V A ROAD IN BALTISTAN 6i 



grilled a fowl I undressed by the light of the fire and 

 got into bed, all the time watched with much interest 

 by the village ladies, who sat on their door-steps or on 

 the roofs of their houses. Then after having my dinner 

 (about 10.30 P.M.) I lay down and was asleep in no time. 



That day's journey was a tiring one even for me, but 

 it was a wonderful performance on the part of Chand and 

 Mahamdu, who had walked every step of the way. The 

 actual distance, measured on the map, comes to well over 

 30 miles, but considering that scarcely any of the road 

 was level, that much of it involved hard climbing, and 

 that it had taken some thirteen or fourteen hours of 

 travelling to cover, it gives a good idea of what a 

 Kashmiri can do in the way of walking when he chooses 

 to try. 



I have remarked on the difficulty of the road above, 

 but the word "road" has a peculiar significance in 

 Baltistan. In Assam, where I served for many years, 

 there are, it is well known, two classes of roads — those 

 which can be distinguished from the surrounding country, 

 and those which can not. The latter class exists only on 

 the maps of the Public Works Department. The tea- 

 planter and the Assamese cultivator do not acknowledo-e 

 these roads. But in Baltistan the word "road" con- 

 stantly, indeed I might almost say generally, means, even 

 amongst the Baltis, a thing which cannot be distinguished 

 from the surrounding country. I have often stood at the 

 edge of an expanse of several acres of broken rocks, and 

 inquired where was the road. " There," would be the 

 unhesitating reply, as my informant pointed across the 

 chaos in some one direction. Of course there was no 



