When he was attacking anybody or frolicking,
his movements and beauty can only be described by a phrase of the
Apostle James, 'the grace of the fashion of it.' Colonel Durand, of
Gilgit celebrity, to whom I am indebted for many other kindnesses,
gave him to me in exchange for a cowardly, heavy Yarkand horse, and
had previously vainly tried to tame him. His wild eyes were like
those of a seagull. He had no kinship with humanity.
In addition, I had as escort an Afghan or Pathan, a soldier of the
Maharajah's irregular force of foreign mercenaries, who had been sent
to meet me when I entered Kashmir. This man, Usman Shah, was a stage
ruffian in appearance. He wore a turban of prodigious height
ornamented with poppies or birds' feathers, loved fantastic colours
and ceaseless change of raiment, walked in front of me carrying a big
sword over his shoulder, plundered and beat the people, terrified the
women, and was eventually recognised at Leh as a murderer, and as
great a ruffian in reality as he was in appearance. An attendant of
this kind is a mistake. The brutality and rapacity he exercises
naturally make the people cowardly or surly, and disinclined to trust
a traveller so accompanied.
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