Mongolia | Life and Death of the False Lama #2

In an earlier post I wrote about my First Meeting with Dambijantsan, A.K.A. the Ja Lama in the pages of Beasts, Men and Gods by Ferdinand Ossendowski.

Ferdinand Ossendowski

I also wrote about the Ja Lama’s dubious claim to have visited The Kingdom of Agharttha, the underground realm described by the notorious French Occultist Saint-Yves d'Alveydre in his book the Mission de l'Inde en Europe.

Saint-Yves d'Alveydre

A few years late, in the mid-1980s, I again encountered Dambijantsan in the unlikely setting of the great-domed Reading Room of the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C. Perusing the catalog of the library’s Mongolia-related items I noticed a book entitled The Diluv Khutagt: Memoirs and Autobiography of a Mongol Buddhist Reincarnation in Religion and Revolution, published in 1982. I had never heard of the Diluv Khutagt but the title was intriguing. The book was retrieved from the stacks and brought to my table amidst the hushed precincts of the reading room. Cracking the book open at random I was startled to see a chapter entitled “Dambijantsan.” A quick perusal revealed that it was the one and same Dambijantsan described by Ossendowski and Pozdneev.

Starting over with the Introduction to the book—written by Mongolist Owen Lattimore, who I would soon discover had himself made considerable contributions to the Dambijantsan mythologem—I learned that the Diluv Khutagt (1883–1964) had been the incarnate lama in charge of Narobanchin Monastery in western Mongolia. He certainly had a distinguished pedigree. According to the tradition the first incarnation of his line had been a disciple of the Buddha himself. A later incarnation in Tibet had been the famous Milarepa (c. 1052–1135), author of the classic Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa. Still more incarnations turned up on the Ordos Desert in what is now China. The Diluv Khutagt who authored the book in my hand was the third incarnation to be born in Mongoiia and one of the fourteen incarnations in Mongolia officially recognized the Qing Dynasty. He eventually fell afoul of the new communist government and fled to China. After a stint in Tibet as advisor to the Dalai Lama he emigrated to the United States, where in ended up in New Jersey, of all places. In collaboration with Lattimore he then wrote his “Political Memoirs” and “Autobiography,” both of which were combined in one volume. Both sections of his book contain information about Dambijantsan, but the “Autobiography” has an entire chapter devoted to him—the only individual to merit such attention. He was six years old when he first met Dambijantsan, would encounter him many times in later life, and was eventually involved in the plot to assassinate him. Of the few Mongolians who left written accounts of Dambijantsan the Diluv Khutagt probably knew him best, but even to the Diluv Khutagt he remained an enigma: “He called himself a lama, but nobody knew if he really was one,” he said, . . . no one knew the real truth about him.

Also buried in the stacks at the Library of Congress was an English translation of I. M. Maisky’s Sovremenennaia Mongoliia (Contemporary Mongolia). Ivan Maisky, who later achieved considerable renown as the Soviet ambassador to England, visited Mongolia in 1919 on a fact-finding mission for the Soviet authorities in Irkutsk, the city just west of Lake Baikal in Siberia. He had traveled through what are now Khovd and Uvs aimags in western Mongolia when Dambijantsan was still alive and interviewed several people who knew the elusive lama. Maisky then inserted an entire chapter about Dambijantsan into his report about of the mission, which was otherwise a mundane collection of economic statistics, census reports, and brief essays on the then-current political situation. As in the Diluv’s Khutagt’s “Autobiography, ”Dambijantsan was the only individual to merit his own chapter. “The story of his man is obscure in many details so that to construct his complete biography is hardly possible at the moment, but I have managed to learn the following facts about him,” Maisky begins, then recounting what was known or rumored about Dambijantsan’s past. At the time, however, Dambijantsan was holed up in his Fortress at Gongpochuan, in Gansu Province, China, and Maisky unable to get any information about his current activities. Maiskii suspected, however, that the lack of news was just the lull before the storm.

But there is hardly a doubt that this is only a temporary stage in the stormy career of the ambitious monk. No one in Mongolia believes that his inactivity will last long. But he is keeping out of sight, like a cat, waiting for the right moment to make his leap. Who knows, we may very well hear about this man again. Who knows what role he is destined yet to play in Mongolian history.

