We reached Matayun in drizzling rain, and had scarcely set up our camp when the caravan-men came to loggerheads. We here overtook a hired contingent of 30 horses with forage. Their drivers had received orders to travel as quickly as possible to Leh; but now it appeared that they had remained stationary for several days, and wanted to be paid extra in consequence. The authorities in Srinagar had done their best to make my journey to Leh easy, but there is no order in Kashmir. In Robert I had an excellent assistant; he did everything to appease the refractory men. I now saw myself that stringent measures must be resorted to, and I waited impatiently for a suitable occasion for interference. About three-fourths of the Poonch men reported themselves ill; they wished to ride, and that was the whole cause of their illness. The mules, when not wanted, were to go unloaded, in order to economize their strength, and on that account we had hired horses in Srinagar. Some men had been kicked by our hot-tempered mules, and now came for treatment.
Then we go on to Dras and Karbu. On the heights above the Dras we pass the famous stone figures of Buddha, and then we descend a narrow picturesque valley to Karbu. The river constantly increases in volume, and presents a grand spectacle; small affluents fall between the rocks like silver ribands, and spread out over the dejection fans. The pink blossoms of the hawthorn wave gracefully in the wind, which cools us during the hot hours of the day. Fine dark juniper bushes, tall as cypresses, adorn the right bank.
In front of the station-house in Karbu an elderly man in a white turban came up to me. “Good day, Abdullah,” I said to him, for I immediately recognized the honest fellow who had helped me up over the snowfields of the Zoji-la on the former occasion.
“Salaam, Sahib,” he answered, sobbing, fell on his knees and embraced my foot in the stirrup, after the Oriental custom.
“Will you go on a long journey with me?” I asked.
“Yes, I will follow you to the end of the world, if the Commissioner Sahib in Leh will allow me.”
“We will soon settle that. But, tell me, how have you got on since we last saw one another?”
“Oh, I am the Tekkedar of Karbu, and provide passing caravans with all they want.”
“Well, then, think over the matter till to-morrow, and if you wish to accompany me, I have a post free for you among my people.”
“There is no need of consideration; I will go with you, though I only get a rupee a month.”