INTRODUCTORY

“Would you like to go up to Gilgit?”

“Rather.”

I was down in the military offices at Simla, hunting for a book and some maps, when I was asked the above question.  No idea of Gilgit had before entered my head, but with the question came the answer, and I have since wondered why I never before thought of applying for the billet.

This was at the end of June 1894, and on the 24th August I was crossing the Burzil pass into the Gilgit district.  As day broke on the 31st August, I dropped down several thousand feet from Doyen to Ramghat in the Indus valley, and it suddenly struck me I must have come down too low, and got into Dante’s Inferno.  As I passed under the crossbeam of the suspension bridge, I looked to find the motto, “All hope relinquish, ye who enter here.”  It wasn’t there, but instead there was a sentry on the bridge, who, on being questioned, assured me that though there was not much to choose in the matter of temperature between the two places, I was still on the surface of the earth.  He seemed an authority on the subject, so I felt happier, and accepted the cup of tea offered me by the commander of the guard.

Two hours later I was in Bunji, where I found I was to stay, and two days after that, an officer on his way down to Kashmir passed through, and almost the first question he asked me was, why on earth I had come up to Gilgit.  “Gilgit’s played out,” said he.  Well, I had been asked that question several times on my march up, so I may as well explain that there are officially two chief causes which send men up to Gilgit—­one is debts, and the other, the Intelligence Branch.  These, I say, are the official reasons, but the real reason is the chance of a “frontier row.”  In Simla they call them military expeditions.  This accounts for the last part of that young officer’s speech.  There seemed no chance of a row to him, so he was going to other fields, and wondered at my coming up.  At first, the result seemed to bear him out, as within two months he was on the war-path in Waziristan, while I was still kicking my heels at Bunji; but luck changed later, and I laughed last.

Well, to continue, my official reason for coming to Gilgit being the Intelligence Branch, I was ordered up to Chitral early in November for some survey work, and thus obtained the knowledge of the route and country that was to stand me in such good stead later on.  I finished my work in Chitral in ten days, starting back for Gilgit on the 1st December, arriving there on the 19th.  I spent Christmas in Gilgit, and started on the 2nd January 1895 for Hunza, where I expected to remain for the rest of the winter.

News of the murder of Nizam-ul-mulk, Mehter of Chitral, reached Gilgit on the 7th January, and Dr. Robertson, Political Agent at Gilgit, at once made preparations for a visit to Chitral.