The Plant Hunters: Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains

I have said that the hunters on observing this exchanged significant glances. One fact was evident to all of them – that they had got back to the spot whence they started. A very little reasoning taught them another fact – that in the pursuit of the stag they must have made the full circuit of the valley. They had not turned back anywhere – they had not crossed the valley – they had not even been in sight of the lake during the whole chase. On the contrary, Karl with Ossaroo had kept continually along the bottom of the cliffs, sometimes in the timber, and at intervals passing across stretches of open ground.

What was there remarkable about all this? It only proved that the valley was small, and of roundish form; and that in about an hour’s time any one might make the circuit of it. What was there in this discovery that should cause the hunters to stand gazing upon one another with troubled looks? Was it surprise at the stag having returned to die where he had received his wound? Certainly there was something a little singular about that, but so trifling a circumstance could not have clouded the brows of the hunters. It was not surprise that was pictured in their looks – more serious feelings were stirring within them. Their glances were those of apprehension – the fear of some danger not fully defined or certain. What danger?

The three stood, Ossaroo lightly grasping his bow, but not thinking of the weapon; Karl holding his rifle with its butt resting on the ground, and Caspar gazing interrogatively in the face of his brother.

For some moments not one of them spoke. Each guessed what the other was thinking of. The stag lay untouched in the pool, his huge antlers alone appearing above the surface of the water, while the dog stood baying on the bank.

Karl at length broke silence. He spoke half in soliloquy, as if his thoughts were busy with the subject.

“Yes, a precipice the whole way round. I saw no break – no signs of one. Ravines there were, it is true, but all seemed to end in the same high cliffs. You observed no outlet, Ossaroo?”

“No, Sahib; me fearee de valley shut up, no clear o’ dis trap yet Sahib.”

Caspar offered no opinion. He had kept farther out from the cliffs, and at times had been quite out of sight of them – the trees hiding their tops from his view. He fully comprehended, however, the meaning of his brother’s observations.

“Then you think the precipice runs all around the valley?” he asked, addressing the latter.

“I fear so, Caspar. I observed no outlet – neither has Ossaroo; and although not specially looking for such a thing, I had my eyes open for it; I had not forgotten our perilous situation of yesterday, and I wished to assure myself. I looked up several gorges that ran out of the valley, but the sides of all seemed to be precipitous. The chase, it is true, kept me from examining them very closely; but it is now time to do so. If there be no pass out of this valley, then are we indeed in trouble. These cliffs are five hundred feet in height – they are perfectly impassable by human foot. Come on! let us know the worst.”

“Shall we not draw out the stag?” inquired Caspar, pointing to the game that still lay under the water.

“No, leave him there; it will get no harm till our return: should my fears prove just, we shall have time enough for that, and much else beside. Come on!”

So saying Karl led the way toward the foot of the precipice, the others following silently after.

Foot by foot, and yard by yard, did they examine the beetling front of those high cliffs. They viewed them from their base, and then passing outward scanned them to the very tops. There was no gorge or ravine which they did not enter and fully reconnoitre. Many of these there were, all of them resembling little bays of the ocean, their bottoms being on the same level with the valley itself, and their sides formed by the vertical wall of granite.

At some places the cliffs actually hung over. Now and then they came upon piles of rock and scattered boulders – some of them of enormous dimensions. There were single blocks full fifty feet in length, breadth, and height; and there were also cairns, or collections of rocks, piled up to four times that elevation, and standing at such a distance from the base of the cliff, that it was evident they could not have fallen from it into their present position. Ice, perhaps, was the agent that had placed them where they lay.

None of the three were in any mood to speculate upon geological phenomena at that moment. They passed on, continuing their examination. They saw that the cliff was not all of equal height. It varied in this respect, but its lowest escarpment was too high to be ascended. At the lowest point it could not have been less than three hundred feet sheer, while there were portions of it that rose to the stupendous height of one thousand from the valley!

