Chapter 12

THE LIDAR VALLEY

We were glad enough to leave Srinagar, as that place has been undoubtedly trying lately, being extremely hot and relaxing. The river, which had been up to the fourteen-foot level, as shown on the gate ports at the entrance to the Sunt-i-kul Canal, had fallen to 9-1/2 feet, and the mud, exposed both on its banks and in the fields and flats which had been flooded, must have given out unwholesome exhalations, of which the riverine population, the dwellers in house-boats and doungas, got the full benefit.

Jane has certainly been anything but well lately, and I confess to a certain feeling best described as “slack and livery.”

We had not intended to remain nearly so long in Srinagar, but the continuity of the chain of entertainments proved too firm to break, and dances and dinners, bridge and golf, kept us bound from day to day, until the _fête_ at the Residency on the 15th practically brought the Srinagar season to a close, and broke up the line of house-boats that had been moored along both banks of the river.

We had arranged to start with a party of three other boats up the river, visiting Atchibal with our friends, and then going up the Lidar Valley, while they retraced their way to Srinagar.

The most popular bachelor in Kashmir was appointed commodore, and deputed to set the pace and arrange rendezvous. He began by sending on his big house-boat, dragged by many coolies, to Pampur, a distance of some ten miles by water, and, following himself on horseback by road, instituted a sort of “Devil take the hindmost” race, for which we were not prepared.

On reaching Pampur we heard that the “Baltic Fleet” had sailed for Avantipura, so we followed on; but, alas! having made a forced march to this latter place, we found that Rodjestvenski Phelps had again escaped us and “gone before.”

We consigned him and the elusive “chota resident,” who was in command of the rest of the party, to perdition, and decided to pursue the even tenor of our way to the Lidar Valley.

The upper reaches of the Jhelum tire not wildly or excitingly lovely. The narrowed waters, like sweet Thames, run softly between quiet British banks, willow veiled. The wide level flats of the lower river give place to low sloping hills or “karewas,” which fall in terraced undulations from the foothills of the higher ranges which close in the eastern extremity of the Kashmir Valley.

It was well into the evening, and the sun had just set, throwing a glorious rosy flush over the snows which surround the Lidar Valley, when we came to the picturesque bridge which crosses the stream at Bejbehara.

The scene here was charming—a grand festa or religious tamasha being toward; the whole river was swarming with boats—great doungas, with their festive crews yelling a monotonous chant, paddled uproariously by. Light shikaras darted in and out, making up for want of volume in their song by the piercing shrillness of their utterances. The banks and bridge teemed with swarming life, and all Kashmir seemed to have contributed its noisiest members to the revel.

Beyond the bridge we could see through the gathering dusk many house-boats of the sahibs clustering under a group of magnificent chenars, over whose dark masses the moon was just rising, full orbed. The piers of the bridge seemed to be set in foliage, large willows having grown up from their bases, giving a most curious effect. We marked with some apprehension the swiftness of the oily current which came swirling round the piers, and soon we found ourselves stuck fast about half-way under the bridge, apparently unable to force our boat another inch against the stream which boiled past. An appalling uproar was caused by the coolies and the unemployed upon the bridge, who all, as usual, gave unlimited advice to every one else as to the proper management of affairs under the existing circumstances, but did nothing whatever in support of their theories. The situation was becoming quite interesting, and the “mem-sahib” and I, sitting on the roof of our boat, were speculating as to what would happen next when the Gordian knot was cut by the unexpected energy and courage of the first-lieutenant, who boldly slapped an argumentative coolie in the face, while the admiral dashed promiscuously into the shikara, and—yelling “Hard-a-starboard!—Full speed ahead!—Sit on the safety—valve!”—boldly shot into an overhanging mulberry tree, wherein our tow-rope was much entangled. The rope was cleared, the crew poled like fury, the coolies hauled for all they were worth, every one yelled himself hoarse, and we forged ahead. We crashed under the mulberry tree, which swept us from stem to stern, nearly carrying the hen-coop overboard; while Jane and I lay flat under a perfect hail of squashy black fruit which covered the upper deck.

