252 WANDERINGS OF A 



Islamabad, when several respectable weU-dressed zemindars 

 were most unmercifully beaten by the sepoys of his guard 

 for attempting to follow the royal palkee. The Prince's 

 arrival at Baramula was celebrated by the usual marks of 

 regal munificence. A feast was given to aU the dirty fakirs 

 within miles, when half-naked wretches, like as many carrion 

 crows, usually at hand on such occasions, now flocked in 

 from all quarters, and were seen seated around fires, gorging 

 on rice and curry, whilst hundreds of the labouring classes 

 were skulking dinnerless among the rocks in the vicinity. It 

 was state policy, however, to propitiate the fakirs. 



I now, to use a South African expression, began " to 

 make tracks homewards." Accordingly after once more en- 

 joying the magnificent scenery of the Baramula Pass, I was 

 descending the pathway which debouches on the Uri plateau, 

 when I came on a handsome native woman lying by the way- 

 side, insensible, and bleeding from several wounds on the head 

 and other parts of her body. Beside her was a small bundle 

 of clothing, and her sKppers, which were placed on the edge of 

 a precipice some 200 feet above the Jhelum, whose waters 

 were dashing furiously below us. I had scarcely time to look 

 around before her husband, with an infant in his arms, came 

 out of the bush, and informed us in the most indifferent 

 manner that she had attempted suicide by leaping from 

 the cliff, and that he had just carried her up from below, 

 where he found her lying with her head half-immersed in 

 water by the rocky side of the river. How she had not 

 been dashed to pieces I could not understand. The bleeding 

 vessels were stanched as well as the circumstances would 

 allow, and we had her conveyed to the nearest hut, where I 

 dressed her woimds and put up two fractures of the bones of 

 the left arm. I was strongly apprehensive of some foul play. 