On went they along its base, carefully examining every yard. They had gone over the same path with lighter feet and lighter hearts. This time they were three hours in making the circuit; and at the end of these three hours they stood in the gap by which they had entered, with the full and painful conviction that that gap was the only outlet to this mysterious valley – the only one that could be traversed by human foot! The valley itself resembled the crater of some extinct volcano, whose lava lake had burst through this gate-like gorge, leaving an empty basin behind.

They did not go back through the glacier ravine. They had no hope of escaping in that direction. That they knew already.

From the gap they saw the white vapour curling up over the spring. They saw the remaining portion of the precipice that lay beyond. It was the highest and most inaccessible of all.

All three sat down upon the rocks; and remained for some minutes silent and in a state of mind bordering upon despair.

Chapter Thirty.

Prospects and Precautions

Brave men do not easily yield to despair. Karl was brave. Caspar, although but a mere boy, was as brave as a man. So was the shikarree brave – that is, for one of his race. He would have thought light of any ordinary peril – a combat with a tiger, or a gayal, or a bear; but, like all his race, he was given to superstition, he now firmly believed that some of his Hindoo gods dwelt in this valley, and that they were all to be punished for intruding into the sacred abode. There was nothing singular about his holding this belief. It was perfectly natural, – in fact, it was only the belief of his religion and his race.

Notwithstanding his superstitious fears, he did not yield himself up to destiny. On the contrary, he was ready to enter heart and soul into any plan by which he and his companions might escape out of the territory of Brahma, Vishnu, or Siva – whichsoever of these it belonged to.

It was in thinking over some plan that kept all three of them in silence, and with such thoughts Ossaroo was as busy as the others.

Think as they would, no feasible or practicable idea could be got hold of. There were five hundred feet of a cliff to be scaled. How was that feat to be accomplished?

By making a ladder? The idea was absurd. No ladder in the world would reach to the quarter of such a height. Ropes, even if they had had them, could be in no way made available. These might aid in going down a precipice, but for going up they would be perfectly useless.

The thought even crossed their minds of cutting notches in the cliff, and ascending by that means! This might appear to be practicable, and viewing the matter from a distance it certainly does seem so. But had you been placed in the position of our travellers, – seated as they were in front of that frowning wall of granite, – and told that you must climb it by notches cut in the iron rock by your own hand, you would have turned from the task in despair.

So did they; at least the idea passed away from their thoughts almost in the same moment in which it had been conceived.

For hours they sat pondering over the affair. What would they not have given for wings; wings to carry them over the walls of that terrible prison?

All their speculations ended without result; and at length rising to their feet, they set off with gloomy thoughts toward the spot where they had already encamped.

As if to render their situation more terrible, some wild beasts, – wolves they supposed, – had visited the encampment during their absence, and had carried off every morsel of the jerked meat. This was a painful discovery, for now more than ever should they require such provision.

The stag still remained to them. Surely it was not also carried off? and to assure themselves they hurried to the pool, which was at no great distance. They were gratified at finding the deer in the pool where it had been left; the water, perhaps, having protected it from ravenous beasts.

As their former camp ground had not been well chosen, they dragged the carcass of the deer up to the hot spring; that being a better situation. There the animal was skinned, a fire kindled, and after they had dined upon fresh venison-steaks, the rest of the meat Ossaroo prepared for curing, – just as he had done that of the yak, – but in this case he took the precaution to hang it out of reach of all four-footed marauders.

So careful were they of the flesh of the deer, that even the bones were safely stowed away, and Fritz had to make his supper upon the offal.

Notwithstanding their terrible situation, Karl had not abandoned one of the national characteristics of his countryman, – prudence. He foresaw a long stay in this singular valley. How long he did not think of asking himself; perhaps for life. He anticipated the straits in which they might soon be placed; food even might fail them; and on this account every morsel was to be kept from waste.