We went on shore for a moonlight stroll after dinner. The place was like a glorified English park; chenars of the first magnitude, taking the place of oaks, rose from the short crisp turf, while a band of stately poplars stood sentry on the river bank. Through blackest shadow and over patches of moonlit sward we rambled till we came upon the ruins of a temple, of which little was left but a crumbled heap of masonry in the middle of a rectangular grassy hollow which had evidently been a tank, small detached mounds, showing where the piers of a little bridge had stood, giving access to the building from the bank. An avenue of chenars led straight to the bridge, showing either the antiquity of the trees or the comparatively modern date of the temple.

_June 19_.—Yesterday afternoon we left Bejbehara, and went on to Kanbal, the port of Islamabad. A hot and sultry day, oppressive and enervating to all but the flies, which were remarkably energetic and lively. The river below Islamabad is quite narrow, and hemmed in between high mudbanks.

Here we found the “Baltic Fleet,” but, knowing that our fugitive friends must have already reached Atchibal, we held to our intention of going up the Lidar.

Having tied up to a remarkably smelly bank, which was just lofty enough to screen our heated brows from any wandering breeze, we landed to explore. A hot walk of a mile or so along a dusty, poplar-lined road brought us to the town of Islamabad, which, however, concealed its beauties most effectually in a mass of foliage. Although it ranks as the second town in Kashmir, it can hardly be said to be more than a big village, even allowing for its 9000 inhabitants, its picturesque springs, and its boast of having been once upon a time the capital of the valley. The first hundred yards of “city,” consisting of a highly-seasoned bazaar paved with the accumulated filth of ages, was enough to satisfy our thirst for sight-seeing, and after a visit to the post-office we trudged back through a most oppressive grey haze to the boat. Crowds of the _élite_ of the neighbourhood were hastening into Islamabad, where the “tamasha,” which we came upon at Bejbehara, is to be continued to-morrow.

We had a good deal of difficulty in getting transport for our expedition, as the Assistant Resident and his party had, apparently, cleared the place of available ponies and coolies. An appeal to the Tehsildhar was no use, as that dignitary had gone to Atchibal in the Court train. However, a little pressure applied to Lassoo, the local livery stablekeeper, produced eight baggage ponies and a good-looking cream-coloured steed, with man’s saddle, for my wife.

The syce, a jovial-looking little flat-faced fellow, was a native of Ladakh.

We made a fairly early start, getting off about six, and, having skirted the town and passed the neat little Zenana Mission Hospital, we had a pretty but uneventful march of some six miles to Bawan, where, under a big chenar, we halted for the greater part of the day.

Here let me point out that life is but a series of neglected opportunities. We were within a couple of miles of Martand, the principal temple in Kashmir, and we did not go to see it! I blush as I write this, knowing that hereafter no well-conducted globe-trotter will own to my acquaintance, and, indeed, the case requires explanation. Well, then, it was excessively hot; we were both in bad condition, and I had ten miles more to march, so we decided to visit Martand on our way down the valley. Alas! we came this way no more.

Little knowing how much we were missing, we sat contented in the shade while the hot hours went by, merely strolling down to visit a sacred tank full of cool green water and swarming with holy carp, which scrambled in a solid mass for bits of the chupatty which Jane threw to them.

A clear stream gushed out of a bank overhung by a tangle of wild plants. To the left was a weird figure of the presiding deity, painted red, and frankly hideous.

We were truly sorry to feel obliged, at four o’clock, to leave Bawan with its massy trees and abundance of clear running water, and step out into the heat and glare of the afternoon.

I found it a trying march. The road led along a fairly good track among rice-fields, whence the sloping sun glinted its maddening reflection, but here and there clumps of walnuts—the fruit just at the pickling stage—cast a broad cool shadow, in which one lingered to pant and mop a heated brow e’er plunging out again into the grievous white sunlight.

The cavalcade was increased during the afternoon by the addition to our numbers of a dog—a distinctly ugly, red-haired native sort of dog, commonly called a pi-dog. He appeared, full of business—from nowhere in particular—and his business appeared to be to go to Eshmakam with us.

As we neared that place the road began to rise through the loveliest woodland scenery—white roses everywhere in great bushes of foamy white, and in climbing wreaths that drooped from the higher trees, wild indigo in purple patches reminding one not a little of heather. Above the still unseen village a big ziarat or monastery shone yellow in the sinking sunlight, and overhead rose a rugged grey wall of strangely pinnacled crags, outliers of the Wardwan, showing dusky blue in the clear-cut shadows, and rose grey where the low sun caught with dying glory the projecting peaks and bastions.

