KASHMIR AND THE HIMALAYAS 105

Striking more to the eastward from this same mounlain
 tri-junction, the Gilgit River takes its way to the
[ndus, receiving the tributary of Hunza en route. Thus,
should any one enter India from the north, it must be by
some pass crossing the Hindu Kush watershed between
the Mustagh range (which bounds the Eastern Pamirs on
the south) and the Dorah Pass of the Hindu Kush,
leading either to Gilgit or Chitral. Westwards from the
Dorah, the nature of that section of the Hindu Kush
which bisects Kafiristan forbids all idea of a cross passage,
unless, indeed, a highroad to Badakshan is made artificially
 through the head of the Kafiristan mountains. No
such approach from the north has ever yet been found or
made use of historically. Only small parties of hardy
Buddhist pilgrims in search of religious instruction, and
full of the spirit of self-sacrifice which distinguishes the
devotee, have passed from the great plains of China over
the Hindu Kush to Chitral, Gilgit, Darél, and Swat (all of
which were once centres of the Buddhist faith) in the
sarly centuries of our era. Avoiding the Kunar Valley
between Chitral and Jalalabad, which was then and for
senturies later occupied by Kafirs, these searchers for
spiritual knowledge appear to have struck into those
hidden tracks that border the Indus, the Panjkora, and
the Swat Rivers, and to have made their way with infinite
pain and difficulty to the great monasteries and stupas of
the Peshawur plains. No military force of any consequence
 ever has, or ever could, follow their footsteps.
The northern hinterland of Kashmir (which includes
Dardistan) is distinguished even amongst the vast altitudes
of the Himalayas for the magnificence of its snowy peaks
and the wide expanse of snow-field and glacier which
spread like a polar sea around them. The valleys are
comparatively low; the valley of the Indus near Gilgit
being but 4600 feet above sea-level —low enough to admit
of a narrow belt of cultivation and to encourage the
growth of the fruit-trees of the plains. It is from altitudes
 such as this that one looks up to the heights of
Nanga Parbat (26,600 feet) or to Rakapushi (which may be