the Chinese rule. I was illy, aware that a journey to Lhasa or anywhere in the under the Lhasa government, was im possible unless one could smuggle one- elf undetec beyond the frontie: josts. So I had thought of traveling with nly one companior servant &yal, assuming the rance ol DoOr woman a playing > part of kood enoug pyart with my fine mules, my tents, ‘my luggage without attracting the no tice of the people of the country On the other h d, Y gden could not reconcile himself to the idea of letting me go as a beggar for such a long journey He remembered the hardships endured and the dangers faced during previous journeys and thought of those, still greater, that would wait me when I should be alone. So that I yielded reluctantly to his entreaties and agreed that he would follow me with Davva, my other servant, the beasts and the baggage A few days’ interval, till we should have traveled for about a fortnight Leyond the border. Then we would proceed together or separately, accord- ing to the circumstances, but in any case I would have, watching over me two men ready to supply my needs. We had decided that the day of my departure I, with Thobgyal and Yongden, should ride as far as the first pass and then the latter was to take the horses bhack to Jakyendo, leaving my companion and me to pro. ceed on foot, carrying on our backs a small three-foot-high tent and much food as possible. * % IN© stage manager could have de ised such a theatrical effect that which suddenly occurred when we reached the obo standing at the top of the pa I use the Mongolian word obo, more familiar to foreigners than the Tibetan latza. vertheless it must be understood that Tibetans ver speak of obo. A latza is a rn, a heap of stones dedicated to the deities. In one moment the sky darkened, black clouds descended bn the summits, the whole snowy land scape took a dramatic leaden-gray hue, a tremendous storm fell on the small tableland that he had to cross. | We could hardly keep standing, snow blinded I saw tears coming in the eyes of the young lama. would take advantage of that awful weather to beseech me once more to | give up my journey, and I hurriedly | ordered him to lead the horses to a sheltered place and to go back to Jakyendo as soon as the storm would have abated. So we parted, without any pathetic words of farewell, each of ‘us anxious, in his heart, about the fate of the other one. Bent under the weight of our load, breathless, stumbling on the stones hidden under a thick layer of snow, we reached a gorge that led down-|country,” etc. ward to the valley, which was to be | | A\'OTHER secret code regulated the place of our first camp. There .the heaped snow attained a consider- able height and we had to proceed dominating on a hill with its many buildings and ts golden roofed temples. I look at the gompa, surrounded with mystery, where I leave friends and, perhaps, indifferent, clerics, some philosophers and a few mystics live etived life, shut in apart- ments closed to all but a small number Mibetan regions v son n was but the difficulty was to 1 feared that he| steps. Once Thobgyal sank in a pit filled with snow and, had he not been a robust fellow, perhaps he would not have been able to get out ef it. Ac- cidents of that kind happen each Winter to poor pilgrims, whose bodles are found when the snow melts, un- less bones only remain, wolves having on the flesh. late at night when we reach- ground lower down. We found plenty of fuel in an abandoned camp of cowmen and decided to spend the night there near a big fire. Most parts of Tibet are barren and the fuel is dried cow dung. ow the weather was calm, the moon shovs brightly in the wide, clear hire and there stones were glit- tering on the barren hills, reminding one of the jeweled mountains and the hidden treasure of the fairy tales. What a wonderful feeling of freedom and serenity pervaded these mighty, silent solitudes! But tiredness pre- vailed over admiration. I fell asleep ind awakened only when the sun was rising We had to cross a pass called Rak <hi la (la means a pass) about 16,000 feet high, and spent the morning in search of some black tents of cow- men who could give Us information wbout the road. The result of our in- quiry was not encouraging; nobody | wanted to accompany us as guide. The few cowmen we met declared that Lefore two months the snow would not have melted enough to allow the passage. What was to be done? To turn the range meant at least 10 days’ supplementary marches in a country where I was known by the . tent dwellers, who could put embarrassing questions to me and perhaps guess the goal of my journey. 