Read Online The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia by Peter Hopkirk - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Peter Hopkirk
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. . . and might readily be fancied, at a distance, to resemble a new brick wall.’ The windward side, however, sloped gently to the base of the succeeding dune, leaving a pathway between them. ‘I kept as much in these paths as the direction I had to travel in would admit of,’ he added, ‘but had nevertheless exceeding difficulty and fatigue in urging the camels over the waves when it was requisite to do so, and more particularly where we had to clamber up the leeward face of them, in which attempt we were many times defeated.’ The next day conditions got worse. Their continuing battle with the sand dunes was, in Pottinger’s words, ‘trifling compared with the distress suffered, not only by myself and people, but even the camels, from the floating particles of sand.’ For a layer of abrasive red dust hovered over the desert, getting into their eyes, noses and mouths, and causing extreme discomfort, not to mention thirst, which was aggravated by the intense heat of the sun.
Before long they reached the dry bed of a river, 500 yards wide, with a recently abandoned village beside it, its inhabitants driven out by the drought. Here they halted, and after much digging managed to obtain two skins of water. The nature of the desert now changed from sand to hard black gravel. Not long afterwards the air began to feel sultry and dust-devils or whirlwinds sprang up, followed shortly by a violent storm. ‘The rain fell in the largest drops I ever remember to have seen,’ Pottinger recounts. ‘The air was so completely darkened that I was absolutely unable to discern anything at the distance of even five yards.’ Yet this storm was mild, his guide told him, compared with those which sometimes struck the desert at the height of summer, when it was considered impassable to travellers. The furnace-hot wind which accompanied these storms was known to the Baluchis as the ‘flame’ or the ‘pestilence’. Not only could it kill camels with its violence, but it could flay alive an unprotected human being. According to Pottinger’s men, who claimed to have witnessed its effects, ‘the muscles of the unhappy sufferer become rigid, the skin shrivels, an agonising sensation, as if the flesh was on fire, pervades the whole frame . . .’ The victim’s skin, they assured him, cracked ‘into deep gashes, producing haemorrhage that quickly ends this misery’, although sometimes the sufferer might survive in agony for hours if not days. (That this was clearly a wild exaggeration may be obvious today, but in Pottinger’s time little was known about desert travel, and anything must have seemed possible in previously unexplored regions such as this.)
Since the desert was without landmarks of any kind, the guide plotted their course by means of a distant range of mountains. Once, however, when Pottinger decided to leave at midnight to avoid the terrible heat of the day, they quickly found themselves lost, not knowing in which direction to proceed. Concealed on him, Pottinger carried a compass. Unknown to his men, he surreptitiously produced this, and after forcing the glass from it, he managed to feel the needle with his thumb, thus establishing the direction they should be heading in. When at daylight this proved to be accurate, his men were astonished, and for days spoke of it ‘as wonderful proof of my wisdom’. Normally Pottinger only used his compass in secrecy to take bearings for his sketch map, but once or twice he was unable to prevent it from being seen. He would explain that it was a Kiblah nooma, or Mecca-pointer, which showed him the direction in which the Kiblah, or Muhammad’s tomb, lay so that he could prostrate himself towards it when praying.
That day they rode for nineteen hours, travelling forty-eight miles and exhausting both men and camels. Food and water were now running dangerously low, and Pottinger wanted to continue until they reached the mountains where at least there would be water. However his men
Before long they reached the dry bed of a river, 500 yards wide, with a recently abandoned village beside it, its inhabitants driven out by the drought. Here they halted, and after much digging managed to obtain two skins of water. The nature of the desert now changed from sand to hard black gravel. Not long afterwards the air began to feel sultry and dust-devils or whirlwinds sprang up, followed shortly by a violent storm. ‘The rain fell in the largest drops I ever remember to have seen,’ Pottinger recounts. ‘The air was so completely darkened that I was absolutely unable to discern anything at the distance of even five yards.’ Yet this storm was mild, his guide told him, compared with those which sometimes struck the desert at the height of summer, when it was considered impassable to travellers. The furnace-hot wind which accompanied these storms was known to the Baluchis as the ‘flame’ or the ‘pestilence’. Not only could it kill camels with its violence, but it could flay alive an unprotected human being. According to Pottinger’s men, who claimed to have witnessed its effects, ‘the muscles of the unhappy sufferer become rigid, the skin shrivels, an agonising sensation, as if the flesh was on fire, pervades the whole frame . . .’ The victim’s skin, they assured him, cracked ‘into deep gashes, producing haemorrhage that quickly ends this misery’, although sometimes the sufferer might survive in agony for hours if not days. (That this was clearly a wild exaggeration may be obvious today, but in Pottinger’s time little was known about desert travel, and anything must have seemed possible in previously unexplored regions such as this.)
Since the desert was without landmarks of any kind, the guide plotted their course by means of a distant range of mountains. Once, however, when Pottinger decided to leave at midnight to avoid the terrible heat of the day, they quickly found themselves lost, not knowing in which direction to proceed. Concealed on him, Pottinger carried a compass. Unknown to his men, he surreptitiously produced this, and after forcing the glass from it, he managed to feel the needle with his thumb, thus establishing the direction they should be heading in. When at daylight this proved to be accurate, his men were astonished, and for days spoke of it ‘as wonderful proof of my wisdom’. Normally Pottinger only used his compass in secrecy to take bearings for his sketch map, but once or twice he was unable to prevent it from being seen. He would explain that it was a Kiblah nooma, or Mecca-pointer, which showed him the direction in which the Kiblah, or Muhammad’s tomb, lay so that he could prostrate himself towards it when praying.
That day they rode for nineteen hours, travelling forty-eight miles and exhausting both men and camels. Food and water were now running dangerously low, and Pottinger wanted to continue until they reached the mountains where at least there would be water. However his men
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