V FRAIL BRIDGE OVER THE TAK RIVER 69 



Sportsmen ahead of me, and learned that his master had 

 taken the Baralungma nala, and that the other sportsman, 

 Mr. Bond, was going on to Haramosh. As this was our 

 objective it became doubly necessary to hurry on now. 

 The coolie informed us that Mr. Bond had spent the 

 previous night at Tak, the regular stage from Rondu, and 

 was going to halt that night, the loth, at Balchu, going on 

 the following day to Shongus, on the 12th to Garmpani, 

 and on the 1 3th to Sarsal, the first of the Haramosh villages. 

 The sportsman who reached Sarsal first held, I had 

 been given to understand, the whole of the Haramosh 

 shooting, and if Mr. Bond arrived there before me I was 

 aware that I should lose the object of my hurried march. 

 We reached Tak about 3 p.m. The track crosses 

 the river at the mouth of the ravine by a very precari- 

 ous bridge, far worse, I thought, than any of the rope 

 bridges I had seen. The village is some distance up 

 the ravine, and I sat down on a big boulder, and waited 

 while Mahamdu went up to try and get fresh coolies 

 to change the Rondu men. While waiting, I examined 

 the bridge I had just crossed, which was built on the 

 cantilever principle, like most of the bridges of Kashmir. 

 From the bank at either side of the stream, and about 

 12 feet above the level of the water, projected three or 

 four big beams, the river ends of which were free, while 

 the landward ends were weighted with blocks of heavy 

 stones. The free ends of the two trestles thus formed 

 were some 22 or 23 feet apart, and on them rested three 

 logs, not fastened in any way to each other or the trestles, 

 but simply kept in their places by their own weight. 

 These three logs were not over-thick, and bent down a 



