Photographs of India

293 x 238 mm. View looking across a flat expanse of grass at the river's edge with Indian figures posed with inflated bullock hides in the foreground. At the left, near a group of porters with baggage, stands Bourne's erected dark tent, 'Our next march brought us to the Beas, a considerable river which rises in the Rotung Pass, at the head of the beautiful valley to which it gives its name... Presently we had to cross the river, which was here about eighty yards wide, by means of 'mussocks', or inflated buffalo skins... But the doctor rather looked upon them with fear and misgiving, though he was too old a traveller and too much accustomed to the Himalayas to make any scruples about the matter, and forthwith committed himself to their buoyant inflation. I won't say he did not shut his eyes as the steersman pushed off, and he found himself being carried down the stream by the force of the current as rapidly as he was conveyed by the little paddles and feet of the steersman to the opposite bank. However, he stood on terra firma on the other side, while I had yet to cross. Running up the bank about 150 yards the men soon paddled back for me after which all our coolies and baggage had to be brought across by the same means. This occupied about three hours, one of the loads nearly coming to grief ... but was happily rescued... While this was going on I grouped a number of the mussockmen with their skins on the riverbank, and took a photograph of them' (B.J.P., 3 December 1869, p. 579). The stout European figure standing beneath the tree at the left is presumably Dr George Rankin Playfair (1816-1881) who accompanied Bourne on the earlier part of the journey. Playfair was an assistant surgeon in the East India Company's Navy from 1841-1844, seeing service in the China War of 1841-42, and a member of the Indian Medical Service 1844-72. Bourne no. 1430.

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