the triumphant suitor describing à figure of eight on horseback on the very spot whence the lady came again into our range of vision, and brandishing the fateful bow aloft.

Then the elders and priests arose, and with pipe and tambour played the conquering hero into camp. Before an hour had elapsed the nuptial knot had been tied. The bride now for the first time loosed her virgin tresses, which were formerly plaited over her neck; and then the wedding banquet commenced.

The wedding-cake, of pulverised mulberries, was cut into substantial lumps by young female attendants, whole roasted sheep were chopped up, and sour kumiss was handed round. Then came a ball, and all danced and gambolled until the bleating of the lambs in the encampment, and the general stir of animal life, warned us that the grey dawn was breaking.

Alas! it ushered in a melancholy day. Although not one of our party had slept a wink amid the joyous revelry of the night, we were up and off at sunrise, and had not proceeded more than four or five miles when of a sudden Shah Bahadur Beg himself unexpectedly and mysteriously appeared

before us, with a strong body of followers. He welcomed us courteously, and then rapidly disappeared on some expedition, the object of which we could not divine. The mystery was soon terribly solved. In the evening the Shah returned from his raid; with him were some seven or eight Kipchak Kirghiz elders and females, and to our grief we recognised the beauteous heroine and bride of yesterday's revels, strapped to the chief's back, on his horse. Earnest were our intercessions for the prisoners, and so far as the rest of them were concerned, they were successful, for the Shah graciously released them.

As to the unhappy girl, our prayers were fruitless. The Shah declared that he had had the misfortune that day to kill both her parents, her brothers, and her husband, and that he was therefore bound to constitute himself her protector. Sadly we accompanied the Shah to his home.

Nothing reconciled the girl to her fate. She stabbed herself to death before the Shah two days afterwards, with a dagger which she had evidently concealed for the purpose.

We wintered here with the Shah, and in the spring of 1827 took our departure, resisting all

the inducements of our host to stay. He considered that, with women, wine, good horses, good guns, good dogs, good falcons, and with a castello on the top of a crag in Yagistan,1 all that life could offer was at our feet.

1 "Yagistan" means "the independent country."

CHAPTER IX.

A REMARKABLE JOURNEY.

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THE GARDEN OF EDEN THE AKAS AND THE KEIAZ GARDNER LEAVES PAMIR -CROSSES THE YAMUNYAR RIVER NEAR TASHBALYK-THE YAK-YARKAND-THE TWO CITIES-LEH AND SRINAGAR-THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE GARDNER'S JOURNEY THROUGH GILGIT AND CHITRAL-THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF CHITRAL -SECOND VISIT TO KAFIRISTAN-GARDNER TRAVERSES AFGHANISTAN AND IS IMPRISONED AT GIRISHK VISIT TO KABUL FAREWELL TO THE THERBAH-GARDNER ARRIVES IN BAJAURSYAD AHMAD THE REFORMER HIS HISTORY DEATH OF THE SYAD-GARDNER BECOMES CHIEF OF ARTILLERY AT PESHAWAR AND CONCLUDES HIS TRAVELS.

GARDNER passed the winter of the year 1826 with the hospitable robber - chief Shah Bahadur Beg, and set forth in the spring of 1827 on his journey to Yarkand.

In addition to Jey Ram the Hindu, and Mir Ali Shah, the Syad, Gardner's party included the Syad's servant and Gardner's own four attendants, or eight persons in all.

The party determined to travel northwards at first, so as to strike the trade route from

K

Samarkand to Yarkand; and with this object they journeyed through Karategin to the valley of the Surkhab; then turning eastward they went by the great Alai valley or plateau.

This is a region considered by many to be no other than the site of the Garden of Eden and the birthplace of the human race. In contrast to most of the regions round about, the Alai valley is very fertile. Gardner stated in after-life that the wild fruits there were equal to the garden fruit of Kashmir.

At this point the only Afghan who remained of the party which originally followed him from the Kohistan declined to go any farther east, and took his leave.

Gardner gives a curious account of the inhabitants of the Karatagh and Aktagh mountains, who were, he says, the descendants of the ancient Kafir race who inhabited this region.

Although no subsequent traveller, whose experiences have been published, has as yet confirmed Gardner's account, his statement is too curious to lose, and may even hereafter be proved to be accurate. Dr Sven Hedin is stated to have discovered a previously unknown tribe very similar to Gardner's Akas.