The Celestial Mountains
In 1913, Charles Howard-Bury travelled along the Trans-Siberian railroad,
before turning south towards the Tian Shan Mountains. Stretching over 2,000 km from
west-southwest to east-northeast, this vast mountain range mainly straddles the border between China
and Kyrgyzstan. The Silk Road, that for centuries linked China and Europe, ran along the Tian Shan's southern edge.
before turning south towards the Tian Shan Mountains. Stretching over 2,000 km from
west-southwest to east-northeast, this vast mountain range mainly straddles the border between China
and Kyrgyzstan. The Silk Road, that for centuries linked China and Europe, ran along the Tian Shan's southern edge.
I took as few stores as possible with me from London, as the cost of conveying them by rail and then by post-road is very great. A valise and bedding were of course necessary, together with a camp bed, bath, etc. Through the kindness of Mr. T. P. Miller I was able to borrow his tent which he had left after a former journey and which saved me having to take one all the way from England. Baking powder and jam in tins had to be taken from London, as neither are obtainable in Russia. The jams in glass bottles that are sold in Russia would never survive the bumping in the tarantass. Photographic films, a few varieties of soups, some condensed milk and one or two delicacies such as sardines and potted meats were also brought from London. Rifles and ammunition of course also came from there. My rifles and guns consisted of .350 Mauser Rigby with 150 rounds of soft-nosed ammunition. A double-barrelled 12-bore shot-gun with 300 cartridges.
Glamping with guns...
Howard-Bury describes the provisions that accompanied him from London to Omsk
and then on to the Tian Shan mountains in 1913.
|
From London to Yining
|
|
By far the most extensive and well-known of Howard-Bury's pre-1921 explorations was his journey along the Tian Shan mountains in 1913, which he recorded in a diary and, subsequently, in the draft of a planned book. He left London in late May 1913, travelling by rail to Moscow via Berlin and Warsaw. In Moscow, he met John Pereira, who was to be his 'cook, interpreter and general factotum for the next eight months'. From Moscow, Howard-Bury travelled via the Trans-Siberian railway to the city of Omsk, where he switched from rail to river. A steamer carried him to Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, an area that would later become infamous as the site of nuclear weapons testing by the Soviet Union. There, the journey became less comfortable as he took a nine-day ride aboard a tarantass, a four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage, to the city of Kuldja (modern Yining in the north-west of China's Xinjiang province), arriving in mid-June 1913.
During a period of rest in Kuldja, Howard-Bury gained a new companion, a cub bear named 'Agu', which would accompany him throughout the remainder of his journey and then all the way to Westmeath. He purchased Agu, who was then three-weeks old, from hunters who had recently captured the animal. Agu, whom Howard-Bury called 'a regular little savage,' would spend much of the next few months tied up on the back of a pony, a sight that caused local observers much amusement. The bear would eventually take up residence at Belvedere House. |
Once Howard-Bury left the city of Semipalatinsk (modern Semey in Kazakhstan), he travelled a distance of
around 800 km in a horse-drawn carriage to the city of Kuldja (modern Yining in the north-west of China's Xinjiang province).
The carriage, a widely used form of transport in Russian territory, was called a Tarantass.
(Marian Keaney/Westmeath Library Services: Howard-Bury Collection)
around 800 km in a horse-drawn carriage to the city of Kuldja (modern Yining in the north-west of China's Xinjiang province).
The carriage, a widely used form of transport in Russian territory, was called a Tarantass.
(Marian Keaney/Westmeath Library Services: Howard-Bury Collection)
|
The Tian Shan
|
|
Howard-Bury's diaries are filled with descriptions of the landscape through which he travelled, with his interest in botany to the fore: 'Never anywhere in the world have I seen such an abundance and variety of wild flowers as I saw today at heights of between 7,000 and 10,000 feet. We passed first through fields of phloxes and Japanese anemones - the latter were I imagine a species of Ranunculus, but very like what we call Japanese anemones in English gardens - then appeared quantities of dark red snap-dragons, a beautiful blue flax, golden marsh marigolds, great yellow poppies, sweet scented aquilegias and hundreds of other flowers besides.'
Howard-Bury was then in an area called the Kurdai Valley (in modern Xinjiang province, China). To him it was an earthly paradise: 'We climbed up steadily through glorious forests to the grass meadows at the edge of the tree line which is here a little over 10,000 feet. The grass now became shorter, but was full of iris and primulas and some quite new varieties of flowers appeared The most astonishing flowers of all were the pansies, white, yellow, blue and every shade of colour up to deep purple and quite as large as any that are found in gardens at home. For miles the hillsides were a variegated carpet of these pansies, and so close did they grow that every step we took crushed some of them: it was impossible to avoid doing so. Never anywhere else have I seen such a luxuriant flora. The flowers in Kashmir were very wonderful but these here were still more so. Every flower that is grown in our English or Irish gardens seemed to be represented on these slopes'. After exploring the territory around Kuldja, he travelled on horseback with John Pereira and Agu into the mountain territories and hunting grounds of Kazakh and Kyrgyz nomads. Howard-Bury spent weeks in those hunting grounds, tracking roe-deer, ibex and bears. Pages of his diaries are devoted to his attempts to track and kill various animals. He would eventually begin his homeward journey after reaching Kabul Sai, a railway station north of Tashkent. He had travelled over 1,000 kilometres along the northern edge of the Tian Shan mountains, passing through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. At Kabul Sai, he took the train to Tashkent, the capital of modern Uzbekistan, which he reached on 22 November 1913. The remainder of the journey was, as Howard-Bury put it, 'plain sailing'. He spent a few days in Samarkand, the great city on the old Silk Road, then travelled 'to Bokhara, then on to Krasnovodsk - across the Caspian sea to Baku. By train over the Caucasus to Batoum and on by tramp steamer to Constantinople, where the train-de-luxe brought one in comfort to Paris and once more to Western Civilisation and its luxuries'. On his return from the Tian Shan mountains, Howard-Bury began to transform his expedition diaries into a narrative that he planned to publish as a book. The outbreak of war in 1914 put an end to those plans, as it did to so many others. |
Women set up a temporary homestead, as photographed by Charles Howard-Bury (Marian Keaney/Westmeath Library Services: Howard-Bury Collection)
A hunting eagle and its owner, 1913 (Marian Keaney/Westmeath Library Services: Howard-Bury Collection)
A group of Kazakh families in 1913 (Marian Keaney/Westmeath Library Services: Howard-Bury Collection)
Which way to Westmeath? In 1913, Howard-Bury brought a bear cub, whom he named Agu, from Kuldja (Yining in northwest China) to Ireland. The bear would live for many years in the gardens of Belvedere Estate, where he was, reputedly, a wrestling companion for Howard-Bury.
(Marian Keaney/Westmeath Library Services: Howard-Bury Collection)
(Marian Keaney/Westmeath Library Services: Howard-Bury Collection)
Kyrgyz children on horseback (Marian Keaney/Westmeath Library Services: Howard-Bury Collection)
|
The Valley of Kair Bulak (Marian Keaney/Westmeath Library Services: Howard-Bury Collection)
|
A section of the Tian Shan Mountains, as photographed by Charles Howard-Bury (Marian Keaney/Westmeath Library Services: Howard-Bury Collection)
