the Kishen Ganga, as well as the Jhelam, in order to proceed to Abbotabad and the Afghan border. Thus I have now to enter upon an entirely different district of country from any I have yet described in these papers. We have to go along the base of the Hindú Kúsh, below mountains into which the English traveller is not allowed to enter, and which are peopled by hardy warlike mountaineers, very different in character from the placid Tibetans and effeminate Kashmiris. The first district through which I have to pass is called the Hazara, and extends from near Mozafarabad to the Indus where it issues from the Hindú Kúsh; the second is the Yusufzai district, which occupies the triangle formed by the Indus, the Kaubul river, and the mountains just referred to; and beyond these districts I have only to speak of Peshawar, and of an excursion a short way up the famous Khyber Pass. All that border has seen a great deal of fighting by British troops and fighting without end before any British appeared on the scene, or even existed; and even before Alexander the Great took the rock-fortress of Aornos, which we have to visit under guard of Afghan chiefs and horsemen in chain armour. Mozafarabad is only 2470 feet high, and a steep mountain ridge separates it from the more elevated valley of the Kúnhar river, which is inhabited by Afghans who are under the dominion of Great Britain. On passing from the Kashmir to the English border I found an excellent path, on which mountainguns might easily be carried, and descended on the village of Gurhi Hubli, where large-bodied, often fair-complexioned, Afghans filled the streets. This place is too close to the border of Afghanistan to be altogether a safe retreat; but there are a large number of armed policemen about it. Scorn me not, romantic reader, if my chief association connected with it is that of the intense pleasure of finding myself in a travellers' bungalow once more. Our estimate of these muchabused edifices depends very much on the side we take them from. After having snow for the carpet of your tent, and visits at night from huge Tibetan bears, there is some satisfaction in finding yourself quite safe from everything except some contemptible rat or a (comparatively) harmless grey scorpion. There is also comfort in being free from the insects of the Kashmir rest-houses. People who have never lived in anything but houses must lose half the pleasure of living in a house. How the first man who made a dwelling for himself must have gloated over his wretched contrivance until some stronger man came and took possession of it! But the bungalows of the Hazara district are particularly well built and luxurious, just as if distinguished travellers were constantly in the habit of visiting that extremely outof-the-way part of the world; and their lofty rooms afforded most grateful coolness and shade; while my wearied servants were delighted to remit the business of cooking for me to the Government khansamah, while reserving to themselves the right and pleasure of severely criticising his operations and tendering to him any amount of advice. The next day took me along a beautiful road over another but a low mountain pass, and winding among hills which were thickly covered with pines and cedars. The forest here was truly magnificent, and perfect stillness reigned under its shade. Emerging from that, I came down on the broad Pukli valley, on the other side of which, but at some distance, were visible the The Abode of Snow.-Conclusion. wooded heights of the Matában, or Black Mountain, which was the scene of one of the most bloodless of our hill-campaigns. I stopped that night of the 4th November at Mansera, and witnessed a total eclipse of the moon, which was then at the full. This seemed to cause a good deal of consternation among the people of the village, and they moaned and wailed as if the heavens and the earth were in danger of passing away. Another day took me to Abbotabad, which is a considerable military station, and commands a large portion of the frontier. It is 4166 feet high, and being a little above the thirty-fourth degree of north latitude, it has a cool and fine climate. A good deal of rain fell during the few days that I was there, and the air felt very much like that of a wet English September or October; while the church and the character of the houses gave the place quite an English look. Rising close above it, at the height of 9000 feet, there is the sanitarium of Tandiani, which can easily be reached in a very few hours, so that the officers stationed at this place are particularly fortunate. I wonder it is not more taken advantage of for European troops. Not even excepting artillerymen, all the troops there were Goorkhas, Panjábis, or Hindústhanis; but no doubt there are military reasons for this, Abbotabad being so far from any railway but it stands to reason that an important frontier - station of this kind would be much the better of an English force. Anglo-Indian society shows to advantage in these secluded military stations, and I was at once made to feel quite at home by the officers and their families at Abbotabad. I had the advantage, too, of being the guest of General Keyes, an officer who distinguished himself greatly in the Umbeyla cam [July paign, in which he was wounded, and who commanded the whole of the frontier forces, from Kashmir round the northern border to Pesháwar, and from Peshawar, excluding the district of that name, down to Dehra Ghazi Khan, a little below the direction of many regiments; Múltan. This, of course, involves and the officer commanding the frontier is not properly under the Commander-in-Chief in India, but Government. In the Peshawar disunder the direction of the Panjáb trict, which occurs in the midst of his border, the state of matters is