My Life As An Explorer - free ebook by Sven Hedin

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My Life As An Explorer

Sven Hedin

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44 chapters

1 How It All Began

1 How It All Began

APPY is the boy who discovers the bent of his life-work H during childhood. That, indeed, was my good fortune. At the early age of twelve, my goal was fairly clear. My closest friends were Fenimore Cooper and Jules Verne, Livingstone and Stanley, Franklin, Payer, and Nordenskiéld, particularly the long line of heroes and martyrs of Arctic exploration. Nordenskiold was then on his daring journey to Spitsbergen, Nova Zembla, and the mouth of the Yenisei River. I was just fifteen when he returned t

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II Across the Elburz Range to Teheran

II Across the Elburz Range to Teheran

Khanoff, a young Tatar of rank, was my teacher. Early in April, my term of service concluded, I decided to spend the three hundred rubles I had earned on a horseback-journey, southward through Persia, and thence down to the sea. Baki Khanoff was to go with me. I took leave of my fellow countrymen, and late one evening boarded a Russian paddle-wheel steamer. A violent northern gale was sweeping over Baku, and the captain dared not leave port. By morning the gale had subsided. The paddles began th

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III

III

On Horseback Through Persia S UMMER was approaching. It grew warmer every day, and I had no further reason to postpone my projected trip southward. But Baki Khanoff was taken down with fever, and so I had to go on alone. He went home to Baku, while I proceeded onward, without servants, on the twenty-seventh of April. But one could not be quite alone, when travelling chapari (with hired horses) from one halting-place to another, through Persia. A groom went along, so that the two horses could be

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IV Through Mesopotamia to Bagdad

IV Through Mesopotamia to Bagdad

Asial It must be a real punishment to have to live and work there. No vegetation, or at most a palm tree or two; two- story white houses; alleys reduced to the utmost narrowness for the sake of shade and coolness; an all-year-round sun-bath, especially intolerable in the summer; a temperature which I once found mounting to 110% Fahrenheit, but which can rise to 113 and more, in the shade; and, finally, the glittering sun over the warm, salt, lifeless water-deserts of the Persian Gulf. I lived wi

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V An Adventurous Ride Through Western Persia

V An Adventurous Ride Through Western Persia

I Bagdad, I went to the house of Mr. Hilpern, an English mer- table. He seemed to think that I was a reckless youth. I had come to Bagdad alone; and now, with no servant, I was going to ride back through the desert, through unsafe Kurdistan and western Persia, to Teheran. I could not bring myself to tell him that I carried in my belt no more than one hundred and fifty kran, or twenty-eight dollars. I was determined to hire myself out as a muleteer through waste regions, rather than reveal my pov

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VI Constantinople

VI Constantinople

NOW studied geography and geology at the Universities of UpJ sala and Berlin, and also at the Stockholm Haégskola (literally “high school,” but actually the equivalent of an American col- lege). My teacher in Berlin was Baron Ferdinand von Richt. hofen, famous for his travels in China, and the greatest authority of his day on the geography of Asia. I now also made my début as an author. In a volume illustrated by my own sketches, I told the story of my Persian journey. As I had never before writ

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VII An Ambassador to the Shah of Persia

VII An Ambassador to the Shah of Persia

N the 30th of April, we boarded the Russian ship “Rostov- Odessa,” and steamed out through the Bosporus, with the European coast on our left, the Asiatic on our right, and on all sides a landscape fascinating in its peculiar beauty. To- ward evening, the last lighthouses disappeared, and we glided out onto the Black Sea. I was familiar with the way we were about to take. We called at the towns on the coast of Asia Minor, landed at Batum, and went by rail, via Tiflis, to Baku. I saw the same scen

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VIII

VIII

A Burial-Ground smi is one of the oldest religions in the world. It was founded by Zoroaster. Its sacred books are called the Zend-Avesta. It was practised by one of the mightiest peoples of the earth, flourished for a period of a thousand years, continued with diminishing vitality for another thousand years, and was finally crushed, in 640 A.D., when the Caliph Omar carried the banners of the Prophet against the Persians, whom he vanquished near Ecbatana. During the victorious progress of Islam

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IX To the Top of Demavend

IX To the Top of Demavend

July. As Dr. Hybennet's guest, I was invited by the Shah to join the party. We were to be gone for more than a month. One other European was, as a matter of course, attached to the party. This was Dr. Feuvrier, a Frenchman, who was first physician-in-ordinary to the Shah. Very few Europeans have, indeed, ever taken part in these royal excursions. The spectacle was as unique as it was enchanting and impressive. On the day before setting out, we were visited by a chamberlain, who informed us of th

