I can also confirm the statements of the Sazîni with regard to the atrocities committed in the War with Dareyl. In order to be able to report victories, men, said to be innocent of complicity in the war, were hanged and women were dragged into captivity in order to fill the Zananas of the Kashmîr Sepoys. I saw the body of a tall, and powerfully built Dareyli, which had evidently been hacked about a good deal, suspended on a tree by the way-side. It was said to be the body of a man who was quietly returning to Sai, which had long been in the undisturbed occupation of the Maharajah. A little further on near Jaglôth [which is also in long-occupied territory] there is a bridge on one of the poles of which I saw the skeleton head of a Lumberdar of the place, said to be perfectly innocent of all participation in the war with Kashmir. The roofs of the houses in Gilgit had been blown off, and most of the inhabitants had fled into the mountains (_vide_ “dance at Gilgit” page 36). On the other hand, dreadful stories were related of the retaliation of the Dard tribes. Sepoys had been sold by hundreds into Badakhshan, etc.; others had been used as fireworks and blown to atoms for the amusement of the Kunjûtis. Personally, I found the Dards pleasant enough and consider them to be superior in many respects to either Dogras or Pathans, but it is by no means improbable that they have been guilty of many of the atrocities which are laid to their charge. At the same time, it must be remembered that the wanton cruelties of the Massacre of Yasin (_vide_ page 69) and the fact that their country was invaded by a stranger and an “infidel”—in defiance of treaty obligations—is some palliation for their conduct. The Kashmîr troops, and more particularly the coolies sent with them, were also grossly neglected as regards food, clothing and shelter by their own authorities. It is said that out of 12,000 Kashmiris, impressed for the purpose of carrying loads, only 600 survived in the expedition of 1866. The roads were strewn with the skeletons of horses, etc. I saw men in the most emaciated condition and ready to eat “unlawful” food. Three Mussulmans in a dying condition whom I met below the “Acho” summit,[104] were ready to take a tin containing pork and could scarcely be restrained till “lawful” food was brought to them by my servants. Men were forced to go with the troops. One Hakím Ali Shah, a teacher at Amritsar, was compelled to serve as a physician, a post to which he had no other claim, except that his name happened to be “Hakím.” I rescued him. A virulent fever was destroying the troops at Gilgit, who, even after the siege of the fort had been raised, were liable to be shot down by prowlers from the tribes within a few yards of the fort. I ordered the fort, etc., to be cleaned and, although myself in danger of life from my Kashmîr friends, if not from the tribes, I insisted on my order being obeyed, the assumption of an authoritative tone being often a traveller’s only chance of safety among Asiatics. I distributed medicine among the troops and was afterwards told in Durbar by the Maharajah that some medicine which I had sent to Wazir Zoraweru, who was then on his Dureyl expedition, had saved his life.