Chapter 10

THE LOLAB

_May_ 1.—The pear and cherry blossom has been so lovely in and around Srinagar that we determined to go to the Lolab Valley and see the apple blossom in full flower.

We started in some trepidation, for the warm weather lately has melted much snow on the hills, and Jhelum is so full that we were told that our three-decker would be unable to pass under the city bridges—of which there are seven. We decided to see for ourselves, so set forth about eleven, and soon came to the first bridge, the Amira Kadal, which carries the main tonga road into Srinagar, tying up just above it, amid the clamour and jabber of an idle crowd.

The Admiral solemnly measured the clear space between the top of the arch and the water with a long pole, consulted noisily with the crowd, yelled his ideas to the crew, and decided to attempt the passage.

Hen-coops, chairs, half-a-dozen flower-pots containing sickly specimens of plants, and all other movables being cleared from the upper deck, we set sail, and shot the bridge very neatly, only having a few inches of daylight between the upper deck and the wooden beams upon which the roadway rests.

_Ce nest que, le premier “pont” que coute_.

The other bridges were all easier than the first, and we shot them gaily, spending the rest of the day in floating quietly down the river, and finally anchoring—or rather mooring, for anchors are, like boat-hooks, masts, sails, rudders, and rigging, alike unknown to the “jollye mariners” of the Jhelum—some two or three miles above the entrance to the dreaded Wular Lake.

This awful stretch of water, so feared by the Kashmiri that his eyes goggle when he even thinks of it, is an innocent enough looking lake, generally occupied in reflectively reproducing its surroundings upside down, but occasionally its calm surface is ruffled by a little breeze, and it is reported that wild and horrible squalls sweep down the nullahs of Haramok at times, and destroy the unwary. These squalls are said to be most frequent in the afternoons, and are probably the accompaniments of the thunderstorms.

It is only considered possible to cross the Wular between dawn and 10 or 11 A.M., and no persuasion will prevail upon a native boatman to risk his life on the lake after lunch.

Before turning in, I gave orders that a start should be made next morning at five o’clock, but a heavy squall of rain and thunder during the night had the effect of causing orders to be set at naught, and at breakfast-time there was no sign of “up anchor” nor even of “heaving short.” An interview with the Admiral showed me that the Wular, in his opinion, was too dangerous to cross to-day—in fact he wouldn’t dream of asking coolies to risk it. He was given to understand that we intended to cross, and that the sooner he started the safer it would be.

No coolies being forthcoming, I inhumanly gave orders to get under way—the available crew consisting of the wicked Satarah, the first lieutenant, and the Lady Jiggry. Sulkily and slowly we wended our way past the wide flats which border the Wular, all blazing golden with mustard in full pungent flower.

Before entering the lake the Admiral meekly requested to be allowed to try for coolies in a small village near by. He was allowed quarter of an hour for pressgang work, and sure enough he came back within a very reasonable time with a few spare hands, and then—paddling and poling for dear life—we glided swiftly through the tangled lily-pads and the green rosettes of the Singhara, and soon were _in medias res_ and fairly committed to the deep.

The Wular lay like a burnished mirror, reflecting the buttresses of Haramok on our right, and the snowy ranges by the Tragbal ahead, its silvery surface lined here and there with the wavering tracks of other boats, or broken by bristling clumps of reeds and tall water-plants. Our transit was perfectly peaceful, and by lunch-time we were safely tied up to a bank, purple with irises, just below Bandipur.

A visit to the post-office and a stroll up the rocky hill behind it, where we sat for some time and watched a pair of jackals sneaking about, completed a peaceful afternoon.

_May_ 3.—We were up with the lark, and, having moved along the coast a few miles to the west of Bandipur, left the ship before six of the clock in pursuit of bear. I had “khubbar” of one in the Malingam Nullah, and, after a brisk walk over the lower slopes, we entered the nullah and clambered up about 1500 feet to a quiet and retired spot under a shady thorn-bush, where we breakfasted.

We thereafter climbed a little higher, and then sat down while the shikaris departed to spy, their method of spying being, I believe, somewhat after this fashion:—Leaving the sahib with his belongings—notably the tiffin coolie—in a spot carefully selected for its seclusion, the miscreants depart hurriedly and rapidly up the nearest inaccessible crag; this is “business,” and throws dust, so to say, in the eyes of the sahib, by means of an exhibition of activity and zeal. Passing out of sight over the sky-line, the hunters pause, wink at one another, and, choosing a shady and convenient corner, proceed to squat, light their pipes, and discuss matters—chiefly financial—until they deem it time to return, scrambling and breathless with excitement, to relate all that they have seen and done.

