286 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP. XII.
who occasionally came to Hunza, as envoys from England, Russia, and China, clamouring for his friendship. He and Alexander the Great were on a par. When I asked him if he had ever been to India, he said that "great kings " like himself and Alexander never left their own country !
The difficulty was, therefore, to know how to deal with such a man as this. I told him, however, that I could not think of recommending that he should be subsidized to stop raids ; that I had left some soldiers armed with rifles on the trade route, and I would recommend him to try another raid and see how much revenue he obtained from it. The discussion, in fact, became somewhat heated at one time ; but the effect was none
CI the worse for that, for these untutored people like to speak out
their minds freely, and it is a good plan to allow them to do so. Safder Ali told me afterwards that he was astonished at my having refused the request he had made ; for he said that all the men he had to deal with would, at any rate at the time, promise to do a thing asked of them, but they never said straight out to his face that they would not do what was asked of them.
Thinking it necessary to impress him in any small way I could with our strength, I now suggested to him that he should see the Gurkhas perform some drill exercise and fire at a mark. I accordingly had the men drawn up in line facing towards the inside of the tent where Safder Ali and I were seated. They then went through the movements of the firing exercise. One of these exercises consisted in bringing the rifles up to the present, and as the Gurkhas were facing the interior of the tent, the muzzles of the rifles were directed straight on Safder Ali and myself. This was too much for the successor of Alexander ; he said he would see no more drill exercises, and he could only be induced to permit firing at the mark to proceed when he surrounded himself with one ring of men and placed another cordon round the Gurkhas who were firing. A guilty conscience was pricking him, for he had murdered his own father and
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