5,000 MILES’ MARCH

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 491, 22 October 1928, Page 14

5,000 MILES’ MARCH

MISSIONARY’S ORDEAL ADVENTURES IN TIBET A trip across Tibet in midwinter, when the wind has a barbed, savage tail and the snow lies thick in the defiles, and the yak starve and the frost bites, like acid, through everything, is not. exactly a restorative. So Mr. J. Mathewson, of the China Inland Mission, who spent the last year in that appalling country, walking a great many of the 5,000 miles from Sining, in the Kansu Province of Northern China, to Leh, in Kashmir, has plenty of excuses for his pallor, his nervousness. He arrived in Sydney recently, looking very tired, pale and shaken.

About the middle of April, 1927, the anti-foreign’ riots became so serious that most of the missionaries set off for Shanghai. Mr. Mathewson, however, decided that a better way out of the country would be to strike across Tibet to India. With Mr. Filsehner, a German explorer and scientist, and Mr. Plymire, an American missionary, he set out on May 27. The party took with it about 60 yak, some tents, and meagre equipment. It was hoped that the journey would occupy about four months; actually it was not finished until 10 months later. The opening stages of their journey took them over country starved and hardened by a three-year drought. The mountains sprang up in endless discouraging panorama before them, dry mountains powdering to dust, and sand. The yak began to die. First one at a time, then two at a time, finally 18 died in one day. Burying some of their stores in sandhills and carrying as much as they could, the three men pushed on again. They were feeling despondent when they ran suddenly into a party of Mongol pilgrims, who lent them animals on which they returned to the caches where they had stored their provisions. Now they were able to hasten to the Mongol settlement, whence, after resting a few days, they plunged into a great uninhabited, dry, inhospitable country, where only speed could save them from disaster. Ordered to Turn Back A few days afterwards the party reached the headwaters of the Yangtse and encountered for the first time the. authority of the Tibetans. It was a small outpost, and the officials agreed to send on to the Dalai Lama three copies of a letter asking him to assist their stupendous undertaking. Weeks later they reached Nagchutcha, with a great deal of satisfaction, for they learned that they were now only three fast courier stages from Lhassa. whence the journey to Darjeeling end India would be comparatively a simple affair. However, they were not so near deliverance as they expected, for the official at Nagchutcha, who had sent out 700 troops to intercept them, ordered that they should return immediately to China over the road they had traversed. This was too much. The patient German scientist accepted the inevitable and commenced to purchase camels, but Mr. Mathewson, who believed that he had not been guided through all the tribulations of the first two tousand miles for nothing, sat down and refused to budge. The official talked largely about cutting off heads, and ridiculed their suggestion that by this time the Dalai Lama must have reecived from them two letters informing him of their intentions. Every day they reiterated their assurance that they had sent letters to tun Dalai Lama, and every day the official denied that this could be true. At last, after six weeks of debate, he was delighted to demontsrate that the Dalai Lama knew nohing of them by producing the two letters and admitting that he had intercepted the i. Luckily they had sent the third copy on by a merchant, and this eventually reached Lhassa, and the Dalai Lama communicated with the British Government in India, which instructed him to do all he could to assist the travellers. They had hoped to make a shore journey of 30 days or so, southwards to India, but the Dalai Lama, giving them transport, food, guides, servants and encampments, which he prepared on the line of their march, laid out fjr them a route that would occupy five months’ constant travelling. There was no room for argument, but they had the satisfaction of knowing afterwards that the British Government demanded to know why the Dalai Lama had imposed upon tired men he had been asked to assist this new, crushing burden. From drought and supimer they stepped into winter and the heaviest snowfall Tibet had suffered for 50 years. The guides and servants seemed to be working happily enough, but when everything seemed to be moving well and home was within sight, the men suggested that they should make a detour around the hills to avoid heavy snowdrifts. That seemed reasonable enough, so they cut into the hills ar ’ discovered, after their guides had deserted them, that they were in a place, the head man of ■which was a notorious bandit, who threatened to decapitate them immediately. When the young Tibetan interpreter saw how things were moving he told the bandit that the great armies of Britain and all its airplanes would sweep down and destroy his j 4 tents if he touched a hair on the heads of these men. Thinking better of his intentions the bandit detained them for a few days in that place 17,000 feet above sea level. At last, his feet, dangerously frozen, Mr. Mathewson reached Leh,. in Kashmir, and rested under medical attention. Thence he went to India and returned immediately to Australia. He left recently for Brisbane, where his parents reside.