Around their night camp-fire they talked of the prospects of obtaining food; of the animals they supposed might exist in the valley; of their numbers and kinds, – they had observed several kinds; of the birds upon the lake and among the trees; of the fruits and berries; of the roots that might be in the ground; in short, of every thing that might be found there from which they could draw sustenance.

They examined their stock of ammunition. This exceeded even their most sanguine hopes. Both Caspar’s large powder-horn and that of his brother were nearly full. They had used their guns but little since last filling their horns. They had also a good store of shot and bullets; though these things were less essential, and in case of their running short of them they knew of many substitutes, but gunpowder is the sine qua non of the hunter.

Even had their guns failed them, there was still the unerring bow of Ossaroo, and it was independent of either powder or lead. A thin reed, or the slender branch of a tree, were nearly all that Ossaroo required to make as deadly a shaft as need be hurled.

They were without anxiety, on the score of being able to kill such animals as the place afforded. Even had they been without arrows, they felt confident that in such a circumscribed space they would have been able to circumvent and capture the game. They had no uneasiness about any four-footed creature making its escape from the valley any more than themselves. There could be no other outlet than that by which they had entered. By the ravine only could the four-footed denizens of the place have gone out and in; and on the glacier they had observed a beaten path made by the tracks of animals, before the snow had fallen. Likely enough the pass was well-known to many kinds, and likely also there were others that stayed continually in the valley, and there brought forth their young. Indeed, it would have been difficult for a wild animal to have found a more desirable home.

The hope of the hunters was that many animals might have held this very opinion, and from what they had already observed, they had reason to think so.

Of course they had not yet abandoned the hope of being able to find some way of escape from their singular prison. No, it was too early for that. Had they arrived at such a conviction, they would have been in poor heart indeed, and in no mood for conversing as they did. The birds and the quadrupeds, and the fruits and roots, would have had but little interest for them with such a despairing idea as that in their minds. They still hoped, though scarce knowing why; and in this uncertainty they went to rest with the resolve to give the cliffs a fresh examination on the morrow.

Chapter Thirty One.

Measuring the Crevasse

Again, on the morrow, every foot of the precipitous bluffs was minutely scanned and examined. The circuit of the valley was made as before. Even trees were climbed in order the better to view the face of the cliffs that soared far above their tops. The result was a full conviction, that to scale the precipice at any point was an utter impossibility.

Until fully convinced of this, they had not thought of going back through the gap that led to the glacier; but now that all hopes of succeeding elsewhere had vanished from their minds, they proceeded in that direction.

They did not walk towards it with the light brisk step of men who had hopes of success; but rather mechanically, as if yielding to a sort of involuntary impulse. As yet they had not examined the ice-chasm very minutely.

Awed by the terror of the glacier slide, they had retreated from the spot in haste. One glance at the crevasse was all they had given; but in that glance they had perceived the impossibility of crossing it. At the time, however, they were not aware of the resources that were so near. They were not aware that within less than five hundred yards of the spot grew a forest of tall trees. Indeed, it was not until they had fully reconnoitred the cliffs, and turned away from them in despair, that such a train of reasoning occurred to tha mind of any of the three.

As they were entering the portals of that singular passage, the thought seemed for the first time to have taken shape. Karl was the first to give expression to it. Suddenly halting, he pointed back to the forest, and said, —

“If we could bridge it!”

Neither of his companions asked him what he contemplated bridging. Both were at that moment busy with the same train of thought. They knew it was the crevasse.

“Those pine-trees are tall,” said Caspar.

“Not tall enough, Sahib,” rejoined the shikarree.

“We can splice them,” continued Caspar.

Ossaroo shook his head, but said nothing in reply.

The idea, however, had begotten new hopes; and all three walked down the ravine with brisker steps. They scanned the cliffs on either side as they advanced, but these they had examined before.