In a sort of orchard of walnut trees, on short, clean, green grass, we pitched our tents, and right glad was I to sit in a comfortable Roorkhee chair and admire the preparations for dinner after a stiff day, albeit we only “made good” some sixteen miles at most.

_June_ 20.—A brilliant morning saw us off for Pahlgam, along a road which was simply a glorified garden. Roses white and roses pink in wild profusion, jasmin both white and yellow, wild indigo, a tall and very handsome spiraea, forget-me-not, a tiny sort of Michaelmas daisy, wild strawberry, and honeysuckle, among many a (to me unknown) blossom, clothed the hillside or drooped over the bank of the clear stream, by whose flower-spangled margin lay our path, where, as in Milton’s description of Eden,

“Each beauteous flower, Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine Reared high their flourished heads.”

Soon the valley narrowed, and closer on our left roared the Lidar, foaming over its boulders in wild haste to find peace and tranquil flow in the broad bosom of Jhelum.

The road became somewhat hilly, and at one steep zigzag the nerves of Jane failed her slightly and she dismounted, rightly judging that a false step on the part of the cream-coloured courser would be followed by a hurried descent into the Lidar. I explained to her that I would certainly do what I could for her with a dredge in the Wular when I came down, but she preferred, she said, not to put me to any inconvenience in the matter. We were asked to subscribe, a few days later, at Pahlgam to provide the postman with a new pony, his late lamented “Tattoo” having been startled by a flash of lightning at that very spot, and having paid for the error with his life.

A halt was called for lunch under a blue pine, where we quickly discovered how paltry its shade is in comparison with the generous screen cast by a chenar; scarcely has the heated traveller picked out a seemingly umbrageous spot to recline upon when, lo! a flickering shaft of sunlight, broken into an irritating dazzle by a quivering bunch of pine needles, strikes him in the eye, and he sets to work to crawl vainly around in search of a better screen.

Nothing approaches the great circle of solid coolness thrown by a big chenar. The walnut does its best, and comes in a good second. Pines (especially blue ones) are, as I remarked before, unsatisfactory.

But if the pine is not all that can be wished as a shade-producer, he is in all his varieties a beautiful object to look upon. First, I think, in point of magnificence towers the Himalayan spruce, rearing his gaunt shaft,

“Like the mast of some tall ammiral,”

from the shelving steeps that overhang the torrents, and piercing high into the blue. In living majesty he shares the honours with the deodar, but he is merely good to look upon; his timber is useless and in his decay his fallen and lightning-blasted remains lie rotting on these wild hills, while the precious trunks of the deodar and the excelsa are laboriously collected, and floated and dragged to the lower valleys, producing much good money to Sir Amar Singh and the best of building timber to the purchaser.

The road towards Pahlgam is a charming woodland walk, where the wild strawberries, still hardly out of flower, grow thick amidst a tangle of chestnut, yew, wild cherry, and flowering shrubs. Overhead and to the right the rocky steeps rise abruptly until they culminate in the crags of Kohinar, and on the left the snow-fed Lidar roars “through the cloven ravine in cataract after cataract.”

About four miles from Pahlgam, on turning a corner of the gorge, a splendid view bursts upon the wayfarer. The great twin brethren of Kolahoi come suddenly into sight, where they stand blocking the head of the valley, their double peaks shining with everlasting snow.

It needed all the beauty of the scene to make me forget that the thirteen miles from Eshmakam were long and hot, and that I was woefully out of condition, and we rejoiced to see the gleam of tents amid the pine-wood which constitutes the camping-ground of Pahlgam.

We sat peacefully on the thyme and clover-covered maiden, amongst a herd of happily browsing cattle, until our tents were up and the irritating but needful bustle of arrival was over, and the tea-table spread.

Pahlgam stands some 2000 feet above Srinagar, and although it is not supposed to be bracing, yet to us, jaded votaries of fashion in stuffy Srinagar, the fresh, clear, pine-scented air was purely delightful, and a couple of days saw us “like kidlings blythe and merry”—that is to say, as much so as a couple of sedate middle-aged people could reasonably be expected to appear. The camping-ground is in a wood of blue pines, which, extending from the steeper uplands, covers much of the leveller valley, and abuts with woody promontories on the flowery strath which borders the river. Here some dozen or so of visitors had already selected little clearings, and the flicker of white tents, the squealing of ponies, and the jabber of native servants banished all ideas of loneliness.

