A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
Eric Newby
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: 0007367759
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A classic of travel writing, 'A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush' is Eric Newby's iconic account of his journey through one of the most remote and beautiful wildernesses on earth. It was 1956, and Eric Newby was earning an improbable living in the chaotic family business of London haute couture. Pining for adventure, Newby sent his friend Hugh Carless the now-famous cable - CAN YOU TRAVEL NURISTAN JUNE? - setting in motion a legendary journey from Mayfair to Afghanistan, and the mountains of the Hindu Kush, north-east of Kabul. Inexperienced and ill prepared (their preparations involved nothing more than some tips from a Welsh waitress), the amateurish rogues embark on a month of adventure and hardship in one of the most beautiful wildernesses on earth - a journey that adventurers with more experience and sense may never have undertaken. With good humour, sharp wit and keen observation, the charming narrative style of 'A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush' would soon crystallise Newby's reputation as one of the greatest travel writers of all time. One of the greatest travel classics from one of Britain's best-loved travel writers, this edition includes new photographs, an epilogue from Newby's travelling companion, Hugh Carless, and a prologue from one of Newby's greatest proponents, Evelyn Waugh.
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tried. I have heard that there is a German from Tehran here, a lorry driver who has cut off a child’s foot with his lorry. He has been three months awaiting a trial. They keep him without trousers so that he shall not escape.’ Next morning all three of us took pains with our appearance. The internal arrangements at the inn were so loathsome that I shared a kerosene tin of water with Hugh and shaved on the roof, the cynosure of the entire population who were out in force. Wanda, debarred from
perfect circles. The lake water came from the glacier of which Hugh had spoken; we were in fact in the ‘dead ground’ that I had been trying hard to visualize during our telescope reconnaissance. From the rock wall that was our immediate destination, the glacier rolled down towards us from the east (to be accurate E.N.E.) like a tidal wave, stopping short a mile from where we were in a confusion of moraine rocks thrown up by its own movement, like gigantic shingle thrown up by the sea. The cliff
these people that their interest in strangers was exhausted almost as quickly as it was born. * * * 1. I don’t believe this. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Going Down! Below the aylaq the valley widened out until there was an expanse of grass a quarter of a mile wide on either side of the river, which here no longer raced over shallows, as it had higher up, but flowed deep and silent, winding through the meadow between high earthy banks. On the far bank a big herd of black cattle, calves and
lightning tore down on us from the sky. With the background of bulbous rocks, beetling cliffs and twisted junipers it was like a landscape by a Chinese painter of the thirteenth century. Thunder and lightning were succeeded by torrents of rain. Crouching under one of the rocks we each smoked our last cigarette. My pipe was somewhere on Mir Samir; Hugh had dropped his in the Chamar. At any rate we had no more tobacco. When the rain stopped a small boy who spoke Persian arrived with a message
topmost peaks. For a time the air would remain cool and still but by eight or nine o’clock both men and horses would be ready for a halt. Abdul Ghiyas would then preside over making the tea. He would fashion a fireplace with a few stones, Shir Muhammad would provide dried horse dung and the rest of us would bring the dead roots and branches of artemisia, the low sage brush, which grew widely. Then the comedy would begin. We would all gather round, longing impatiently for the first restoring sips