So, while the shikaris unceasingly spied for bear, for nine mortal hours Jane and I camped out on a remarkably hard and unyielding stone, varied by other seats equally tiresome.

Fortunately we had brought books with us, and we relieved the monotony by observing the habits of a pair of “kastooras,” a hawk, and a brace of chikor at intervals, but it was truly a tedious chase.

At four o’clock the sons of Nimrod returned, declaring that the bear had been seen, but that as we had on chaplies and not grass shoes, it would be impossible for us to pursue him. I asked the shikari why the —— goose he had let me come out in chaplies instead of grass shoes if the country was so rough? His reply was to the effect that whatever it pleased me to wear pleased him!

_May_ 4.—Armed _cap-à-pie_ so to speak, with pith helmets and grass shoes, we again set forth at dawn of day to hunt the bear. Breakfast under the same tree, sitting on the same patch of rose-coloured flowers—a sort of fumitory (_Corydalus rutaefolia_)—followed by another nine-hour bivouac, brought us to 5 P.M. and the extreme limit of boredom, when lo! the shikaris burst upon us in a state of frenzied excitement to announce the bear! Off we went up a steep track for a quarter of an hour, until, at the foot of a rough snow slope, the shikari told the much disgusted Jane that she must wait there, the rest of the climb being too hard for her, and, in truth, it was pretty bad. Up a very steep gully filled with loose stones and rotten snow, scrambling, and often hauling ourselves up with our hands by means of roots and trailing branches, we slowly worked our way up a place I would never have even attempted in cold blood.

Twenty minutes’ severe exertion brought us to a shelf, or rather slope, of rock on the right, sparsely covered with wiry brown grass from which the snow had but very recently gone, and crowned by a crest of stunted pines. Up this we wriggled, I being mainly towed up by my shikari’s cummerbund, and, lying under a pine, we peered over the top.

A steep gully divided us from a rough ridge, upon a grassy ledge of which, about 200 yards off, a big black beast was grubbing and rooting about.

The shikari, shaking with excitement, handed me the rifle, urging me to shoot. I did nothing of the sort, having no breath, and my hand being unsteady from a fast and stiff climb.

I regret to be obliged to admit that, not realising that it would be little short of miraculous to kill a bear stone-dead at 200 yards with a Mannlicher, and being also, naturally, somewhat carried away by the sight of a real bear within possible distance, I waited until I was perfectly steady, and fired. The brute fell over, but immediately picked himself up again and made off. I saw I had broken his fore-shoulder and fired again as he disappeared over the far side of the ledge, but missed, and I saw that bear no more.

We had the utmost difficulty in crossing the precipitous gully to a spot below the ledge upon which the beast had been feeding—the ledge itself we could not reach at all; and the lateness of the hour and the difficulty of the country in which we were, prevented us from trying to enter the next ravine and work up and back by the way the bear had gone. A neck-breaking crawl down a horrible grass slope brought us to better ground, and I sadly joined Jane to be well and deservedly scolded for firing a foolish shot. The lady was very much disgusted at having been defrauded of the sight of a bear “quite wild,” as she expressed it—a certain short-tempered animal which had eaten up her best umbrella in the Zoo at Dusseldorf not having fulfilled the necessary condition of wildness.

Next day I sent out coolies to search for traces, promising lavish “backshish” in the event of success, but I got no trustworthy news, “and that was the end of that hunting.”

_May_ 6.—Jane took a respite from the chase, and I sallied forth alone at dawn up a nullah from Alsu to look for a bear which was said to frequent those parts. A brisk walk of some four miles over the flat, followed by a climb up a track—steep as usual—to the left of the main track to the Lolab, brought us to a grassy ridge, where I sat down patiently to await the bear’s pleasure. I took my note-book with me, and whiled away some time in writing the following:—

Let me jot down a sketch of my present position and surroundings; it will serve to bring the scene back to me, perhaps, when I am again sitting in my own particular armchair watching the fat thrushes hopping about the lawn.

