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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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of the regular Indian Army I had seen at Abbottabad and
these woe-begone troops of the Kashmir army. The one,
well looked after, well paid, well equipped, and well fed, were
ready to go anywhere, and looked upon a few months' hard
work as a welcome change from the monotony of barrack life ;
the other, poorly fed, badly equipped, and under-paid, dreaded
hard work, because they knew they were not physically fit
to undergo it, and because they could feel no assurance that
sacrifices on their part would be recognized or rewarded. This
was the state of the Kashmir army in 1889. How different
it is now that it has been re-organized under the supervision of
British officers is shown by their deeds in Hunza and Chitral.
With great difficulty, then, Captain Ramsay and I selected
seventeen men who, with a proper equipment of additional
warm clothing and with extra rations, we thought might just
be able to pull through the work required of them. They
seemed to shrink together as they were told they would have
to march two hundred and forty miles and cross four high
passes to reach Shahidula ; but they really came of a soldier
race—the Dogras—and as soon as they saw that they were
to be properly cared for, they plucked up courage, and they
afterwards did what was required of them well and without
ever giving me the slightest trouble.
Besides Kashmir soldiers, I made at Leh an addition to my
party of two Baltis, with a portable raft of goatskins for
crossing unfordable rivers. These goatskin rafts are much
used in Baltistan. From sixteen to twenty or more goatskins
are inflated and lashed to a framework of wood, which can then
be punted or paddled across the river. In the rafts ordinarily
in use the framework is a fixture, but in the one which we were
to take, the poles for it were of course taken separately and the
skins carried flat.
Captain Ramsay and I, while these preparations were
going on, discussed a plan of operations. Musa, the Kirghiz
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471
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482
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