1 could not run such a risk, so I decided to take my chance and to attempt the passage of the pass, V 3 spent. the night in a grotto at the entrance of the valley which ascended toward the crests. The mol w, before daybreak, we were climbing as fast as we could, my companion repeating every 10 minutes that most cheerful leit mo- iive: “If we do not succeed to pass through, and to walk far down on the other' side we will be frozen to death next night.” 1 could not deny the truth of his statement, but I thought he insisted rather too much on_ it ' In such a gay mood we proceeded lonely for hours, the Snow growing deeper and deeper. Then the path turned suddenly, and we confronted a huge, almost perpendicular wall of spow. That was the obstacle that closed the path, as the cowmen had told us. We looked at each other-in we had not fancied such a thing. We had heard that, on the other side of the hill, snow did not extend far down, and that tents could soon be cd. That hope gave us courage. With tne short sword that every Tibetan _traveler carries passed through his belt, Thobgyal cut steps into the hardened snow and we began the ascent. The young man passed first, 1 followed. Sometimes, pre- cipitately, I was taking hold of one of his legs when he appeared about to slide down, sometimes he seized my hand and lifted me. It was a long time before we reached the top of the obstacle, but, happily, there we found solid ground around the obo. Before leaving Jakyendo I had set- tled with Yongden a secret code of correspondence so that when com ing behind me he could be informed of my progress and, at the same | time, be warned in case of unexpect- cd_events. Tibetans have the habit f hanging small flags of thin ma. terial on branches stuck between the stones of the obos, on the passes d_on the roads. These flags are different color, either plain or bearing some mystic formulas. T saw there a way of conveying mes- Sxplaining_to the people living around me that I intended to_offer them to the mountains’ gods, I had prepared a number of these flags, their shape being slightly different from those used by Tibetans, so that they might be easily recognized by Yongden or his servant and stil would not attract the motice of others. Each of them had a_special meaning. As an instance, a plain red flag mednt, “I have passed here”; a blue, “Make haste to rejoin me'; a red and ‘green, “There is a letter hidden under the_ stone below the flag ™ | Others were to be read: “I have seen men who look suspicious.” “It seems that I am followed by spies,” “I have heard about robbers roaming in the * ok ok ok our correspondence ‘When meet- ing on the road. Again it made use very cautiously, fathoming it with|of popular customs. Many Tibetans, our long sticks at nearly each of our | especially travelers, wear a rosary aslIt Appears. Undcrtaking. A HIGH TIBETAN O FFICIAL WITH H either around the neck or around the | wrist. In any case, they are seldom | without one on them, be it in sight or not. So the rosary became a way | | of signaling to each' other. Rosary | worn around the neck meant: “Do not | approach me in any case, there is | | serious danger to be detected”; rosary around the wrist conveyed the mes- | | sage, “You may approach me, but as a stranger who has never seen me be- | tore," and so on. | | So, on the obo of the Rakshila, I| | proudly attached the red flag marking | my passage and, according to the cus- | |tom, I threw a stone to add to the, {heap forming the obo. The stone | knocked against another gne and fell | back at my feet. This a Tibetan would | have considered as a bad omen. The |god of the mountain to whom the |obo was dedicated refused my offer- | ing and throwing it back to me in |the direction opposed to that 1 was |aiming at signified that I would not | reach my goal. I knew that interpre- | tation, but Tibetans believe also that | some among men are capable of con- | quering the hostile will of the god: | and the demons, and I had special rea. sons to think that I might be one of |those; and my final success seems to thave justified my opinion. | Be that as it may, we were again | before a vast land of snow and stones, | and we began to climb down slowly. Night had long since fallen and the | moon was set when we saw several | fires and reached the vicinity of an encampment of cowmen. I consulted with Thobgyal about the question of going or not to the tents to beg hospitality for the night. We hesitated. The best way, of course, | was to proceed without being seen, {but after a difficult march of nearly 18 hours, including the tremendous | | effort we had made to cross the snow wall, we were exhausted and shiver- | ing with fever. No fuel could be col-| lected under the snow, and to spend | he night without fire—although we had reached a lower level — seemed rather hard. | * So we turned toward the tents,! when one of those big flerce dogs! which always watch around a Tibetan | camp smelt us and began to bark. Im- | medjately other dogs answered, and | presently a number ran toward us.