228 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



of her property, or on that of her grandchild, now 

 with a melancholy dignity, which might have become 

 the tragic muse, and anon with shrieks and impreca- 

 tions which might have excited the envy of a mrenad. 

 Again, I would come across three or four hundred of 

 them at sundown, kneeling down at prayer, with their 

 faces turned towards what was supposed to be the 

 direction of Mecca, but which really was more in the 

 direction of the North Pole star than of anything 

 else. At another time a party of them would halt as 

 I came by, support their burdens on the short poles 

 which they carried for that purpose, and some Hin- 

 dusthani spokesman among them would say to me : 

 " Protector of the Poor ! " (Gurib Parwdr pro- 

 nounced Guripur), "you have been up among these 

 snowy mountains shall we ever see our house-roofs 

 again 1 " They all had the same story as to their 

 monetary position. Each man had got five rupees (I 

 do not know whether small chilki, Kashmir rupees, 

 or British, but should fancy the former) in order to 

 purchase rice for the journey ; but their further 

 expectations on the subject of pay were of the most 

 desponding kind, and the only anxiety they showed 

 was, not as to how they were to get back again, but 

 as to whether it would be at all possible for them 

 ever to get back again. I must have missed the 

 Yarkand envoy himself about Ganderbahl, a day's 

 march from Srinagar ; but shortly before getting to 

 Ganderbahl I came across three of his retinue, who 



