otherwise be likely to give trouble, need fortunately not be considered in Hunza. The people have been described by
those best qualified to judge, as thoroughly tractable and obedient to constituted authority, and notwithstanding their old raiding reputation, this description seems fully justified.
On the second day of my stay at Aliabad I received the visit of the Mir of Hunza, Muhammad Nazim, who had been installed after the occupation in 1891. He is a man of about thirty-five, of open and manly bearing, and evidently deserves the reputation for intelligence and firmness which he enjoys. Our conversation, carried on in Persian, turned naturally more to the old conditions of the country than to the reforms about which the Mir is said to be energetic. Road-making, vaccination, and similar Western improvements seem strange as objects of genuine interest in the representative of a family for which intrigue and murder were down to the present generation the main incidents of life. This transformation in its rapidity and evident thoroughness is a striking proof of the results of the pax britannica.
Through the Wazir I had engaged two Hunza levies who had been on the Pamir before, to accompany my camp to Sarikol as guides. Muhammad Rafi, the commandant of the Mir's bodyguard, was sent to organise and supervise the transport, represented by sixty coolies. Swelled by these numbers my caravan looked alarmingly large as it moved off on the morning of June 20th. The first march was only a short one, to Baltit, the chief place of Hunza, and the Mir's residence. Rising on a cliff from an expanse of terraced fields and orchards, the Castle of Baltit looks imposing enough with its high walls and towers. Below it, closely packed on the hillside, are the rubble-built houses, some two hundred in number, of the Hunza capital. The newly built bungalow which received me lies immediately below the fine polo ground, offering a cheerful sight with its green turf and shady Chinai trees. On the opposite southern side of the valley
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