'So, you see, in his day the Dards were as noted for their gold as the Seths-the hereditary bankers of India — still are for their connection with silver. to whom Herodotus refers are none other than the Dards. Now we know that in very early times there was a big Aryan migration of Dards up the Indus towards Tibet, indeed here in Ladakh to this 'Now, though the above by day we find pure Dard settle- no means exhausts my list of ments mingled with the Tibet- classic authorities, I think ans of the Indus valley right those I have I have quoted are into Tibet proper, and I think enough to prove my point. it is almost certain that it was It has always puzzled me to our local Dards whom Hero- know what the source of all dotus had in his mind. You this gold can have been; for must admit, then, that his where, to-day, is the goldstory points to there having bearing desert of Herodotusbeen plenty of gold about where the gold-fields of Ktesias whatever its source may have why has the glory of the been, and however little you may be prepared to accept his ants. 'After Herodotus we find Magasthenes independently corroborating the story of our local gold, from information he himself derived when ambassador in India; moreover, he too gives most circumstantial evidence about the golddigging ants. Then again Ktesias, the physician, in his "Indika," talks of the gold of the Upper Indus and Western Tibet, and though he does not mention the ants, still he tells us that gold was so plentiful and found in such a readily obtainable form, that the normal methods of washing were here unnecessary. Pliny is the last classical authority I shall quote, and his reference is the more remarkable because he mentions our Dards actually by name. I refer to his well-known line "Fertilissimi sunt auri Darda, Setæ vero argenti." -Lib. vi. c. 19. - Dards departed? I felt that much more was needed to account for all these than the puny gold-workings on the Upper Indus and the Tibetan mines of Chokkjalung, which are all that remain to-day. Yes, something more needed-and W. and I think that we have found out what that something is. 'The fame of our gold was not by any means confined to the times of Greeks and Romans,-come to later days and you will find that the traditional riches of Western Tibet have appealed to adventurers throughout history, for when the Tang Dynasty ruled China, in the days of Saxon England, the "Divine Khan" heard of these riches, and sent out his armies in an effort to obtain them. Again, about the time of Bannockburn, Zulkadar Khan the Tartar and his host perished in the snows of the Tibetan passes on the same quest. Later, that Emperor of Delhi -the exploits of whose reign would have put to the blush a Caligula or a Nero-Muhammad Tughlak, heard the same tale of gold for the gathering, a thing he was ever peculiarly in need of, and launched an army of a hundred thousand men, of whom not a single soul survived. You remember, too, how some eighty years ago, Zorawar, the Great Captain of the Dogras, conquered Ladakh for his master Gulab Singh of Jammu. But afterwards, why did he embark on his mad maroh farther eastwards into Tibet in the midst of a Tibetan winter to perish miserably for his pains? What was it that befooled so tried a leader what was it that lured all these armies to their doom? Gold-nothing but the lure of gold for the gathering: the lure that has attracted men of all the ages, from Jason to Dan M'Grew. And still the gold is there somewherewaiting for the finding. Spadum has given us our olue to the finding of it. 6 For this is what we found at Spadum. The monastery is of great antiquity, and was no doubt founded by those disciples sent out by King Asoka to preach the Excellent Law, after the third great Buddhist Council of Patna, about 250 B.C. Those early missionaries of course were orthodox Buddhists of the Buddhism of the Dards, their converts, and of the monastery they had founded. But about 1000 A.D. came an invasion from Central Tibet that broke the power of the Dards and swept away the Yellow Robe, establishing in its place the lamaist1 Buddhism of Lhassa. It was then that Spadum was destroyed, and its ruins are now almost 88 completely buried as are the remains of Nineveh, of Asshur, or of Taxila. Some few rock-carvings there are still visible above ground; but these are of no special interest, for the usual religious subjects only are represented the the most prominent being a typical carving of the Buddhas of the Five Kalpas seated upon Lotus Thrones, with the Maitreya in his three-pointed crown presiding as the central figure. 'It was not till we came to excavate the cells below the monastery that we made our real discoveries, for then we found a room which must, we think, have been a large hall of audience, the back wall of which is formed by the face of a huge boulder. As we cleared away the rubbish we discovered this face to be covered with carvings and inscriptions. The topmost carving to be unearthed was an ordinary figure of Buddha seated upon a lotus ; but below this there first appeared a long insoription in Brahmi characters of about 150 B.C., and then you can imagine our excitement as the surface yielded inch by inch 1 The Tibetan Buddhists adhere to the "Greater Vehicle of the Law" propounded by Kanishka's Fourth Council. The Lamas are of two persuasionsRed Caps and Yellow; but the robe of both these persuasions is red. to our digging, disclosing even more unexpected carvings beneath. 'Instead of the Garudasmythological birds or rows of pyramidical chaityas, which were the sort of things we had expected, we found the best example of an early Dard rookpicture I have ever seen, representing five men fighting for their lives against a swarm of small animals that were attacking them. Four of the men were depicted as defending themselves with spears, whilst the fifth was making off with a big bag on his back. As for the attackers, they seemed to have claws something like those of gigantic lobsters, and to be orawling out of holes in the ground; we were quite defeated as to what nature of beast they were meant to be. 'Then Weismann got busy deciphering that Brahmi inscription. Fortunately that is W.'s long suit, as you know, so in a few days he had got the gist of the sentence, the end of which is somewhat defaced. His translation is as follows: "Hail!—the Jewel in the Lotus. Preserved by the Lord Buddha, the Seekers have returned with much gold. From the Three Lakes, for fifty days fared they out through the land where no man dwells, towards the rising sun. In the Mountains of the Yak's Head many were slain by the Keepers of the Gold . 