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Updated: June 12, 2025
We spent the crisp, warm afternoon peacefully stretched on the sloping sward in front of our tents, and making the acquaintance of the only good thing that came out of Palhallan a charming quartette of young geese which Sabz Ali had bought and brought. These delightful birds evinced the most perfect friendliness and confidence in us, and we became greatly attached to them.
On Friday morning we rattled out of Rawal Pindi about seven, and slowly wound through a rather stony and uninteresting country, until we arrived at the end of our railway journey about ten o'clock, and scrambled out at the little roadside station. Our excellent factotum, Sabz Ali, awaited us with a capacious landau, and informed us that the heavy baggage had gone on in the ekkas.
It grew dark, too; and, finally, not having had any reply to my telegram to General Woon, we did not know whether we were expected or not. Sabz Ali, however, had no doubts on the matter. We were approaching his own particular country, and whether "Gen'l 'Oon Sahib" was there to entertain us or not, he was; and so it was "alright."
I feel confident they must have taken great precautions, for Sabz Ali slipped up on the shelving bank of the Jhelum, and, had he not caught the gunwale of our dounga in his descent, would most certainly have had to swim for his life which I doubt if he can do!
The ekka horses, too, had brought our heavy luggage all the way from Abbotabad over a shocking road in the most admirable manner, and we had every reason to congratulate ourselves on having entrusted the arrangement of the whole business the "bandobast" in native parlance to our henchman Sabz Ali, who had thus proved himself an energetic and trustworthy organiser, and saving financier to the extent of some twenty rupees.
It was permitted to sit on the lady's knee, and scratch its yellow beak with its little yellow claw; but I never cared to let it remain long upon my shoulder a perch it ardently affected. Sabz Ali brought the little corpse along, holding it by one pathetic leg to show the horrified Jane, before giving it to the kites and crows.
The General promised to supply us with such an one, who, he said, would rob us to a certain extent himself, but would take good care that nobody else did so! Immediately, then, upon our arrival in Karachi roads, a dark and swarthy person, with a black beard and gleaming white teeth, appeared on board, and reported himself as Sabz Ali, our servant and our master!
A powerful garden-hose of considerable calibre might be useful, but for the present I have given Sabz Ali orders to rig out long poles, which will prevent the enemy from so easily getting to close quarters. June 17. It is quite curious that it should be so difficult to find time to keep up this journal.
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