On the 19th of June we started very early, as the tremendous Oonnye pass rising to the height of 11,400 feet lay before us, and we had a full ten miles march ere we could reach our proposed halting place at the village of Uart.  We soon entered the mouth of the pass, which was girt on either side by magnificent precipices; the road was narrow and slippery—­of course without even an apology for a parapet—­running along a natural ledge on the verge of a perpendicular cliff, and so sheer was the side, that from a horse’s back you might sometimes have dropped a stone into the apparently bottomless ravine—­bottomless, for the rays of a noon-day sun have never broken the eternal darkness of the awful chasm beneath.  Had horse, camel, or man missed their footing whilst scrambling up the steep and stony pathway, nothing could have saved them from being dashed to pieces.  Frequently, when rounding some projecting crag, the small treasure-box fastened on the camel literally overhung the abyss, and I held my breath and the pulsations of my heart increased as I watched horse after horse and camel after camel weather the critical point.

Before we reached Uart a poor woman of the Huzareh tribe (the most persecuted and enslaved throughout these regions) came and complained to us that her child had been seized by a band of plunderers, as she supposed, to be sold into slavery.  Sturt immediately despatched a couple of the guard to recover her child if possible, and the poor woman went off with the two soldiers in the full confidence that her escort would be successful.  I own that I myself was not so sanguine, but I had yet to learn how much even in these wild mountains the British name was respected.  The mother’s hopes were realized, and in the course of the day the child was recovered, having been instantly surrendered on the requisition being made; but I was surprised to see instead of a helpless child a fine handsome well-knit young man.  The gratitude of the poor woman was sincere; she had nothing, she said, to offer in return, but prayed that every blessing might descend upon us and our most distant relations; that we might all become great kings; and that finally we might be successful in conquering the country we were proceeding to invade:  vain were our endeavours to set before her in their true light the object of our expedition.

We arrived rather late at Uart after a hard day’s work, and were not much gratified by the aspect of our camp, which was disagreeable, from its great elevation and its situation on a bleak table-land, thinly covered with a short grass, with the strong winds of the Hindoo Khoosh sweeping across it.