About half a mile below the camping-ground is the bungalow of Colonel Ward, clear of the wood and with Kolahoi just showing over the green shoulder which hides him from Pahlgam. I was fortunate enough to find the Colonel before he left for Datchgam to meet the Residency party, and to get, through his kindness, certain information which I wanted about the birds of Kashmir.

An enthusiast in natural history, Colonel Ward has given himself with heart-whole devotion for many years to the study of the beasts and birds of Kashmir, and he is practically the one and only authority on the subject.

We were very anxious to cross the high pass above Lidarwat over into the Sind Valley, having arranged to meet the Smithsons at Gangabal on their way back from Tilail. Knowing that Colonel Ward would be posted as to the state of the snow, I had written to him from Srinagar for information. His reply, which I got at Islamabad, was not encouraging, nor was his opinion altered now. The pass might be possible, but was certainly not advisable for ladies at present.

_Friday, June 23_.—We were detained here at Pahlgam until about one o’clock to-day, as Colonel Ward, as well as two minor potentates, had marched yesterday, employing every available coolie. The fifteen whom I required were sent back to me by the Colonel, and turned up about noon, so, after lunch, we set forth.

Camels are usually unwilling starters. I knew one who never could be induced to do his duty until a fire had been lit under him as a gentle stimulant. He lived in Suakin, and existence was one long grievance to him, but no other animal with which I am acquainted approaches a Pahlgam coolie in _vis inertiâ_.

Whether a too copious lunch had rendered my men torpid, or whether the attractions of their happy homes drew them, I know not, but after the loads (and these not heavy) had been, after much wrangling, bound upon their backs, and they had limped along for a few hundred yards or so, one fell sick, or said he was sick, and, peacefully squatting on a convenient stone, refused to budge.

We were still close to some of the scattered huts of Pahlgam, so an authority, in the shape of a lumbadhar or chowkidar, or some such, came to our help, and promptly collected for us an elderly gentleman who was tending his flocks and herds in the vicinity. Doubtless it was provoking, when he was looking forward to a comfortable afternoon tea in the bosom of his family, after a hard day’s work of doing nothing, to be called upon to carry a nasty angular yakdan for seven miles along a distinctly uneven road; but was he therefore justified in blubbering like a baby, and behaving like an ape being led to execution?

The first half-mile was dreadful. At every couple of hundred yards the coolies would sit down in a bunch, groaning and crying, and nothing less than a push or a thump would induce them to move. We felt like slave-drivers, and indeed Sabz Ali and the shikari behaved as such, although their prods and objurgations were not so hurtful as they appeared, being somewhat after the fashion of the tale told by an idiot,

“Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Presently we became so much irritated by the ceaseless row that we decided to sit down and read and sketch by the roadside, in order to let the whole mournful train pass out of sight and earshot.

Now, I wish to maintain in all seriousness that I am not a Legree, and that, although I by no means hold the “man and brother” theory, yet I am perfectly prepared to respect the _droits de l’homme_.

This may appear a statement inconsistent with my acknowledgment that I permitted coolies to be beaten—the beating being no more than a technical “assault,” and never a “thrashing!”—but my contention is that when you have to deal with people of so low an organisation that they can only be reached by elementary arguments, they must be treated absolutely as children, and judiciously whacked as such.

No Kashmiri without the impulsion of _force majeure_ would ever do any work—no logical argument will enable him to see ultimate good in immediate irksomeness.

It is very difficult for the Western mind to give the Kashmiri credit for any virtues, his failings being so conspicuous and repellent; for not only is he an outrageous coward, but he feels no shame in admitting his cowardice. He is a most accomplished thief, and the truth is not in him. He and his are much fouler than Neapolitan lazzaroni, and his morals—well, let us give the Kashmiri his due, and turn to his virtues. He is, on the whole, cheerful and lively, devoted to children, and kind to animals.[1]

[1] This is incorrect, the European Residents having frequently attempted, but hitherto vainly, to induce the native authorities to curb Kashmiri cruelty.

Here is a story which is fairly characteristic of the charming Kashmiri.

During the floods which nearly ruined Kashmir in 1901, a village near a certain colonel’s bungalow was in danger of losing all its crops and half its houses, the neighbouring river being in spate. My friend, on going to see if anything could be done, found the water rising, and the adult male inhabitants of the village lying upon the ground, and beating their heads and hands upon it in woebegone impotence.