Well, I am perched in a little hollow under a big grey boulder, which serves to shelter me to a certain, but limited, extent from the brisk showers that come sweeping over from the Lolab Valley. The hollow is so small that it barely contains my tiffin basket, rifle, gun, and self—in fact, my grass-shod and puttied extremities dangle over the rim, whence a steep slope shelves down some 200 feet to a brawling burn, the hum of which, mingling with the fitful sighing of the pines as the breeze sweeps through their sounding boughs, is perpetually in my ears. Across the little torrent, and not more than a hundred yards away, rises a slope, covered with rough grass and scrub, similar to that in the face of which I am ensconced.

Here the bear was seen at 7 A.M. by a Gujar, who gave the fullest particulars to Ahmed Bot (my shikari) in a series of yells from a hill-top as we came up the valley. We arrived on the scene about seven, just in time to be too late, apparently. It is now 3 P.M., and the bear is supposed to be asleep, and I am possessing my soul in patience until it shall be Bruin’s pleasure to awake and sally forth for his afternoon tea.

There is certainly no bear now, so I pass the time in sleeping, eating, smoking, writing, and observing the manners and customs of a family of monkeys who are disporting themselves in a deep glen to the left. Beyond this ravine rises a high spur, beautifully wooded, the principal trees being deodar, blue pine (_Excelsa_) and yew. This is sloped at the invariable and disgusting angle of 45 degrees. Beyond it rise further wooded slopes, with snow gleaming through the deep green, and above all is the changing sky, where the clear blue gives way to a billowy expanse of white rolling clouds or dark rain-laden masses, which pour into the upper clefts of the ravine, and blot out the serried ranks of the pines, until a thorough drenching seems inevitable—when lo! a glint of blue through the gloomy background, and soon again,

“With never a stain, the pavilion of Heaven is bare.”

The immediate foreground, as I said before, slopes sharply from my very feet, where a clump of wild sage and jasmin (the leaves just breaking) grows over a charming little bunch of sweet violets. Lower down I can see the lilac flowers of a self-heal, and the bottom of the little gorge is clothed with a bush like a hazel, only with large, soft whitish flowers.

My solitude has just been enlivened by the appearance of a cheerful party of lovely birds. They are very busy among the “hazels,” flying from bush to bush with restless activity, and wasting no time in idleness. They are about the size of large finches—slender in shape, with longish tails. They are divided into two perfectly distinct kinds, probably male and female. The former have the back, head, and wings black; the latter barred with scarlet, the breast and underparts also scarlet. The others—which I assume to be the females—replace the black with ashy olive, the wings being barred with yellow, the underparts yellowish. The very familiar note of the cuckoo, somewhere up in the jungle, reminds me of an English spring.

4 P.M.—I knew it! I knew that if the wind held down the nullah I should be dragged up that horrible ridge opposite. Hardly had I written the above when I was hunted from my lair, and rushed down 200 steep feet, and then up some 500 or 600 on the other side of the stream, through an abattis of clinging undergrowth that made a severe toil of what could never have been a pleasure. There can be no doubt but that a pith helmet—a really shady, broad one—is a most infernal machine under which to force one’s way through brushwood.

Well, all things come to an end—wind first, temper next, and finally the journey.

My shikari is a fiend in human shape. He slinks along on the flat at what _looks_ like a mild three-miles-an-hour constitutional, but unless you are a _real_ four-mile man you will be left hopelessly astern; but when he gets upon his favourite “one in one” slope, then does he simply sail away, with the tiffin coolie carrying a fat basket and all your spare lumber in his wake, while you toil upward and ever upwards—gasping—until with your last available breath you murmur “Asti,” and sink upon the nearest stone a limp, perspiring worm!

5.30 P.M.—That bear has taken a sleeping draught!

I am now perched on a lonely rock, my hard taskmaster having routed me out of a very comfortable place under a blue pine, whose discarded needles afforded me a really agreeable resting-place, and dragged me away down again through the pine forest and jungle; hurried me across a roaring torrent on a fallen tree trunk; personally conducted me hastily up a place like the roof of a house; and finally, explaining that the bear, when disturbed, must inevitably come close past me, has departed with his staff (the chota shikari, the tiffin coolie, and a baboon-faced native) to wake up the bear and send him along.

