Among the Tibetans | Page 4

fabrics, and the land of Lalla Rookh. Its inhabitants,
chiefly Moslems, infamously governed by Hindus, are a feeble race,
attracting little interest, valuable to travellers as 'coolies' or porters, and
repulsive to them from the mingled cunning and obsequiousness which
have been fostered by ages of oppression. But even for them there is
the dawn of hope, for the Church Missionary Society has a strong
medical and educational mission at the capital, a hospital and
dispensary under the charge of a lady M.D. have been opened for
women, and a capable and upright 'settlement officer,' lent by the
Indian Government, is investigating the iniquitous land arrangements
with a view to a just settlement.
I left the Panjab railroad system at Rawul Pindi, bought my camp
equipage, and travelled through the grand ravines which lead to

Kashmir or the Jhelum Valley by hill-cart, on horseback, and by
house-boat, reaching Srinagar at the end of April, when the velvet
lawns were at their greenest, and the foliage was at its freshest, and the
deodar-skirted mountains which enclose this fairest gem of the
Himalayas still wore their winter mantle of unsullied snow. Making
Srinagar my headquarters, I spent two months in travelling in Kashmir,
half the time in a native house-boat on the Jhelum and Pohru rivers, and
the other half on horseback, camping wherever the scenery was most
attractive.
By the middle of June mosquitos were rampant, the grass was tawny, a
brown dust haze hung over the valley, the camp-fires of a multitude
glared through the hot nights and misty moonlight of the Munshibagh,
English tents dotted the landscape, there was no mountain, valley, or
plateau, however remote, free from the clatter of English voices and the
trained servility of Hindu servants, and even Sonamarg, at an altitude
of 8,000 feet and rough of access, had capitulated to lawn- tennis. To a
traveller this Anglo-Indian hubbub was intolerable, and I left Srinagar
and many kind friends on June 20 for the uplifted plateaux of Lesser
Tibet. My party consisted of myself, a thoroughly competent servant
and passable interpreter, Hassan Khan, a Panjabi; a seis, of whom the
less that is said the better; and Mando, a Kashmiri lad, a common
coolie, who, under Hassan Khan's training, developed into an efficient
travelling servant, and later into a smart khitmatgar.
Gyalpo, my horse, must not be forgotten--indeed, he cannot be, for he
left the marks of his heels or teeth on every one. He was a beautiful
creature, Badakshani bred, of Arab blood, a silver-grey, as light as a
greyhound and as strong as a cart-horse. He was higher in the scale of
intellect than any horse of my acquaintance. His cleverness at times
suggested reasoning power, and his mischievousness a sense of humour.
He walked five miles an hour, jumped like a deer, climbed like a yak,
was strong and steady in perilous fords, tireless, hardy, hungry,
frolicked along ledges of precipices and over crevassed glaciers, was
absolutely fearless, and his slender legs and the use he made of them
were the marvel of all. He was an enigma to the end. He was quite
untamable, rejected all dainties with indignation, swung his heels into

people's faces when they went near him, ran at them with his teeth,
seized unwary passers-by by their kamar bands, and shook them as a
dog shakes a rat, would let no one go near him but Mando, for whom
he formed at first sight a most singular attachment, but kicked and
struck with his forefeet, his eyes all the time dancing with fun, so that
one could never decide whether his ceaseless pranks were play or vice.
He was always tethered in front of my tent with a rope twenty feet long,
which left him practically free; he was as good as a watchdog, and his
antics and enigmatical savagery were the life and terror of the camp. I
was never weary of watching him, the curves of his form were so
exquisite, his movements so lithe and rapid, his small head and restless
little ears so full of life and expression, the variations in his manner so
frequent, one moment savagely attacking some unwary stranger with a
scream of rage, the next laying his lovely head against Mando's cheek
with a soft cooing sound and a childlike gentleness. When he was
attacking anybody or frolicking, his movements and beauty can only be
described by a phrase of the Apostle James, 'the grace of the fashion of
it.' Colonel Durand, of Gilgit celebrity, to whom I am indebted for
many other kindnesses, gave him to me in exchange for a cowardly,
heavy Yarkand horse, and had previously vainly tried to tame him. His
wild eyes were like those of a seagull. He had no kinship with
humanity.
In