The Mary Russell Companion (33 page)

As mentioned above, in the remarks on
The Game
, Holmes tells Watson (
The Empty House)
that he has spent his three-year absence from London on the road:

I travelled for two years in Tibet…and amused myself by visiting Lhassa, and spending some days with the head lama.  You may have read of the remarkable explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend.

This would have been around 1893.  He may (or may not, depending on the verity of the Memoirs) have met young Kim O’Hara on that trip.

Some 29 years later, an Anglo-Indian employee of the Posts and Telegraphs Department by the name of William Henry King made that same trek, although under decidedly different circumstances.  King was charged with laying telephone lines up into Tibet, so that the Dalai Lama and his community could join the Twentieth Century.  (The use of “telegraph” instead of “telephone” in the title is a bit confusing, however, it may have been added by the editors of the journal in which this appeared, rather than King himself.)

One can only wonder what W. H. King would have made of having his memoir of this episode converted into an ebook, for readers of the books written by (or, edited by) the wife of his youngest son, a son born the same year the telephone line was laid.

William King’s typewritten transcript of the original, written in 1938:

“Building the Telegraph Line to Lhasa”

Perhaps I'm prejudiced, but I think that an Engineer in the Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department has a most interesting job.  He is up against all sorts of difficult problems, technical and human.  He may be moved about anywhere in a vast country.  Today, he may have to deal with the effects of an earthquake; tomorrow, with the ravages of a flood. Trackless jungles, lofty mountains, arid plains, swamps, immense rivers and forests test his ingenuity to the utmost. He has to guard his frail poles from attack of wild animal and insect. He has to work with, or through, men of scores of different religions, languages and local customs. It's an interesting life, but I think you'll agree that it isn't all beer and skittles.

Today I'm going to describe one of our most interesting jobs - the completing of the Telegraph between India and Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Till recently, Tibet was little known to Europeans. European visitors and Western conveniences were rigidly excluded.  It was ruled by the Dalai Lama (i.e. Chief Priest) and his Buddhist priests under the loose suzerainty of China. By treaty in the nineties, the Chinese gave us some trading privileges in Tibet. But the Tibetans paid no heed to the treaty; and it was not till Sir Francis Younghusband, Political Administrator, made his successful, though difficult and dangerous, expedition to Tibet in 1904 that trade relations were established with British India. A telegraph line was built as far as Gyantse, one of the agreed trading posts; but, even then, a telegraph line to the forbidden city of Lhasa would have been regarded as a fantastic dream. But a war between China and Tibet, the flight of the Dalai Lama, and the kindness with which he was treated by the British Authorities during his three years exile in India, changed all that. On his return to power at Lhasa, relations with British India were extended by the prominent help of Sir Charles Bell, Political Administrator, and he introduced many of the modern improvements he had seen and admired in India. In 1920, he made the revolutionary decision to link the forbidden city itself and the outer world by telegraph via India, and to set up a telephone service in Lhasa.

Official residence of the Dalai Lama in Lhasa

The Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department helped towards the supply of materials and lent the necessary technical staff. In 1920, Mr. Fairley, a Telegraph Engineer, surveyed the route from Gyantse to Lhasa, in extension of the existing line from Calcutta to Gyantse. In 1922 I went up to Gyantse as Engineer in charge of the construction of the new line.

I travelled 1500 miles by rail from Rawal Pindi, through Lahore, Delhi and Calcutta, to Kalimpong, where the railway ends in the North Eastern Himalayas. I made the journey of 150 miles from Kalimpong to Gyantse on horseback, with my luggage on pack mules. The muleteer was a tall, supple, wild-looking Bhutanese, strong and brave as any Mahommedan Pathan of the North West; and typical of his friendly, highland, Buddhist tribe.

For the first fifty miles the road climbs steeply from 500 feet above sea level to 14,500. The lower levels are covered with dense tropical forests - nature's last display of abundant foliage to the traveller on his way to the arid plateaus of Tibet. There are many elephants, tigers, leopards, bears and snakes; not as dangerous, but more annoying, are the swarms of leeches and mosquitoes. The Telegraph line is a fine job of work, built by my Department to the Tibetan Frontier over 50 years ago. Thick iron wire, on heavy steel poles, runs through a clearance fifty feet wide, cut through the forest.  In many places the line runs from hill to hill in long spans of from half to three-quarters of a mile between the poles. With a rainfall of often 20 inches a day during the monsoons, the jungle growth is prolific and must be cleared away every year to prevent the line being enveloped. The elephant and the white ant regulate the type of pole used. Elephants are annoyed by the humming sound of the hollow steel poles and knock them down, so, where elephants abound, wood poles must be used. The white ants eat up wood poles, so where the ants are the greater danger, steel poles take the place of wood.

The linesmen being local people do not fear any animals except bears, which, when come upon suddenly, attack with great fury. They have a horror, also, of leeches, which swarm over their bodies from the grass and trees, and of mosquitoes which carry a malignant type of malaria. Heavy repair work is confined to the winter when these insects, prevalent during the monsoons and autumn, disappear.

As I climbed higher among the mountains, the jungle gave way to alpine conditions, and the line, on pine poles, passes through clearances in pine forests. Here, in winter, the snowfall is heavy, and avalanches make the line unsafe, and repair work risky.  But the linesmen are accustomed to the conditions, being hardy mongoloid highlanders.

