Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 287 (Color Image)

0287	Among the Celestials : vol.1

CHAP. ix.] ASKOLI.

241

A bed was brought me to lie on, and then, with

a stewed fowl and some rice to eat, fresh life

and energy came into me, and I could realise

the satisfaction of having reached the first

inhabited spot in Indian territory.

But that was a dirty little village ! The

trees and the fields looked fresh and green, and

were a delight to us after the cold and barren

mountains, but the houses and the inhabitants

were repulsively dirty ; and the latter by no

means well-disposed. Mountain people are

always nervous about strangers, and these had

thought the way into their country from the

north was entirely closed, and did not at all

welcome this living proof that it was not.

Wali, the guide, was himself a native of the

village, which he had left some thirty years

before. Another of my men also belonged to

it. But they said they feared the people would

do them some injury for having shown me the

way, and they kept by me constantly, and left

the village with me, subsequently returning to

Yarkand by Leh and the Karakoram Pass,

instead of directly by the Mustagh Pass, as

hey might have done.

Immediately we had had something to eat,

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