If the Diluv Khutagt, who actually knew Dambijantsan, and Maisky, researching while he was still alive, were unable to lift the veil of mystery surrounding him, then those who came later, after his death, and tried to make an account of Dambijantsan’s life had a much harder task. George Roerich, son of famous artist, mystic, and Shambhalist Nicholas Roerich, attempted to gather information about Dambijantsan during his Travels Through Mongolia and China in 1927, and in his book Trails to Inmost Asia, he, like the Diluv Khutagt and Maisky, included an entire chapter about him entitled “Ja Lama, The Militant Priest.” Here he noted :

. . . no one knows exactly where he came from or what his ambitions were. It is extremely difficult to piece together all the existing information about his life, so varied were his activities and so extensive were his travels. The arena of his activity was the whole of Asia, from Astrakhan to Peking and from Urga to distant India. I succeeded in collecting information about him and his life from Mongolian and Tibetan lamas and laymen whom fate brought into contact with the dreaded warrior-priest. This singular personality for some thirty-five years hypnotized the whole of Greater Mongolia. At present, some six years after the death of the man, Mongols feel an unholy dread of him, and worship him as a militant incarnation of one of their national leaders.

George Roerich’s arguably more famous father Nicholas noted in his own book about the expedition: “Ja-Lama was no ordinary bandit . . . What thoughts and dreams fretted the gray head of Ja-Lama? . . . All through the Central Gobi, the legend of Ja-Lama will persist for a long time. What a scenario for a moving picture!” Indeed, a movie was eventually made about Dambijantsan, and it is still occasionally shown on the Mongolian State TV.

The author and scholar Owen Lattimore, who had befriended the Diluv Khutagt and assisting him with his memoirs, also tried to gather information on Dambijantsan’s life. In 1926 he journeyed on the so-called Winding Road caravan route which went past Dambijantsan’s fortress at Gongpochuan in Gansu Province, China, where he was finally assassinated. In The Desert Road to Turkestan, his book about the trip, he too included an entire chapter about Dambijantsan. As in the books of Diluv Khutagt, Maisky, and George Roerich, Dambijantsan was the only individual to merit such attention. Lattimore noted:

Already the legend of the False Lama has been elaborated beside the tent fires into many versions, but from the choice of details it is possible to throw together a picture with life in it, of an adventurer who, during those years when Mongolia echoed again with the drums and tramplings of its mediaeval turbulence, proved himself a valiant heir in his day to all the Asiatic soldiers of fortume form Jenghis Khan to Yakub Beg of Kashgar.

In 1955 Lattimore, by then a renowned Mongolist, included a five-page summary of Dambijantsan’s life in his Nationalism and Revolution. He announced here that he intended to write a biography of Dambijantsan, but for reasons unclear this project never materialized.

Still others wrote about Dambijantsan. The Danish explorer and colonist Henning Haslund visited Dambijantsan’s fortress in Gansu in the late 1920s and included a chapter entitled “A Robber’s Stronghold” about it in his book Men & Gods in Mongolia (the title may well have been an attempt to cash in on the initial success of Ossendowski’s Beasts, Men and Gods). He attempts to recap Dambijantsan‘s life but relies mainly on the already published accounts of Maisky and the innumerable campfire tales then making the rounds. He had little new to add to the by-then snowballing legend. The Swedish explorer Sven “The Desert Wanderer” Hedin visiting Dambijantsan’s fortress in Gansu in 1934 and included a chapter about it entitled “Dambin Lama’s Robber Castle” in his book The Silk Road. He too mainly repeated what others had already wrote. For the 1971 English translation of A. M. Pozdneev’s Mongolia and the Mongols Professor Fred Adelman devoted six pages of the thirteen page preface to Dambijantsan, even though he is only mentioned once, as noted above, in the 749 pages of the two-volume set.

Thus there was no shortage of written material about Dambijantsan. It seems almost everyone who wrote about Mongolia from the 1890s to the 1930s had something to say about him. But much of what they had so say were admissions that they actually knew very little about his life. And in any case, some in modern-day Mongolia might dismiss his story as ancient history. Did anyone in current day Mongolia still remember his name, let alone know any details of his life?