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X Through Khorasan, the Land of the Sun

X Through Khorasan, the Land of the Sun

N September 9, 1890, I started off on the long caravan-road, marked by twenty-four stations, which connects Teheran with Meshhed, the capital of Khorasan, the Land of the Sun, and the chief shrine of pilgrims of Persia proper. As long ago as the time of Xerxes and Darius, a postal system was operated along this road; and in the days of Tamerlane, whose couriers traversed the road with messages, the stations were about the same as now. The soil recks with memories of the past. There Alexander the

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XI Meshhed, the City of Martyrs

XI Meshhed, the City of Martyrs

HREE famous men are buried in Meshhed. In 809, the Caliph Harun-ar-Rashid, of Arabian Nights fame, died on his way to this city, whither he was going'To suppress a revolt. Nine years later, the eighth /mam, Imam Riza, was buried in Meshhed. The Persian Mohammedans, called Shiahs, regard Ali and eleven of his successors as Imams. Ali and his sons, Hussein and Hassan, were the first ones; Imam Riza was the eighth ; and El-Mahdi, the Mystic, was the twelfth, the one who expected to re-establish the

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XII Bokhara and Samarkand

XII Bokhara and Samarkand

T was the middle of October, and autumn was approaching, when 1 I left Meshhed with a charvadar and three horses, and went through the narrow corridors, defiles, and passes of the Hesarmestjid Mountains, and past the strong, natural fortress of Kelati-Nadir, on my way northward to the Transcaspian Railway, which I reached at the station of Kaahka. At Askabad, the capital of Transcaspia, I made the acquaintance of the military governor, General Kuropatkin. He had fought at Plevna, during the Russ

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XIII Into the Heart of Asia

XIII Into the Heart of Asia

HE bells jingled on the arch of the duga as I drove away from Samarkand, while the blue cupolas disappeared in the distance, and the rising sun gave life and colour to the hills of Afrasiab. I drove in a #roika through a wealth of gardens, shimmering in the yellow-and-red autumn. I crossed the Zerafshan—the Gold Roller—the river which irrigates Samarkand and the nearby oases. I drove through the narrow, rocky pass called ““Tamerlane’s Gateway,” and through “Golodnaya,” or the Hunger Steppe, whic

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XIV With the Emir of Bokhara

XIV With the Emir of Bokhara

N Christmas Eve, I started on a jolly journey, a wild and whizzing expedition, on horseback, by sleigh, and by carriage, through all of western Asia. Three Cossacks from the consulate, who had finished their term of service, were returning to Narinsk, in Semiryetchensk, the Country of Seven Rivers, on the Russian side, and I was going with them. We travelled northward with our little caravan of pack-horses. The way took us through narrow valleys, in a biting cold (—4). We crossed rivers that wer

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XV

XV

Two Thousand Miles in a Carriage—A Winter Ride on the “Roof of the World” HEN I reached home, in the spring of 1891, I felt like the \ \ conquerer of an immense territory; for I had traversed Caucasia, Mesopotamia, Persia, Russian Turkestan, and Bokhara, and had penetrated into Chinese Turkestan. I therefore felt confident that I could strike a fresh blow, and conquer all Asia, from west to east. My years of apprenticeship in Asiatic ex- ploration were indeed behind me; yet before me lay great a

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XVI With the Kirghiz

XVI With the Kirghiz

HE fort was built of blocks of earth and sand-bags. Guns were mounted on barbettes at the four corners. As we advanced towards its northern front, the entire garrison of one hundred and sixty soldiers and Cossacks, drawn up on the parapet, began to cheer. At the main entrance, we were met by the commander, Captain Saitseff, who had been Skobeleff’s adjutant, and by the six officers of his staff. My arrival made a welcome break in their monotonous life. They had not seen a white man the whole win

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XVII

XVII

My Struggle with the “Father of the Ice-Mountains” HE task I had set myself was to map out the region around Mustagh-ata, the “Father of the Ice-Mountains.” Accompanied by my servants and some Kirghiz friends, I went to the shore of Kara-kul, the “Little Black Lake.” A fine blanket yurt was placed at my disposal, and our neighbours provided us with sour milk, fresh milk, kumiss (fermented mare's milk), and sheep. The daylight hours were devoted to field-work. In the evenings, the Kirghiz would c

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XVIII I Approach the Desert

XVIII I Approach the Desert

N February 17, 1895, I left Kashgar, and began a journey which proved to be one of the most difficult I ever undertook O in Asia. We had two arabas, or carts with two high wheels, drawn by four horses, one of them between the shafts, and the other three in front, harnessed with ropes. Each team was driven by an arabakesh, or driver. The carts had arched roofs made of rush-mats. I drove in the first one, with part of the luggage, and Islam Bai, with the heavy boxes, in the other. We had two dogs,