different, all the large number of troops there being directly under the Commander-in-Chief. That but the reason for it is, that the seems an anomalous state of affairs; Afghan frontier being exceedingly difficult to manage, the Government of the Panjáb is supposed to require a large body of troops on that fronit is equally necessary for the Comtier at its own direct disposal, while large force under his orders at Peshmander-in-Chief in India to have a áwar, which fronts the Khyber Pass, and is the key of our trans-Indus possessions. in a rather lively state, there being Abbotabad I saw when it was other minor events, during my a marriage, a death, and sundry also much exercised by a ritualistic very brief stay there. It was clergyman, who availed himself of the rare occasion of a marriage to act in a manner which threw the whole small community into a state of excitement, and who groom partaking of the sacrament insisted on the bride and brideof the Lord's Supper on the morning of their wedding-day. When chaplains in India give themselves the rein, they can indulge in many curious freaks. At another Indian station which I visited, my host told me that, at an evening party at his (my host's) house, the chap lain marched his own bishop before a large cheval-glass, and asked him if he had seen the latest portrait of the gorilla? It is a pity that the good bishop had not the presence of mind to say that he recognised a resemblance in the figure standing behind him. But the Abbotabad chaplain's proceedings did little more than give a zest to the festivities connected with the marriage, which was that of a daughter of the popular officer commanding the station; but ere they came to a close, they were terribly interfered with by the death of Captain Snow, who expired suddenly from heart-disease -a malady which seems to be singularly common in the north of India almost immediately after returning to his bungalow from the communion service which the chaplain had insisted on holding on the morning of the marriage-day. He left a young widow; and I have since noticed that other members of those Abbotabad parties who were full of life and humour, and distinguished by more graceful charms, have unexpectedly passed away. From Abbotabad I proceeded in three easy marches to Torbela, where the dangerous part of the frontier commences. Up to Torbela I had only a couple of sowars, or native horse soldiers, with me; but from the Indus on to the fort of Hoti Mardán, I was guarded with as much care as if I were three viceroys rolled into one. As a matter of convenience, even a single sowar riding behind one is a nuisance to a meditative traveller, especially when the M.T. is suffering from rheumatism in the back, which makes riding painful to him; and I would gladly have dispensed with the escorts which were provided for me. It is not usual to allow any Englishmen, except officers on duty, to go along this part of the frontier, which touches on VOL. CXVIII.-NO. DCCXVII. the territory of the Akoond of Swat; and I was enabled to do so only by the special permission of the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief. The border authorities were thus responsible for my safety, and they took care to see that no harm befell me from the wild tribes of the mountains round the base of which I skirted. The reason of this anxiety was thus explained to me by a humorous officer: "Do not suppose," he said, "that the Panjáb authorities mean to do you any special honour; they probably wish you far enough. The case is this: if the hillmen get hold of you-and they would be very likely to make a dash at you over the border if you went unprotected-they would carry you up into the mountains, and would then write to the Panjab Government offering to exchange you against some of their own budmashes which we have in prison. The Government would probably take no notice of this communication; and, after the lapse of a little time, there would come down a second letter from the Swat hill men, repeating the proposal, and containing the first joint of your little finger. The next day another letter would come with the second joint. Now, you see, it would be extremely unpleasant for the Panjáb Government to be receiving joints of your fingers, day after day, in official letters." Torbela is a village, or rather a congeries of small villages, and a large fortified police Thána on one side of the Indus. Opposite to it, and divided from this extreme corner of our territory by the river, there is the wild mountain Afghan district of Búnnair; and immediately opposite Torbela there is the fighting village of Kubbul or Kabal, chock-full of murderers and other fugitives from British justice; while, on the same side, three miles E farther up, and also on the right bank of the Indus, there is Sitana, for long famous as the headquarters of the Wahábhi and other fanatics, who kept up an agitation in India for a jehad, or holy war, and are supposed by some to have instigated the assassination of Lord Mayo and of Mr Justice Norman. It occurred to me very forcibly here that now or never was my chance of crossing the border and seeing an Afghan village in its primitive simplicity. The British Government does not allow its subjects to cross the border, owing to the above-mentioned accident which may happen to their fingers; but I thought there could be nothing wrong in my crossing to a village which was in sight of our own territory, and could easily be destroyed. The next day I was to be handed over to the guards of the Yusufzai district; and, meanwhile, had only to deal with the native Thánadar in command of the armed police. That functionary, however, would not countenance any such proposal, and told me that Kubbul was a particularly bad place to go to; that a few nights before it had come