LETTER VI. THE KYBER, SIRMOOR, 

 AND BENARES 



CALCUTTA, November i8th, 1909. 



I HAVE been doing my cold weather tour en route 

 to Calcutta. I went first to Srinagar. It was a 

 great trial to have to run back to Simla from 

 Kashmir for just one meeting of Council, as it 

 meant doing the whole journey to Rawalpindi over 

 again. Hot, dusty, and very wearisome. Pesha- 

 war is a few hours beyond Rawalpindi. I am 

 very glad, however, that I went, as I have been 

 able to see the Afghanistan frontier and visit the 

 Kyber and other places I have heard so much 

 about, and which to an Anglo-Indian, as I now 

 am, are of surpassing interest. I got there on 

 Thursday, the 28th, and stayed with the Chief 

 Commissioner, Sir George Roos-Keppel. He seems 

 to me a clever, thoughtful man. The house is nice 

 and comfortable, but terribly hot. Indeed, the 

 heat all along the frontier is cruel. It surprised 

 me. On Friday I visited the ruins of the great 

 Buddhist temple, where quite recently were dis- 

 covered a few bones of the holy man in a copper 

 box. You will have perhaps noticed a good deal 

 about it in the papers of late. Both are some 

 i, 800 years old. It was most interesting to go 

 over the whole place with the man who found both 

 temple and bones, one Dr. Spooner, an American. 



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