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0054 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 / Page 54 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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6   BETWEEN HYDASPES AND INDUS CH.I

under more pleasant aspects. Peshawar was deliciously cool, and displayed all the spring glory of its gardens with their exuberance of roses and irises. Recent rain had cleared the atmosphere, and the great semicircle of transborder ranges, dominated by the towering mass of Mount Tartara westwards, raised its barren outlines above the vast arena of the smiling Peshawar Valley with a sharpness truly fascinating. The coming visit of the Viceroy was drawing Frontier officers from all parts of the border into Peshawar, and every hour brought cheerful meetings with old friends. There was plenty to do in my office, not this time with papers and files, but with the packing of my too numerous books, which a timely ` burial ' in tin-lined cases was to save from white ants and other risks during my long absence.

On April 12th I first saw the new Lord of the Indies when the ` Administration ' of the Frontier Province gathered at the Peshawar railway station for his official reception. A pleasant meeting at the same time with Sir Louis Dane, K.C.S.I., then Indian Foreign Secretary and since Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, gave me the welcome impression that H.M. the Amir's ready permission for my passage through Upper Wakhan, just conveyed in an imposing Firman of the ` God- created Government,' was regarded with much satisfaction in diplomatic quarters of the Indian Olympus.

Two days later I had the honour of being received by Lord Minto. The kind interest he showed in what I had to tell him of the results of my past Central-Asian efforts, of official obstacles encountered and overcome, and of the difficulties and risks besetting the tasks now before me, soon reassured me that I might reckon upon what support the personal sympathy of the head of the Indian Administration could give. Often during the long lonely travels which followed, when worrying uncertainties oppressed me whether I should ever succeed in securing the leisure needed for working up my scientific results, or the still more eagerly desired chance of freedom for exploratory tasks in the future, I looked back with sincere gratitude to the encouragement which the appreciation of my aims