A SUMMER IN HIGH ASIA. 



! JHULA" BRIDGE AT KHARTAKSHO. 



fortnight ; he had got many heads like these." 

 Immediately all thoughts of discomfort vanished ; 

 fervent sun, deep sand, rocky parris were all 

 forgotten, and I felt as if I could have done a 

 dozen marches that day towards the Hushe Nalah ! 

 However, by the time that we reached Kharmang, 

 or, as it is sometimes called, Khartaksho, we were 

 not sorry to camp. 

 This very picturesque 

 place is of some im- 

 portance, and is 

 governed by its petty 

 Rajah. We saw the 

 village on the oppo- 

 site side of the river, 

 which is here crossed by a "jhula" bridge, 

 with its fortified palace perched high up on an 

 isolated rock ; the Rajah, however, wisely prefers 

 dwelling in a commodious residence situated below 

 in a fertile "bagicha," or garden, to climbing up 

 and down a perpendicular precipice whenever he 

 wants to take a walk. A word about the "jhula," 

 so often described by the traveller in the Himalaya. 

 It consists of a strand of birch or other twigs some 

 six inches in diameter, fastened to piers of stones on 

 either bank of the river, and hanging in a curve 

 more or less slack ; on this you walk, while on 

 either side are hand-ropes kept in position by a V 

 shape of sticks placed at intervals ; these, in turn, 

 are kept stiff by a cross-piece fastened to them some 



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