136 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIII. 
We arrived there on July 13th, and immediately commenced to organise 
our caravan, In this we were given every assistance by our good friends, the 
Wazir of Leh and Captain G——,the British Joint Commissioner, the 
most kind and hospitable of men, being universally regarded as a sincere 
friend by the traders and people of Ladak. 
Among others I came across seven caravan drivers who had served with 
me before,so I promptly re-engaged them. These men are half-bred Ladakis, 
and are called Argoons. If you treat them properly they are the best 
servants in the world. They put up with any hardship, and are always 
cheery and ready to turn their hands to anything, Their pay is 10 rupees 
per month, with an allowance of 2 lbs, of flour or rice per diem, which is 
reduced to 1 1b. when fresh meat is plentiful, But perhaps the most 
marvellous personality in Ladak or Kashmir, is a cook, Any of our 
readers who are householders will know what it means tobe told that 
the kitchen rangeis out of order, cook in bad humour—and as a 
result, a bad and half-cooked dinner, How different in a lLadaki camp ! 
The kitchen consists of the lee side of atent: the rangeis a hole 
in the ground, The cook is never out of humour or in a fuss, but 
patiently cooking, and serving adinner of four or more courses in a 
blinding snow orrain storm, with no fuel but wet roots and Yak 
droppings, which he keeps ata red glow by an ingenious arrangement of 
flanking shelter cloths, and this within half an hour of pitching camp. And 
what a dinner a Thibetan antelope saddle can make! Far better than the 
primest Welsh mutton. A surfeit of Antelope, however; is apt to be disas- 
trous at times: witness the case of one of our drivers, who very nearly died 
from over-eating himself, and wasin fact only saved by a prodigious dose 
of pills of a well known brand,which were certainly worth the proverbial 
guinea to that patient. 
Our principal amusement in Leh was Polo, We played in the bazaar, 
which consists of an open space about 200 yards long and 30 yards wide, 
with a row of shops on each side, which fortunately do not boast of plate 
glass windows. The game was most exciting, not to say dangerous at times, 
Of rules there were none, the teams sometimes consisting of as many as ten 
or even fifteen players on each side, the ponies being of all sorts and sizes. 
One did not mind the crowd of playersso much as some of the modes of 
attack. One of the most favourite tricks was for a player to ambush himself 
in a shop, pony and all, and then, when an opportunity of a successful flank 
attack presented itself, to charge out on an unsuspecting player and fire him 
across the bazaar. Gerry greatly distinguished himself in the more author- 
ised aspects of the game, and quite upheld his Hurlingham reputation, 
Having completed our arrangements and escorted by various friends, 
Gerry and I shook the dust of Leh off our feet on July 28th, leaving an 
American friend named Morse, who had decided to join our caravan, to 
