Show THE EASTERIf hINDU ICUSH Narrow paths so narrow that often while the riders boot brushed the cliff his outer foot overhung a precipice followed fol-lowed the course of the streams Often in the course of one short march the path ascends 1000 feet or more to avoid crossing some precipitous cliff and the repeated ascents and descents render rid lag a weariness to the flesh Frequently the path Is carried across the face of the cliff on roughlyconstructed galleries upheld by shaky timbers Jammed into interstices In the rock In many of the valleys when the summer sun melts the accumulations of snow and the mighty glaciers pour down their flooded torrents the lower paths become Impassible for animals For months at a time all ant mat tratnc is suspended ana men on foot alone following giddy tracks skirting skirt-ing gigantic precipices can with difficulty diffi-culty find their way from valley to valley val-ley Three years ago for instance whett an impending attack by the Hunza Na gar tribesmen on Chalt our frontier outpost out-post thirty miles north of Gllglt forced me to move troops to the frontier it was impossible for mo to take a mule battery through with the infantry The road runs along the Hunza river through one of the wildest gorges in the Hindu Kush great cliffs rise sheer out of the water and tower thousands of feet above you The heat in June when we passed through the gorge r is terrific it always seemed to me a fitting approach to the gate Of hell Eight times In one march had the mules to be unladen and guns ammunition and baggage carried across cliffs by the men One cliff presented such difficulties that even unladen mules could not cross It and we were forced to swim them over the river below it and to recross them above it Again In March last when moving reinforcements re-inforcements to Chilas in the Indus val icy two marches were impassable to un laden mules and I was obliged to move down the guns on coolies Such were the roads all through this region five years ago Now a good mountain road is complete to Gibjit the Indus is bridged at Bunjl a passable road leads to Chllas and the communications generally are improving The Contemporary Review |