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XIX The Sand-Sea

XIX The Sand-Sea

In two hours, we had passed the wisps of reeds, and the sterile, sandy dunes grew higher. Another hour, and they were sixty feet high; and presently they rose to eighty and ninety feet. Plains of level, dry, hard clay disclosed themselves here and there between the dunes. From this solid ground, the camels looked quite small, as they trod the ridge of the nearest dune. We zigzagged and turned in all directions, to avoid the difficult crests of the dunes and remain as nearly as possible on one le

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XX The Caravan Meets with Disaster

XX The Caravan Meets with Disaster

There was little actual daybreak to speak of. Even at noon the darkness was more pronounced than at dusk. It was like marching at night. The air was filled with opaque clouds of drift-sand. Only the nearest camel was dimly visible, like a shadow in this otherwise impervious mist. The bronze bells were inaudible, even when quite near. Shouts could not be heard. Only the deafening roar of the storm filled our ears. With such weather, it was wise for all of us to stick together. To fall behind the

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XXI The Last Days

XXI The Last Days

HUS we walked on through the night and the sand. After two hours of it, we were so exhausted, from fatigue and from lack of sleep, that we flung ourselves headlong on the sand, and dozed off. I was wearing thin, white, cotton clothes, and was soon awakened by the cold night-air. Then we walked again, till the limit of our endurance was reached. We slept once more on a dune. My stiff-topped boots, reaching to my knees, made progress difficult. I was on the point of throwing them away several time

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XXII Robinson Crusoe

XXII Robinson Crusoe

From time to time, I called “Kasim!” at the top of my voice. But the sound died away among the tree-trunks; and I got no answer but the “clevitt’” of a frightened night-owl. If I lost my way, perhaps I would never again find the trail, and then Kasim would be lost. I stopped at an impenetrable thicket of dry branches and brush, set fire to the whole thing, and enjoyed seeing the flames lick and scorch the nearest poplars. Kasim could not be far away; he was certain both to hear and to see the fi

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XXIII Second Expedition to the Pamirs

XXIII Second Expedition to the Pamirs

Y faithful servant, Kasim, having been appointed watchman at the Russian Consulate, I took Islam Bai, two other men, and six horses, and left Kashgar on July 10, 1895. The following day, we arrived at Upal, a large village, situated in a deep ravine worn out of the soft soil. In the afternoon, a heavy rain came down, the like of which I have never again seen. An hdur before sunset, we heard a furious roar, hollow and mighty, which gradually came nearer. In a few minutes, the river-bed was turned

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XXIV I Discover 2000-Year-Old Cities in the Desert

XXIV I Discover 2000-Year-Old Cities in the Desert

East of Kargalik, where I spent Christmas Eve, the country became more barren; yet the ancient caravan-road was always marked with potai, or flattened pyramids of clay. Some of our nights were spent in large caravansaries, where the drinking-water was obtained from deep wells. One of them was a hundred and twenty-six feet deep. Kum-rabat-padshahim, or “My King's Serai in the Sand,” was a point on the road where thousands of sacred pigeons filled the air with their cooing, and with the sound of w

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XXV

XXV

The Wild Camels’ Paradise O N February 8, we camped at a point where the river was hardly fifty feet wide; and at our next camping-place, the ice-crust had narrowed to fifteen feet. The forest was still luxuriant, and the reed-fields so impenetrable, that we had either to make detours or use the axes to blaze a path. Parts of boar-trails formed veritable tunnels through tangled growths of reeds. I shall never forget the thrill with which I saw the thin crust of ice end, like the point of an arro

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XXVI Retreating Twelve Hundred Miles

XXVI Retreating Twelve Hundred Miles

S space in this book is limited, I must make the long journey to Khotan at breakneck speed; and I am the more willing to do so, because of the opportunity a later chapter will afford me of returning to the most interesting part of it, the Lop Desert and the moving lake of Lop-nor. For two weeks we travelled through the forests along the banks of the Tarim, always with shepherds to guide us. I derived special pleasure from the wild geese, which had begun to flit at that season. They were seen dai

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XXVII A Detective-Story from the Heart of Asia

XXVII A Detective-Story from the Heart of Asia

Y first task, after returning to Khotan, was to call on Liu Darin, the governor. And then the whole sequel to our. disastrous desert-journey began to unfold itself like a thrilling detective-story. Some of the men whom we had regarded as rescuing angels the year before, were now revealed as rascals and thieves. It seems that Yusur, one of the three merchants who gave Islam Bai water, and thus saved his life, visited Said Akhram Bai, the aksakal, or “white-beard,” of the West Turkestan merchants,

