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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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who had brought the petition to the British authorities, was
still in Leh. From him we learnt the details of the Kanjuti
raid in the previous year, and gained some information regarding
the road which the raiders had followed from Hunza. This
was one of the roads which I wished to explore, and, as it lay
through a totally unknown country, it was necessary to acquire
all possible information about it before going there. My
chief anxiety was regarding transport. In a country which
was a labyrinth of mountains without any roads, coolies would
obviously be the best transport to employ. Men could go
where a four-footed animal could not; and, if I employed
coolies, I could follow a route which would be out of the
question if I employed ponies or mules. But there was one
fatal objection to the employment of coolies, and that was
that if the men had to carry provisions for themselves for any
length of time, they would not be able to carry any load
besides. We should be several weeks away rom any inhabited
spot—in fact, we were afterwards travelling for fifty-seven days
without seeing a single inhabitant—and as each man requires
about two pounds of food each day, and cannot carry a greater
load than sixty pounds over these rough mountains, it is
obvious that if he had to travel thirty days away from the
base of supplies, he would only be able to carry sufficient food
for himself and nothing for anybody else, and that if he had
to march any longer than thirty days he would starve. So
coolies, though the best means of transport for crossing bad
places, could not be employed.
The same objection, in a modified form, applied to the use
of ponies. Ponies eat four pounds a day, and carry one hundred
and sixty pounds. They could, therefore, go a little further
than coolies; but even ponies, if the expedition were a month
away from the base, would only be able to carry forty pounds
of baggage each in addition to grain supplies for themselves.
For anything over a month they would be useless. I then
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