After the first flurry of feeling all alone in the world, with only a probable bear for society, and having loaded all my guns, clasped my visor on my head and my Bessemer hug-proof strait-waistcoat round my “tummy,” I felt calm enough to await events with equanimity.

6.15 P.M.—A large and solemn monkey is sitting on the top of a thick and squat yew tree regarding me with unfeigned interest. The torrent is roaring away in the cleft below. Nothing else seems alive, and I am becoming bored——What? A bear? No! The shikari, thank goodness!

“Well, shikari—Baloo dekho hai?” No, it is passing strange, but he has _not_ seen a bear. “All right! Pick up the blunderbuss, and let us make tracks for the ship.”

_Wednesday, May_ 10.—Beguiled by legends of many bears, detailed to me with apparently heartfelt sincerity by Ahmed Bot, I have been pursuing these phantoms industriously.

On Monday we quitted our boat, and started upon a trip into the Lolab Valley. The views, as the path wound up the green and flower-spangled slope, were very beautiful, and, when we had ascended about 1500 feet and were about opposite to the supposed haunt of Saturday’s bear, we determined to camp and enjoy the scenery, not omitting an evening expedition in search of our shy friend.

Jane joining me, we had a most charming ramble down a narrow track to the bed of the stream which rushes down from the snow-covered ridge guarding the Lolab. Here we crossed into a splendid belt of gaunt silver firs, the first I have seen here; whitish yellow marsh-marigolds and a most vivid “smalt” blue forget-me-not with large flowers were abundant, also an oxalis very like our own wood-sorrel.

Emerging from the pines, we crossed a grassy slope covered with tall primulas (P. _denticulata_) of varying shades of mauve and lilac, and sat down for a bit among the flowers while the shikaris looked for game. (I need hardly remark that the noble but elusive beast had appeared on the scene shortly after I left on Saturday; a Gujar told the shikari, and the shikari told me, so it must be true.) When we had gathered as many flowers as we could carry, we strolled back to the camp to watch the sunset transmute the snowy crest of Haramok to a golden rose.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I left the camp at dawn, and went all over the same ground, but with no better success, only seeing a couple of bara singh, hornless now, and therefore comparatively uninteresting from a “shikar” point of view. After a delightful but bearless ramble I returned to breakfast, and then we struck camp, and completed the ascent of the pass over into the Lolab. Arrived at the top, we turned off the path to the right, and, climbing a short way, came out upon the lower part of the Nagmarg, a pretty, open clearing among the pines where the grass, dotted thickly with yellow colchicum, was only showing here and there through the melting snow. Choosing a snug and dry place on some sun-warmed rocks at the foot of a tree, we prepared to lunch and laze, and soon spread abroad the contents of the tiffin basket.

There is something, nay much, of charm in the utter freedom and solitude of Kashmir camp life. There is no beaten track to be followed diligently by the tourist, German, American, or British, guide-book in hand and guide at elbow. No empty sardine-tins, nor untidy scraps of paper, mar the clean and lonely margs or village camping-grounds.

The happy wanderer, selecting a grassy dell or convenient shady tree with a clear spring or dancing rivulet near by, invokes the tiffin coolie, and if a duly watchful eye has been kept upon that incorrigible sluggard, in short space the contents of the basket deck the sward. What have we here? Yes, of course, cold chicken—

“For beef is rare within these oxless isles.”

Bread! (how lucky we sent that coolie into Srinagar the other day). Butter, nicely stowed in its little white jar, cheese-cakes (one of the Sabz Ali’s masterpieces), and a few unconsidered trifles in the form of “jam pups” and a stick of chocolate.

Whisky is there, if required, but really the cold spring water is “delicate to drink” without spirituous accompaniment.

Hunger appeased, the beauty of the surrounding scenery becomes intensified when seen through the balmy veil of smoke caused by the consumption of a mild cheroot, and peace and contentment reign while we feed the sprightly crows with chicken bones and bits of cheese rind.

Shall we ever forget—Jane and I—that simple feast on the Nagmarg?

The sloping snow melting into little rills which trickled through the fresh-springing flower-strewn grass; the extraordinary blue of the hillsides overlooking the Lolab Valley seen through the sloping boughs of the pines; the crows hopping audaciously around or croaking on a dried branch just above our heads; and above all, the glorious sense of freedom, of aloofness from all disturbing elements, of utter and irresponsible independence in a lovely land unspoiled by hand of man?

