lo SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS OF KASHMIR chap. 



been based on this assumption. But the more I learned 

 of the sort of ground it would be necessary to go over, 

 and the conditions under which the journey would have 

 to be made, the more clearly I saw that she would have 

 to be left behind. In the first place, I heard that as 

 several men had already started I should have to do 

 double and treble marches to overtake them, and might 

 even be obliged to travel without tents or stores, and 

 trust to what we could pick up by the way. Not only 

 would this involve serious hardship and perhaps risk for 

 a lady, but her presence would probably render the 

 necessary speed unattainable, for coolie or pony carriage 

 was all that was to be had, and though a few light loads 

 could be rapidly pushed through, it might prove im- 

 possible to get sufficient transport together, at a few 

 minutes' notice, for even the smallest amount of baggage 

 which a lady must have. In the second place, the 

 ground which Merewether and Abdulla both recom- 

 mended me to try for — the Haramosh district — was 

 peculiarly inaccessible. It was, Abdulla said, 35 marches 

 from Srinagar, and the last few stages were so bad 

 that no ponies could traverse them, as they involved 

 going up and down ladders, and across rope bridges and 

 round precipitous, and in some cases dangerous cliffs. 

 Thirdly, and lastly, Merewether told me that there was 

 still a lot of snow on the Zogi La, the first and, 

 in some respects, the worst of the Kashmir passes, and 

 that for about a week it would be necessary to travel on 

 or in snow, and that for that period we should have to 

 use for shelter at night the dirty dens into which con- 

 stant streams of coolies had turned the rest-houses on the 



