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 addition, I had as escort an Afghan or Pathan, a soldier of the
Maharajah's irregular force of foreign mercenaries, who had been sent
to meet me when I entered Kashmir. This man, Usman Shah, was a stage
ruffian in appearance. He wore a turban of prodigious height
ornamented with poppies or birds' feathers, loved fantastic colours
and ceaseless change of raiment, walked in front of me carrying a big
sword over his shoulder, plundered and beat the people, terrified the
women, and was eventually recognised at Leh as a murderer, and as
great a ruffian in reality as he was in appearance. An attendant of
this kind is a mistake. The brutality and rapacity he exercises
naturally make the people cowardly or surly, and disinclined to trust
a traveller so accompanied.
Finally, I had a Cabul tent, 7 ft. 6 in. by 8 ft.
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