| We shouted at the men who were in | the tents to call back the dangerous beasts, telling them that we were not | BY WILLIAM EDMUND CHRISTIAN. OR 35 years W. H. Blackburn has been holding down the job of head keeper of the animals at the Zoo. He happened to have one of his streaks of humor on this particular morning | when the writer was walking around with him among the snakes. “See that hoop snake?" he pointing to one of the cages. of people will tell you they have been | thieves, but two honest pligrims who had nearly died in the snows, and| We had strong stitel asked only to be allowed to spend the | night near thelr fire. WIFE AND FOLLOWERS. cent eyes and their long white teeth. sudden | we had seriously hit one of our canine As we shouted we had, at the same | enemies. time, to defend ourselves against the dogs. There were six or seven enor- s, hardly to be seen in the night, but for their phosphores- THE WIFE OF A TIBETAN COWMAN. sheds about every seven weeks, zmdl superintendent “‘evolution” knew that then is ready for two or three feeds. But this is a dangerous subject to talk about. So many lette: have come from different humane societies and ladies, who, in some cases, showed in- dignation at the feeding of live ani- mals to snakes. But the snakes will not touch them otherwise. Then, I have often had to explain that the mice, rats, birds, rabbits, or what not, die ‘almost instantly, much more quickly and painlessly than when Hope gave us discerned forms proceeding in our direction. shouted louder, BEHIND THE WOMAN ARE HER TWO MAIDS. the is | swallowed | girth exceeds tI | progress of and by of the snake, deglutition is very labori- | This fact was relied this superintendent argument for the authenticity of t ‘Seripture: ¥ 'snake can swallow its prey alive, why slow. French Woman and French Scholar, Knows English Well Enough to Write This Article Her Short, Reserved, Somewhat Staccato Way of Recounting the Terrible Hardships Through Which She Passed Helps to Give the Reader a True Picture of the |1 saw a flash of light and then a r I port was heard and something fle buzzing, next my left arm. I felt as sleeve of my thick dress. and something knocked boulder next us. “They shoot at us!” cried my servant. “Let us run ‘for our life. The advice was sound but most diffi- cult to follow. First, darkness pre- vented us seeing the ground before us; we were stumbling on the stones, hurt- | the dogs were after us more alarmed and ferocious since their masters had |begun to fire. One of them had al- |ready taken advantage of the sur- | prise of Thobgyal, when he had heard | the first shot and ceased for an in- stant to use his stick, to jump at him, and the poor man, had he not been |clad in a thick sheepskin, of which the { animal tore a large piece, would have | been cruelly bitten. | We endeavored to get away as auickly as possible from that inhos- | pitable spot; time seemed long as we | were compeiled to continue the fight- ing with the dogs till we were at {some distance from the camp, and ‘lhen the men still fired a dozen shots. * e | THE following da¥s did not bring | any event really worth mention- {ing. We met two rivers fthe upper | Mekong and tributary) that we did | not_expect to find so ‘large and so | high. When fording the second one, with water to the waist, we missed the right place of the ford. I, being | short, lost my footing and the swift current wowd have carried me away had T ot held at that moment the hand of my servant. He was a very zood swimmer, and as I can also | swim a little, I helped the efforts he made to take me out. After two or three minutes we felt our feet again resting on the ground and. we' rapldly reached the bank of the river. We were wet to the skin; our thick dress. es and our loads were dripping. The: | did_not do so long; very soon they stiffened, becoming hard frozen on us, and we looked like two stone images with living faces Tibetan hermits, those extraordi- nary mystics who dwell on the snowy summits, know the strange secret of developing the internal heat of their Family Life of Washington Snakes Described by Keeper of Local Zoo The story was recalled here of the|almost entirely on eggs. For exam- in | ple, + town of Dayton, who |1ength, with a body not thicker than snake scarcely 20 inches in a man’s little finger, is able to swal- low a hen's egg—a feat which, on its | face, would seem to be quite impos- ble. nakes are carnivorous and, as I said, take, as a rule, only living pre: A1 | Many swallow the victim alive; others 1€ lfirst kill it by smothering