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people of Poo seem to be fond of practical joking and try to get as much fun out of their bridge as possible. They cannot think of anything more exhilarating than a person who wants to cross and cannot. I was told that they have kept old women waiting on the other bank for three days. What a grand idea to keep a European Sahib waiting and not move a finger to aid him ! The banks of the Satluj are a trying place indeed for spending a long afternoon in midsummer. For miles around the bridge neither tree nor shrub is to be seen and nowhere is there a hollow in the rock to afford shelter from the merciless rays of the sun. How glad I was when I found a corner in the rocks to shade my face clown to the nose as I lay stretched out on the ground. We did not at once understand that it was the obstinacy of the Poo people which kept us on the opposite bank, and thus we sent a man with a voice like a foghorn on to the top of a rock in the vicinity, to shout towards Poo, where people were seen working in the fields, and probably chuckling with delight. After this man had roared himself hoarse with shouting, we sent up another to continue the process. Whilst this man was thus engaged for the general benefit, we saw a man of Poo climbing about on the rocks of the Poo bank of the river. We asked him to go up to Poo for bakhshish and fetch the wooden saddle. " That is the last thing I would think of doing," was all he said, and with him our last ray of hope disappeared. Perhaps we should still be sitting on the other side of ` Height itself, ' if Pindi Lal's craving for food had not been so imperative. He had had no food since a very early and hurried morning meal, and realized that he could not survive many more days in that barren spot. He therefore persuaded an athletic youth among our coolies to use one of his leather chaplis (sandals) in place of the wooden saddle, and ride across, making onward progress with his arms. So poor are these people that the youth was ready to undertake the daring experiment for two aunas. It was a sight worthy of any circus to see the boy, suspended on a chapli 100 feet above the roaring torrent, draw himself slowly onward, often pausing to take a rest. At length he reached the opposite bank safely, and an hour later, he came back with the wooden saddle and ropes. The sun was just setting, when I crossed with my legs in the slings below the saddle. I had just reached the middle of the lofty passage, when I felt a knock on my back and was suddenly stopped. The rope behind me which had to be paid out whilst I was proceeding, had got knotted, and impeded further progress. The man who pulled me from the front did not understand the cause of my sudden halt, and believing that my weight had suddenly increased in a miraculous way, took the pulling rope over his shoulder, and marched off with full determination to drag me on by main force. As the knot, however, would not yield, I was pulled from the front as well as the back and all this at an unusual height above a roaring river. I managed, at last, to explain matters to the man who then took the rope off his shoulder, and I had to spend some trying minutes in sublime solitude, before the knot could be loosened, and I could proceed to the Poo bank of the river. I was not in my best humour when I met the Lambardár of Poo. He, however, pretended to have acted according to my instructions in posting a man on the bridge to report our arrival. It was this man's sense of humour which had kept him away. We punished him by making
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