DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3909#0006
( 3 )
" cheshm V for " eye," &e, I suspected that they were trying to deceive me; and I therefore
requested to be allowed to examine these men in my tent. In spite of repeated promises, this
was never done, because the Maharaja of Kashmir was afraid that I would find out in conver-
sation with the prisoners other than linguistic matters, and which it was to his interest to
conceal. A deposed Chief of Skardo, who came to see me, was suddenly arrested, my servants
were subjected to every kind of chicanery, and a charge was trumped up against a Ghilghiti,
whose language and ChiMsi I conjectured to be kindred dialects. I began to despair that I
should ever be able to accomplish the work on which I had been deputed by Government, at
Srinagar, and finally I informed his Highness, the Maharaja, that I was going to learn the
language at Bunji, on the Indus, then the extreme frontier of his country, according to the
treaty made with Lord Hardinge in 1846. I had been cautioned by Sir Donald McLeod not
to expose myself by going beyond, and was specially warned against the terrors of Ghilghit,
on the road to which Bunji lies. There was a war being waged with the Maharajah at the
time at Ghilghit, the assembled tribes coming down as far as Sai, opposite to Bunji. I
secured two men who had been to Ghilghit; but when I had started from Srinagar, I found
that two Sepoys of the Maharaja had been substituted for them. I turned them off when
I discovered that they were the men who had led an English colonel, bent on reaching
Ghilghit, a two months' dance over the hills, with the sole result of bringing him back
to Srinagar by another road, and without accomplishing his object.
I could fill a small volume with an account of the hardships which we encountered
on even the well-known ground which we had to traverse before reaching the little explored
districts; how my followers were tampered with and my supplies cut off; how an attempt
was made to draw me into a quarrel, the contemplated result of which should be my
assassination. To me, whose knowledge and courteous treatment of natives are, I may say
without breach of modesty, admitted, all this would, under ordinary circumstances, have
been a mystery, especially after the very cordial manner in which I had been accredited
to, and received by, the Kashmir Government. I then suddenly changed my route, and,
instead of going West towards Bunji, I moved rapidly in an Easterly direction towards Skardo.
The reason was that an Akhun, whom I entertained at my camp-fire, told me, as a secret,
that Mr. Cowie's body had been found and buried at Tolti, four marches from Skardo, where
the Indus becomes shallow and often washes bodies on shore, and that it was the Maharaja's
wish to hush up the whole matter. I marched day and night, in order to be beforehand
with his postal runners, passed an English officer from some Peshawar regiment, who had
enquired about Cowie, but had been told that he had not been found, and at midnight called
upon the Munshi of the Governor of Skardo, whom I ordered forthwith to produce the body.
On his replying that he could not do so, as it was buried four marches off, I was pacified, for
my own information was thus corroborated, and I sent off a dozen men with instructions to take
the whole block of earth in which the body was buried and bring it to me. The men were
under the charge of Mr. Cowie's bearer, Kerem Beg, who was profoundly attached to his late
master, and had followed me partly in the hope of recovering his body. When it was brought in,
we two washed away the earth with our own hands, found the skeleton, a portion of his shawl,
but no vestige of his rings, watch, &c, &c. Most, singular events then happened, which I must
not now, if ever, relate. Suffice it to say that we found and copied an entry in the Governor's
official Diary, in which he duly reported to the Maharaja the recovery of the body, on the 2nd
July, 1866, of the Englishman who was drowned atDras, whilst on the 17th August following,
that potentate had denied to me the reception of any news on the subject! I then put the limbs
" cheshm V for " eye," &e, I suspected that they were trying to deceive me; and I therefore
requested to be allowed to examine these men in my tent. In spite of repeated promises, this
was never done, because the Maharaja of Kashmir was afraid that I would find out in conver-
sation with the prisoners other than linguistic matters, and which it was to his interest to
conceal. A deposed Chief of Skardo, who came to see me, was suddenly arrested, my servants
were subjected to every kind of chicanery, and a charge was trumped up against a Ghilghiti,
whose language and ChiMsi I conjectured to be kindred dialects. I began to despair that I
should ever be able to accomplish the work on which I had been deputed by Government, at
Srinagar, and finally I informed his Highness, the Maharaja, that I was going to learn the
language at Bunji, on the Indus, then the extreme frontier of his country, according to the
treaty made with Lord Hardinge in 1846. I had been cautioned by Sir Donald McLeod not
to expose myself by going beyond, and was specially warned against the terrors of Ghilghit,
on the road to which Bunji lies. There was a war being waged with the Maharajah at the
time at Ghilghit, the assembled tribes coming down as far as Sai, opposite to Bunji. I
secured two men who had been to Ghilghit; but when I had started from Srinagar, I found
that two Sepoys of the Maharaja had been substituted for them. I turned them off when
I discovered that they were the men who had led an English colonel, bent on reaching
Ghilghit, a two months' dance over the hills, with the sole result of bringing him back
to Srinagar by another road, and without accomplishing his object.
I could fill a small volume with an account of the hardships which we encountered
on even the well-known ground which we had to traverse before reaching the little explored
districts; how my followers were tampered with and my supplies cut off; how an attempt
was made to draw me into a quarrel, the contemplated result of which should be my
assassination. To me, whose knowledge and courteous treatment of natives are, I may say
without breach of modesty, admitted, all this would, under ordinary circumstances, have
been a mystery, especially after the very cordial manner in which I had been accredited
to, and received by, the Kashmir Government. I then suddenly changed my route, and,
instead of going West towards Bunji, I moved rapidly in an Easterly direction towards Skardo.
The reason was that an Akhun, whom I entertained at my camp-fire, told me, as a secret,
that Mr. Cowie's body had been found and buried at Tolti, four marches from Skardo, where
the Indus becomes shallow and often washes bodies on shore, and that it was the Maharaja's
wish to hush up the whole matter. I marched day and night, in order to be beforehand
with his postal runners, passed an English officer from some Peshawar regiment, who had
enquired about Cowie, but had been told that he had not been found, and at midnight called
upon the Munshi of the Governor of Skardo, whom I ordered forthwith to produce the body.
On his replying that he could not do so, as it was buried four marches off, I was pacified, for
my own information was thus corroborated, and I sent off a dozen men with instructions to take
the whole block of earth in which the body was buried and bring it to me. The men were
under the charge of Mr. Cowie's bearer, Kerem Beg, who was profoundly attached to his late
master, and had followed me partly in the hope of recovering his body. When it was brought in,
we two washed away the earth with our own hands, found the skeleton, a portion of his shawl,
but no vestige of his rings, watch, &c, &c. Most, singular events then happened, which I must
not now, if ever, relate. Suffice it to say that we found and copied an entry in the Governor's
official Diary, in which he duly reported to the Maharaja the recovery of the body, on the 2nd
July, 1866, of the Englishman who was drowned atDras, whilst on the 17th August following,
that potentate had denied to me the reception of any news on the subject! I then put the limbs