glimpse
of two of the boys trying to throw me the end of a pagari. They were,
however, much too far away for me to reach it, and I was pulled under
again before I had time to get even one good breath. As I went down
I wondered if I should ever see the boys again, and how many times
I should come up before it was all over. Then all at once it struck
me that I was very foolish trying to get out at the surface, where
the current was beyond my strength, and I must change my tactics; so
I turned over and dived down till I felt the boulders at the bottom,
and then crept along the bottom with the aid of the current--which
there, of course, was flowing downstream--as long as I could. When I
could do so no more, and had to strike upwards, I found, to my delight
and thankfulness, that I was out of the eddy and going downstream. So
it was clearly impossible to keep along the river, even if we had
not had laden animals with us. We were obliged, therefore, to make a
long detour through the hills, which took us nearly all day. So rough
and precipitous was the path that we had the greatest difficulty in
getting the camels along, and had several times to unload them in
order to get them over bad places.

During the afternoon we saw a party of fifteen or sixteen armed Wazirs
hastening towards us. At first we thought they were coming to loot us,
and one of the Wazirs with us told us to stop, while he went forward
and called out, "Are you friends or enemies?" When they replied
"Friends" he went up to them, and then called us on to join him,
when I found that they were a party of outlaws who had fallen foul
of the Government, and, therefore, had made their escape across the
frontier. They got me to sit down with them in the shade of a rock and
write down a list of their grievances for them, so that they might
propitiate the Political Officer and obtain permission to return
to British India. I was very happy to render them this service, and
we parted good friends. I noticed, however, that the Wazirs with us
seemed uncomfortable, and kept their rifles ready cocked till they
had disappeared behind a turn in the defile. I make it a principle
never to carry any arms myself, and think I am much safer on that
account, but the villagers who accompany me always go well armed;
in fact, across the border few Afghans can go out of their houses
without their rifles on their shoulders ready for use, so terribly
prevalent are the blood-feuds and villag