On my first trip to Mongolia in 1996 I quickly discovered that Dambijantsan had by no means been forgotten. On a horse trip in the Khentii Mountains, in Khentii Aimag in northcentral Mongolia, an area not normally associated with Dambijantsan, I mentioned his name in passing to the herdsman from whom I had hired my horses and who was acting as my guide. It turned out that he had been born in Bayankhongor Aimag, in southwest Mongolia, and had lived for awhile in the small town of Shinejinst, where he claimed that several descendants of Dambijantsan’s followers lived to this day. He also mentioned places in Bayankhongor Aimag frequented by Dambijantsan, including Ekhiin Gol Oasis and Shar Khuls Oasis, and regaled me for several hours with tales about Dambijantsan’s exploits and alleged magical feats.

Two years later I traveled by jeep by Gov-Altai Aimag, just west of Bayankhongor Aimag. Passing through the town of Tsogt, on a high plateau between the folds of the Gov-Altai Mountains, my jeep driver said, “This town is famous for its beautiful woman.” I paid no particular attention to this, since every other town in Mongolia is famous for its beautiful women, but then he added, “Dambijantsan found two of his wives here.” At that time I was unaware of Dambijantsan’s connection with Gov-Altai Aimag and I had made no mention of him to the driver. “You know about Dambijantsan?” I asked. It turns out the driver knew a lot and from him I learned for the first time about Dambijantsan’s activities around the town of Bayan Tooroi and elsewhere in southern in Gov-Altai Aimag. On that trip, incidentally, I also visited the ruins of Narobanchin Khiid, the former home of the Diluv Khutagt.

I soon discovered that there was hardly anyone in Mongolia over the age of sixteen who had at least not heard of Dambijantsan. In large part this was due to the movie about him that had been made back in the 1980s. Yet many older people, especially in the southwestern aimags, knew stories and legends about Dambijantsan which had been passed down over the decades and many had very pronounced opinions about him. Some maintained he was a lama, a holy man who had tried to do good, but with not always the best results. while others asserted that he was a just a very shrewd and exceptionally cruel bandit. Still other maintained that he was downright evil. One thing was sure; although Dambijantsan had been dead almost eighty years he had certainly not been forgotten. Indeed, there were those who claimed that although his body may have died at Gongpochuan in 1922 his spirit still rode on the winds of the Gobi and continued to haunt his former hangouts. I myself would experience the uncanny fear and dread which seems to come over those who now visit his Secret Lairs.

Note: This is an amended and updated version of an earlier post.

China | Gansu | Dunhuang | Mogao Caves

Wandered out to Dunhuang, in western Gansu Province, for a peek at the Mogao Caves.

An enormous Maitreya Statute takes up the entire inside of this temple. The no-cameras-in-the-caves policy is very strictly enforced here hence no photos.

There are seven or eight hundred caves here—some sources say more than a thousand—but unfortunately only about a dozen are routinely open to the public, and these can only be seen by joining a guided tour—you are not allowed to wander around by yourself. More Information.

These caves downstream from the main complex are not open to the publicUndeveloped cave complex

China | Gansu Province | Mazong Mountains | Abominable Snowmen

As I mentioned in an earlier post about Jiayuguan I made an Attempt to Visit the Mazong Mountains in northwest Gansu Province. The word mazong, I pointed out, is now translated in most tourism-related ephemera as “horse’s mane,” perhaps a reference to the black appearance of the mountains when seen from distance. Owen Lattimore, who traveled along the northern flank of the mountains with a camel caravan in 1926, maintained however that mazong meant “horse’s hoof-print.”

Having grown up in China Lattimore spoke Chinese like a native, but in 1926 he did not know any Mongolian. In a later 1975 edition of The Desert Road to Turkestan, by which time he had became quite fluent in Mongolian, he elaborated on a new theory about the meaning of the word mazong. Lattimore:

Ma-tsung Shan (mazong in Pinyin) . . . is explained on p. 245 as the “horse hoof-print hills.” This was how the name was explained to me by the caravan men. It was only many years later that I divined the true derivation and meaning of this name. It is from the Mongol Metsin Uul, “Ape Mountains” . . . In other words, what we have here is an extension . . . of the folklore world of the Abominable Snowman of Asia.

The more familiar Mongolian word for Abominable Snowman-like creatures is almas. There is, however, the word мич(mich), which means ape. Used to describe a mountain this word would be spelled мичин (michin), thus Мичин Уул, or Ape Mountains. It is possible then that the Mongolian michin became corrupted in Chinese as Ma-tsung and now in Pinyin style as Mazong? Lattimore would seem to to think so.

