THE BOTANIC BEAR GRYLLS
In his own incredible words for the f irst time, how an intrepid Scots explorer and naturalist def ied death to make your garden grow
AS the days turned into weeks, hope began to fade. Sadly, it seemed, the young George Forrest had bitten off more than he could chew. In search of rare and exotic plants, he had left the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh to embark upon a long and perilous expedition into the mountains of south-west China.
Amid reports he had been murdered by bloody-thirsty Tibetan monks slaughtering Christians in the area, his bosses feared the worst.
Indeed, many of his friends had already mourned his loss when, out of the blue, a letter arrived – he was very much alive and happy to regale them with the extraordinary tale of how he eventually escaped disguised as a Chinese peasant.
From enduring a hail of arrows that pierced his hat to being hunted day and night over mountain terrain, to the awful news that the elderly priests who sheltered him were beheaded, every detail was spelled out over ten pages.
Now, 114 years later, the remarkable letter is going on show, telling in his own words the extraordinary story of Mr Forrest’s escape.
The intriguing letter, including a map of his route, was archived for more than a century. But tomorrow it will go on display for the first time, an addition to his legacy of bringing thousands of new plant species to the UK, many of which are still being cultivated today.
Archivist Leonie Paterson said: ‘When news reached home that he had been murdered, his death was mourned until a telegram arrived announcing him “alive and safe”.
‘A few months later this letter, addressed to Isaac Bayley Balfour, the Regius Keeper, arrived and Forrest told his tale for the first time.
‘We talk about Forrest’s incredible story, but it is undoubtedly best told in his own words.
‘By going back to this original letter, he comes back to life.’
Forrest, then 32, was on his first expedition to Yunnan province on the Tibetan border when the drama unfolded. One of just a few western explorers to travel there at that time, he was captivated by the region’s astounding flora, and planned to bring specimens back to the UK.
But as he set about collecting plants and seeds in the Mekong river valleys, around 100 Buddhist lamas and their supporters were embarking on a horrific murder spree.
Furious at a Chinese government decision allowing Christian missionaries into the province, they began brutal reprisals.
Roaming the steep terrain they knew so well, they began tracking and murdering Chinese officials and Christian priests and any Chinese or Tibetan converts. Some victims fled into the mountains, but could not escape brutal death by the rebels. Forrest’s letter, written on October 1, 1905, vividly recalls the dangers he and other foreigners faced.
Forrest was based at a French Catholic mission when word of the rebellion first arrived. He and his hosts – two elderly French priests – fled. But his devotion to his plant collection nearly cost him his life.
He wrote: ‘I determined to hang on ‘till the very last in the hope of getting my stuff away, as I knew if I did go then, I would have to go empty-handed.
‘Besides all this, after having been so hospitably treated by Père Dubernard, I could not possibly run away at the first intimation of danger, and leave him and Père Bourdonnec, two old men, to bear the brunt.’
But soon, it emerged a local chief had betrayed them, giving them false hope as the lamas captured the local town and closed in.
Forrest wrote: ‘Père Dubernard said that all that was now left to us was safety in flight, and you can easily imagine it was with a very heavy heart I set about preparations.
‘It simply maddened me to see my plants and seeds lying around, knowing I had to lose them all.’
Everyone in the mission fled, including some Tibetan converts.
BUT, Forrest wrote: ‘Our progress was slow, as the path was difficult and dangerous, being only a track of 1-2ft in breadth, running along the right bank of the Mekong at various heights above the river, where, at many points, the slightest slip meant serious injury or death.’
Making their retreat by night, they found refuge in the hut of a Christian, who gave them rest and tea.
Forrest wrote: ‘This was agreed on entirely against my advice... I was all for going ahead so long as the darkness lasted… Very reluctantly I agreed... and you will see before you finish reading this, that, had my advice been taken, many valuable lives might have been saved.’
On seeing smoke rising from their burning mission, Forrest made a last attempt to hurry his friends, the priests, ‘but without avail’.
‘Both seemed to have entirely given up hope. When I saw my efforts were useless I pushed on with one of my servants, Anton, and commenced the descent into the next valley. From that moment it was every man for himself.
‘The last I saw of Père Dubernard he was flying up stream towards the main range, Père Bourdonnec fled straight up hill south of the stream.’
He chose to go downstream instead, and from that point forward was
alone. He wrote: ‘That frightful race I shall never forget, and how I escaped death I cannot say.
‘The path was mostly formed of brackets in the faces of cliffs, scores of feet above the stream which thundered beneath.
