-A staff appointment
--The bump of locality

I had had a great deal of fever during my eighteen months' residence
at Peshawar, and in April, 1854, I obtained six months' leave to
Kashmir. I travelled _via_ Murree to Abbottabad, along the route now
well known as the 'Gullies.' Here I was joined by Lieutenant George
Rodney Brown,[1] a subaltern of Horse Artillery, with whom I chummed
at Peshawar.

Abbottabad was a very small place in those days. It was named after
its first Deputy-Commissioner, James Abbott,[2] famous for his journey
_via_ Bokhara and Khiva to Russia in 1839, undertaken for the release
of Russian prisoners who were kept as slaves by the Turkomans. He had
just left, and had been succeeded as Deputy-Commissioner by a Captain
Becher, who, fortunately for us, was away in the district. I say
fortunately, because we were bent on visiting Khagan, and had obtained
permission from the Commissioner of Peshawar to do so. He had told
us to apply to Becher for assistance, but from what we heard of that
officer, it did not seem likely he would help us. Khagan was beyond
our border, and the inhabitants were said to be even more fanatical
than the rest of the frontier tribes. The Commissioner, however, had
given us leave, and as his Deputy appeared to be the kind of man
to create obstacles, we made up our minds to slip away before he
returned.

We started on the 21st May, and marched to Habibula-Ki-Ghari. Here the
road bifurcates, one branch leading to Kashmir, the other to Khagan.
We took the latter, and proceeded to Balakot, twelve miles further
on, which was then our frontier post. There we found a small guard of
Frontier Police, two of whom we induced to accompany us on our onward
journey for the purpose of assisting to look after the baggage and
collecting coolies. Three days' more marching brought us to Khagan.
The road almost the whole way from Balakot ran along a precipice
overhanging the Nainsukh river, at that time of year a rushing
torrent, owing to the melting of the snows on the higher ranges. The
track was rough, steep, and in some places very narrow. We crossed and
recrossed the river several times by means of snow-bridges, which,
spanning the limpid, jade-coloured water, had a very pretty effect. At
one point our _shikarris_[3] stopped, and proudly told us that on that
very spot their tribe had destroyed a Sikh army sent against them in
the time of Runjit Sing. It certainly was a place well chosen