That Good For Nothing Piece
Of Charcoal Had, However, Doubtless Dashed The Solid Cut-Glass Globe,
Which Formed The Chief Glory Of The Instrument, Against A Rock, While
Thinking Of His Hubble Bubble, And His Little Blackamoors At Home.
The lamp had got over all the difficulties of the road from Lahore to
Ladak and back, and had
Been quite a peep-show to half the natives of
Thibet, who were never tired of regarding their multiplied countenances
in the numerous cut circles of the glass shade, so that we felt quite
grieved at its melancholy loss. Our water bottle also to-day finished
its existence, and the table came into camp a bundle of sticks;
so that everything seemed to betoken the approaching dissolution of
the expedition. The farm-yard consists of five ducks, all strangers,
and a pet sheep, and the khiltas look haggard and dilapidated in the
extreme. The musical cock, alone, of old friends still survives,
but he appears in weak health, and his constitution is evidently
undermined by the changes of climate it has undergone. We were here
worried by a party of strolling mountebanks from the Punjab, who
persisted in horrifying us by making two young girls and three boys,
all apparently entirely destitute of bones, stand upon their heads,
and go through similar performances on the grass. The girl actually
pattered a measure with her feet upon the back of her head, and
the proprietors seemed utterly unable to account for our apathetic
disregard of so extremely talented and interesting a performance.
OCTOBER 6. - Left for Hutteian, about fifteen miles off. Ponies
being scarce, I had to walk part of the way; but the sepoy, pitching
by chance upon our friends, the Punjabees, triumphantly carried
off a stout little animal of theirs for my use. Before mounting,
however, I was mobbed by the tumbling family, EN MASSE, who went on
their knees in their solicitations to be exempt from the seizure
of their property. Finding me obdurate in retaining the pony at a
fair valuation, with "the army" to bear me out, they proceeded to
diplomatic measures to gain their end. First, a very small child,
choosing a stony place in the path, suddenly stood upon her head,
and proceeded to form black knots with her body. Finding that this
only caused me to threaten her father with a stick, they produced
a blind girl, who threw herself half naked at my feet and cried
by order. The poor creature had lost her sight by the small-pox,
and I had remarked her the day before patiently toiling over rocks
and broken paths with one little child in her arms, and another half
leading, half obstructing her, endeavouring to guide her footsteps
down the rocks. She, however, got no immediate benefit from the pony
of contention; so, giving her some money to console her in her forced
misery, I still remained inexorable. After this, the encampment broke
up, with all its pots and pans, cows and fowl, &c. and took to the
road, leaving me in undisturbed possession of my new conveyance.
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