All the arrangements worked smoothly throughout. Our march on August 21 led us first through continuous forest to the junction of the Satil-gah stream with a somewhat smaller tributary descending the valley of Pai from the north-east. This we followed upwards through splendid forest, here wholly untouched by the axe, to an elevation well over io,000 feet. Then a long climb northward over steep slopes of rock and debris brought us to the top of the Sheobat pass (Fig. 3 i), a little over i 5,000 feet in height and on the watershed range between the Indus and Gilgit rivers. It was with regret that I here quitted Pakhtûn Wall's fascinating dominion, from which we had just ` lifted the Purdah '. I was sorry, too, to bid farewell to our hardy escort of outlaws (Fig. 1o) When.
we met the considerable detachment of levies from G ûpis which had waited on the other side of the pass to take charge of us. The rewards I was able to 'give to Pakhtûn Wall's men had been well earned and, I hope, helped to efface any unpleasant impression caused by the ill-disguised signs of distrust with which they were viewed, no doubt for good reasons, by the guardians of peace and order on the Gilgit side.
IIIF Color HighRes