'Now, though at first sight this may seem rather cryptic, still it evidently referred to my old friends the Dard goldseekers, so I need not tell you how excited I was to find myself brought into touch with them, as it were, first hand, As you will see, too, the inscription gave us our clue to the full meaning of the rookpicture, for soon after, as we were examining it in the light of W.'s translation, all of a sudden Herodotus's old story of the Indians and the ants came back to me, and-"Ants, by Gad!"-I shouted to Weismann, who was so startled that he dropped those blue spectacles of his. "Ants? Where?" he asked, looking about him. "Why, there, on the rook-the gold-digging ants of Herodotus for a fiver. They're the Keepers of the Gold." "Lieber Gott! I believe you are right," said he, and the more we looked the more certain of it we became. 'You see, as we understood it, the figure of Buddha was a thank-offering erected by the gold-seekers, while the picture below showed the dangers they had faced: and if we were right about the ants, then, as you must admit, the whole carving is a most astonishing oorroboration of Herodotus's story. But most important of all, the inscription tells us too where his "desert" lies in which the gold is found. "We both believe that we have solved that problem. The first part of it is easy: The "Three Lakes" are the Panggong Tso-that string of lakes extending for ninety miles from our border into Tibet, for the Panggong is sometimes so called to this day. Thence the gold-seekers went fifty marches "through the land where no man dwells, towards the rising sun"that, of course, must mean E.N.E. through the Northern Tibetan Chang, for the Chang has been uninhabited since the beginning of time. But the mention of the "Mountains of the Yak's Head" is the clearest bit of all, for I am certain that these must be that northern spur of the Kuen Lun which Sven Hedin on one of his journeys saw in the far distance. He tells us that, though the La Shung Tartars never penetrated to these mountains on their wanderings, still they know them as the "Buka Magna," or Mountains of the Wild Yak's Head. Now, in country like this, names never change, but are handed down from father to son throughout the ages; they were the same in the days of Fa Hian's pilgrimage as they are to-day. And the Buka Magna are just about fifty marches from the Panggong too. Yes, I am sure we have got it-it was in the Buka Magna that the Dards found their gold; but for a thousand years the Dards have been a broken subject race, the secret of the gold has been lost, and their gold-seeking has become a vague tradition. And since their day, to the best of our belief, not another soul has visited the Buka Magna. 'You know what the Northern Tibetan Chang is like-from the Karakorum to the Ara Tag it is a vast uninhabited upland formed by the ridges and valleys of the Kuen Lun, where the bottom of the lowest valley is sixteen thousand feet above the sea, and the best - found caravan dies off like flies from starvation and exposure, Inhabitants there are none, save for the bands of wandering yakhunters and gold-seekers who hang upon its outer fringe. And how many explorers have passed through the Northern Chang? Duotreuil de RhinsWellby-Sven Hedin; they managed to get through, but they about complete the list, and not one of them went near our Buka Magna. That is still a white spot on the map. 'So the Buka Magna is our goal, and we are both confident that we shall find there that lost Tibetan gold whose fame has made such a stir in history. Weismann pictures a greater Moravian Mission, endowed with ample funds, extending from Khotan to Kashgar. I see myself a man of means, living like a gentleman in the home of my fathers. 'The Indian Government, of course, keeps the Tibetan frontier closed against all Europeans, so I have got Chinese passports for both of us valid for Turkestan, and nominally we are bound for Khotan, We mean to start by the route taken by the old Forsyth Mission to Yakub Beg at Kashgar -that is, we shall start north up the Kugrang Teampo and over the Karakorum by the Chang Lung La, but when we reach the uninhabited wastes of the Aksai Chin beyond, and no one can stop us any more, then we shall turn due east into Tibet and head for the Buka Magna. By our route it will be a march of some sixty days, so, starting at the beginning of May, if all goes well we should be back in Leh by October. Two months in the Buka Magna should be ample, for we count on finding the gold in some readily obtainable form-probably in very rich alluvial deposits and we are going well prepared for simple "placer" work. You see, it stands to reason that the Dards travelled very light, and used only the most primitive methods of extraction, "And the "Keepers of the Gold"-who were they? for that there was some malign influence at work against the gold-seekers I cannot doubt. Were they merely these roving bands of Tangut robbers, ever the scourge of Northern Tibet, or can a race of giant ants in truth exist there after all? That explanation seems beyond belief; and yet, why not? Herodotus, Megasthenes, and the rock-picture of Spadumthere must be some foundation for their tale. Moreover, if you but go into any Dard village to this day, they will tell you twenty tales of gold-digging ants; and folk-lore always stands upon a strong foundation. In that far-off empty land, who can tell that we may not find the ants of Herodotus, living unknown to-day as the okapi and the takin lived till yesterday, and as-some think -the giant sloth still lives in Patagonia? After all, Pliny told us that Hanno of Carthage had found the gorilla two thousand years ago, but-till he was discovered again by Thomas Savage-how many of us were there that credited his existence? I believe that the local conditions on the Tibetan steppes may well have evolved throughout the ages a giant species to prey upon the field-mice, the marmots, and the antelope that everywhere abound-a giant race of ants forgotten for a thousand years. 'And what a foe such an ant would be. Think of the black ant we know in India, with all his savagery and blind courage, and magnify him some thirty times. No animal in the world could stand against him. 'But whoever the Keepers of the Gold may be, or if they do exist, in three months' time at most Weismann and I shall know.'" Rowland ceased reading. "That is all," said he, "and I really did not know what to make of it, for it seemed the maddest sort of treasure-hunt, and Kenway was the last man I should ever have accused of madness. Old Weismann too, I thought he was above filthy lucre, but then apparently he wanted it only to extend his Mission. In the end I made up my mind to pull their legs properly for them when they came back, and then more or less forgot all about them, "It must have been about mid-September that the treasure-hunters were recalled very |