The afternoon sun smote us full in the face as we descended the bare and not too smooth path that led into the valley, and we were right glad to reach the shade of a grove of deodars that covered the lower slopes of the hill. The Lolab Valley, into which we had now penetrated, is a rich and picturesque expanse of level plain, some fifteen miles long by three or four broad, apparently completely surrounded by a densely-wooded curtain of mountains, rising to an elevation of some 3000 feet above the valley on the south and west, but ranging on the other sides up into the lofty summits which bar the route into Gurais and the Tilail. The mountain chain is not really continuous, the river Pohru, which drains the valley, finding outlet to the west e’er it bends sharply to the south and enters the Wular near Sopor.

Perhaps the most noticeable objects in the Lolab are the walnut trees; they are now just coming into full leaf, and their great trunks, hoary with age and softly velveted with dark green moss, form the noble columns of many a lovely camping-ground. We pitched our tents at Lalpura in a grove of giants, the majesty of which formed an exquisite contrast to the white foam of a cluster of apple trees in bloom.

It has been so hot to-day that we have stayed quietly in camp, reading, sketching, and enjoying the _dolce far niente_ of an idle life.

_Sunday, May_ 14.—On Thursday we left Lalpura and marched to Kulgam, a short distance of some eight or ten miles. Mr. Blunt, the forest officer,[1] had most kindly placed the forest bungalows of the Lolab at our disposal; but, as they all lie on the other side of the valley, we are obliged to camp every night. We have been working along the north side of the Lolab, as the shikari is full of bear “khubbar,” and as long as the weather remains fair we really do not much care where we go! Skirting the foot of the wooded ridge on our right, and with the flat and populous levels of the valley on our left, we marched along a good path shaded in many places by the magnificent walnuts and snowy fruit-trees for which the Lolab is justly famed, until, crossing the Pohru by a rickety bridge, and toiling up a hot, bare slope, we reached Kulgam, nestling at the foot of the hills.

[1] Commonly called the “Jungly-sahib.”

After tiffin and a short rest we set forth up the nullah behind the village to look for (need I say?) a bear. The gradient was stiff, as usual, and the path none too good. Feeling that our laborious climb deserved to be rewarded by, at any rate, the sight of game, and Ahmed Bot having sent a special message to the Lumbadhar at Kulgam directing him to keep the nullah quiet, we were justly incensed when, having toiled up some couple of thousand weary feet, we met a gay party of the _élite_ of Kulgam prancing down the hill with blankets stuffed with wild leeks, or some such delicacy.

Ahmed Bot showed reckless courage. Having overwhelmed the enemy with a vituperative broadside, he fell upon them single-handed, tore from them their cherished blankets, and spilt the leeks to the four winds.

I expected nothing less than to be promptly hurled down the khud, with Jill after me, by the six enraged burghers of Kulgam. But no. They simply sat down together on a rock, and blubbered loud and long; we sat down opposite them on another rock and laughed, and laughed—tableau!

On Friday I went for a delightful walk through the pine and deodar forests, the ostensible objective being, of course, a bear. Putting aside all ideas of sport, I gave myself up to the simple joy of mere existence in such a land; noting a handsome iris with broad red lilac blooms, which I had not seen before; listening to the intermittent voice of the cuckoo, and pausing every here and there to gaze over the fair valley, backed by its encircling ranges of sunlit mountains.

The chota shikari is a youth of great activity, both mental and physical. He almost wept with excitement on observing the mark of a bear’s paw on a dusty bit of path. He said it was a bear which had left that paw-mark, so I believed him. Late in the dusk of the afternoon he _saw_ a bear sitting looking out of a cave. I could only make out a black hole, but he saw its ears move. I regarded the spot with a powerful telescope, but only saw more hole; still, I cannot doubt the chota shikari. The burra shikari saw it too, but was of opinion that it was too late to go and bag it. I think he was right, so we went back to camp without further adventure.

Yesterday we left Kulgam, and followed up a track to a small village which lies at the foot of the track leading over to Gurais and the Tilail country. Here we camped in a grove of walnuts, which stood by an icy spring. Jane and I went for a stroll, watched a couple of small woodpeckers hunting the trunk of a young fir within a few feet of us, but retreated hurriedly to camp on the approach of a heavy thunderstorm. This was but the prelude to a bad break in the weather; all to-day it has rained in torrents, and everything is sopping and soaked. The little stream which yesterday trickled by the camp is become a young river, and it is a perfect mystery how Sabz Ali manages to cook our food over a fire guarded from the full force of the rain by blankets propped up with sticks, and how, having cooked it, he can bring it, still hot, across the twenty yards of rain-swept space which intervenes between the cook-house and our tent.