‘At those parts it consisted merely of two eight-inch logs, slippery and rotten from the continual moisture and spray. Yet over these I went racing as if I had been on an ordinary good road.
‘Towards the end of the valley, which was shut in by precipitous cliffs at its junction with the Mekong, the path took a sharp bend.
‘As I turned round this, I came face to face with seven lamas and Tibetan soldiers, all armed to the teeth.’ Afraid to fire his rifle in case of alerting others, Forrest ran, jumping into bushes and scrambling down the mountainside.
‘I heard them rush past on the path above, but they could not find my tracks,’ he wrote.
‘I lay in hiding until evening, and then when the Moon had risen, gained the path again, and commenced the ascent of the ridge which formed the southern boundary of the gully.’
After a punishing five-hour climb to the summit, Forrest was distraught to see a line of sentries arranged along the crest, blocking his path south. With campfires extended ‘as far as I could see’, he was forced to retrace his steps. Spending the following day hiding in a hollow under a rock, he later realised his pursuers had been following him by his footprints.
He tore off his boots, buried them, then waded a mile upstream to throw the mob off his trail.
Reflecting, he wrote: ‘To this, I think, I owe my escape, as I am sure, had I gone on as I did the first night, they would almost certainly have run me to earth.’
Continuing barefoot, Forrest survived for eight days eating only a few ears of wheat. He spent his days in hiding and nights trying to break through the lamas’ cordon, in almost constant rain.
He said: ‘Once, while lying asleep behind a log in the bed of a stream, I was awakened by a sound of laughing and talking, and on looking up I discovered 30 of them in the act of crossing the stream about 50 yards above my hiding place. It was a very near squeak.’ All of this was, of course, taking its toll on his health. He wrote: ‘I must have presented a most hideous spectacle, clothes hanging in rags, and covered in mud, face and hands scarred and scratched with fighting my way through scrub in the dark, feet ditto, and swollen almost beyond the semblance of feet, shaggy black beard and moustache, and, I have no doubt, a most terrified, hungry and hunted expression.’
Knowing he now faced certain death by starvation, he approached a village, and collapsed.
Fortunately, he was welcomed and hidden by the chief. But after days of starvation, gorging on a meal of the local ‘tsampa cakes’, plain dough boiled in water, caused him terrible stomach problems he described as ‘the tortures of hell’.
After four days, the villagers aided him to resume his journey south – only to discover the lamas were camped in his intended destination. Still barefoot, he and his guides cut their way through thick bushes towards the summit of the Mekong-Salwen mountain range.
Hiking to heights of more than 17,000ft, the icy and rocky terrain ‘literally cut my feet to pieces and shreds’. With no cover and drinking only rainwater, conditions could not have been more brutal.
Yet even then, Forrest could not forget his mission. He even managed to collect a few tiny plant specimens, which he stuffed into his pocket book.
He spoke of one day returning to the area: ‘The flowers I saw were really magnificent, in fact, so fine were they, that I have decided to risk going back next year.’
Forrest next found refuge in another village, before being spirited to safety, disguised as a local.
But he was devastated to be told that the priests were both dead.
He wrote: ‘It appears that Père Bourdonnec was cornered some time during the second day, shot down, and whilst still alive, cut open and his heart torn out.’
Père Dubernard eluded his pursuers until the fourth or fifth day.
‘The lamas broke both his arms, above and below the elbows, tied his hands behind his back. He became so exhausted, that he begged them to kill him at once, on which one of them struck him with a sword.
‘His heart extracted before death. Both bodies were beheaded. Had I been captured I should have been similarly treated.’
GIVEN food and wearing Chinese clothing, he was eventually able to reach the river Mekong and cross to safety via a rope bridge. He met one of the fathers who had been away from the mission at the time of the attack.
But the priest thought Forrest had been killed and, due to his Chinese clothing and dishevelled appearance, did not recognise him.
Forrest wrote: ‘Once they discovered who I was, there was rejoicing. By Pere Monbeig I was received as one returned from the dead.’
Remarkably, Forrest was not deterred from his life’s work. He went on to change Britain’s gardens forever by bringing back new and exotic botanical species, until his sudden death near the city of Tengchong, in Yunnan province, in 1932.
Leonie Paterson said: ‘Forrest stayed on and became one of Scotland’s most prolific plant collectors. It’s a story that really should be made into a film.
‘It has all the drama of Indiana Jones – but George Forrest was a real-life hero.’
The letter will be displayed in a case in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh library foyer from tomorrow until October 1, including next Saturday, when the Garden is participating in Doors Open Day.