SRINAGAR TO LEH 17 



them a suit of clothes (10 rupees) and a pair of 

 boots. Ammunition boots from Cawnpore are best 

 and cheapest. Later on we gave them each a 

 sheepskin coat, numnah and pabboos (a sort of 

 boot) for the winter. These we got in Yarkand. 

 It is always as well to have a written agreement 

 with servants in case of there being any trouble 

 with them, which is, however, unlikely. 



The most difficult man to get for a journey of this 

 sort is a decent cook ; we were lucky enough to have 

 one who had been with us before, a fair camp cook 

 and able to make bread, which is most important. 

 In theory it is all very well to talk light-heartedly of 

 roughing it, hunter's appetites, and so forth ; but in 

 practice it does not work. Bad food usually means 

 indigestion at least, which is a great aggravation of 

 mountain-sickness, and in any case no one who has 

 once tried a diet of plain mutton and chapatties 

 for any length of time will be willing to doom 

 himself to it for a period of months on end. We 

 always gave the caravanbashi and cook ponies to 

 ride ; the syces, of course, walk. 



One syce is required to every four or five ponies 

 unless the line of march is over a great extent of 

 uninhabited country, when the carriage of food be- 

 comes a serious question and the number of men 

 has to be reduced ; otherwise, the more men there 

 are the less waste of time getting started in the 

 morning, 

 c 



