THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 697 
so forth. The only thing which failed to make a due 
impression upon me was the glacis : I had been com- 
pletely spoiled for g^lacis by the glaciers on the Roof of 
the World. 
The wines were not from Turkestan, but from the choice 
vintages of France. What! Champagne on the Pamirs.'* 
Tes, even so. The first time it was handed round, our 
host asked for silence, and then proposed a conjoint toast 
to Queen Victoria and the Emperor Nicholas II. The 
next toast was drunk in honour of Abdurrahman Khan, 
Emir of Afghanistan, who was represented at the table by 
his general Gulam Moheddin Khan and a mufti (Moham- 
medan doctor of laws). With the third toast was coupled 
the name of Oscar, king of Sweden and Norway, who also 
had one subject present at the banquet. At midnight the 
official part of the proceedings came to an end, with the 
Englishmen chairing their host. Their arms were strong, 
3 -nd so it was “up to the roof on the Roof of the World. 
Then, whilst the spirit of festivity was still in the ascendant, 
we had several humorous speeches and songs, each and 
every one followed by a rousing cheer, and last of all, sung 
with tremendous dash and “go,” the stirring English 
refrain, “ For he ’s a jolly good fellow, which nobody can 
deny.” 
The next day General Gerard gave an equally excellent 
banquet, over which the same spirit of jollification reigned, 
3 -nd at which there was an equally long series of toasts. 
With a happy inspiration Captain McSwiney proposed a 
toast to the Ladies, and somebody suggested the extra- 
ordinary idea, that I was a fit and proper person to reply 
on the ladies’ behalf. Being a devoted admirer of the sex, 
I was of course proud to speak for them. After various 
more or less apposite remarks, 1 came to my peroration, 
which ran to this effect : that if the ladies in the distant 
lands of Russia and England were as hospitable and as 
cultivated as their husbands and lovers, whose acquaintance 
I had had the pleasure of making, they must assuredly be 
no ordinary ladies, but angels from heaven, and their society 
an earthly paradise. 
n --3 