However, as far back as the Ming Dynasty, founded in 1368, these mountains were called the Ma Tsung (Mazong) Shan, as pointed out in the Ming Shi, or “History of the Ming Dynasty.” E. Bretschneider, who in his Mediaeval Researches From Eastern Asiatic Sources (London, 1887) translates sections of the Ming Shi, also maintains, like most current commentators, that Ma-tsung means “horse’s mane.” It is possible that the Chinese word was corrupted from the Mongolian as far back as the fourteenth century?

In any case, there were indeed many legends of wild hairy apeman living in these mountains. Are the mountains known as the Mazong Shan actually the Ape Mountains, and thus perhaps one of the abodes of the legendary almas, the Mongolian version of the Abominable Snowman? If so, it would only add to the mystery of these mountains, now inaccessible to foreigners.

For an vastly entertaining tale of the Abominable Snowman of Tibet who steals the Crown of Genghis Khan from Scrooge “The World’s Richest Duck” McDuck only to have it retrieved by Scrooge with the assistance of Donald Duck and his three nephews see “The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan“ in the Greatest DuckTales, Volume 1.

I first read this Scrooge McDuck tale when I was seven years old, at which point I vowed I would someday visit both Tibet, putative home of the Abominable Snowman, and Mongolia, the home of Genghis (Chingis) Khan. At that time Tibet and Mongolia were among the most difficult places in the world for an American to visit, but even then I was confident that in the end I would persevere. I am now happy to say I have been able to fulfill both of these vows.

China | Gansu Province | Jiayuguan | Lanzhou

Unable to arrange a trip to the Mazong Mountains I booked a berth on the 8:40 pm sleeper train back to Lanzhou. That gave me a free afternoon so I decided to head back to the fort for a more leisurely look around. Arriving at the fort I immediately encountered Ms. Chan in the parking lot. She came bounding over, seemingly overjoyed to see me. Via sign language I indicated that I was going into the fort and would not need a car. She just nodded and smiled.

Ms. Chan

On my earlier trip there had been several hundred visitors to the fort but this was a weekday and the place was nearly deserted. I spend three hours slowly circumnavigating the top of the fortress wall, pausing here and there to daydream about the events which must have taken place here over the last seven centuries.

Inside of fort on a quiet day

When I emerged from the fort in the late afternoon there was Ms. Chan right by the entrance gate. I was going to go back to the hotel, but since she was apparently waiting for me I mentioned in Chinese the name of the so-called Beacon Tower overlooking the Taolai River a couple of miles away. This is one of the standard sights in the area but one I was going to forgo; since Ms. Chan seemed eager however I decided to go have a look. On the way Ms. Chan stopped at a store roadside store and came out with a liter bottle of mineral water for me. When I tried to pay for it she just waved me off.

From the fort the unrestored, pounded earth wall runs due south to the Taolai River

There are several beacon towers in this section, including one right on the cliff overlooking the river.

Taolai River

The day up till now had been warm with a solid dome of cobalt-blue sky overhead. No sooner did we arrive at the river than it very suddenly clouded over and a ferocious wind starting howling out of the north. Then it started snowing, huge snowflakes the size of half dollars driven almost horizontally by the wind. Soon visibility was down to about thirty feet. Ms. Chan laughed uproariously, as if this blizzard in the middle of what had been a warm spring day was the funniest thing she had ever seen in her life. As soon as the snow slowed down a bit we headed back to my hotel. I grabbed my bag and then had Ms. Chan take me to the train station. Despite my protestations she insisted on carrying my bag into the train station and then waited with me until I boarded the train. When the train pulled away she was still on the platform waving. It was a bit of a mystery to me why she was being so solicitous. I am almost tempted to think that she was an emanation of White Tara, the Protectress of Travelers. I even felt a a pang of guilt about not giving her a tip, but I reasoned that Tara would not expect one.

China | Gansu Province | Jiayuguan | Ming Fort

Jiayuguan Fort is located on a terrace between the Wenshu Mountains on the south and the Heishan (Mountains) on the north, 4.2 miles from the Overhanging Wall.