Treading with caution they approached the edge of the crevasse. They looked across. A hundred feet wide – perhaps more than a hundred feet – yawned that fearful gulf. They knelt down and gazed into the chasm. It opened far away into the earth – hundreds of feet below where they knelt. It narrowed towards the bottom. They could see the crystal cliffs, blue at the top, grow greener and darker as they converged towards each other. They could see huge boulders of rock and masses of icy snow wedged between them, and could hear far below the roaring of water. A torrent ran there – no doubt the superfluous waters of the lake escaping by this subglacial stream.

A sublime, but terrible sight it was; and although the nerves of all were strung to an extreme degree, it made them giddy to look into the chasm, and horrid feelings came over them as they listened to the unnatural echoes of their voices. To have descended to the bottom would have been a dread peril: but they did not contemplate such an enterprise. They knew that such a proceeding would be of no use, even could they have accomplished it. Once in the bottom of the chasm the opposite steep would still have to be climbed, and this was plainly an impossibility. They thought not of crossing in that way – their only hope lay in the possibility of bridging the crevasse; and to this their whole attention was now turned.

Such a project might appear absurd. Men of weaker minds would have turned away from it in despair; and so, too, might they have done, but for the hopelessness of all other means of escape. It was now life or death with them – at all events, it was freedom or captivity.

To give up all hope of returning to their homes and friends – to spend the remainder of their lives in this wild fastness – was a thought almost as painful as the prospect of death itself.

It was maddening to entertain such a thought, and as yet not one of them could bring himself to dwell upon the reality of so terrible a destiny. But the fact that such in reality would be their fate, unless they could discover some mode of escaping from their perilous situation, sharpened all their wits; and every plan was brought forward and discussed with the most serious earnestness.

As they stood gazing across that yawning gulf, the conviction entered their minds that it was possible to bridge it.

Karl was the first to give way to this conviction. Caspar, ever sanguine, soon yielded to the views of his brother; and Ossaroo, though tardily convinced, acknowledged that they could do no better than try. The scientific mind of the botanist had been busy, and had already conceived a plan – which though it would be difficult of execution, did not seem altogether impracticable. On one thing, however, its practicability rested – the width of the chasm. This must be ascertained, and how was it to be done?

It could not be guessed – that was clear. The simple estimate of the eye is a very uncertain mode of measuring – as was proved by the fact that each one of the three assigned a different width to the crevasse. In fact, there was full fifty feet of variation in their estimates. Karl believed it to be only a hundred feet in width, Ossaroo judged it at a hundred and fifty, while Caspar thought it might be between the two. How, then, were they to measure it exactly? That was the first question that came before them.

Had they been in possession of proper instruments, Karl was scholar enough to have determined the distance by triangulation; but they had neither quadrant nor theodolite; and that mode was therefore impossible.

I have said that their wits were sharpened by their situation, and the difficulty about the measurement was soon got over. It was Ossaroo who decided that point.

Karl and Caspar were standing apart discussing the subject, not dreaming of any aid from the shikarree upon so scientific a question, when they perceived the latter unwinding a long string, which he had drawn from his pocket.

“Ho!” cried Caspar, “what are you about, Ossaroo? Do you expect to measure it with a string?”

“Yes, Sahib!” answered the shikarree.

“And who is to carry your line to the opposite side, I should like to know?” inquired Caspar.

It seemed very ridiculous, indeed, to suppose that the chasm could be measured with a string – so long as only one side of it was accessible; but there was a way of doing it, and Ossaroo’s native wit had suggested that way to him.

In reply to Caspar’s question, he took one of the arrows from his quiver, and, holding it up, he said, —

“This, Sahib, this carry it.”

“True! true!” joyfully exclaimed the brothers; both of whom at once comprehended the design of the shikarree.

It cost Ossaroo but a few minutes to put his design into execution. The string was unwound to its full extent. There were nearly a hundred yards of it. It was stretched tightly, so as to clear it of snarls, and then one end was adjusted to the shaft of the arrow. The other end was made fast to a rock, and after that the bow was bent, and the arrow projected into the air.

