1 150 A JOURNEY IN INDIA, TIBET,
2 to death on the journey ; another had his arm broken ;
3 a horse had fallen down a precipice. But Sheragh Ali
4 Shah felt so much revivified by the sunshine of my pre-
5 sence as to have no doubt that had he but brought his
6 dead with him, I should have resuscitated them. In
7 fact he gave me my heart’s content of local character.
8 After him, the mountaineer was introduced. He
9 was a man of my own age, perfectly handsome, with a
10 very mild and haughty countenance. I should have
11 loved him with all my heart, but for the two hundred
12 vagabonds he had brought with him ; however, in spite
13 of this appendage, he pleased me much. From motives ~
14 of prudence, I hastened to let him know my kind inten-
15 tions towards him. I told him that I was a friend of
16 the oppressed and a promoter of peace, that I deplored
17 the state of war and perpetual uneasiness in which he
18 lived, and that if he would promise henceforth to
19 remain in peace, I would ask Runjeet Sing for the
20 liberation of one of his wives and of his daughters, who
21 were captives at Cashmere. He related to me his
22 history, which affected me much, and I certainly will
23 keep my word when I see Runjeet Sing again. But I
24 am convinced that the best way for him to have got his
25 wife and child back, would have been to have carried me
26 as his prisoner into the mountains; and | take it very
27 kindly of him to have left me to be the uncertain
28 instrument of their freedom, instead of making me the
29 assured pledge of it, as he might have done. My
30 design at first was to have visited his mountains, but