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XXVIII My First Entry Into Tibet

XXVIII My First Entry Into Tibet

H, sweet summer in Khotan! Oh, delicious rest, after endless rides in desert and woods! With tender sadness do I remember the month I spent in the old city. From morning to night, my days were filled with work. I completed maps and notes, wrote letters, read, and made preparations for a journey to northern Tibet. I lived quite by myself, in a spacious wooden pavilion, containing only one large room, with windows, opening on all sides, that were closed at night with wooden lattices. The building

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XXIX Wild Asses, Wild Yaks, and Mongolians

XXIX Wild Asses, Wild Yaks, and Mongolians

E were now on the crest of the huge Tibetan plateau, the largest and highest mountain-accumulation on earth. Our . period of hardships began when the rarefied air and absence of pasture-land broke the caravan’s power of resistance, and when, almost daily, our track was marked by the beasts of burden which we left lying on the road. Now, too, we were in the Eldorado of the wild animals. In a country where we looked in vain for grass, wild asses and antelopes found their way to the scarce pastures

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XXX In the Land of the Tangut Robbers

XXX In the Land of the Tangut Robbers

HEN we left our new friends, on October 12, and pro\ \ / ceeded eastward across steppes, deserts, and knotty, salty ground, we had an entirely new and splendid caravan of well-conditioned horses. On the left rolled the boundless, level plains of Tsaidam; and on the right were the Tibetan mountains. We spent the nights in Mongol tent-villages, eating the same food as the Mongols. After a few days, Dorche was paid off. He was superseded by Lobsang, a fine, big Mongol. We were still 2 month’s journ

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XXXI On to Peking

XXXI On to Peking

HE remaining months of my long journey resembled very much a race back to civilization; and so I will now quickly relate our adventures. Islam Bai was, as I have said, my sole retainer now. He was responsible for the baggage. We drove with carts and mules to Ping-fan, and with large Turkestan carts and horses on to Liang-chowfu. Upon crossing the Shi-ming-ho, the wheels of our first cart cut like knives through the none-too-strong ice, but eventually the vehicle got over safely. The other cart g

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XXXII Back to the Deserts!

XXXII Back to the Deserts!

N Midsummer Day (June 24), 1899, when the lilacs were in full bloom, I set out for the heart of Asia for the fourth time. My chief backers were King Oscar and Emanuel Nobel. The instruments, four cameras, with twenty-five hundred plates, stationery and drawing-materials, presents for the natives, clothes and books, in short, all the luggage, weighed 1,130 kilos, and was packed in twenty-three boxes. A James Patent Folding-Boat, from London, with mast, sail, oars, and life-buoys, was to play an i

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XXXIII Our Life on the Largest River in the Very Heart of Asia

XXXIII Our Life on the Largest River in the Very Heart of Asia

N the last day of September, the landscape about us became altogether different. The forest ended, the level steppe stretched all around, and the Masar-tagh rose above the horizon like a sharply-defined cloud. At times, the mountain was before us; at other times it was to starboard or port, and even behind us, when the bends took us southwest instead of northeast. One day more, and to the north the snowy peaks of Tian-shan stood out like a faint background in the distance. The Masar-tagh became

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XXXIV Struggling with the Ice

XXXIV Struggling with the Ice

N November 24, we met with an adventure which might have had dire consequences. Contrary to the usual practice, the large boat was drifting in the lead, the smaller boats following. The river was narrow and the current very strong. We had rounded an abrupt turn, when a mighty poplar appeared not far ahead of us. Its roots had been dislodged by the river, and it had fallen. It was now lying like a bridge across one-third of the river, where the water flowed swiftly. The trunk lay horizontally abo

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XXXV A Hazardous Journey Across the Great Desert

XXXV A Hazardous Journey Across the Great Desert

N December 20, I began a new desert-trip, which, if ill-luck had accompanied us, might have turned out as disastrously as our terrible journey to the Khotan-daria, far away to the west. For the distance between our headquarters, on the Tarim, and the Cherchen-daria, to the south, was almost a hundred and eighty miles, and the sand-dunes were higher than those in Takla-makan. I took with me only four men, Islam Bai, Turdu Bai, Ordek, and Kurban; also seven camels, one horse, and the dogs, Yoldash

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XXXVI We Discover an Ancient City in the Lop Desert