over and attacked one of the villages on his side of the Indus, and that, at the moment, it was fighting within itself. This looked bad; but fortunately, a few minutes after, one of my servants came up to the roof of the Thána on which I was sitting, and told me a curious story about the Jemadar, the second in command. That hero had once been in this or some other police Thána in which a considerable sum of money was lying, when it was attacked at night by a number of Afghans from beyond the border. Judging the attacking force to be overpowering, the Thánadar and his police fled, probably no resistance being made to that, as the money was the object of the raid; but old Hagan, as I shall call the Jemadar after the hero of the "Nibelungen Lied” who fought a similar fight, but in a less successful manner, remained behind, concealed in the darkness of the night and of the Thána. Before the Afghans had broken into the place where the money was, he attacked them single-handed with a tremendous sword which he had, cutting down the only torchman they had at the first blow, and then slashing away at them indiscriminately. He had the advantage of knowing that every one about him was an enemy; while the Afghans, taken by surprise, and confused in the darkness, did not know how many assailants they had to deal with, and began hewing at each other, until the cry got up that the devil was amongst them, and those who were able to do so fled. The assistant commissioner of the district came over in hot haste next morning with a body of mounted police, expecting to find the treasury rifled; but, instead of that, he found my old friend the Jemadar strutting up and down the Thána, sword in hand, while a score of Afghans were lying dead or dying round him. On hearing this, it immediately struck me that Hagan was exactly the man intended to assist me to Kubbul, so I got him aside and asked him if he would go. Would he go ! Repeating this question, a strange wild light broke out of the old man's eyes; he unsheathed his tremendous blade, of which it might well be said, that— "The sword which seemed fit for archangel to wield, Was light in his terrible hand; " and eagerly assured me that if I would only say the word he would go with me not only to Kubbul but to Swat, which was supposed to be the last place in the world that an Englishman in his senses would dream of visiting. I should have been glad to have accepted this proposal of going to Swat, but felt bound in honour to the high officials who had allowed me to go along the frontier, not to take anything which might look like an unfair advantage of their kindness. On hearing of our intention to cross the river, the Thánadar who seemed to be a little in awe of his subordinate of the midnight massacre, but who was a proud Mohammedan who did not like to seem backward in courage-said that he would go also, and, after a little delay, produced a tall red-bearded old man, who had friends on the other side, and would accompany us. I fancy, however, that he must have reasoned with the Jemadar in private upon the subject, because, before starting, that worthy took me aside and said that we had better not stay long in Kubbul, because when the people in the mountains heard of our being there they might come down upon us. Our small party was increased by a somewhat unwilling policeman. It was well armed, and though I preferred to trust to the far-famed hospitality of the Afghans, and make no show of arms, I carried more than one weapon of offence concealed about me, and in handy positions. male Kubbul apparently (female portion not being visible, if indeed it exists at all, which I am not in a position to affirm) had turned out to receive us, and lined the shore in a state of great curiosity. On landing, some rupees were presented to me as a token of obeisance, and I touched them instead of pocketing them, as the formal act invited me to do; but which would have been considered very bad manners on my part, and would probably have sent all feelings and obligations of hospitality to the winds. We were then taken over the ridge into the little valley behind, and the head-men showed me with great complacency the effects of the warfare in which they had been engaged on the previous day. What appeared to have taken place was that one end of the fighting village of Kubbul had blown out the other end, the place being in a state of too high pressure. It was divided into two parts, and my friends had made breaches in the wall of their neighbours' half and destroyed the houses next to that wall. They also showed me a mud tower which they had taken and dismantled; and this was done with so much pride that I remarked they must be very fond of fighting, on which they assumed quite a different tone, and lamented the sad necessity they had been under of having recourse to arms-a necessity which was entirely due to the bad and desperate character of their neighbours. On this, even the solemn Thánadar smiled to me, for they themselves were about as ruffianly and desperate looking a lot as could well be conceived of. Where the enemy was all this time I cannot say. Perhaps he was up in the hills, or keeping quiet in the dilapidated part of the village; but he could not have been far off, for the fighting was renewed that afterAll noon after we left, and heavy firing So we crossed the splendid and rapid stream of the Indus in a large carved boat of white wood. The fighting village of Kubbul rose up almost from the water's edge, and covered both sides of a long ridge which ran parallel with the stream, the narrow valley behind that ridge being partly occupied by a few grain fields, immediately behind which were high bare savage mountains, the habitat of those individuals who are supposed to send men's fingers in official letters. |