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Its proximity enables our good Sabz Ali to sally forth each morning and secure the earliest consignment of "butter and eggs and a pound of cheese," which has come up from Srinagar, and select the best of the fruit and vegetables.
Long before we had left our beds, and blissfully unconscious of our awful danger, we were striking out for Bandipur, which haven we safely reached about 8 A.M. on a still and glorious morning. Then came the business of collecting coolies and ponies, and loading them up with the tents and lesser baggage under the direction of Sabz Ali and the shikari. By nine o'clock we were off.
So, on Tuesday, we sent on the heavy luggage in two ekkas which Sabz Ali had procured, the two others being only hired from Hassan Abdal to Abbotabad. So, acting on my permission, he engaged one Ayata a gentle person of a sheep-like disposition, who did everything he was told, and nothing that he was told not to, during our sojourn in Kashmir.
This was vexatious and entirely unexpected, as I had never before known a coolie to bolt before pay-day. Sabz Ali and Satarah were promptly despatched on a pressgang foray, while I put to sea with the first-lieutenant to show that I meant business. A crew was found in a surprisingly short time, and a frenzied dart was made for the mouth of the Jhelum.
It is good to hear Jane who for many years has been accustomed to having her own way in all household matters ordering breakfast. "Well, Sabz Ali what shall we have for breakfast to-morrow?" "Jessa mem-sahib arder!" with a friendly grin. "Then I shall have kidneys." "No kidney, mem-sahib! Kidney plenty money two annas six pice ek. Oh, plenty dear!" "I'm tired of eggs.
As we left the Taj Mahal Hotel, in a conveyance piled high with miscellaneous baggage, we saw the last of our faithful and indispensable Sabz Ali, as he hurriedly quitted the hostelry in our wake, fearful lest undue delay should jeopardise the possession of the spoils he was carrying off, wrapped in bulging bundles of goodly size.
Up and up, till only pines waved over me, and the track, leading along the edge of a deep khud, opened out at last upon a plateau, hot and sunlit; here an entrancing panorama of Nanga Parbat and the whole range of mountains round Haramok caused me to stop "at gaze" until a mundane desire for breakfast sent me scurrying down the dusty and slippery descent to Larch, where I found, as I had hoped, the rest of the party assembled expectant around the tiffin basket, while the necromancer, Sabz Ali, had just succeeded in producing the most delightful stew, omelette, and coffee from the usual native toy kitchen, made, apparently, in a few minutes with a couple of stones and a dab of mud!
Now, Shem and Co. were as valuable to Noah as Sabz Ali is to us, and I should not be surprised if he made them travel on all-fours in the risky places. Fathers were very dictatorial in those days, and there was nobody about to make them consider their dignity. One can imagine the scene.
The coolies were bone-lazy, the admiral and first-lieutenant were sulky, and the weather was stuffy and threatened thunder the conditions were altogether detrimental to placidity of temper. By sunset we had the shikari, the kitchen-maid, and the sweeper on the tow-rope, and even the great and good Sabz Ali was seen to bear a hand in poling.
Amid much apparent confusion and tremendous chattering, a sort of rough ramp was engineered up the slip, and presently the horseless landau appeared borne in triumph by a mob of coolies superintended by our priceless Sabz Ali.
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