A shout of joy was raised as the shaft was seen to fall upon the snowy surface on the opposite side; and the tiny cord was observed, like the thread of a spider’s web, spanning the vast chasm.

Ossaroo seized the string in his hand, drew the arrow gently along until it rested close to the opposite edge; and then marking the place with a knot, he plucked the arrow till it fell into the chasm, and hand over hand commenced winding up the string.

In a few moments he had recovered both cord and arrow; and now came the important part, the measurement of the string.

The hearts of all three beat audibly as foot after foot was told off; but a murmur of satisfaction escaped from all, when it was found that the lowest estimate was nearest the truth. The chasm was about a hundred feet wide!

Chapter Thirty Two.

The Hut

Karl felt confident they could bridge the crevasse. The only weapons they had were their knives, and a small wood hatchet which Ossaroo chanced to have in his belt when they set out in chase of the musk-deer. True they had their guns, but of what service could these be in making a bridge?

Ossaroo’s knife, as already described, was a long-bladed one, – half knife, half sword, – in fact, a jungle knife. The hatchet was not larger than an Indian tomahawk; but with these weapons Karl Linden believed he could build a bridge of one hundred feet span!

He communicated to his companions his plan in detail, and both believed in its feasibility. I need hardly say that under such a belief their spirits rose again; and, though they felt that success was far from certain, they were once more filled with hope; and having taken all the necessary steps, in regard to measuring the narrowest part of the crevasse, and noted the ground well, they returned to the valley with lighter hearts.

The bridge was not to be the work of a day, nor a week, nor yet might a month suffice. Could they only have obtained access to both sides of the chasm it would have been different, and they could easily have finished it in less time. But you are to remember that only one side was allowed them to work upon, and from this they would of necessity have to project the bridge to the other. If they could even have got a cable stretched across, this would have been bridge enough for them, and they would have needed no other. A cable, indeed! They would soon have found their way over upon a cable or even a stout rope; but the stoutest communication they had was a slender string, and only an arrow to hold it in its place!

The genius of Karl had not only projected the bridge, but a mode of placing it across the chasm, though many a contrivance would have to be adopted, before the work could be finished. Much time would require to be spent, but what of time when compared with the results of failure or success?

The first thing they did was to build them a hut. The nights were cold, and growing colder, for the Himalaya winter was approaching, and sleeping in the open air, even by the largest fire they might make, was by no means comfortable. They built a rude hovel therefore, partly of logs, and partly of stone blocks, for it was difficult to procure logs of the proper length, and to cut them with such tools as they had would have been a tedious affair. The walls were made thick, rough, and strong; the interstices were matted and daubed with clay from the bed of the rivulet; the thatch was a sedge obtained from the lake; and the floor of earth was strewed with the leaves of the sweet-smelling rhododendron. The hole was left for the smoke to escape. Several granite slabs served for seats – tables were not needed – and for beds each of the party had provided himself with a thick mattress of dried grass and leaves. With such accommodations were the hunters fain to content themselves. They felt too much anxiety about the future to care for present luxuries.

They were but one single day in building the hut. Had there been bamboos at hand, Ossaroo would have constructed a house in half the time, and a much handsomer one. As it was, their hovel occupied them just a day, and on the next morning they set to work upon the bridge.

They had agreed to divide the labour; Karl with the axe, and Ossaroo with his large knife, were to work upon the timbers; while Caspar was to provide the food with his double-barrelled gun, helping the others whenever he could spare time.

But Caspar found another purpose for his gun besides procuring meat. Ropes would be wanted, long tough ropes; and they had already planned it, that these should be made from the hides of the animals that might be killed. Caspar, therefore, had an important part to play. Two strong cables would be required, so Karl told him, each about a hundred feet in length, besides many other ropes and cords. It would be necessary to hunt with some success before these could be obtained. More than one large hide, a dozen at least, would be required; but Caspar was just the man to do his part of the work, and procure them.