The Gilgit mission 1885-1886 / [Sir William Lockhart and Robert Woodthorpe].

  • Lockhart, William (William Stephen Alexander), Sir, 1841-1900.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Gilgit mission 1885-1886 / [Sir William Lockhart and Robert Woodthorpe]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    barley, two kharwars flour, 40 sheep, 10 Kabal seers ghee, salt, &c., iu proportion [nine seers English = one seer Kabal, eighty seers Kabal = one kharwar]. What the Boundary Commission have to do here I can’t under- stand, but trust that at any rate no Russian will accompany them and take stock of the parses. The geographical work has now been done by Wood- thorpe ; there can be no boundary work here, and I can’t recommend the neighbourhood as suited to sight-seeing or pleasure-making. If not ordered to do anything else, I’ll march now to Kala-i-Panja and Zebak—picking up our Chitral detachment at the latter—and then perhaps go on to Faizabad if necessary. Meanwhile I’ll get into communication with the Kafir colony at Minjgan, and call up some of our old friends of last year—Shtaluk, &c. Of course en route to Zebak, and from that place we shall do the north side of all the Chitral passes. Once in Kafiristan, free of Afghans, we shall, I doubt not, succeed in seeing the country, and making friends with the people. I remember, however, that our primary functions are to be of use to Ridgeway’s party, and you may depend on my loyally carrying out whatever may tend to their interests, subordinating all our own ends to theirs. It will be hard on us, though, if you give them Kafiristan to do, and it will be hard on Chitral if you let them go through that country.” “ A Shin war! refugee in Gilgit has followed W oodthorpe’s fortunes in this trip. He told me yesterday that his friends in Gilgit did their best to dissuade him from coming with us. The dangers they anticipated were Hunza treachery, snow, or starvation, and the saying (Pir Gul tells us) at Gilgit was, that our chances of getting through to Wakhan safely were as good as would be those of a criminal condemned to death in a British court in his passage between the jail and the gallows. Now it is all over it is clear that our Gilgit friends had some grounds for their apprehensions. I cannot, I think, be accused of rashness in not anticipating treachery at Hunza in the form it presented itself. Surely the hostages taken seemed a sufficient security. The second danger—snow—-was a real one. Had we not crossed the Wak- hujrui on the 9th we could not have done it on either the 10th or 11th as it snowed hard on both days, and had we been caught in a heavy snow storm on the top the greater part of us must have perished. Again, had we not crossed on the 9th we should have been imprisoned between the Killik and Wakhujrui, and subjected to the third danger—starvation.” The courier who carried this letter took also one for Colonel Ridgeway, announcing the arrival of the party and repeating Colonel Lockhart’s warn- ing against a route through Chitral being adopted for any of the Afghdn Boundary Commission. Colonel Ridgeway was also told of the supplies laid out in Wakhan for his people, and reminded that the geographical work in that country would be completely done by Colonel Woodthorpe. Colonel