Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 295 (Color Image)

0295	Among the Celestials : vol.1

CHAP. Ix.] A WARM-HEARTED PEOPLE. 249

Another of the Baltis who had done excel-

lent work was the slave whose release I had

purchased at Yarkand. He was a wild-looking

character, but the hardest-working man I have

ever known. Now that he had regained his

freedom, was being liberally paid, and was

on his way home, he did not mind how much

work he did, and all through the march from

Yarkand he behaved splendidly. We passed

by his native village one day as we were

marching through Baltistan, and left him there.

But on the following day he caught us up

again, carrying an immense load of fruit and

provision for a big dinner for the men. He

had brought all this twelve miles, and he came

and kissed my hands and feet, and said he

could not allow us to go away without showing

how grateful he felt. These Baltis are a warm-

hearted people when once their deeper feelings

can be reached, and when their hearts have

not been crushed out of them by that fatal

!oad-carrying, and I parted from my faithful

followers with sincere regret.

A few marches farther on I crossed my last

pass, the Zoji-la, eleven thousand four hundred

feet high. It was perfectly easy, and then on

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