ing "Chokalwat" and "Nisa
Gol" from Lieut. Beynon's sketches.

[Illustration: MAP OF NORTH WEST FRONTIER OF INDIA*]

WITH KELLY TO CHITRAL

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

"Would you like to go up to Gilgit?"

"Rather."

I was down in the military offices at Simla, hunting for a book and some
maps, when I was asked the above question. No idea of Gilgit had before
entered my head, but with the question came the answer, and I have since
wondered why I never before thought of applying for the billet.

This was at the end of June 1894, and on the 24th August I was crossing
the Burzil pass into the Gilgit district. As day broke on the 31st
August, I dropped down several thousand feet from Doyen to Ramghat in
the Indus valley, and it suddenly struck me I must have come down too
low, and got into Dante's Inferno. As I passed under the crossbeam of
the suspension bridge, I looked to find the motto, "All hope relinquish,
ye who enter here." It wasn't there, but instead there was a sentry on
the bridge, who, on being questioned, assured me that though there was
not much to choose in the matter of temperature between the two places,
I was still on the surface of the earth. He seemed an authority on the
subject, so I felt happier, and accepted the cup of tea offered me by
the commander of the guard.

Two hours later I was in Bunji, where I found I was to stay, and two
days after that, an officer on his way down to Kashmir passed through,
and almost the first question he asked me was, why on earth I had come
up to Gilgit. "Gilgit's played out," said he. Well, I had been asked
that question several times on my march up, so I may as well explain
that there are officially two chief causes which send men up to
Gilgit--one is debts, and the other, the Intelligence Branch. These, I
say, are the official reasons, but the real reason is the chance of a
"frontier row." In Simla they call them military expeditions. This
accounts for the last part of that young officer's speech. There seemed
no chance of a row to him, so he was going to other fields, and wondered
at my coming up. At first, the result seemed to bear him out, as within
two months he was on the war-path in Waziristan, while I was still
kicking my heels at Bunji; but luck changed later, and I laughed last.

Well, to continue, my official reason for coming to Gilgit being the
Intelligence Branch, I was ordered up to Chitral early in November for
some surve