Russians than I had, and been marched off back with them to Turkestan from the Alichur Pamir. As far as he personally was concerned, he seems to have enjoyed the trip ; he found the Russian officers very cheery companions ; he was asked to dinner by the Russian governor of Margillan, and altogether he had a much better time with them than he would have had with his regiment in the plains of India during the hot weather. He was able to do some useful work, too, for the Russians took him by a road which no British officer had traversed before. Having thoroughly satisfied themselves, the Russians escorted Davison to the Chinese frontier, and then let him go. But here a difficulty arose. Davison had with him no passport, and as he came from Russian territory, the Chinese frontier official naturally took him for a Russian and wished to stop him. But the want of such a trifle as a passport was not likely to stop Davison very long, and he and his man jumped up on their ponies while the Chinese official was vociferating, and they galloped off towards Kashgar, scarcely stopping till they reached the place, where Davison saw the Chinese officials who had known him before, and explained matters to them. He then came on to rejoin me on the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir. Away in the distance down the valley I saw a horseman approaching dressed in the peaked cap and high boots of the Russians, and I thought that another Russian was going to honour me with a visit. This proved, however, to be Davison. As was the custom with him, he had travelled with wonderful rapidity, and had only taken ten days to reach Kukturuk from Kashgar.
We now had to find our way back to India as originally intended. Colonel Yonoff had barred all the known passes to me, so our only resource was to discover an unknown pass —always an easy matter in those parts—for the mountains there are rarely too difficult for small parties to get over. On October 5 we set off, therefore, and instead of following up the
IIIF Color HighRes
