Chapter 1 CHELSEA TO KARACHI
Early in the winter of 1891, Jack Roudebush and I were sitting in my Chelsea studio with two other friends discussing not a little gloomily the difficulties of making a living at Art. We were by no means sure that our lack of success was not our own fault, and one of us had something to say about the immorality of big men doing no more with their strength than handle a brush when there was real work to be done in the worrld which was not purely decorative, though it might lead to decorations.

[In Egypt] everything I did annoyed and disgusted me, my brightest work looked black; pure vermillion seemed as if it was fit to paint a water-can with, but it was no use to an artist, and as to pure ultramarine, the sea knocked it out of time clean and forever.

We had an interesting evening watching a polo match, in which the Rajah led one side and Lieutenant Baird the other. All the inhabitants, with a great band, lined the walls of the polo ground, and among them were members of the Chinese Amban's suite, at this time on a visit to Gilgit, in the gay costume of their country, their round moon faces and small stature making a great contrast with the fine physique of the natives of Hunza. The charges down the ground by the Rajah's side gave one a magnificent idea of the old medieval jousts.
The Rajah was dressed in a long black velvet coat, with bits of white muslin shirt bursting out round his neck, below his coat, and below the ends of his sleeves,, and wore long Yarkand riding boots. He rode a gaily caparisoned pony, and made a fine picture as he galloped past, with his jet-black curls flowing in the wind.

This day we had the additional misery of heavy rain, and we crouched in undignified attitudes under low supported rocks, and swore deeply until it seemed futile to swear any more.
We stopped the whole of the next day at our camping ground as the weather was simply abominable. We made "caches" of half the stores, and sent home half the coolies, and amused ourselves by writing our names in great letters of sanguinary tint on the faces of the rocks.

He wanted to reach Scardu, where the first telegraph station was, to telegraph home, as he had news in the letters he had received of a report in the Indian papers giving an account of the loss of the whole party, and he was afraid of it reaching England,
I suggested that we ought to be lost like other expeditions, and have relief parties sent to look for us, but he told me laughingly that he had forgotten to make arrangements for this before he left England.