e march."
Having been twenty-four hours in the saddle, my feet were not that
portion of my body most wearied, but I replied to the effect that I
trusted the shadow of the greasy gentleman might not diminish a
hairsbreadth in the next ten thousand years. We then proceeded to
business, and I observed that the man spoke a very broken and hardly
intelligible Hindustani. I tried him in Persian, but it was of no avail.
He spoke Persian, he said, but it was not of the kind that any human
being could understand; so we returned to the first language, and I
concluded that he was a wandering kabuli.

As an introduction of himself he mentioned Isaacs, calling him Abdul
Hafiz Sahib, and he seemed to know him personally. Abdul, he said, was
not far off as distances go in the Himalayas. He thought I should find
him the day after to-morrow, _mungkul_. He said I should not be able to
ride much farther, as the pass beyond Sultanpoor was utterly
impracticable for horses; coolies, however, awaited me with a dooly, one
of those low litters slung on a bamboo, in which you may travel swiftly
and without effort, but to the destruction of the digestive organs. He
said also that he would accompany me the next stage as far as the
doolies, and I thought he showed some curiosity to know whither I was
going; but he was a wise man in his generation, and knowing his orders,
did not press me overmuch with questions. I remarked in a mild way that
the saddle was the throne of the warrior, and that the air of the black
mountains was the breath of freedom; but I added that the voice of the
empty stomach was as the roar of the king of the forest. Whereupon the
man replied that the forest was mine and the game therein, whereof I was
lord, as I probably was of the rest of the world, since I was his father
and mother and most of his relations; but that, perceiving that I was
occupied with the cares of a mighty empire, he had ventured to slay with
his own hand a kid and some birds, which, if I would condescend to
partake of them, he would proceed to cook. I replied that the light of
my countenance would shine upon my faithful servant to the extent of
several coins, both rupees and pais, but that the peculiar customs of my
caste forbid me to touch food cooked by any one but myself. I would,
however, in consideration of his exertions and his guileless heart,
invite the true follower of the prophet, whose name is blessed, to
partake with me of the food which I sho