Fashion Has Deserted
Sonamarg, Rough Of Access, For Gulmarg, A Caprice Indicated By The
Ruins Of Several Huts And Of A Church.
The pure bracing air,
magnificent views, the proximity and accessibility of glaciers, and
the presence of a kind friend who was 'hutted' there for the summer,
made Sonamarg a very pleasant halt before entering upon the supposed
seventies of the journey to Lesser Tibet.
The five days' march, though propitious and full of the charm of
magnificent scenery, had opened my eyes to certain unpleasantnesses.
I found that Usman Shah maltreated the villagers, and not only robbed
them of their best fowls, but requisitioned all manner of things in
my name, though I scrupulously and personally paid for everything,
beating the people with his scabbarded sword if they showed any
intention of standing upon their rights. Then I found that my clever
factotum, not content with the legitimate 'squeeze' of ten per cent.,
was charging me double price for everything and paying the sellers
only half the actual price, this legerdemain being perpetrated in my
presence. He also by threats got back from the coolies half their
day's wages after I had paid them, received money for barley for
Gyalpo, and never bought it, a fact brought to light by the growing
feebleness of the horse, and cheated in all sorts of mean and
plausible ways, though I paid him exceptionally high wages, and was
prepared to 'wink' at a moderate amount of dishonesty, so long as it
affected only myself. It has a lowering influence upon one to live
in a fog of lies and fraud, and the attempt to checkmate a fraudulent
Asiatic ends in extreme discomfiture.
I left Sonamarg late on a lovely afternoon for a short march through
forest-skirted alpine meadows to Baltal, the last camping-ground in
Kashmir, a grassy valley at the foot of the Zoji La, the first of
three gigantic steps by which the lofty plateaux of Central Asia are
attained. On the road a large affluent of the Sind, which tumbles
down a pine-hung gorge in broad sheets of foam, has to be crossed.
My seis, a rogue, was either half-witted or pretended to be so, and,
in spite of orders to the contrary, led Gyalpo upon a bridge at a
considerable height, formed of two poles with flat pieces of stone
laid loosely over them not more than a foot broad. As the horse
reached the middle, the structure gave a sort of turn, there was a
vision of hoofs in air and a gleam of scarlet, and Gyalpo, the hope
of the next four months, after rolling over more than once, vanished
among rocks and surges of the wildest description. He kept his
presence of mind, however, recovered himself, and by a desperate
effort got ashore lower down, with legs scratched and bleeding and
one horn of the saddle incurably bent.
Mr. Maconochie of the Panjab Civil Service, and Dr. E. Neve of the C.
M. S. Medical Mission in Kashmir, accompanied me from Sonamarg over
the pass, and that night Mr. M. talked seriously to Usman Shah on the
subject of his misconduct, and with such singular results that
thereafter I had little cause for complaint. He came to me and said,
'The Commissioner Sahib thinks I give Mem Sahib a great deal of
trouble;' to which I replied in a cold tone, 'Take care you don't
give me any more.' The gist of the Sahib's words was the very
pertinent suggestion that it would eventually be more to his interest
to serve me honestly and faithfully than to cheat me.
Baltal lies at the feet of a precipitous range, the peaks of which
exceed Mont Blanc in height. Two gorges unite there. There is not a
hut within ten miles. Big camp-fires blazed. A few shepherds lay
under the shelter of a mat screen. The silence and solitude were
most impressive under the frosty stars and the great Central Asian
barrier. Sunrise the following morning saw us on the way up a huge
gorge with nearly perpendicular sides, and filled to a great depth
with snow. Then came the Zoji La, which, with the Namika La and the
Fotu La, respectively 11,300, 13,000, and 13,500 feet, are the three
great steps from Kashmir to the Tibetan heights. The two latter
passes present no difficulties. The Zoji La is a thoroughly severe
pass, the worst, with the exception perhaps of the Sasir, on the
Yarkand caravan route. The track, cut, broken, and worn on the side
of a wall of rock nearly 2,000 feet in abrupt elevation, is a series
of rough narrow zigzags, rarely, if ever, wide enough for laden
animals to pass each other, composed of broken ledges often nearly
breast high, and shelving surfaces of abraded rock, up which animals
have to leap and scramble as best they may.
Trees and trailers drooped over the path, ferns and lilies bloomed in
moist recesses, and among myriads of flowers a large blue and cream
columbine was conspicuous by its beauty and exquisite odour. The
charm of the detail tempted one to linger at every turn, and all the
more so because I knew that I should see nothing more of the grace
and bounteousness of Nature till my projected descent into Kulu in
the late autumn. The snow-filled gorge on whose abrupt side the path
hangs, the Zoji La (Pass), is geographically remarkable as being the
lowest depression in the great Himalayan range for 300 miles; and by
it, in spite of infamous bits of road on the Sind and Suru rivers,
and consequent losses of goods and animals, all the traffic of
Kashmir, Afghanistan, and the Western Panjab finds its way into
Central Asia. It was too early in the season, however, for more than
a few enterprising caravans to be on the road.
The last look upon Kashmir was a lingering one.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 3 of 27
Words from 2049 to 3049
of 27584
