these beds dry as we now see them. Came across a number of large tailed
butterflies of a lovely green and blue metallic lustre. Secured an
un-injured specimen, and for want of a better place stuck it inside my
topee, where I expect to carry it safely until my return to Peshawur.
Another storm came on earlier than yesterday. I have been very lucky
hitherto, not having had a drop of rain while marching. This morning was
cloudy till within a mile or two of Kuthin when the sun shone and made
the last ascent doubly trying. This is a very small village (at Kunda
there was only one hut) but there is a mud fort with bastions at each
corner but no guns. The walls are loop-holed for musketry, but there
does not seem to be any garrison. On making enquiries, I find there is a
garrison of seven men. It is getting dusk and mosquitoes are coming out
by hundreds, they have not annoyed me before, but I think I must use my
net to-night. I lie on my bed after dinner smoking with a lighted candle
by my side. A hornet flies in and settles on my hand, then a large
beetle comes with a buzz and a thud against me, making me start. Sundry
moths, small flies, and beetles, are playing innocently round the flame.
In half an hour I shall be able to make a fair entomological collection
but as I neither (Ha! I've killed the hornet) desire them in my hat
dead, nor in my bed alive, I must put out the light, give up writing,
and smoke in darkness.


JULY 14th.--To Shadera, twelve miles walked all the way. The road worse
than ever, and for the last mile actually dangerous, as it passed along
the edge of a deep precipice, and was only a foot wide and considerably
out of the horizontal, so that a single false step would have been
fatal. Road continued same character all the way along, though much
above the tortuous and noisy Jhelum, and its ups and downs were the
roughest, longest, and most trying, I have yet experienced. I am pleased