48 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



persons of our guards, whom, as yet wo had only 

 heard pattering along through the darkness by our 

 horses' sides. There were about a dozen of them. 

 wild-looking fellows, with close-fitting felt caps stuck 

 on the top of their matted locks. They were all 

 armed with a long matchlock, a pistol, and a sabre 

 each. Their clothes, for the most part, hung in rags 

 over their large braAvny frames. With a sort of 

 coarse sandal on their feet, they strode sturdily along 

 over the stony road. As long as the darkness had 

 hid surrounding objects from our view, our servants 

 had ridden along in silence. If they did venture 

 upon a remark it was in a whisper, and the guards 

 themselves had strode along in silence; for they were 

 as much afraid of the Buktiarees as any of our ser- 

 vants were ; and had we been attacked, they, headed 

 by the gholaum, would probably have been the first 

 to run. "\Ve ascended the Seena Suffeed, a very steep 

 bit of road, leading with a true disdain of any en- 

 gineering principle straight as an arrow's flight up a 

 mountain-side. By the time we reached the summit, 

 the sun was shedding his rays with a lavish hand 

 down the wooded slopes, and into the gloomy moun- 

 tain recesses. This broad daylight, added to a level 

 piece of ground that made its appearance by the side 

 of the road on the summit, developed the hitherto 

 dormant manhood of the gholaum. During the dark- 

 ness of night he had kept his position well in the 

 centre of the party; now that shapeless bundle of felt 



