The Snow Leopard

by Peter Matthiessen

A golden eagle, with shrill peeping, glides down along the snows almost at eye level; the deep voice that would better suit this noble bird would not carry very far in so much emptiness. Soon afterward, wild pigeons pass on snapping blue-grey wings—the Turkestan hill pigeon that replaces the snow pigeon here on the Tibetan Plateau. In the frozen air, pigeons and eagle are superb, but they do not console me for the loss of my sheep, which I track over the ridge to the northern buttes; there the fresh prints in the snow lead down an incline so steep and icy that neither man nor wolf would care to follow. But the sheep have led me to the only point in all this landscape from which one might see those two pale buildings, far away on a plateau to the north and east. This view is my first and last in my present incarnation of the old B’on monastery called Samling, for the deep gorge of Black Canyon is impassable, and the way over the mountains blocked by snow. Jang-bu returns this afternoon with great good news. It is true that the track from Saldang across to Tarap remains open almost all winter; one has only to cross the Shey Pass to Saldang. And a yak trail from Saldang to Murwa, that pretty village below Ring-mo, under the great falls, stays open longer than the Kang.