officer is able to exercise a useful influence for good throughout the country, not by any direct interference, but by simple daily intercourse with the chief and his people. And no more enjoyable appointment than that at Hunza could be imagined. I remember on a stifling day in August, 1892, at that season of the year when the sun beats down upon its bare rocks more like the interior of an oven than what one would expect of a mountain valley five thousand feet above the sea, riding up from the Gilgit valley, out of all this heat into the freshness of the Hunza valley, and, as I came round a spur of the hills, suddenly encountering Rakapushi Peak rising sheer nineteen thousand feet from the place where I stood. I had seen this mountain before in my journey down the valley in 1889, and had borne away no humble impression of it. I have often seen it since, but it is a remarkable fact about this and other great mountains, that each new sight of them seems to impress itself more deeply than the one before. I came now with a vivid recollection of the splendour of Rakapushi, the towering mass of mountain rising directly from the valley bottom, the glittering snowfields, and the proud cold summit soaring right into heaven. But as I once again turned the corner of the spur, and this wonderful sight suddenly came full upon me, I involuntarily pulled up. It far exceeded all that I had remembered.
We followed the valley sometimes along the, bare hillside, but more often through pretty village lands, first by the fort of Nilt, the position so gallantly captured by Colonel Durand's troops, when the gateway was blown up by Aylmer ; by the rocky mountain-side—up which Manners-Smith and Taylor clambered with their handful of men, and so outflanked the enemy's breastwork, built all along the edge of precipitous cliffs --till Nilt is left behind and other forts reached, near the gates of which are sitting groups of the very men who fought us only a few months before ; past these and the shady apricot orchards
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