Considerable opium is also grown hereabouts, and the people make it into sticks about the size of a carpenter’s pencil; hundreds of these also occupy the merchant’s shelves.  He seems to have very little that isn’t grown in the neighborhood except tea and loaf-sugar.

Eyots, who were absent in their fields when I arrived, come crowding around the store in the evening, bothering me to ride; the shop-keeper bids them wait till my departure in the morning, telling them I am not a luti, riding simply to let people see.  He provides me with a door that fastens inside, and I am soon in the land of dreams.

Early in the morning I am awakened by people pounding at the door and shouting, “A/tab, Sahib-a/tab.’” It is the belated ryots of yesterday eve; thoroughly determined to be on hand and see the start, they are letting me know that it is sunrise.

A boisterous mountain stream, tearing along at racing speed over a rocky bed a hundred and fifty yards wide, provides Kakh with perpetual music, and furnishes travellers going southward with an interesting time getting across.  This stream must very frequently become a raging torrent, quite impassable; for although it is little more than knee-deep this morning, the swift water carries down stones as large as a brick, that strike against the ankles and well-nigh knock one off his feet.

Beyond Kakh the trail winds its circuitous way through a mountainous region, following one little stream to its source, climbing over the crest of an intervening ridge and down the bed of another stream.  It is but an indistinct donkey trail at best, and the toilsome mountain climbing reminds me vividly of the worst parts of Asia Minor.  Toward nightfall I wander into the village of Nukhab, a small place perched among the hills, inhabited by kindly-disposed, hospitable folks.

Having seen the unhappy effect of the Governor-General’s letter of recommendation at Torbet-i-Haiderie, and desirous of seeing what effect it might, perchance, have on the more simple-hearted people of Nukhab, I present it to the little, old, blue-gowned Khan of the village.  Like a very large proportion of his people, the Khan is suffering from chronic ophthalmia; but he peruses the letter by the glimmer of a blaze of camel-thorn.  The intentions of these people were plainly most hospitable from the beginning, so that it is difficult to determine about the effect of the letter.

Willing hands sweep out the quarters assigned for my accommodation, the improvised besoms filling the place with a cloud of dust; the doorway is ruthlessly mutilated to make it large enough to admit the bicycle; nummuds are spread and a crackling fire soon fills the room with mingled smoke and light.  The people are allowed to circulate freely in and out to see me, but only the Khan himself and a few of the leading lights of the village are permitted to indulge in the coveted privilege of spending the entire evening in my company.  The village is ransacked for eatables to honor their guest, resulting in a bountiful repast of eggs, pillau, mast, and sheerah.