A GUIDE SECURED. 23 



The first proceeding was to arrange for a 

 team of ponies and a guide. By good luck an 

 old friend of mine, a Ladaki, who held an 

 appointment of some importance at Leh, hap- 

 pened to be in Srinagar having brought down 

 a party of lamas to perform with their band 

 before General (now Lord) Roberts, the Com- 

 mander - in - Chief, who was on a visit to the 

 Maharajah. As he had a good deal to do with 

 the people who frequent the road between Yar- 

 kand and Leh, merchants, &c., who provide 

 ponies for caravans, called karakash, he was 

 the very one to help us, and procured the most 

 suitable man for the business. Baratbai was his 

 name, and he happened to know Sirikul and the 

 Southern Pamirs well, having been there more 

 than once getting poli-horns from the Kirghiz to 

 sell in India. He had just come down with a 

 consignment, and said he would be delighted to 

 go with us, and knew the Raskum road, but that 

 it was too early to start, the rivers being too 

 high, and the fords, of which there were many, 

 too deep, so that it was useless to leave Leh 

 until the middle of August. All I wanted was 

 to get my polis before winter set in ; therefore I 

 arranged with him to supply as many ponies as 



