Mounted on a charger, who is forbidden to deviate from a walk during a morning's march of twelve or fifteen miles, with the feet in a pair of heavy iron stirrups, and a keen blast driving the cold dust through the half-frozen patient, is the daily lot of the soldier on a winter's campaign in the East. With anxiety he looks forward through the morning's gloom for the first peep of dawn; but no sooner has the merciless sun attained a few degrees of elevation, than he exhibits a fiery aspect which soon renders the shadow of a tree or a fold of canvas by far the most interesting object in the view. Whilst the European, clad in his tight and cumbersome costume and accoutrements, toils wearily onward under the fiery noon-day heat on a long march, the Asiatic warrior, divesting himself of a portion of his flowing dress, twirls the light material round his head, and under its grateful shadow encounters lightly and cheerfully the task which lies before him. The graceful Oriental turban serves the invaluable purposes of guarding the head from sun and cold, of defying the edge of the sabre, and arresting the progress of a bullet; the European head-dress answers no useful purpose: cannot the ingenuity of England's hatters suggest some plausible scheme for defending the susceptible sculls of their countrymen serving in India? Verily, if they cannot accomplish that object, they deserve, and may they continue to enjoy, the imputation of insanity.[60]
Five marches from the Jhelum brought us to the banks of the Chenab; of the depth, rapidity, and means of transit over which, about as varied and accurate reports had been received as were transmitted on our arrival at the Jhelum.
On reaching the Chenab river, we encamped within a few yards of the bank; and as the fortunate discovery was soon made that an abundance of boats were in readiness, the greater part of the baggage was taken across in them during the day, and next morning the regiment embarked.
The camels, when unloaded, as also the horses, with a native groom (or "syce," as they are termed) on each, were enabled to cross at a ford, about two miles down the river, which was more than four feet in depth. These natives, being light weights and unencumbered with trappings—for the saddles and all their weighty concomitants travelled in boats—took the horses across the ford without any accident or difficulty. Nor was there any risk in the experiment, for most Orientals swim soon after they have learned to walk.
The country now assumed a much more cheerful and civilized appearance: crops rose luxuriantly on each side of our line of march; and the well-inhabited towns and villages told of an abundant, though not a very wealthy[61] people, for the mud houses were little, if at all, better than those of Hindostan.
Ofttimes, the massive and circular tomb of some Mussulman, now falling fast to decay, (or in many instances, the ruthless hand of time, having evidently been assisted by the unsparing jealousy of the bigoted Sikhs,) glared upon us from out its gloomy and sepulchral shade of banyans. Since the date which some of the buildings tried to commemorate, the haughty Mussulman conqueror had yielded to the more arrogant Sikh idolator, who must soon give place, in the inevitable cycle of events, to a milder and more tolerant power.
These white and spectral monuments failed not in their object of attracting observation, whilst the fretted and ostentatious carving apprised us of the earthly resting-place of bones probably belonging to some proud grandee, who had played his little part on the stage of life, and whose deeds done in the flesh, though failing to rescue his name from oblivion, had succeeded in earning a monument to become an asylum of refuge for rats, owls, and jackdaws. This is as it should be, when—
"Some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth."