THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 91 



was almost killing, and we could not halt for a 

 moment on the summit of the pass or till we got 

 hundreds of feet below it. Hitherto I had been able 

 to make little use of my dandy, but now I could 

 do little more than stick to it. This was very hard 

 on the bearers, who were totally unused to the work. 

 One poor man, after a little experience of carrying 

 me, actually roared and cried, the tears ploughing 

 through the dirt of ages upon his cheeks (for these 

 people never wash), like mountain torrents down 

 slopes of dried mud. He seemed so much distressed 

 that I allowed him to carry one of the Tciltas instead ; 

 on which the other men told him that he would have 

 to be content with two annas (threepence) instead of 

 four, which each bearer was to receive. To this he 

 replied that they might keep all the four annas to 

 themselves, for not forty times four would reconcile 

 him to the work of carrying the dandy. But the 

 other men bore up most manfully under an infliction 

 which they must have regarded as sent to them by 

 the very devil of devils. They were zemindars, too, 

 or small proprietors, well off in the world, with flocks 

 and herds of their own ; and yet, for sixpence, they 

 had to carry me (suspended from a long bamboo, 

 Avhich tortured their unaccustomed shoulders, and 

 knocked them off their footing every now and then) 

 down a height of between 7000 and 8000 feet along 

 a steep corkscrew track over shingle and blocks of 

 granite. How trifling these charges are, though the 



