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Authors: Joyce Morgan
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the sort of cultural shape-shifting that appealed to Stein. It also suggested that beneath the Muslim surface were the remains of an earlier Buddhist mythology.
Whatever the basis of the story, some help for the journey ahead wouldn’t go astray. Stein’s men had brought along extra grain for the pigeons and they insisted he, too, pay homage. While the caravan was getting ready before dawn, Stein entered the wooden sheds where the birds were nesting. Carefully avoiding crushing any eggs, he scattered grain for the fluttering birds. His offerings would be richly rewarded.
Stein’s sights were set on two places far across the desert. He wanted to find the mysterious settlement of Loulan that Sven Hedin had discovered in 1899. Amid the ruined buildings of the ancient Chinese garrison town, Hedin had uncovered fragments of early paper, wooden documents, and Buddhist images. One of these, a fragment made between AD 150 and 200, was then the world’s oldest known piece of paper and the earliest example of handwriting on paper. Hedin had observed that the door to one house stood open just as it had when it was abandoned 1,500 years earlier.
Beyond Loulan was Dunhuang and the painted caves, but all of these would have to wait for winter. Only then would it be safe to cross that part of the desert, and it would require a resourceful method to overcome the lack of water. Stein’s more immediate goal was to travel southeast from Kashgar to the Kunlun Shan, the vast mountain range on the northern border of the Tibetan plateau. There he would undertake surveying work before returning to the desert in the cooler weather. Mapping in this region was politically sensitive and dangerous. Some servants of the Raj went to extraordinary lengths to carry out their clandestine activities. Several Indian surveyors disguised themselves as Tibetan pilgrims and carried specially adapted prayer wheels and Buddhist rosary beads. The number of beads was reduced from the traditional 108 to 100 so the surveyors could easily count their steps. They recorded their tally on tiny paper scrolls which they hid inside the hollow prayer wheels, some of which also contained compasses. James Bond’s Q could hardly have developed a more ingenious solution.
Stein never adopted such a disguise himself. He left behind his camels and some of his men and headed into the Kunlun Mountains in August 1906. With its bluebells and edelweiss the alpine landscape was a verdant relief after the barren desert and recalled his beloved Kashmir. Surrounded by snow-capped peaks, he found an idyllic camp where he could put the final touches to his book about his first expedition. As he continued through the mountains, Stein was eager to solve a mystery more than forty years old. It concerned the difficult and long-abandoned route by which British surveyor William Johnson crossed from Leh to Khotan in 1865. Stein had been puzzled by discrepancies between Johnson’s hand-drawn sketch and the topography of the mountains. Despite the existence of the sketch, local hill men denied knowledge of such a path. Stein suspected such denials stemmed from a fear that rediscovery would expose the inhabitants to unwanted intruders. He had tried to determine the route during his first expedition without success, and once again he was unable to do so.
Nonetheless, after nearly a month amid mountain rivers, glaciers, rugged gorges and alpine valleys, he was in good spirits as he returned to the lower ground of Khotan, where early autumn hues colored the oasis’s poplars. He camped, as he had in 1900, in the garden of his prosperous friend Akhun Beg. But the elderly man had left two days earlier on a pilgrimage to Mecca, from which Stein and the landowner’s family feared he might not return. Khotan’s new Chinese amban organized a lavish garden party in Stein’s honor. He was led in procession along an avenue of shady vines in the old garden palace known as Narbagh to a pavilion filled
Whatever the basis of the story, some help for the journey ahead wouldn’t go astray. Stein’s men had brought along extra grain for the pigeons and they insisted he, too, pay homage. While the caravan was getting ready before dawn, Stein entered the wooden sheds where the birds were nesting. Carefully avoiding crushing any eggs, he scattered grain for the fluttering birds. His offerings would be richly rewarded.
Stein’s sights were set on two places far across the desert. He wanted to find the mysterious settlement of Loulan that Sven Hedin had discovered in 1899. Amid the ruined buildings of the ancient Chinese garrison town, Hedin had uncovered fragments of early paper, wooden documents, and Buddhist images. One of these, a fragment made between AD 150 and 200, was then the world’s oldest known piece of paper and the earliest example of handwriting on paper. Hedin had observed that the door to one house stood open just as it had when it was abandoned 1,500 years earlier.
Beyond Loulan was Dunhuang and the painted caves, but all of these would have to wait for winter. Only then would it be safe to cross that part of the desert, and it would require a resourceful method to overcome the lack of water. Stein’s more immediate goal was to travel southeast from Kashgar to the Kunlun Shan, the vast mountain range on the northern border of the Tibetan plateau. There he would undertake surveying work before returning to the desert in the cooler weather. Mapping in this region was politically sensitive and dangerous. Some servants of the Raj went to extraordinary lengths to carry out their clandestine activities. Several Indian surveyors disguised themselves as Tibetan pilgrims and carried specially adapted prayer wheels and Buddhist rosary beads. The number of beads was reduced from the traditional 108 to 100 so the surveyors could easily count their steps. They recorded their tally on tiny paper scrolls which they hid inside the hollow prayer wheels, some of which also contained compasses. James Bond’s Q could hardly have developed a more ingenious solution.
Stein never adopted such a disguise himself. He left behind his camels and some of his men and headed into the Kunlun Mountains in August 1906. With its bluebells and edelweiss the alpine landscape was a verdant relief after the barren desert and recalled his beloved Kashmir. Surrounded by snow-capped peaks, he found an idyllic camp where he could put the final touches to his book about his first expedition. As he continued through the mountains, Stein was eager to solve a mystery more than forty years old. It concerned the difficult and long-abandoned route by which British surveyor William Johnson crossed from Leh to Khotan in 1865. Stein had been puzzled by discrepancies between Johnson’s hand-drawn sketch and the topography of the mountains. Despite the existence of the sketch, local hill men denied knowledge of such a path. Stein suspected such denials stemmed from a fear that rediscovery would expose the inhabitants to unwanted intruders. He had tried to determine the route during his first expedition without success, and once again he was unable to do so.
Nonetheless, after nearly a month amid mountain rivers, glaciers, rugged gorges and alpine valleys, he was in good spirits as he returned to the lower ground of Khotan, where early autumn hues colored the oasis’s poplars. He camped, as he had in 1900, in the garden of his prosperous friend Akhun Beg. But the elderly man had left two days earlier on a pilgrimage to Mecca, from which Stein and the landowner’s family feared he might not return. Khotan’s new Chinese amban organized a lavish garden party in Stein’s honor. He was led in procession along an avenue of shady vines in the old garden palace known as Narbagh to a pavilion filled
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