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0119 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 / Page 119 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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CH. V

WITH THE CHITRAL SCOUTS   45

carvings with reverent awe and to protect them by the construction of a rude hut.

The day's march was made pleasant at intervals by villages charmingly situated on alluvial fans in the course of the rock - bound valley. Buni, with over a hundred houses, is the largest of them, and looked most inviting with its apricot and other fruit trees still in bloom. A deputation of grey-beards received me at the first fields

with an offering of well-preserved pears (Fig. 17).   I
contented myself with touching and remitting this present —rare at this season—only to succumb to the temptation of buying the same fruits when we had ridden on a short distance, as the last I was likely to see for months.

Through the pretty hamlets of Avi, Mem, Miragram, all ensconced by the side of glacier-fed rivulets which rush down from the sides of the hoary Buni-zom Peak, over 21,000 feet high, I reached in the afternoon: Sanoghar. This large village abounding in orchards, where the noble Chinar trees still thrive in spite of a glacier background, forms the summer training-ground for the Chitral Scouts. This most promising local corps is organized after the fashion of the Militia raised in the Khyber, Kurram, and elsewhere along the North - West Frontier. Captain Sawyer, their commandant, hospitably offered me tea in the simple but comfortable homestead taken up as his office and residence. Much talk we had about the rugged but fascinating mountains which form such a splendid Alpine training-ground for his men, and of the still more interesting regions beyond towards the Oxus.

Then I was taken to inspect the newly-raised Mastuj company on the long-stretched polo-ground which serves for their drilling-place. It was a pleasure to see this body of lithe, alert hill-men embodied only a week ago and full of martial keenness. With men who are born cragsmen and sharpshooters, two months' initial training must go a long way, and the annual training of one month which follows seems ample to assure increasing experience. I saw here realized what I had hoped for years before when passing through Hunza : the military employment of these