I had just passed one of these mile-posts, and expecting a peaceful ride until we came to the next, I pulled out my notebook and was jotting down some observations. We were then at a considerable height, the trail, cut into the rock, winding its way along the summit of the mountainside. It was about sunset, and everything around me was silent but for the clatter of my pony’s hoofs upon the wet trail, or every now and then the [[22]]noise of a stone rolling down into the precipice some 800 feet deep.
In going round a corner a man appeared enveloped in a red blanket, the end of which was fluttering in the breeze. Unexpectedly my pony neighed frantically, gave a powerful jerk, backed, and slipped with his hind legs off the trail.
“Jupiter!” I exclaimed as I tried to jump off the saddle. My blood turned cold; but before I had time to dismount, the pony which was resting with his body on the trail, scrambled up again on it in the most miraculous manner. In a perfect frenzy he now bolted full gallop along the tortuous and narrow way. In my attempt to get off, the reins had got loose and entangled, and I had taken my left foot off the stirrup.
An Awkward Moment
A glance at the illustration depicting this incident will show the kind of place where it occurred; and it can easily be imagined that a pony, dashing along round corners involved some minor dangers to the rider, such as smashing one’s knee or head against projecting boulders. Worse luck, in this unpleasant contingency, the bit broke, which placed me absolutely at the mercy of the pony, who viciously rubbed against the rocks to my right, so that the right stirrup and part of the saddle were [[23]]torn off. My right leg might have shared the same fate had nature not endowed me with sufficient agility to move it out of the way when necessary. Dismounting would have meant certain death, because, at the speed I was going, no matter on which side I got off, either directly or by recoil, I should have been shot off into the abyss.
Eventually—and when it pleased him—the pony resumed the journey in a less reckless fashion. If not the best-tempered, he was certainly the most sure-footed animal I had ever ridden, and eventually he and I became good friends; he lost his shyness and never again played tricks. He was really as good as a goat at hill-climbing, and he could go where a human would experience difficulty in getting along.
Two of my men, who, with trembling hearts, had witnessed the accident, ultimately caught me up and explained to me the real cause of it. Simultaneously with the appearance of the man in the flapping blanket, the pony had placed his foot on a small snake lying coiled and numbed with cold upon the road.
We had double and treble marches daily, drenching rain, and heavy trails, but pony and men went [[24]]well. The pony, I must say, lost a good deal of his friskiness, for, in order to remove his exuberance of vigour as quickly as possible, I permitted some of my men to indulge in their national habit of holding to the pony’s tail while ascending steep hills.
We seemed to have a good many varied experiences on that trip; the next sight being the corpse of a woman tied in a sheet to a pole, and sprinkled all over with red paint. A group of men sat by her, and seemed concerned at the unwelcome appearance of a sahib.