Far away, some thirty or forty miles, in an east-north-east direction, we saw a fine snow mountain range and peaks, and decided to steer for the south side of them. On climbing a hill it was obvious that the nullah we were in ran straight away towards these mountains. This was certainly encouraging. There would be no more trouble in having to find a way, and there would be no anxiety about our water and grass supply. The chances, too, were that we should pick up a better supply of wild game droppings for our fires, instead of having to dig up so much boortsa each day, and on some occasions we had hardly been able to collect enough to make a fire at all. We argued, with regard to the range we should come to, that if there were grass, streams from the snow, and shelter from the hills, why should not there be wandering inhabitants of the place?
Some time back a muleteer, Ghulam Russul, had taken the post of headman in place of Tokhta, degraded for incapacity. Ghulam Russul had been on a previous trip with the Littledales, and knew the likely sort of country where nomads love to dwell in. We had been warned against this man by the Wazir of Leh, but then we considered him the most suitable, out of a poor lot of men, for the post of head muleteer. The sight of this range added to Ghulam Russul's opinion that people might be living there, and the knowledge that we must be somewhere near Barkhalu, if there were such a place, induced us to make the following plan. We arranged to send Esau and Mahomed Rahim south, and Ghulam Russul with Shukr Ali north, each man with enough rations to last for two days; this we were able to do, for fortunately an antelope had just lately been shot. We furnished them with the simple instructions to find people, get assistance in the shape of some baggage animals, and return again into camp a little lower down, but in the same nullah we were in. We agreed that we might just as well not lose an opportunity of making a few more miles, by marching the first day without these four men. Before, therefore, these two exploring parties sallied forth, they helped to load up. We thought we could manage to drive them by ourselves for one day, seeing that the way was clear, although our numbers would be very small. Of a truth, when these four men went off, there only remained, besides Malcolm and myself, Lassoo and another man, called Usman, to look after the caravan. This is really not enough, for one man must lead the way in front; whenever, too, a load during the march falls over to one side, the mule must at once be reloaded, to prevent any chafing from a badly-balanced burden. While this is occupying the attention of two or three men, the rest of the mules will stray in any direction, unless there are some more men present to keep them together. Sulloo, as usual, would come along behind, with one Juma to look after him, whose special employment was as cook for the rest of the men. Shahzad Mir, of course, would have to attend to his plane-table work. Usman was a tall, black, powerful fellow, but not fond of work; when Shahzad Mir's pony died he was generally told off to carry the plane-table. This duty suited him admirably, for he could put in many a snooze throughout the day on the top of various hills. He used to say he had travelled before, with a Russian through Turkistan. As for Tokhta, who had swollen to a tremendous size, resembling a large, over-ripe gooseberry, or rotten apple, he had been sent out in the very early morning to look after the ponies, for he was equal to no other greater exertion, but when it came to the hour of starting there was no Tokhta present, nor could we discover what on earth had become of him. In the end, we moved off without him, knowing that when he awoke, for he was probably slumbering peacefully in a sheltered nook, he would find it no hard job to track us down the nullah we were going along; besides, we intended halting all that afternoon and the whole of the following day. Tokhta was a regular drain upon us, for, although he had made up his mind that he was unfit to do any more work, still he had to have his share of the rations, much to the disgust of his brother muleteers, who under such circumstances soon lost all affection for one another, and had no scruples about letting a man starve as long as it suited their own ends. Having loaded the animals, we all started off together, the men who had been selected to the north and south, and we ourselves down the nullah.