Page 102 - Life of Gertrude Bell

88 GERTRUDE BELL

Gilbert Russell relayed a story he had been told of that dangerous
and lawless region. A British regiment was being harassed by an
Afridi sniper who made them the targets of his rifle practice every
night, and eventually they asked a member of the Khyber rifles
to investigate and see if he could rid them of the nuisance. The
native soldier returned shortly after, bearing a human head, and
he was complimented on his promptness in dealing with the
matter. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘I know all about his ways. He was my
father.’
They looked into the forbidden land of Afghanistan and saw
the Kabuli caravan emerge from the gorge. ‘The wild, desolate
valley was full of camels, and men, and ponies, tramping, tramp­
ing up to Kabul, and down to Peshwar. It was a wonderful thing
to stand at the gates of Central Asia, and see the merchant trains
passing up and down on a road older than all history.’ As they
took a last look at that infamous pass she wrote: ‘Think of
conqueror after conqueror standing there and looking down on
the richest land of Asia! Aryans and Greeks, Mongols and
Pathans — they have all looked down that valley, and smelt the
hot breath of India, and the plunder to come, Alexander, and
Timur, and Muhammad of Ghazni, and Barbar—who comes
next over the Pass ?’ Before leaving the Frontier she washed her
hair for the first time since Bombay. ‘Pfui!’
By the end of January they reached Calcutta and then went on
to Darjeeling and the Himalayas, balm to Gertrude’s poetic soul.
‘At 4.30 Hugo came into my room and said, “Get up, get up!
the moon’s shining on all the snows!” and I jumped out of bed and
into a fur coat.’ In her excitement Gertrude ate a hurriedly prepared
egg with sugar instead of salt, and they rushed off on their horses,
Nepalese guides panting behind, Kinchinjunga before them.

That was a ride! We dashed on to the Tiger Hill, which is
about 900 feet high. As we got to the top I saw the first sunbeam
strike the very highest point of Kinchinjunga—Nunc Dimittis
there can be no such sight in the world—Away to the west, and
120 miles from us, Everest put his white head over the folded
lines of mountains.
She vowed that she would return to climb Kinchinjunga, that
‘white dream suspended between earth and heaven’.
The rest of the journey was a saga of tourism intermingled
with dispute which became more affected and inconclusive as