We passed some very pleasant days at Murree with Colonel (now Sir Samuel) Browne, G.C.B. His pretty two-storied house was situated on the side of a hill, which could only be reached by a very break-neck path. We were warmly welcomed by our kind and charming hostess, and enjoyed our visit very much. Murree is the starting-point for Cashmere, and the hiring of coolies to carry the baggage, &c., &c., is all completed here, for everything must be carried by men. After a most arduous undertaking, we succeeded at length in making our final arrangements, and, having said farewell to our kind hosts, we got on our horses and started for Cashmere.
All our baggage was carried by coolies. Those in British territory were a grumbling lot, who never were satisfied, and ran away very often, when they had been paid, as the civil authorities in those days insisted that the coolies should receive their small fee before starting on the journey.
We rode along the wooded road that leads from Murree, breathing the balmy afternoon breeze, which was laden with the sweet perfume of the pine forest. How glorious it was to feel free from all troubles, and to leave behind us all annoyances!... What is this we see before us, left in the solemn woods? Our bedding, deserted by the coolie whose duty it was to carry it, and who had absconded altogether. I shouted, but only echo answered. The evening was closing fast, and nothing could be done. All along the line of march various articles belonging to us were left nestling among the mountain flowers, so we gave up attempting to collect our baggage, as some of our servants formed a rear-guard, and we pushed on to Deywal.
Deywal is a good-sized village, situated on the right side of a deep gorge, traversed by a stream, which flows into the Jhellum some miles down the mountain. There is now a good dāk bungalow near the village, but in 1868 there was only a rest-house. A couple of chairs, a table, and a charpoy (the bedstead of India), formed the furniture of this inhospitable dwelling, as in India travellers provide all their own necessaries of life, and our comforts were resting on the line of march, so we had to make the best of it; but our cook, having preceded us, we got some dinner. We had to repose our wearied limbs without any mattress, sheets, or pillows. My wife gallantly placed her head on her leather hand-bag, and declared she was ‘very comfortable.’ I used the privilege of a British soldier, and grumbled to my heart’s content.
Previous to retiring for the night, we sat outside, enjoying the cool evening air. Immediately in front of us was the deep valley dividing us from high mountains on the other side. Light sparkled on this dark and lowering curtain from villages scattered over the distant view. High up on these fir-clad hills we could only guess, by the aid of the soft light of the moon, where our soldiers, who were occupied in making a princely road from Murree to Abbottabad, were encamped. The whole scene was grand to a degree, and as we adjourned for the night we cast our longing eyes towards the Cashmere hills, whose everlasting snow seemed ghost-like in the moon’s white beams.
In the morning a miserable, forlorn-looking object arrived with a lantern in his hand. This poor wretch sat down and wept! To my dismay, I recognised my bearer. This draggled-looking object was generally a most consequential little man—of very high caste, and so honest that he could be trusted with any amount of money, and not a farthing would be purloined by him. My two bullock-trunks and a lantern he considered his special charge, and often afterwards, high up in the mountains of Cashmere, this little man might have been seen, with the lantern in one hand, and laden with his copper cooking-pots, which no one was of high enough caste to carry except himself. He had passed a night of misery; in dread that the thieves would rob the ‘Sahib’s’ things. He was also in deadly fear that bears would demolish himself, and in terror lest evil spirits of the mountains might carry him away to some far off Gehenna; and—what in reality was the greatest trial of all—he was starving.
Once a day this high-caste Hindoo would approach me with clasped hands, and exclaim, in Hindostanee, ‘Provider of the poor, may I go and eat bread?’ And then he would disappear, and for two hours was occupied cooking and eating his rice, which was a religious function altogether. When pressed with work, he would not eat at all till his labour was over.
This was a most trying event. He had been so occupied packing at Murree that he had postponed his hour of cooking till arrival at Deywal, and then the ‘budmashes,’ the brigands of coolies, had deserted him, and he was left all night starving among the bears and the evil spirits! This was enough to account for his misery, so I told him to go to his ‘rhoti khana;’ and he returned two hours after, the bright and active factotum he always was.
As the morning advanced, our baggage arrived. All the stray mules of Deywal were sent out, and in time brought in everything.