XXXVI We Discover an Ancient City in the Lop Desert

N March 5, we were again ready to leave our headquarters, This time I took with me the Cossack, Chernoff; Faizullah, the camel-driver; Ordek and Khodai Kullu, the two Lop men; and the two brothers and huntsmen, Abd-ur Rahim and Malek Ahun, mounted on two of their camels, six others of which I also hired. Besides these, there were six of our own camels, Musa, and a Lop man, with some of our horses. The horses were to be sent back when the desert should prove too heavy for them. Two of the dogs we

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XXXVII Our Final WV ecks on the Branching Tarim

XXXVII Our Final WV ecks on the Branching Tarim

OR two days more, we skirted the desolate shore, without seeing F a trace of human beings. We were short of everything, and were downright hungry. A cloud of smoke appeared to the south, on the evening of the second day. Ordek, quick as a lizard on land and as a fish in the water, walked and swam across the reed-grown lakes, and returned with eight fishermen, three wild geese, two-score goose-eggs, fish, flour, rice, and bread. And then all danger of starvation was past. At Kum-chapgan, we came

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XXXVIII Adventures in Eastern Tibet

XXXVIII Adventures in Eastern Tibet

FEW hours before daybreak, we began preparations for a tedious day’s journey across barren country. After the animals had quenched their thirst, we filled the copper vessels with water for ourselves and the dogs. The ground was hard. It consisted of gravel and coarse sand. The lakes in the north looked like a faint, dark ribbon. All else was yellow-grey. The mountains became more distinct. Protruding rocks, entrances to valleys, and clefts became visible. After seven hours’ forced march, we pass

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XXXIX A Death-Strewn Retreat

XXXIX A Death-Strewn Retreat

A lone yak was grazing on a hillock close to our second camp. Aldat sneaked like a cat through the ravines and depressions, till within thirty paces of the yak. I followed the hunt through my field-glasses. Aldat calmly rested the rifle on a notched stick, and fired. The yak gave a start, took a few steps, stopped, fell, rose, swayed to and fro, fell again, and remained prostrate. It had been a fatal shot. Aldat lay motionless with his rifle. Cherdon and I advanced to the place with knives. Havi

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XL Through the Gobi Desert Without Water

XL Through the Gobi Desert Without Water

We left on December 12. In the beginning we had some troublesome days, pushing our way through the narrow valleys of the Akato-tagh, with their soft slate-clay. Nobody had ever been there before, and not even the natives knew the glen which we hoped would lead to a pass across the range. The lateral mountains were perpendicular, and several hundred yards high. The bottom of the valley was dry as tinder and absolutely barren. The bronze bells echoed wonderfully in the yellow passage. There had be

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XLI Lou-lan, the Sleeping Town

XLI Lou-lan, the Sleeping Town

T would take a whole book to describe Lou-lan and the discoveries I was fortunate enough to make among its ruins, but I can devote only a few pages to my ancient desert-town. Upon my return home, I handed over all the manuscripts and the other relics to Mr. Karl Himly, of Wiesbaden, who made the first report on them, stating that the name of the town was Lou-lan, and that it flourished in the third century A. p. After Himly’s death, the material was taken over by Professor A. Conrady, of Leipzig

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XLII Back to High Tibet

XLII Back to High Tibet

N March 10, in the morning, I divided the caravan into two sections, taking with me Shagdur, Kuchuk, Khodai Kullu, and Khodai Verdi, also four camels, of which one carried the baggage and food needed for eight days, the others bearing ice and reeds. Faizullah took the rest of the caravan—camels, horses, all the heavy luggage, and the entire find from Lou-lan—southwest across the desert to the Kara-koshun marshes and Abdal, where we were to meet. It was my intention to survey the desert with a le

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XLIII

XLIII

Toward Lhasa Disguised as a Pilgrim Ok new headquarters, 16,800 feet high, was designated Num- ber 44. From there we were to start our wild ride toward Lhasa. I had intended to rest a week, for the sake of the animals, but Sirkin having noticed, near by, fresh footprints of a man leading a horse, I decided to break camp immediately. Were we already being watched? I also decided that only Shereb Lama and Shagdur should accompany me. This was hard on Cherdon, who, too, was of the Lamaist faith; bu

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XLIV A Prisoner of the Tibetans

XLIV A Prisoner of the Tibetans

Lama and Shagdur went out to meet them. They conversed for a long time, and it was dark in every sense when my two comrades returned. One of the Tibetans had told them, in a magisterial tone, that three days before a messenger had come from a yak-hunter in the north, who reported having seen an enormous caravan proceeding toward Lhasa. “Are you associated with them?” he asked. “Tell the truth. Remember that you are a lama.” Shereb Lama's knees trembled, and he stated the facts, without mentionin

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