difficulty.
Colonel Kelly's permission having been obtained, we set about collecting
all the shovels and spades we could find in the village. Among others I
got hold of the mullah's, who became very indignant; but I pointed out
to him that as his prayers seemed to have no effect on the snow, perhaps
his shovel would make up for their deficiencies. We managed, by
instituting a house-to-house visitation, to collect some twenty spades
of sorts, and with those supplied by the troops, we got altogether some
forty, which were handed over to Gough. He and Stewart and fifty Kashmir
Sepoys started off that day to Teru, taking with them half a dozen
sledges that had been made out of ghi boxes.

Later in the day we had to send out foraging parties for wood and bhoosa
(chopped straw) as the commissariat reported their supply as running
out; in fact, these parties had to go out every day during our stay in
Ghizr.

Early the next morning I got a note from Stewart, asking that the
battery might be sent up to Teru, as there was enough fodder there for
the mules, and experiments could be made for getting the guns along. I
got the battery off sharp, but it was nearly noon before they got to
Teru. The snow had ceased falling, and, the clouds clearing off, the sun
made a blinding glare off the freshly fallen snow.

After breakfast I started off for Teru myself, to see how Borradaile was
getting along, and, finding he had started, I left my borrowed pony at
the village, and, pushing on, caught up the rearguard a short way
beyond where we had been forced to turn back on the 1st April. Here I
found Stewart, Gough, and Oldham with the fifty Kashmir troops, two
Sappers and Miners, and rearguard of the Pioneers, staggering along
under the guns and ammunition in a track that had been beaten out by the
troops marching in front. For some reason or other the sledges did not
seem to act, partly, I think, because the track, being made by men
marching in single file, was too narrow and uneven; at anyrate, when I
arrived, the guns, wheels, carriages, and ammunition had been told off
to different squads, about four men carrying the load at a time, and
being relieved by a fresh lot every fifty yards or so. Even thus the
rate of progression was fearfully slow, about one mile an hour, and the
men were continually sinking up to their waists in snow. Added to this,
there was a bitter wind, and a blinding glare, while the men were
streaming with perspiratio