About a hundred miles from Gyantse, the Tibetan plateau begins.  All tree life vanishes, and the land is a desolate wilderness of snow-capped mountains and glaciers, with an occasional village in a valley oasis. The altitude varies gradually between twelve and 13,500 feet. In winter, the bleak plateau is swept by icy blasts. But as the snowfall and wind pressure are not heavy, the telegraph line,
built by Mr. Truninger, Telegraph Engineer
, for the Younghusband expedition in 1904 is made of very light tubular steel poles and iron wire. There, the prevailing animals are herds of tame Yaks, wild asses, wild sheep and wolves. To prevent the Yaks from knocking down the poles by rubbing their huge hairy bodies against them, the bases are protected by mounds of stones. Prowling packs of wolves and icy winds make the linesmen's work difficult in winter.

At Gyantse we began to build the new line on the 1st July 1922; and completed it to Lhasa, a distance of 145 miles, on the 31st August in the same year. The construction party consisted of myself, Mr. Rosemeyer, the Inspector,* and 27 skilled workmen, all Mongoloid residents of the Himalayas with a good knowledge of Urdu, recruited by Rosemeyer. A Tibetan aristocrat, named Kippook, who had spent four years at Rugby and learnt Telegraphy in India, accompanied us as liaison officer. The Tibetan Government supplied all the necessary transport - yak, bullock, donkey and human. They also gave us the services of 80 peasants for daily work on the line. A striking humility is characteristic of Tibetan peasants. They approach superiors cap in both hands, loll their tongues and bow forward till dismissed. Notwithstanding the barrenness of the country they look well nourished; and they proved themselves hardy and quick at their work. They are not taxed, but, as on this occasion, give unpaid service to their Government when requisitioned, working, however, only within their own districts.

The line of iron wire, was run on light wooden poles. Owing, however, to the treeless nature of the country, the supply of poles was a stupendous task, as they had to be brought long distances by hand transport, often from places 50 miles off.

Beforehand, the building of the line seemed a difficult problem to the Indian Government, because of the country's remoteness and high altitude, the difficult terrain, the possible incapacity of the staff, the unknown working capabilities of the Tibetan peasantry, and doubts as to their regular and prompt supply. Thanks, however, to the excellent arrangements made by Col. Bailey, Political Administrator, and the splendid response made by the Tibetan Government and peasants, we built the line quickly and smoothly. The altitude rose gradually from 15,000 to 16,000 feet in a hundred miles, then dropped abruptly to 12,000 feet at Tsanpo river and kept this level for the remaining 45 miles of cornfields and orchards to Lhasa.

Except one of my staff who couldn't stand the high altitude and had to return to India, none of us suffered any worse inconvenience than acute neuralgia. We brought groceries and tinned foods with us from India and were able to buy regular supplies of milk, butter, eggs, fowls, mutton and, on the lower level, fruit and vegetables. The milk was a mixture of Yaks', Goats' and Sheep's. For fuel, however, we had only dried yak's dung. We lived in cotton tents. Rain fell frequently, but mostly at night. Snouts of glaciers were alongside the road at a few places.

Tibetans in Lhasa were delighted when the line reached the City - they would, they said, no longer be the laughing stock of pilgrims from other parts of Asia. They made jests about it: It was a chain binding Tibet with Britain. It would be enough to display the line, to impress foreigners, but not connect it up, so that the Dalai Lama should not know too much of their doings! The practical Dalai Lama himself, though keen on utility, was not averse from display. He gave orders that, even in the Holy places, the lines were to be prominently displayed, and not hidden as was the British custom.

The Dalai Lama treated our whole party with the greatest kindness during my six weeks stay. Two days after my arrival, while in muddy riding kit, I was summoned to an audience, without the usual formality of consulting the oracle and auspices. I nervously entered the presence with Kippook as interpreter, and saluted him by bowing. All non-Europeans must kautau. A cordial smile and handshake, and the appropriate Tibetan greeting "I think you must feel very tired", put me at my ease. Later, he blessed all the workmen by laying both hands on a kerchief on each man's head after they did the kautau.  I wish he could have stopped boys from breaking our insulators, which they did with slings and stones. As the insulators survived the rough transport from London it was exasperating for them to be wantonly destroyed. Unbreakable insulators will command a big market in Asia.

He seemed to have none of the popular superstitions. Once he told me that his call bell on the Indian route rang frequently the previous night. When I told him it was due to lightning, he regarded it as a natural phenomenon; and not, as other Tibetans, including the Prime Minister, as a sign of the anger of God. The kindness shown us was the reward of kindness shown for many years to the Tibetans by the staff of British Telegraph offices on the Tibet road. It was also due to the hospitality rendered to the Dalai Lama in 1910 while fleeing from the Chinese. He reached a British Telegraph office late one night and the Telegraph master, a British soldier accommodated him.

The Indian Posts and Telegraphs Dept. lent the Tibetan Government the services of Mr. Sonam Sering (which means Thunderbolt) as Telegraph Master for a year, when he was replaced by a Tibetan Priest trained in India. The first telegram sent from Lhasa to London was from His Holiness the Dalai Lama to His Majesty King George V. The first woman to greet the Dalai Lama by phone was the Hon. Mrs. Bailey who spoke from Gyantse to Lhasa in 1922.