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When this projector found that the South-Sea stock did not rise according to his expectation upon the bill's being passed, he circulated a report that Gibraltar and Port-Mahon would be exchanged for some places in Teru; by which means the English trade to the South-Sea would be protected and enlarged. This rumour, diffused by his emissaries, acted like a contagion.
But though laden or unladen animals could not cross the pass, we saw no reason to suppose that men could not, and therefore, at Teru, which we reached by four o'clock, a halt was made, and two hundred Pioneers, with Borradaile and Cobbe, and the Sappers under Oldham, were detailed to remain there with the Hunza Levies, and to try and force their way across the pass the next day.
In fact, the Chitralis looked upon the game as entirely in their own hands; the surprise of our arrival was therefore all the more complete. Having brought the guns and Borradaile's party safely across the pass, I return and relate Colonel Kelly's and my own experiences. After leaving the guns being dragged through the snow to Langar on the 3rd April, I walked back to Teru.
About midday I caught up the tail of the troops, who were already past the village of Teru, the highest inhabited spot in the valley; there are only a few houses, and these are scattered about in clumps a few hundred yards apart. Passing on, I caught up the battery, and reached the leading infantry, when suddenly the word to halt was passed down the long line.
We managed, by instituting a house-to-house visitation, to collect some twenty spades of sorts, and with those supplied by the troops, we got altogether some forty, which were handed over to Gough. He and Stewart and fifty Kashmir Sepoys started off that day to Teru, taking with them half a dozen sledges that had been made out of ghi boxes.
Shortly after this, Gough came up, saying that the Kashmir troops in the post had volunteered to make a road through the snow, and if he could take fifty of them with four days' rations to Teru, a sufficient track might be made to Langar, our next camping ground, just this side of the pass, to enable the guns to be carried there without much difficulty.
After breakfast I started off for Teru myself, to see how Borradaile was getting along, and, finding he had started, I left my borrowed pony at the village, and, pushing on, caught up the rearguard a short way beyond where we had been forced to turn back on the 1st April.
The snow continuing, it was impossible to attempt the pass; but the Kashmirs set to work to dig a road from Teru through the snow to Langar, the camping-ground on their side of the pass, and on the next day the guns were got along to Teru and thence to Langar, but this was only effected by carrying the guns, carriages, and ammunition.
After a few miles the guns stuck in the deep snow, and it was found impossible to get them along. Captain Borrodaile, with Lieutenant Oldham and 140 men, with the Hunza Levies, remained at Teru with provision for ten days. The rest of the column with the guns had reluctantly to return to Ghizr.
They were posted in the village of Teru, some four miles up the valley, and from there could give timely warning if any hostile force crossed the pass. Wazir Humayun led the Hunza crowd, and Wazir Taifu the Nagar. I got to know Humayun very well indeed, and a right good sort he is.
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