Three

Tuesday 28th. Another cold but beautifully fine morning, We started about 8.30, late as usual, partly because we waited to get the tent dry, and partly because the men take so long getting the loads onto the ponies. We followed up a stream for six miles, the hills getting more rocky and mountainous, often very black and volcanic looking.
The track now turned right up a slope which led us into a valley about three miles long and 1 wide, enclosed by a ridge of precipitous rock, a peak on our right being some 2000 feet high, with a small lake at the foot.. Keeping up the valley for a mile or so, we then began a zig zagging ascent up the slope to our left to a pass at the top, the Burzil La, 15700 feet above sea level. There was a keen wind blowing, and before we reached the top it began to snow. When we reached the top, a grand sight presented itself. From the heights on either side of us two great spurs descended, forming a magnificent gorge, the upper part full of snow. Down through the gorge we could see a bit of the Indus Valley, 15 miles away and 8000 feet below us from which rose up a great mass of snow mountains, the main range and off-shoots of the Karakoram Mountains, the nearer summits of 16 to 17 thousand feet, running up to peaks of 25 to 26 thousand feet and one, K2, of over 28,000 feet, the second highest mountain in the world. Except about Mnt Everest, there is no assemblage of such great peaks anywhere. The sun was striking full on them when we reached the top, and I had just time to get a photo when dark threatening clouds closed in, and a driving snow began sweeping the ridge. I was puffing like a Grampus when we were up there, though the height had little effect on Neve. It was a heavy pull up for the laden ponies, but the descent on the other side was worse. The Deosai route to Scardu is only open from mid-July to mid-September as the road hasn’t time to get any good order.
The two officials who we met at the camping place said that the path was being seen to on account of the officer who was coming through, but that it didn’t really need anything doing because one could easily ride up and down. As a matter of fact it was about as bad as it could be, first dropping steeply down the right side of the gorge, then crossing the stream to the other side, and for most of the rest of the way, that is about 8 miles, it was simply a faltering track along the steep slope of loose debris, over moraine, and sometimes crossing the stream on bridges consisting of two or three poles laid across, with flat stones laid on them.
We descended about 2000 feet and then stopped for our proper breakfast - or tiffin - at 3.45, and then dropped another 2500 feet, or 5 miles from the top of the pass, and camped on some grassy mounds.
It had got warmer and warmer as we descended, and I was glad to get a wash in the cold stream. We had now got down to the level of shrubs and flowers, wild gooseberries, juniper, pencil cedar etc.
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As our final march into Scardu would be a hot one, we turned out at 5 o’clock and got the ponies off by 6.30. The gorge got very narrow in places, at one spot only about 20 yards wide between the side cliffs, where at one time there was a wall across to defend the pass when the country was divided up into little independent and often warring states.
The rocks on one side, though still in shadow, reflected the light from the other side, making a beautiful effect. At half past nine we came quite suddenly out of the mouth of the gorge into the plain of Scardu, into a sort of country I have never before imagined.
You take an arid and stony plain - 8000 feet above the sea - about 10 miles long and 5 miles wide, and enclose it with mountains 8 or 9 thousand feet high, of absolutely bare rock, leaving a narrow gorge at each end through which a river may enter and leave the plain. You put a great rock, like Gibraltar, in the middle of the plain, and many great mounds of broken rock and sand. Given a few streams coming down gorges in the mountain, and use the water to irrigate a few isolated oases, on which you grow various crops and great numbers of apricot, mulberry, apple and pear trees and vines, and you plant avenues of poplar and willow trees along the paths leading from one oasis to another. You build flat-roofed houses of large sun-dried bricks and wattle here and there about the fields, and settle a very ugly, small and dirty species of humans in them. Over the top you spread a cloudless blue sky and blazing hot sun, and you have Scardu in outline.
But I must proceed in order with my account of the last two days, which have been the most odd I have ever spent.
On emerging from the gorge, we came at once to the village of Kurpita - situated on its oasis - and halted at the unusual early hour of 10 for our breakfast. An exceedingly dirty man came and presented us with a basket of apples - the shadow of what was to come. As we were eating our mutton cutlets, we heard the ominous sound of the crackling of pots, and looking up saw Neve’s old pony trying to roll with two sackfulls of tinned stores on his back, including my scant supply of photo plates, which we rescued with all speed and found undamaged.

After breakfast we marched along a poplar avenue, and passing a field of beans called the owner and asked him to sell us some, but he said “what do I want with your money?” and went and picked a lot at once and gave us them - very unlike a Kashmiri. So we proceeded and came to a stream crossing the road. Neve jumped on behind one of the ponies and crossed in safety. I assayed to follow his example and jumped on behind another, but there wasn’t much room and the pony’s legs gave way and the basket in front was not firm for holding on to, so I dropped off gracefully into the water.
Further on we came to more cultivated land; a large oasis with many houses dotted about, in fact Scardu itself. The first thing I saw was a number of oxen tied together by the neck and to a pole round which they walked round and round, treading out the corn, while men threw the untrodden straw about to get out the dust. We passed on by houses and down lanes, nearly under the shadow

of the great rock, on a spur of which stands an old native fort, past the long native polo ground and the old Sikh fort to the bagh or garden where stands the Dak Bungalow, a flat roofed place, having 4 large rooms with a spacious veranda in front, with little square openings for windows.
We were very glad to get under shelter from the sun, and took up our quarters in one of the rooms, in which I am now writing, with all our goods around us on a terribly dusty floor.
We had not long arrived when the Tehsildar of Baltistan - the Governor under the maharaja of Kashmir - was announced to be approaching. He is a Kashmiri Pundit and probably a rascal at that. I hadn’t time to change my wet socks, but we both sallied out to meet him.