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.
The
weather began to astonish us a little to-day, by a renewed accession of
October heat. Still the climate was delightful. Morning and evenings
always cool, and sometimes cold, and a bright cheery blue invariably
over head, while a refreshing breeze made music through the pine trees,
and waved the golden ears of rice.
Encamped under a spreading sycamore, at the junction of two mountain
streams. To-day a new order of bridge appeared, consisting merely of
a single rope, the passengers being tugged across in a basket. From
its appearance it was rather a matter of congratulation that we were
not called upon to cross it.
OCTOBER 7. - Being Sunday, we made a halt, and enjoyed a refreshing
bathe in the stream, and a rest from the toils of the road.
OCTOBER 8. - Left "Hutteian," and, winding along the valley,
arrived, by a steep ascent, at Chukar, a little village boasting a
fort and a small nest of Sepoys. It also owned a curiously DIRTY,
and consequently SAINTLY Fukeer, whom we found sitting bolt upright,
newly decorated with ashes, and with an extremely florid collection
of bulls, demons, &c. painted about the den he occupied. On the road
I again picked up the old Mussulman, who seemed delighted to chat,
and gave me an account of the part he had played in the mutiny.
He appeared frequently to have warned his Commissioner that an outbreak
was about to take place, but without his crediting the story; and when
it actually did occur, the latter fled from his station at Lahore,
and took shelter with a friendly Risaldar until the storm should blow
over. From thence he sent for the old gentleman, my informant, and
"Imam Buksh" forthwith mounted his camel and came with five and twenty
armed followers to his assistance. While here, a party of rebels came
searching for English, and Mr. Buksh narrated how he went forth to
meet them, and proclaimed, that they might kill the Englishman if they
would, but must first dispose not only of himself, but also of his
five and twenty followers. Upon this they abused him, and asked him,
"What sort of a Mussulman he called himself?" and denounced him as a
"Feringee," or foreigner.
The rebels, however, finally went off, and the Commissioner and his
family, by Imam Buksh's further assistance, succeeded in escaping
all the dangers of the times. For this service it was that the old
gentleman had just received his jageer of two villages, now some
years after the occurrence of the events.
He appeared to think very little of the Maharajah's rule, and
was of opinion that the people were miserably oppressed, paying,
by his account, two thirds of the produce of their lands to the
Government. This was in kind, but, where the revenue was taken in coin,
a produce of about fourteen pounds of grain was subject to a tax of
two rupees. On the subject of the cause of the mutiny in India, he
said that greased cartridges certainly had nothing to do with it; for
the rest, why, "It was the will of God, and so it happened." To induce
him to argue on the POSSIBILITY of the mutiny having been successful,
I found to be out of the question. "It was the power of God which
had prevented the rebels from gaining over us, and, in the name of
the Holy Prophet and the twelve Imams, how then could it have been
otherwise?" As to the probability, however, of there being another
mutiny, he admitted that he thought there would be one, but that, as
long as we maintained justice, no other power could hold the country
against us. On my asking him if we did not maintain justice in the
land, he said no, and adduced the fact that in every case brought
before the courts an enormous amount of bribery goes on among the
Rishtidars, and other understrappers, whereby the man with most money
wins his cause. No Englishman, he thought, could take a bribe, but he
seemed to be under the impression that those in authority were aware of
the system being carried on by those beneath them. He admitted that he
knew of one native who would not take a bribe! and dwelt largely on the
subject, as if it were a wonderful fact, which I have no doubt it was.
In the evening we presented Mr. Imam Buksh with some of our sheep,
which delighted his heart immensely, and he spent the entire evening in
cooking and eating it, together with a perfect mountain of chupatties,
which he manufactured with great care and deliberation.
OCTOBER 9. - Left our camp very early, and had a sharp ascent up the
mountains. A considerable descent again, brought us to the village
of Mehra, where we pitched our tents, once more within sight of the
territories of India.
OCTOBER 10. - Marched into Dunna, our last halting-place in
Cashmere. It is situated nearly at the summit of the frontier range
of hills, and commanded a most extensive view of the mountains of
Cashmere and Cabul, besides those on the Indian side.
OCTOBER 11. - Took a last fond glance towards "the valley," and
descended by a very steep and difficult path to the river Jhelum,
which forms the boundary between the two territories. Here a couple
of queerly-shaped, rudely-constructed boats, with two huge oars
apiece, one astern and one at the side, formed the traveller's flying
bridge. Into one of these the whole of our possessions and coolies,
&c. were stowed, and we commenced the passage of the stream.
This we managed by, in the first instance, coasting up the bank for
several hundred yards, and then striking boldly into the current;
and it was amusing to see our well-crammed boat suddenly drawn into
the rapid stream and whisked and whirled about like a straw, while a
nice calculation on the part of the skipper, and a good deal of rowing
and shouting on that of the sailors, enabled us to touch the opposite
shore not very far below the point from which we had started.
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