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Updated: May 18, 2025
The gopa came forth to meet us, bearing apricots and cheeses as the Gyalpo's greeting, and conducted us to the camping-ground, a sloping lawn in a willow-wood, with many a natural bower of the graceful Clematis orientalis.
The gopa, or headman of Sati, a splendid fellow, who accompanied us through Nubra, and eight wild-looking, half-naked satellites, were the Charons of that Styx.
I had trained my servants to treat the natives courteously, and addressed some rather strong language to the offender, and afterwards succeeded in enticing all the fugitives back by showing my sketches, which gave boundless pleasure and led to very numerous requests for portraits! The gopa, though he had the oblique Mongolian eyes, was a handsome young man, with a good nose and mouth.
The Gopa, or head-man of the village, could speak a little Hindostanee, besides being able to read and write his own language in two characters, and as he seemed unusually sharp and intelligent, I was very glad to have a chat with him while waiting for the commissariat to come up.
My old acquaintance, the gopa, however, brought me one for sale, but it was in such a dilapidated state, and so highly valued as church property, that I let him keep his shaky religious curiosity at his own price. Leaving Kulchee, we crossed the Indus at a mud fort, and bid the roaring, dirty river a final good-bye.
The consequence was that the representative of "The Army," feeling its dignity insulted in the face of the populace, immediately set to work upon the unfortunate natives, and assaulted even the gopa, or kotwal, of the village; and so severely was one of the coolies handled, that I was obliged to interfere in the cause of peace, and not without difficulty succeeded in stopping the stone I had thus so unwittingly set rolling.
The ferrymen recrossed, pulled our saddle horses by ropes into the river, the gopa held them; again the scow and her frantic crew, poling, paddling, and yelling, were hurried broadside down, and as they swept past there were glimpses above and among the foam-crested surges of the wild- looking heads and drifting forelocks of two grey horses swimming desperately for their lives, a splendid sight.
This explanation of the difficulty caused me some qualms of conscience on account of the future prospects of the unfortunate writer whose particular stone I had appropriated; but for fear the Gopa himself might be the sufferer, I thought it better not to confide my emotions to him, but to leave the case in the hands of Khurjidal.
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