ry anxious to cross the high pass above Lidarwat over into the
Sind Valley, having arranged to meet the Smithsons at Gangabal on their
way back from Tilail. Knowing that Colonel Ward would be posted as to the
state of the snow, I had written to him from Srinagar for information. His
reply, which I got at Islamabad, was not encouraging, nor was his opinion
altered now. The pass might be possible, but was certainly not advisable
for ladies at present.

_Friday, June 23_.--We were detained here at Pahlgam until about one
o'clock to-day, as Colonel Ward, as well as two minor potentates, had
marched yesterday, employing every available coolie. The fifteen whom I
required were sent back to me by the Colonel, and turned up about noon, so,
after lunch, we set forth.

Camels are usually unwilling starters. I knew one who never could be
induced to do his duty until a fire had been lit under him as a gentle
stimulant. He lived in Suakin, and existence was one long grievance to him,
but no other animal with which I am acquainted approaches a Pahlgam coolie
in _vis inertia_.

Whether a too copious lunch had rendered my men torpid, or whether the
attractions of their happy homes drew them, I know not, but after the
loads (and these not heavy) had been, after much wrangling, bound upon
their backs, and they had limped along for a few hundred yards or so, one
fell sick, or said he was sick, and, peacefully squatting on a convenient
stone, refused to budge.

We were still close to some of the scattered huts of Pahlgam, so an
authority, in the shape of a lumbadhar or chowkidar, or some such, came to
our help, and promptly collected for us an elderly gentleman who was
tending his flocks and herds in the vicinity. Doubtless it was provoking,
when he was looking forward to a comfortable afternoon tea in the bosom of
his family, after a hard day's work of doing nothing, to be called upon to
carry a nasty angular yakdan for seven miles along a distinctly uneven
road; but was he therefore justified in blubbering like a baby, and
behaving like an ape being led to execution?

The first half-mile was dreadful. At every couple of hundred yards the
coolies would sit down in a bunch, groaning and crying, and nothing less
than a push or a thump would induce them to move. We felt like
slave-drivers, and indeed Sabz Ali and the shikari behaved as such,
although their prods and objurgations were not so hurtful as they appeared,
being somewhat after