it within 2| the coils of their bodies—which is con- striction. bodies so that they are able to bear the lowest temperatures without en dangering their health, and to dry on them any plece of cloth just as if it were placed on a heated stove, about the stories I had heard on that matter, but, having become really interested in the subject, I had suc. ceeded after a long time of rather hard probation in convincing a gompt- chen (literally a *“great mediator,” an ascetic who lives in solitude) to initi- ate me into that secret. So, although owing to lack of perseverance and practice, I was far from being an accomplished adept of that art, pre- | | For long I had remained mnr»duxougi | vious tests made me confident that I had nothing to fear from the pres. ent accident once more among deep snows and glaciers, and although they could not be compared to the snow wall of the Rakshi la, our state of exhaustion made us feel the passage very hard Anyhow, we reached the obo and en- tered a steep, slippery path. I had gone down for a few hours and nigl had come, when I missed the pa! I slipped and wen: dowr, an ava lanche of snow and stones rolling with me. Before the end of my fali I had fainted. When I recovered I was-on a very small platform, be tween bushes and rocks that bad stopped me. I heard my servant ea::- ing me; I answered and tried to stand, but this was more than 1 could do Pain_caused me to faint a second time. When I became conscious ag: Very happily, we found mot far |l did not hear my servant’s voice from the rver a grotto which was [4ny more. But for the roaring of used as habitation by the cow-men |torrent below me, all was silent. Then during the Summer. A large quan- tity of dry cow dung remained on the ‘ground. We kindled a big fire. I took off my sheepskin coat and gave it to the care of Thobgyal to dry as best he could. Then, leaving him alone so that he might undress, warm him- | self and dry his own clothes, I went | out in my wet undergarment and in the open to practice the lessons that already long ago had been | | ot 1 saiq, taught to me, at the foot of the ever: lasting snows, on the occuit power generating internal heat. Two hours later I went back to the cave. Busy around & glowing brazier Thobgyal, who had dried himself, | . cooked for my dinner a kind of soup | whose recipe 1 omijt to give here doubting that any of my readers’ dogs would eare to taste it, but for us it was a relish. *x % jat night in the | came_convinced that Thobgyal ! I saw, far away, glimmers moving to {and fro; gradually I could guess th | men were carrying burning branches to light their way, 4s is the custom countries. I De. met Yongden and Dawa and that tk were all searching for me. I called as loud as I could, according to the | way of the cowmen. Shouts answered me and about half an hour later the Lama and my servants were near me. “Nothing serious. 1 am all right cutting short their questio “Tell me quickly what danger tnrea ens us.” “None,” answered Yongden None?—but what?—Dawa had his rosary around his neck “Oh; oh!" said the latter, weeping 1 hung it a few days ago without re flection. I am so much accustomed to wear it in that,way that I did 1 notice it. And the reverend lady had WING to tiredness, we had not|no food. Oh' oh!” And he continued been able to travel as quickly as had expected; our supply of foed was nearly exhausted and of the little that remained a part had been spoiled when we took an unwanted bath in the Mekong. We did not see an prospect of buying or begging an: thing in the'solitudes we were cross. ing, 8o that we were most anxlous to see Yongden arriving with the lug- gage and provisions. Thobygal was specially haunted by | —— | He gowmen were coming to help us, when | o jama, who carried the coveted dry if somebody had shaken the large|;'iong time, as if exhausted. I unde: | stood his ruse, but, aside from a All that happened In less than a|monitions, that had little effect or second. Then another flash of light | him, I had no way of infusing energ {ing ourselves against sharp rocks, and | the remembrance of a bag of dry meat oke about it a hundred times a and prompted by the desire that meat with him, would soon overtake us, he slackened the pace, proceeding as a snall, sitting after every mile for {in him. He was a good, timid young man, a_member of the lower lamaist clergy, brought up in a monastery. Our’ lonely marches across snowy wildnerness, where silence was only | broken at times by the roaring of the | avalanches or of a torrent running in- visible under a thick layer of ice, had troubled his mind; fear led him to strange acts, he began to speak aloud in an incoherent way. His mental condition greatly added to my preoc- cupation. The calculations