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Early the next morning the Pioneers and Levies started to cross the pass, while the remainder brought the guns into camp, which work, I believe, took the best part of the day. On leaving the camping ground, the track leads sharply to the right, following the course of the Shandur stream, which is now merely a rushing brook.
In spite of the cold, the men were pouring with perspiration. At one point in the march a stream had to be crossed. This was done only with great difficulty, and the rear guard did not reach the camping ground, at the mouth of the Shandur Pass, until eleven at night; and even then the guns had to be left a mile behind. Then the weary men had to cut fuel to light fires.
From this stream to Langar, the camping ground on the eastern side of the Shandur Pass, is some four miles, the valley being open and fairly level, but covered with thick dwarf willow on the banks of the stream flowing down the centre which confines the road to the western side of the valley.
They all seemed pretty lively in spite of the poor time they had been having; but as they are used to crossing the Shandur at all times of the year, I daresay our sympathy was a good deal wasted. We were soon descending into the Laspur valley, and we had hardly dropped three hundred feet before all sense of sickness left me, and I felt as fit as possible.
It is by these small acts that officers can endear themselves to their men, who, knowing that their officers have their welfare at heart, will follow wherever they may lead. Thus was the Shandur Pass first crossed, and a position established from whence the force could work down to Mastuj and thence to Chitral.
That is the only time I have ever suffered from mountain sickness, and I have crossed the Shandur both before and since, as also other passes, without feeling any inconvenience. By noon we had almost reached the highest point of the pass, and were skirting the larger lake, when we met the coolies of Borradaile's party returning with an escort of some of the Kashmir troops.
It will be noticed that again the troops and non-commissioned officers were entirely native. On April the 1st, in spite of five days' snow, the column set out from Ghizr to attempt the Shandur Pass. The first difficulty was a stampede of the impressed native bearers, who had bolted in the night and were not collected again till late in the afternoon.
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