[CHAPTER VIII.]
LADÂK.
7th July. Up at the earliest dawn, and off, with a string of tattoos and foals following. I did not understand the meaning of this, but ere the journey had well commenced discovered that the shikarries had craftily schemed to save their shoe leather, and through the influence of my 'purwanah' had persuaded the moonshi to press these animals into our service. Poor Subhan, however, had as leader to march before me who had resolved not to ride before breakfast at any rate.
The road was very fair, always accompanying the river, and leading through hamlets such as have been already described, some of much interest, with their narrow lanes of rose bushes which were one mass of blossom, and delightfully fragrant. In one place, was a hedge of yellow roses covered with blossoms which were, unlike the red, double and well-formed, but of inferior perfume. The red rose hedge on one side, and yellow on the other, had a pretty effect; and I imagine their being thus placed to be purely accidental.
We tramped on manfully, Subhan and I, the other fellows riding with the moonshi in the rear, for some three or four hours, when arriving at a thriving village where we were to change coolies, not horses, I stopped to breakfast, and on the arrival of attendants started afresh about noon, it being cloudy and tolerably cool. I mounted the moonshi's tattoo, a well-bred, nice looking mare; and oh! the bother of regulating the stirrups, or trying to do so, for I had to ride, after all, with one some eight or nine inches longer than the other; and such a hard scrimpy, little bit of a saddle—I should have been better off, had I walked the whole distance, long though it was, I believe.
Soon after leaving this village we passed through another, and left a large cultivated valley on our right, entering upon a track of rocky desolation.
From the base of the mountains to the river's brink was nothing but heaps of stones, apparently water-worn stones, a very wilderness of stones—ten thousand Londons might have been paved from them, and they would not have been missed. The mountains, big, brown, and ugly, towered behind them; the sun came out fiercely, the saddle pinched, the stirrup leather galled, the little mare, weary, fumbled drearily along through the loose stones, and I did not altogether feel as though I liked it. However, I was charitable to the poor little nag, and, barring an occasional impatient jerk of the bridle and a mild jog of the heel, took no steps to urge her to greater exertions. So, on we slowly wended our weary way, the country after a while improving, and again presenting verdant stretches of cultivation with the usual accompaniment of willow trees, and now, not unfrequently, poplars, most of which, like Greenwich pensioners, had lost a limb or two, or been otherwise maimed. Hedgerows of roses became more abundant, and one or two small villages were lovely with them, and their rich crops of grain—beans, peas, and lucerne, all in bloom—adding beauty and fragrance to the scene. Bright sparkling water, too, in plenty trickled across and down our path.
But, though I tried hard, I could not properly enjoy all these charms: I was so weary and uncomfortable. Some five or six miles beyond where I looked for our halting-place, Kargyl, we at length reached it—an irregular basin, into which flows the river I have been following, and another from the east, both united flowing out in a northerly direction as a large rapid river. A square fort with corner turrets is the principle feature, glaring with whitewash. The crops all around are fresh and green, the whole surrounded by massive mountains of varied form, but of one hue of sombre brown.
8th July. Sunday. A delightful fresh morning, which induced me to take a stroll before breakfast, feeling now perfectly recovered from yesterday's fatigues. I had pitched my tent in a small tope of young poplars, in the midst of which some clear water, escaped from a channel in the hill above, had found its way moistening the ground and producing fine green turf, but leaving a dry sandy space for a tent. Sand-flies were numerous and pertinacious. During the night I was suddenly roused with a sensation of something in my hair; raising my hand I clutched something of peculiar substance, but felt it had legs. I threw it on one side shuddering, and was amused this morning at seeing the object of my fright on the canvas over my head—a large, fat, green caterpillar, with a pair of tweezers at his tail, with which he held on.