268 WANDERINGS OF A 



were soon at the little village of Kelatse, with its fields of 

 barley, apricot and mulberry trees forming a little oasis in 

 the otherwise barren waste. The Indus here is a powerful 

 river, full eighty yards in breadth. The surrounding moun- 

 tains are mostly composed of granite, slate-rock, and a coarse 

 conglomerate. A few miles farther on is the village of Nemla, 

 composed of a few stone huts ; here we had to wait several 

 hours before the arrival of our baggage, in consequence of 

 having made a forced march of fifteen miles. On the fol- 

 lowing morning, July 16th, the remainder appeared on the 

 shoulders of women, who, on account of the absence of their 

 lords and masters in the sulphur-mines, had joyfully imder- 

 taken to carry the hiltas, and for the next three days all our 

 baggage (amounting to twenty-four coolie loads) was carried 

 entirely by these hardy, good-natured dames, whose contented 

 (I wish I could say prepossessing) faces bore always a good- 

 natured grin, no matter how heavy the load, or steep the hUl 

 up which they had to toil with it. Some of the women wore 

 skull-caps and pigtails Hke the men ; among these latter we 

 saw a few approaching to good-looking, but, like angels' visits, 

 they were few and far between. 



The road from Hiniis continues along the bank of the 

 river, over low hills and across ravines, until, debouching into 

 a rather broad valley covered with round pebbles and flints, 

 you enter a plain of alluvium, which, after passing the pictur- 

 esque village of Likur, suddenly terminates in another some 

 hundred feet below its level. Fields of peas and beans sur- 

 round the villages. The raven and hoopoe were the only 

 tenants of the arid waste. After leaving the pretty little vil- 

 lage of Bazgo, the usual mani and graves were observed for 

 miles along our route ; also a noble range of snow-capped 

 mountains running parallel with the river. In August the 



