gives his son than what an official gives his subordinate. Then I once more rejoined my escort, and Shahzad Mir, a sowar of the II th Bengal Lancers, who was to accompany me as orderly and surveyor, when surveying was to be done, having also now caught us up, our party was complete. And no one could have wished for a better little party—the six sturdy little Gurkhas, grim and stern when any business had to be done, but round the camp fire and off duty cheery and jolly, for ever chaffing one another and roaring with laughter ; and Shahzad Mir, a different man altogether, but equally good, not jovial like a Gurkha, but a Pathan, grave and serious, and with his mind thoroughly set on the business in hand and determined to do it well. I used to talk to the men on the march, and tell them that I had been through the mountains before and knew that there was a rough time before us. The jolly Gurkhas laughed and said, " All right, sahib, we don't mind." If they were to have a rough time, they would get through it somehow or other when the time came ; in the meanwhile they meant to enjoy themselves thoroughly. The Pathan knit his brows and prepared himself there and then for the struggle if there was to be one, and told me that he only wanted a chance of making a name for himself, and if he could do well on this occasion perhaps I should be able to get him promotion. My story will show how faithfully these men served me, and I was delighted with my first real experience of the native troops of India.
Crossing the Zoji-la, the last of the passes on my way from Peking, we left behind us all the wooded beauties of Kashmir, its shady pine forest and bright flowery meadows, and entered that desolate region of barren mountains and unshaded valleys, where the sun beat down upon the unprotected rocks and produced a degree of heat which would never have been expected at altitudes of nine thousand feet and over, and which made still more .trying the cold blasts which, when
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