Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 294 (Color Image)

0294	Among the Celestials : vol.1

248 AMONG THE CELESTIALS. [CHAP. Ix.

them ; if I was going to do that, I might, but

he would not go with me. On the other hand,

if I would trust him, he would take me safely

over. On this understanding I engaged him.

No one could have more loyally carried out his

compact, and but for him we should never have

been able to cross the Mustagh Pass. He

went to work in a steady, self-reliant way

which gave everyone confidence, and all the

men looked up to him and obeyed him im-

plicitly.

The more I see of men like him, the

more convinced I am, that weak in many

respects though such men as these Baltis are,

yet if once they are given responsibility, shown

trust, and left to work out their own salva-

tion, they develop many latent qualities

which probably neither they nor anybody

else believed to be in them. Old . Wali went

back to Yarkand by Leh, and three years

later, when I again visited Yarkand, he came

to see me, looking precisely the same, and

dressed, I believe, in the very same clothes as

when we had parted, and it was a real pleasure

to see again a man who had done me such

loyal service.

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