of the regular Indian Army I had seen at Abbottabad and these woe-begone troops of the Kashmir army. The one, well looked after, well paid, well equipped, and well fed, were ready to go anywhere, and looked upon a few months' hard work as a welcome change from the monotony of barrack life ; the other, poorly fed, badly equipped, and under-paid, dreaded hard work, because they knew they were not physically fit to undergo it, and because they could feel no assurance that sacrifices on their part would be recognized or rewarded. This was the state of the Kashmir army in 1889. How different it is now that it has been re-organized under the supervision of British officers is shown by their deeds in Hunza and Chitral.
With great difficulty, then, Captain Ramsay and I selected seventeen men who, with a proper equipment of additional warm clothing and with extra rations, we thought might just be able to pull through the work required of them. They seemed to shrink together as they were told they would have to march two hundred and forty miles and cross four high passes to reach Shahidula ; but they really came of a soldier race—the Dogras—and as soon as they saw that they were to be properly cared for, they plucked up courage, and they afterwards did what was required of them well and without ever giving me the slightest trouble.
Besides Kashmir soldiers, I made at Leh an addition to my party of two Baltis, with a portable raft of goatskins for crossing unfordable rivers. These goatskin rafts are much used in Baltistan. From sixteen to twenty or more goatskins are inflated and lashed to a framework of wood, which can then be punted or paddled across the river. In the rafts ordinarily in use the framework is a fixture, but in the one which we were to take, the poles for it were of course taken separately and the skins carried flat.
Captain Ramsay and I, while these preparations were going on, discussed a plan of operations. Musa, the Kirghiz
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