those at home were needing me only a little less than I did them. But three more months I had still to remain stationary in Kashgar, the long days slowly dragging by with never-varying monotony.
At last, at the beginning of July, a man appeared one evening at our house, laden with a huge bag. This was a post from India. None had arrived for nearly two months, and in this one the permission to return to India, which I had been so longing for, arrived at last. Another pleasure, too, awaited me. An official letter for me bore the letters C.I.E. after my name. I did not at first pay any attention, thinking it was a mistake on the part of the clerk. But in a newspaper I found the announcement that I had been made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire, and this recognition of my services could not possibly have come at a more welcome time.
Permission was given me to return to India by either Leh or Gilgit, whichever I preferred ; but poor Macartney was to stay on in Kashgar, and he is still there. I chose to return by the Pamirs and Gilgit, as I had already twice traversed the desolate route across the Karakoram. So I proceeded to hire ponies for the journey, and to make other necessary arrangements.
In the meanwhile, news arrived from Yarkand that an English traveller had reached Shahidula from Leh, in an almost destitute condition, and had told the Chinese authorities that he wanted to come on to Kashgar to see me. I asked the Chinese to give him any assistance they could. This they did ; and shortly after a roughly pencilled note arrived for me, saying that he was Lieutenant Davison, of the Leinster Regiment ; that he had come from Leh with the intention of crossing the Mustagh Pass, explored by me in 1887, but he had been stopped by the rivers on the way, all his men but one had run away, and he had lost nearly all his ponies, kit, and money. He had, therefore, no means of returning to Leh, and was compelled to
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