Wall from the Overhanging Wall to the Fort

The fort was built in 1362 under the command of Ming General Feng Sheng. The craftsman in charge of construction, Yi Kaizhan, ordered all the material needed in advance, and according to legend his planning was so meticulous that when the fort was completed there was only one brick left over. During Ming times the fort marked the westernmost point of Celestial Kingdom, and because many of the various branches of the Silk Road funneled through here the location became known as the “Greatest Pass Under Heaven.”

Jiayuguan FortThe walls of the fort are thirty-five feet high and 3406 feet around the perimeter.
View from instead the Fort

On the eastern side of the fort is the three-storied Guang-hua Men Gate (Gate of Enlightenment). On the western side is the 56-foot-high Rouyuan Men (Gate of Reconciliation), added to the fort in 1506 by General Duanroheng. Those who passed through this gate were leaving China and entering the desolate land of the barbarians. Traders and adventurers who went voluntarily hoped to gain fortune or fame, but for those who went involuntarily passing through the Rouyuan Gate was their worst nightmare.

The Rouyuan Gate

Disgraced officials sent into exile, condemned criminals, fugitives, desperados, and homeless drifters all crossed here into the empty desert beyond. It was the custom for those leaving to write on the walls of the Gate poems expressing their feelings as they left the familiar world of China for the Unknown. Many were the heart-rending tales told here. Also, after passing through the Rouyuan Gate it as a custom for travelers to throw a stone at the western wall of the fort. According to legend, if the stone bounced off the wall the traveler would someday return to China. If the stone hitting the wall also made an echo one’s affair would prosper. If the stone simply fell noiselessly to the ground after hitting the wall one was destined to die in the wilderness beyond.

From the top of the Rouyuan Gate, beyond the much lower Wenshu Mountains in the foreground, can be seen the glacier-capped 18,000 foot-plus Qilian Mountains. To the north, beyond the Heishan, are the black ridges of the Mazong (Horse’s Mane) Mountains, with peaks up to 7500 feet-high.

Another view of the Great Wall from the Fort to the Wenshu Mountain in the near distance.

China | Gansu Province | Jiayuguan | Great Wall

From Beijing I took one of the morning planes to Lanzhou, on the Yellow River in eastern Gansu, 704 miles to the west, and then caught the afternoon puddle-jumper on to Jiayuguan, 369 miles still farther west.

Lanzhou, on the Yellow River

In Jiayuguan I wanted to check out the possibility of making a trip to the Mazong (Horse’s Mane) Mountains to the north and Gobi Desert beyond.

The bus from the airport was not running—there were only about thirty people on the small plane and most of them seemed to be locals who were met at the airport by acquaintances. I had to take a cab for the six-mile trip into town. The cab driver was a woman in her mid-twenties. She delivered me to the Jiayuguan Hotel on the main city square and insisted on carrying my bag inside. I had read that the Jiayuguan Hotel was a dump and was going to stay there only because it was conveniently located. The accounts must have been written before a recent upgrade. The place now is quite up-scale and all the receptionists and even some of the waitresses in the restaurant speak English. The listed price reflected the upgrade—400 yuan for a standard room; more than the venerable Yong An, where I stay in Beijing—but this price was quickly lowered to 200 yuan when I showed signs of heading for the door. Mid-April is the off-season in Jiayuguan. All the while the cab driver was hovering by my elbow. Speaking through one of the receptionists she then offered to take me the next morning to the two most famous local sights—the westernmost extension of the Great Wall of China and the Jiayuguan Fort, on the western edge of town. A price was arrived at and we agreed to meet at nine the next morning.

There was some kind of settlement here in this wide corridor between the Qilian Mountains to the north and the Mazong Mountains to the north since at least Han times some two thousand years ago. More than a thousand tombs dating from the Wei (220-265) and Western Jin ((265-316) dynasties are scattered around the surrounding desert. During the Ming Dynasty the fort here marked the western limits of the Chinese Empire. The Great Wall, starting far to the east at Shanhaiguan on the Bohai Gulf, ended here, and in 1372 a fort was built to guard the border. The nearby town become knowns as “Jiayuguan,” which means “Barrier of the Pleasant Valley.” The city now has a population of some 115,000. Cement and fertilizer factories dominate the town, and iron ore and coking coal are mined in the nearby mountains. Although nowhere near as famous a tourist attraction as Dunhuang, some five hours by bus to the south, a fair amount of tourists stop by to see the Great Wall, the fort, and a smattering of other local sights. All serous Silk Roadies make an obligatory stop here because of its importance as a way-station on the Silk Road.

