IBEX-SHOOTING IN BALTISTAN 139 



At the end of a long march of thirty-one miles the 

 following day, four hours in the morning over a 

 bad trail of difficult climbs and steep descents, and 

 seventeen miles in the afternoon to Tarkutti, we 

 came upon our first rope-bridge across the Indus. 

 The ingenuity in the making of such a bridge with 

 no material but twisted twigs, strong enough to hold 

 the weight of any number of coolies with their loads, 

 and long enough to be swung from cliff to cliff across 

 this great river, is a source of wonder. Yet there it 

 swings, with three strands of twisted twigs, one for 

 each hand to grasp, one to guide the feet, sagging 

 gracefully from the tops of the mighty cliffs that 

 flank the river, occasionally swaying slightly in the 

 wind, but firm and safe as a bridge of rock and iron. 

 The sensation when one has felt one's way to its 

 centre and stands looking down at the torrent swirl- 

 ing a hundred feet below is, to say the least, a 

 strange one. I was glad enough to creep across un- 

 incumbered ; to have had to lug the heavy loads our 

 coolies carried would have been a handicap which I 

 should as gracefully as possible have declined. 



A twenty-six mile march on the following day 

 brought us to Parkutta a village rather larger 

 than the others through which we had passed ; and 

 as we entered it an amusing scene greeted us. Under 

 an enormous chenar tree in the centre of the town, 