of the poor greedy fellow had perforce to turn out true. | One evening we were ready to camp when we saw, far away, Yongdenand his servant coming down from the crest of a hill. Doubt was not pos- sible; we counted the number of ani- mals, recognized the size of the men— Yongden short and Dawa tall. Our | friends were there. | Overcome by joy, thinking of the | dry meat and other good food, Thoby- gal proposed to go to meet our friends and to lead them behind the little hillock where we had decided to camp. It nearly dark; signaling from far was impossible, so I let him go. Half an hour later I saw him |, | coming back, carrying dry cowdung | in the flap of his coat. He lookead ter- rified. B ‘There are spies or enemies after ajd, hurriedly, in a subdued tone “Dawa wears his rosary around his neck! When I saw it I threw myself on the ground behind the corner of a hill, They were busy looking at a load whose ropes had become loose and they did not notice me." The news was serious. 1 spent the night pondering about the matter, and we started only when the sun had risen, in order to avold, if we were seen, the appearance of being ac quainted with the other party. We had settled that Yongden and I would meet beyond the frontier at a place northward of the upper course of the Salwen River; he was certainly | far from thinking that we were still | lingering in Chinese Tibet, and would continue to proceed. It would not be easy to join riders who had several hours’ advance on us. Still, as they were compelled to ride slowly on ac count of the pack animals and to camp in the day to let the beasts graze, we expected to meet them before long. * ok ok % AFTER a long march we saw, at night, a fire burning in a shelter- ed spot. Travelers are few in these regions, especially during the cold sea- son, and we at once supposed that our friends were there. Coming nearer we saw that we had not made a mis- take. -Like hungry wolves that covet a well guarded prey, we advanced cau- tiously toward the camp. I did not see Lama Yongden, who was in the tent, but, near the fire, Dawa was cooking the meal, chanting some pious invocation to Dolma. The flame light- ed him up, and, to our horror, we saw the long rosary hung to his neck. Repressing our exclamation of bitter disappointment, we retreated in the them or after us, I do not know,” he | | to weep “It is all my fault,” said the Lama I am a fool, I am .1 was so preoccupied by the you had | hung to the obos that ordered me to proceed quickly, I nothing. Of course, the rosary—Dawa had alwass | one on him before we started; it did | not strike me.” 1 He was ve . As for my | self, T saw ¢ the comic side ¢ the adventure and laughed. They | took me to their own camp and ga: | me a bowl of soup. They had | themselves much food left and tended to buy some the following d | at Nanchon, where there is a vil wround the humble palace of a r Poor Thobgyal never taste meat of his dreams, it had zil n before our arrival xS WE arrived one day at noon near | ¥¥-the long frontier bridge. It is called | Chakzam (the iron bridge). It is | suspension bridge hung with ir | chains. Although 1t is bullt in a rather primitive way, it is famous fn Tibet | where bridges are few, and especial suspension bridges. Its floor is ma | of boards loosely attached together | that move under the feet; it has no | parapet and swings dangerously ut | the least motion of the people crossing |it. Under it runs, foaming on hu | bowlders, a tributary of the Mekor On our side the entrance of t bridge was in 3 on the opposite side dominated by hill on which stood a large monastery | now residence of the official watching { the border. The bridge had gates on | both _sid Were they closed at night? We did nc w. We could | not_expect to cross during the day because we had been Informed that beggars were stopped there , and their load examined We remained the whole "afterno {and half of the night hidden in a narrow gorge, in front of the mon We could have attempted the e as soon as darkness shel but had we met a watchman o any other Tibetan we would have | looked suspicious traveling at nizht | We could avoid this by waiting till a few hours before daybreak: the | general custom of Tibetan travelers | being to start at that time for the day's march. At about 3 a.m. we left our camp. I shall never forget that part of my adventure. It was pitch dark Thobgval had got nearly crazy out of fear. He obstinately wanted walk in the direction of the hil repeating that we were in danger falling into the “big water,” as ho #id. He nearly wept aloud when | we missed the entrance of the bridge, {found ourselves against the high pler | support t pension chain and, | In fact, nearly slipped down into the | “big