The Orpiment Mines of Chitral 147 



eating it, and he offered the other half to me. 

 As I was not saturated with arsenic, as it is 

 probable he was, I declined the proffered morsel, 

 saying that I had already had breakfast, a piece 

 of wit which seemed to amuse him vastly. 

 Apropos of eating arsenic, my orderly related a 

 tale of a wedding-party in Tirah at which he and 

 every one present had been poisoned, their " enemy" 

 having mixed arsenic with the sherbet, and of 

 the cure effected by the local hakim by giving 

 them water in which copper had been boiled. 

 The tale pointed no moral except the unsuita- 

 bility of arsenic as a diet, but by the time it 

 was concluded we were ready to go on. After 

 a few minutes' clambering over the rocks, we 

 found the path ran along one side of the gorge 

 we had seen from below, the torrent booming 

 away out of sight far below us. Near the path 

 was a curious cone-shaped pillar of conglomerate 

 about sixty feet high with a big flat stone on 

 the top. 



" Who built that ? " I asked. 



" The fairies," was the reply, promptly given. 



I thought as much, and here was the tree close 

 by on which passers-by put their offerings. My 

 guide and the miners with him each tore strips 

 from their garments, the loss of which was not, 

 I must say, very noticeable, and tied them on 



