Take my own case, as I sit writing here with a glimpse of the twin snow-peaks of Saghar Mor through my open window, rose-red in the last light of the setting sun, above a level haze of lilac. Here am I with all I ever sought of life, all and far more. And yet, but for a chance visit to the Karachi Gymkhana Club some two years ago, I should probably to-day be smoking a pipe in my old Sussex manor farmhouse, after a day in the stubble, leading a quiet uneventful life, content--in a way--but having savoured only a fraction of what life really holds. A gymkhana club bar does not sound the ideal starting-point for a life’s romance, for a complete change in all that life may mean, and yet it so happened to me, as doubtless it has happened before and may happen again to others. I’ve been thinking for some time of writing down the events of the last two years, partly because they sometimes seem so unreal that the only way to bring home their concreteness--if I may coin a word--is to put them down in cold, hard black-and-white, partly because I think they may serve to show others that romance is not yet dead, and that adventure is still to be found for those who will but pluck up heart and seek. What is that passage of Kipling’s about Truth being an undressed lady at the bottom of a well, and that if you meet her--well, as a gentleman there are only two things to do, one to look away, the other to give her a print dress? So I, being, I hope, a gentleman, choose the latter. To begin at the very beginning, I must revert to the bar at the gymkhana club which I have mentioned, and, before beginning my tale, I suppose I had better introduce myself as I was when the story started, late in 1920. My name is Lake, and Harry Lake is what most people call me. My father--God rest his soul--was the owner of a small place in Sussex, which he used to farm and shoot in the intervals of travelling, and which he expected me to take over when he died. But farming--even with a certain backing of cash--did not appeal to me, and I drifted into the army. Then, much to the annoyance of my father, who wanted me to soldier at home since I would go into the service, I transferred to an Indian regiment. Travel always appealed to me, especially in the less well-known parts of the globe, and India seemed a convenient kicking-off place. One got long leave, which the army at home does not legislate for; and blessed with a little money, I was able to indulge my hobby to the full. Central Asia became my playground, and, whenever I could get leave, I sped up to Kashmir and thence up one or other of the valleys into the great sleepy spaces that lie behind, the desiccated bone-dry spaces of Ladakh, or among the snow-clad mountains that fringe the north of Lalla Rookh’s country.