water.” “Then a village dog be- { gan to bark behind us. I pushed my | companions on the bridge, hoping that | the animal would not follow, for the | Place was certainly not fit for a fight | As soon as we had gone a few steps | the bridge began to swing and the | boards of its roadway to cracl | loudly. Maybe a watchman was | the other end and we had awaken |him. T thought. “I shall die there from heart faflure.” But we passed safely. No watct {man was there. We felt a little re lief. Now we had to be quick in order to be far from the frontler at | daybre: Unfortunately we mis the, way that follows the river. | went up as far as the dreaded monas | tery and passed under the very win dows of the official; again a small dog barked, this time inside the house, the official’'s own little pekinese, I learned later on. I dragged my servant across fields. He had become hysterical and I had to compel him to walk. Dark ness vanished, a pale light appeared in the sky. 1 took his hand and made him run with me, jumping over the | rocks, knocking again: the trees. Before the sun had risen we were far from the frontier post. * ok ox % |coula not that whale have swaliowed | “WiThg effects of a bite by a polsonous | Gyt they are Killed beforehand. - But the |Jonah?” snake upon a small animal or bird|" “This time,” I told my servant, “we trouble is, the snakes want them alive,| “But,” said Mr. Blackburn, “there|Snake upen o swall animal or bir 0 ] and that must be considered.” lis a variety of «snakes which lives 2 5| Will continue ahead and camp near chased by hoop snakes, taking their tails in their mouths and rolling after them. ¥ou tell these people,” he [ME. DAVID-NEEL IN A GUISE OF A BEGGAR, IN WHICH SHE FINALLY SUCCEEDED IN PE! BIDDEN CITY OF TIBET. ° NETRATING LHASA, THE FOR- added, “there’s no such ‘animile.’ The vertebrae are so arranged as to make such a thing impossible. 1 “My friend the late Prof. Lang- ley of the Smithsonian spoke to me once of a lady friend, who, he said, had told him that she had been chased in this way by a hoop snake when she was a girl; and he asked me to | test out the possibility of it. | “Well, T tried to put the snake in that position—but it would bulge out, right or left, making any hoop resul impossible. While pausing to look at the big python—now in a motionless mass— !and which I was informed stays mo- tionless for as long as four monthsbe- tween meals—the veteran head keeper recalled a huge female python, “which,” he said, “‘died some fourteen years ago. i “I cut that python open,” he con-| tinued, “and found 22 eggs—2 abreast, 10 layers, and I at each end.” ‘Which brought us to the subject of the snake and its young. i “I remember a boa constrictor,” said he, “that had 62 young. -They came in little transparent sacks, through which they broke—and got busy right away. We raised quite a number of them and gave away what we didn't ‘want. “Are all snakes born this way, or how do they come into the worid?" the writer asked. “No; for -example, a_python incu- bates its eggs, and is the only snake that does, by coiling its body over them, and defends them fercely against all comers. “Other snakes deposit from 10 to 80 eggs, of an oval shape, covered with a soft, leathery shell in places where they are exposed to and hatched by moist heat. The parent snake pays no more attention to them, except as I have stated, in the case of the python.” “Do not any snakes bring forth their young?” was asked. “Yes, some families, such as many fresh.water snakes and sea snake: bring forth living young.” . “Won't you tell me, Mr. Blackburn, something about the feeding of the snakes?"” “Well," he replied, * ihe rattlesnake o its victim at its leisure, sometimes hours after it has been Killed.” ou were speaking, Mr. Black- burn, of the shedding of the rattle- snake? I have been informed that in the process an epidermis is formed over the eve, forming a sort of trans- parent. disk, concave, like the glass of a watch, , behind ‘which the eye moves?” “Yes, that is true,” said the head keeper. “It is the first part which is cast off when the snake sheds its skin. This takes place several times in the year and the epidermis comes off in a single piece from the mouth toward the tail, turned inside out during the process. “But I have seen snakes with as much as three coverings to their eyes, that had accumulated through neg- lect,” sald the keeper. “I used to take tongs to remove these, but more recently, in order to hold the rattlers’ heads harmless, I have been using a mole catcher, adjusted to its new uses. “Formerly this mole catcher had a sharp prong on the end, which trans- fixed the mole, which was then caught around the neck with a softly lined pair of tonglike tweezers. We took the prong