_Monday, May_ 15.—The deluge continued all night, and only at about ten o’clock this forenoon did the heavy curtain of rain break up into ragged swirls of cloud, which, torn by the serrated ridges of the gloomy pines, rolled dense and dark up the gorges, resonant now with the roar of full-fed torrents.

The men are all beginning to complain of fever, and have eaten up a great quantity of quinine. Considering the dismal conditions under which they have been living for the last couple of days, this is not surprising; so, with the first promise of an improvement in the weather, we struck camp, determined to make for the forest bungalow at Doras and obtain the shelter of a solid roof. Many showers, but no serious downpour, enlivened our march, and we arrived at the snug little wooden house just in time to escape a particularly fine specimen of a thunderstorm. The Doras bungalow seemed a very palace of luxury, with its dry, airy rooms and wide verandah, all of sweet-smelling deodar wood. The men, too, were thankful to have a good roof over their heads, and we heard no more of fever.

_Wednesday, May_ 17.—Yesterday it rained without ceasing, until the valley in front of us took the appearance of a lake—A party of terns, white above and with black breasts, skirled and wrangled over the “casual” water. It was still very wet this morning, but as it cleared somewhat after breakfast, we made up our minds to quit the Lolab and get back to our boat.

Doras has sad memories for Jane, for here died the “chota murghi,” a black chicken endowed with the most affectionate disposition. It was permitted to sit on the lady’s knee, and scratch its yellow beak with its little yellow claw; but I never cared to let it remain long upon my shoulder—a perch it ardently affected. Well! it is dead, poor dear, and whether from shock (the pony which carried its basket having fallen down with it _en route_ from “Walnut Camp”), or from a surfeit of caterpillars which were washed in myriads off the trees there, we cannot tell. Sabz Ali brought the little corpse along, holding it by one pathetic leg to show the horrified Jane, before giving it to the kites and crows. He has many “murghis” left; baskets full, as he says, for they are cheap in the Lolab, but we shall never love another so dearly.

We had a shocking time while climbing to the pass which leads over to Rampur, the road being deep in slimy mud, and so slippery that the unfortunate baggage ponies could hardly get along. Jane, who is in splendid condition now, toiled nobly up a track which would have been delightful had the weather been a little less hideous.

Reaching the ridge which divides the Lolab from the Pohru Valley, we turned to the left, along the edge, instead of descending forthwith, as we had hoped and expected to do. It was raw and cold, with flying wreaths of damp mist shutting out the view, and we were glad of a comforting tiffin, swallowed somewhat hurriedly, under a forlorn and stunted specimen of a blue pine. Then on along a rough and slippery catwalk that made us wonder if the baggage ponies would achieve a safe arrival at Rampur.

Crossing a steep, rock-strewn ridge, covered with crown imperial in full flower, we began a sharp descent through a wood of deodars; and now the thunder, which had been grumbling and rumbling in the distance, came upon us, and a deafening peal sent us scurrying down the hill at our best pace; the lightning-blasted trunks stretching skywards their blackened and tempest-torn limbs in ghastly witness of what had been and what might be again.

At last we cleared the wood, and, plunging across a perfect slough of deep mud, crawled on to the verandah of the Rampur forest-house, where we sat anxiously watching the hillside until we saw our faithful ponies safely sliding down the hill.

_Thursday, May_ 18.—The changes of weather in this country are sudden and surprising. This morning we woke to a perfect day—the sun bathing the warm hillsides, the picturesque brown village, and the brilliant masses of snowy blossoming fruit-trees with a radiant smile. And, but for the tell-tale riot of the streams and the sponginess of the compound, there was nothing to betray the past misdeeds of the clerk of the weather.

At noon we set out to cover the short distance that lay between us and Kunis, where we had made tryst with Satarah. The country was like a series of English woodland glades—watered by many purling streams, and bright with masses of apple blossom; the turf around the trees all white and pink with petals torn from the branches by the recent storms. Clumps of fir clothed the hills with sombre green—a perfect background to a perfect picture.

