TO CASHMEER AND LITTLE TIBET. 563 



back at first from supplying one, professing to be afraid of 

 giving offence to the Sikhs, whose hard rule he had expe- 

 rienced during a five years' imprisonment at Lahore, the Sikhs 

 in Torbela fort having evinced by some marks of rudeness 

 that they were not pleased at om- adveut. Having gained, 

 by the promise of a revrard, a person to accomj)any us, I 

 started on the morning of the 9th for Derbend. The path 

 lay along the banks of the river through a rugged and 

 broken tract. We saw but one small hamlet, and some Sikh 

 watch-towers, the cultivation having disaj)peared in the 

 struggle between the Sikhs and the Thanaolee chief. Before 

 noon we got to near the fort of Deyra, along a belt of level 

 ground which skirts the river. The Castle of Umba, a hold 

 of Poynda Khans, was seen on a rock overhanging the river, 

 on its further bank, with the Sikh fort on the eastern side. 

 Nearly opposite to it, in passing, we were hailed by the 

 Sikhs and desired to go up the hill. We found ourselves 

 in the midst of a large party of soldiers. They were greatly 

 excited, and used rude language and threats, and averring 

 that we had come on with an unfriendly purpose towards 

 them, and with the design of visiting Poynda Khan, which 

 they were resolved to prevent. The unlucky guide, Hussein 

 Ali i, was seized, pinioned, and beaten, and some of the more 

 violent of them proposed the same treatment for the whofe 

 party. ISTo leader was distinguishable among them, the 

 band consisting of a rabble of soldiers. After some hours' de- 

 tention, and much quiet remonstrance, the guide was 

 liberated, and we were allowed to return without further 

 molestation, permission to go to Derbend, about three miles 

 higher up, being peremptorily refused. Two alternatives 

 remained, either to cross the river below Umba, and meet 

 Poynda Khan, or to turn across through Huzara on the route 

 followed by Lieutenant Mackeson. The former course had 

 been pressed upon me at Torbela, but I declined it, being 

 unwilling to go openly to a chief who was at declared enmity 

 with his Highness the Maharajah, through whose country 

 and under whose protection we were moving as favoured 

 guests. After what had occurred at Deyra, this considera- 

 tion had additional force ; and however disinclined to forego 

 a journey higher up an unexplored part of the Indus, I 

 resolved to take the Huzara route, and rejoin Lieutenant 

 Mackeson. We followed the course of the river about half 

 way back to Torbela, when we turned eastward from the 

 valley along the summit of a low ridge, and about sunset 

 reached a village held by a family of Seyads, to whom our 

 guide explained the circumstances of our journey, and we 

 were hospitably entertained by them. It proved afterwards 



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