40 AFOOT THROUGH THE 



CHAPTER IV 



See the fakir as he swings in his iron ; 



See the thin hermit that starves in the wild ; 

 Think ye no pleasures the penance environ, 



And hope the sole bliss by which pain is beguiP 

 No ! in the kingdom those spirits are reaching, 



Vain are our words those emotions to tell ; 

 Vain the distinctions our senses are teaching, 



For pain has its heaven and pleasure its hell. 



Monckton Millies. 



Of religions, painful and otherwise How I seek secularity 

 along a scorching road, and am made to take part in sacred 

 rites I write a character for a saint And am rewarded 

 with roses and watercress. 



A FEW miles above Bijbeharra was Islamabad, the 

 principal commercial centre in the eastern part of 

 Kashmir. The town itself stands back some two miles 

 from the river, the actual waterside village being 

 Kanabal. It is the starting point to many routes 

 to Poonch, Jammu, and the eastern ranges; and Kulu, 

 Ladakh, and Rupshu can also be reached this way. I 

 found it a religious place in a showy, picturesque, casual 

 fashion, and in the course of a morning stroll some 

 curiosities in worship showed themselves. The first 

 was an Asiatic fakir of a most uncompromising type, 

 who had been found many years before half-dead in the 