The flowers all along our path to-day were much in evidence after the rain. Little prickly rose-bushes (_R. Webbiana_) were covered with pink blossoms just bursting into full glory; bushes of white may, yellow berberis, Daphne (_Oleoides?_), and many another flowering shrub grew in tangled profusion, while pimpernel (red and blue), a small androsace (_rotundifolia_), hawks-bit, stork’s bill, wild geranium, a tiny mallow, eye-bright, forget-me-not, a little yellow oxalis, a speedwell, and many another, to me unknown, blossom starred the roadside. In the fields round Kunis the poppies flared, and the iris bordered the fields with a ribbon of royal purple.

We reached Kunis at two o’clock, and found the village half submerged, the water being up and over the low shores from the recent rain. Our boats were moored in a clump of willows, whose feet stood so deeply in the water that we had to embark on pony-back! After lunch came the usual difference of opinion with the Admiral, who seems to have great difficulty in grasping the fact that our will is law as to times and seasons for sailing. He always assumes the rôle of passive resister, and is always defeated with ignominy. He insisted that it was too late to think of reaching Bandipur, but we maintained that we could get at any rate part of the way; so he cast off from his willow-tree, and sulkily poked and poled out into the Wular, taking uncommon good care to hug the shore with fervour.

Here and there a group of willows standing far out into the lake, or a half-drowned village, drove us out into the open water, and once when, like a latter-day Vasco de Gama, the Admiral was striving to double the dreadful promontory of a water-logged fence, a puff of wind fell upon us, lashing the smooth water into ripples, whereupon the crew lost their wits with fright, and the lady mariners in the cook-boat set up a dismal howling; the ark, taking charge, crashed through the fence, her way carrying us to the very door of a frontier villa of an amphibious village. With amazing alacrity the crew tied us up to the door-post, and prepared to go into winter quarters.

This did not suit us at all, and

“The harmless storm being ended,”

we ruthlessly broke away from our haven of refuge, and safely arrived at Alsu.

_Friday, May_ 19.—An ominous stillness and repose at 3 o’clock this morning sent me forth to see why the windlass was not being manned. A thing like a big grey bat flapping about, proved, on inspection, to be that rascal the Lord High Admiral Satarah. He said he could not start, as the hired coolies from Kunis had been so terrified by the horrors of yesterday that they had departed in the night, sacrificing their pay rather than run any more risks with such daredevils as the mem-sahib and me. This was vexatious and entirely unexpected, as I had never before known a coolie to bolt before pay-day. Sabz Ali and Satarah were promptly despatched on a pressgang foray, while I put to sea with the first-lieutenant to show that I meant business. A crew was found in a surprisingly short time, and a frenzied dart was made for the mouth of the Jhelum.

All day we poled round the shore of the lake, over flooded fields where the mustard had spread its cloth of gold a short week ago, over the very hedges we had scrambled through when duck-shooting in April, until in the evening we entered the river just below Sumbal.

The towing-path was almost, in many places quite, under water, and the whole country looked most forlorn and melancholy as the sun went down—a pale yellow ball in a pale yellow haze.

_Sunday, May_ 21.—All yesterday we towed up the river against a current which ran swift and strong.

The passage of the bridge at Surahal gave us some trouble, as the flooded river brought our upper works within a narrow distance of the highest point of the span, but we finally scraped through with the loss of a portion of the railing which decorated our upper deck.

The strain of towing was severe, so, when a brisk squall and threatening thunder-shower overtook us at the mouth of the Sind River, we decided to tie up there for the night.

This morning we started at four o’clock, but only reached our berth at Srinagar at two, having spent no less than six hours in forcing the boats by pole and rope for the last three miles through the town! An incredible amount of panting, pushing, yelling, and hauling, with frantic invocations to “Jampaws” and other saints, was required to enable us to crawl inch by inch against the racing water which met us in the narrow canal below the Palace.

All’s well that ends well, and here we are once more in Srinagar, after a trip which has been really delightful, albeit the weather latterly has not been by any means all that could have been desired, and we have slain no bears![2]

[2] Can it be that Bernier was right? “Il ne s’y trouve ni serpens, ni tigres, ni ours, ni lions, si ce n’est très rarement.”—_Voyage de Kachemire_.