A TRAVELLING BEAR 45 



visitor had weak eyes, and wanted medicine for them, so I 

 told him to wash them often in fresh goat's milk. He 

 remarked he was strong enough otherwise, though eighty 

 years old. He remembered Hayward very well, and 

 mentioned his name. He passed through Dashkin on his 

 way to Yasi'n. 



We left Dashkin at half-past three in the morning ; it 

 was very dark, as the moon was behind the hill ; we had 

 to use the lantern for an hour or so. After starting, we 

 came on the fresh droppings of a bear on the pathway. 

 He was travellino; in the same direction that we were 

 going, and could not have been far ahead of us, but the 

 lantern and the noise we made no doubt soon alarmed 

 him. We reached Tor-billing village (three huts only) 

 soon after six. From these huts there is a short cut to 

 the Biildar nald, a famous ground for markhor ; it was, 

 of course, occupied. There are a great number of roads 

 about here ; I noticed this in many other places on my 

 journey up. The explanation given was that when the 

 Wazi'r of the district was hard-up for money, he wrote to 

 Kashmir that he had discovered a new line of country, by 

 which a much better and shorter road could be made, if 

 the funds were supplied. The funds generally were 

 supplied, a new path was made by the people of the 

 country, and the Wazir replenished his private treasure- 

 chest with the cash. At Doi'n village there was another 

 road much higher up than the path I was on, called the 

 " Mule Eoad " ; there was another below, and I could 

 plainly see a third across the river, on the opposite edge 

 of the valley. Half-way between Doin and the highest 

 ridge, about the middle of one of the zigzags along 

 a precipice, we met two Sappers of the Kashmir Engineers 

 coming from Biinji. One was leaning against the rocky 

 side of the path, looking so sick that I thought him at the 



