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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Wednesday, 7 May 1902
On the 7th we again rode on to the appropriately-named Hardas. The road on this march became frightfully hilly. It must have been designed by a mad steeple-jack with delirium tremens.
Eckenstein [Oscar Eckenstein] had humorously observed at Matayun that "now it was all down hill to Skardu except local irregularities," but these local irregularities varied from 300 to 2,000 feet in height and followed one another rapidly with only a few yards of comparatively level ground between them. The whole of the valley on this side of the Zoji La presented a remarkable difference from that of the Kashmir valleys. There was literally no natural vegetation. The mountains were vast and shapeless, utterly lacking in colour or beauty of any sort.
We were received at Hardas by the Rajah, with whom we had a lengthy conference about nothing. We eventually got rid of him by a present of some coloured pocket-handkerchiefs and a tip of five rupees. In this part of the country one did not need to be a republican to perceive the absurdity of kings.
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