out, and now hold the rat- tler firmly by the neck, without harm to it, while the coverings dre removed one by one.” “How many species of snakes have you here, Mr. Blackburn? “About ten, I should say,” he re- plied, pointing them out as he went in and out among the cages. “There’s the big regal python, 25 feet in length and weighing 195 pounds; the black snakes, chicken snakes, the anaconda, t%o of them; also two pythons, water snakes, pine snakes, rattiesnakes, etc. The black and chicken snakes are the only ones that are not venomous. The rattle- ‘snake is ‘the only one dangerously poi- sonous.” * ok ok ok THE majority of snakes are active during the day, their energy in- creasing with increasing temperature. uol a few, however, lead a nocturnal e, They are not able to move over a ~ " (Continued on Sixth Page.) its escape—when the snake swallows | their road, if we can find a suitable place, where we will be hidden, and where they will pass by. Tomorrow 1 shall try to get an explanation.” Overcome by fatigue we slept too late that morning; when we awoke and looked at the road the caravan {bad already gone. We could faintly distinguish on the top of a hill the line formed by the mules to cross to the other side. ® | Sorrowfully we ate the last plece of butter that remained from the wreck of our loads in.the Mekong. Nothing was left in our bags beside a small quantity of tea. We started in haste. It was most urgent to find a way to get food. Yongden, for some reason that we could not guess, had that day halted early, near a stream, and we saw his tent in the middle of the afterncon. ““We will wait until after sunset.” said I to Thobgyal, “and when it will have become impossible to observe us from afar, you will go to them, inquire about the danger that threatens us, and get some food. Alas! the news he reported to me a few hours later was most discourag- ing. As he was nearing the camp he had seen two cowmen seated drink- ing tea and chatting with the Lama. Dawa, who was pouring the tea in the bowls, had seen him and made a ges- ture that he had interpreted as “Do not approach.” . The rosary was around the servant’s neck. * * % x CUP of tea was our dinner that evening and another cup com- prised our breakfast on the morrow. jWe had a high pass to_cross—people of that country call it Namchen la; it does not appear on the maps. Weak as we were, we feared to confront again the difculties we had ex- perienced when crossing the Rakshi la. We waited till Yongden bad started, as I did not dare to approach him in broad daylight, and then we proceed- ed in the direction of a huge snow- covered hill which towered before us into the bright blue sky. I could hardly stand on my feet, and my companion was not much stronger than 1. We must get food. At the end of the afternoon we were E continued our way. Adventures of a more pleasant character- often comical ones—happened. The country was warmer, nobody sus. | pected us in the village that we passed | through. We had succeeded in | smuggling ourselves into the forbidden zone and it seemed that all was all right. Still I could not understand why Lama Yongden, who had decided to cross the bridge about a week after us, had not yet arrived, although we had, on purpose, proceeded by very short stages. Fear again began to torment me. One morning all came to an end We were following up a road leadinz to a village; I noticed peasants who gathered ahead of us. Arriving near them we asked the wWay. They showed us the opposite direction and seemed embarrassed. They did not answer our questions. A man came out of a house and told us that the local chief wanted to inspect our luggage and to see our passports. I needed not to hear more. Tibetan passports do not exist: only people belonging to the nobility, officials and a few rich traders carry a government order which entitles them to get, on their way, horses, food. lodging and all that is mentioned on the paper. The very fact that we were requested to show a passport made me under. stand that we were stopped. The adventure had met with failure. T was supplied with horses sud food and_sent back. When T met Yongden b, confessed that he was the cause of my defeat. As I had foreseen at Jakyendo he had been recognized by the Tibetan official at the Chakzam and soldlers had im- mediately been dispatched in all di- rections to examine all travelers. I could not_escape. When I crossed again the iron bridge on my way back I stopped o while to look at the monastery and 1 took a silent oath to renew my at- tempt if necessary 10 times. Maybe the gods of the forbidden land were pleased with my perseverance and smiled on me at that moment, for that was my last failure. Two years later I was at Lhasa. (Copyright, 1925.) ~