The day I arrived it had been very overcast and I was not able to be see much of the surrounding area either on the plane’s approach or on the drive into town. The next morning I was a bit startled when I drew back the curtains and beheld the glacier-capped 18,000 foot-plus Qilian Mountains dominating the entire southern horizon.

Qilian Mountains from Downtown Jaiyuguan

The town itself is at an elevation of 5385 feet. In the foreground to the south were in the much lower buckskin colored Wenshu Mountains. It was these mountains to the south and the Heishan to the immediate north and the Mazong beyond that funneled many of the various caravan routes of the Silk Road through this area. That is why during the Ming Dynasty this place was called “The Greatest Pass Under Heaven.”

The driver was right on time the next morning. Her name is Chan. She is in her late twenties I would say, very thin, with a finely chiseled face. I quickly discovered she did not speak a single word of English. For someone who works with the public she seemed intensely shy—or maybe she was just shy around foreigners. She would glance at me out of the corner of her eyes for a microsecond and than intently stare straight ahead, as if she had seen something she really shouldn't have. Our first stop is the so-called Overhanging Wall section of the Great Wall, 6.2 miles from the hotel on the city square. From the fort, 4.2 miles away, the Wall runs across flat desert and ends at the top of a high hill.

The Overhanging Wall

Beyond here the rugged ridges of the Heishan form a natural barrier. A wall was built here probably as early as the Han Dynasty some 2000 years ago but the current version dates from the Ming Dynasty.

The Overhanging Wall

After the fall of Mongolian Yuan Dynasty in 1368 a Ming army led by General Feng Sheng drove the last of the Mongol armies from the region. The existing wall was upgraded and new sections built in an attempt to prevent any further Mongol incursions. The pounded earth wall from the fort to the Overhanging Wall appears to be more-or-less the original version, but the brick section climbing up the spine of the mountain appears to have undergone extensive restoration.

The Overhanging Wall

Nearby is a newly installed suite of granite statues depicting various travelers, pilgrims, and generals who have filed through Jiayuguan over the ages.
Among the more notable is Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, who some sources claim made the first recorded trip through Jiayuguan in the fifth century BC. Lao Tzu was of course the author of record of the Dao De Qing, the seminal text of Taoism. Discouraged that so few people were willing to follow his teachings of The Way he mounted his black buffalo and rode westward. Here at Jiayuguan he left China proper and disappeared into the wilderness beyond and hence into legend. That he was supposedly between 160 and 200 years old when he made the trip brings the historicity of this whole account into question.

Lao Tzu

There is no doubt about the historicity of Xuanzang, the peripatetic pilgrim who passed this way around 630 on his way from Xian in Shaanxi Province to India. I have visited numerous places in Xuanzang’s itinerary, including Lanzhou in eastern Gansu Province; Turpan and Khotan in Xinjiang, Bodhgaya, site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment, nearby Vulture's Peak, where the Buddha taught, and the great Buddhist university of Nalanda, all in India; the Big Goose Pagoda in Xian where the Buddhist texts he brought back from India were stored, and his tomb at Xingjiao Temple near Xian.

Peripatetic Pilgrim Xuanzang with his panier of sutras brought back from India

Near the statue complex is Jiayuguan’s only Buddhist temple, which has recently been restored.

Temple

Nearby is another section of wall which is being restored and is not open to the public. When I expressed a desire to see it Ms. Chan took a dirt road to the base of the mountain and then led me up an extremely steep narrow foot path which ended at an opening in the wall where the workmen gained access. I had to admire her pluckiness. She was wearing street shoes and had to climb several of the steep sections of the trail on her hands and knees.

View of the Overhanging Wall, with Buddhist Temple at bottom left

We climbed onto the top of the wall, where several workmen were repairing the brick steps, and proceeded upwards. Ms. Chan really seemed to be enjoying herself. She whooped and hollered as we climbed higher and new vistas were presented to us.

The charming Ms. Chan taking a breather

I got the impression that she had been on the lower part of the wall where the workman were but had never before climbed to the top.

Climbing to the to Beacon Tower

From the tower we were presented with a sweeping view of the mountains to the north and south and the corridor between them which made this place so strategically important.

The Greatest Pass Under Heaven