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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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officer is able to exercise a useful influence for good throughout
the country, not by any direct interference, but by simple
daily intercourse with the chief and his people. And no
more enjoyable appointment than that at Hunza could be
imagined. I remember on a stifling day in August, 1892, at
that season of the year when the sun beats down upon its
bare rocks more like the interior of an oven than what one
would expect of a mountain valley five thousand feet above the
sea, riding up from the Gilgit valley, out of all this heat into
the freshness of the Hunza valley, and, as I came round a spur
of the hills, suddenly encountering Rakapushi Peak rising
sheer nineteen thousand feet from the place where I stood.
I had seen this mountain before in my journey down the
valley in 1889, and had borne away no humble impression of
it. I have often seen it since, but it is a remarkable fact
about this and other great mountains, that each new sight of
them seems to impress itself more deeply than the one before.
I came now with a vivid recollection of the splendour of Raka-
pushi, the towering mass of mountain rising directly from the
valley bottom, the glittering snowfields, and the proud cold
summit soaring right into heaven. But as I once again turned
the corner of the spur, and this wonderful sight suddenly came
full upon me, I involuntarily pulled up. It far exceeded all
that I had remembered.
We followed the valley sometimes along the bare hillside,
but more often through pretty village lands, first by the fort
of Nilt, the position so gallantly captured by Colonel Durand's
troops, when the gateway was blown up by Aylmer; by the
rocky mountain-side—up which Manners-Smith and Taylor
clambered with their handful of men, and so outflanked the
enemy's breastwork, built all along the edge of precipitous cliffs
—till Nilt is left behind and other forts reached, near the gates
of which are sitting groups of the very men who fought us only
a few months before; past these and the shady apricot orchards
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