He walked about upon their stomachs a little to invigorate them, and, sending forthwith for a gang of coolies from an adjacent village which lay a little higher, he set the whole crowd to work to divert part of the stream by means of driftwood and damming, and was, in the end, able to save the houses and a good part of the crops.

When the hired coolies came to be paid for their labour, the villagers also put in a claim for wages, and were desperately vexed at my friend’s refusal to grant it, complaining bitterly of having had to work hard for nothing!

You will find a good description of the Kashmiri in _All’s Well that Ends Well:_—

_Parolles_. He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister…. He professes not keeping of oaths, in breaking them, he is stronger than Hercules. He will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool: drunkenness is his best virtue; … he has everything that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should have, he has nothing.

He excels his brother for a coward, yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is: in a retreat he outruns any lackey; marry, in coming on he has the cramp.

We had not long sat sketching and basking in the genial glow of a summer afternoon among the mountains, when it began to be borne in upon us that the weather was going to change, and that the usual thunderstorm was meditating a descent upon us. Black clouds came boiling up over the mountain peaks, and the too familiar grumble of distant thunder sent us hurrying along the lovely ravine, through which the path leads to Aru. Only a seven miles’ journey, but ere we had gone half-way the storm broke, and a thick veil of sweeping rain fell between us and the surrounding mountains.

Presently we found a serious solution of continuity in the track, which, after leading us along a precarious ledge by the side of the river, finished abruptly; sheared clean off by a recent landslip.

We were very wet, but the river looked wetter still, and it boiled round the rocky point, where the road should have been but was not, in a distinctly disagreeable manner.

However, Jane dismounting, I climbed upon the cream-coloured courser, and proceeded to ford the gap. The water swirled well above the syce’s knees, but the noble steed picked his way with the greatest circumspection over and among the submerged boulders, till, after splashing through some hundred yards of water, he deposited me, not much wetter than before, on the continuation of the high-road, whence I had the satisfaction of watching Jane go through the same performance.

Hoping against hope that the coolies, by a little haste, might have got the tents pitched before the storm came on, we plodded on, until, wet to the very skin, we slopped into Aru, to behold a draggled party squatting round a central floppy heap in a wet field, which, as we gazed, slowly upreared itself into a drooping tent.

In dear old England this sort of experience would have spelt shocking colds, and probably rheumatism for life, but here—well, we crawled into our tent and found it, thanks to a couple of waterproof sheets spread on the ground, surprisingly dry. A change of clothes, a good dinner, produced under the most unfavourable circumstances from a wretched little cooking-tent, and a fire burning goodness knows how, in the open, showed the world to be quite a nice place after all.

After dinner a great camp-fire was lit in front of our tent, the rain cleared off, and I sat smoking with much content, while all our soaking garments were festooned on branches round the blaze, and Jane and I turned them like roasting joints, at intervals, until the steam rose like incense towards the stars.

The coolies, too, had quite got over their homesickness, and were extraordinarily cheerful, their incessant jabber falling as a lullaby on our ears as we dropped off to sleep.

_Saturday, June_ 24.—We got away in good time for our short eight-mile march to Lidarwat. The coolies went off gaily—the day was warm and brilliant, and the views down the valley towards Pahlgam superb.

We had camped on the low ground at Aru, just across the bridge, but about half a mile on, and upon a grassy plateau there is an ideal camping-ground facing down the Lidar Valley, towards the peaks which rise behind Pahlgam. Want of water is the only drawback to this spot, but if mussiks are carried, water can easily be brought from a small nullah towards Lidarwat.

Tearing ourselves away from this spot, and turning our backs upon one of the most gorgeous views in Kashmir, we plunged into a beautiful wood. Maidenhair and many another fern grew in masses among the great roots which twined like snakes over the rocky slopes. Far below, with muffled roar, the unseen river tore its downward way.

By-and-by, the path emerging from the wood shelved along a green hillside, where bracken and golden spurge clothed the little hollows, while wild wall-flower, Jacob’s Ladder, and a large purple cranes-bill brightened the slopes where happy cattle, but lately released from their winter’s imprisonment, were feeding greedily on the young green grass.

I fancy the cattle have a remarkably poor time here in winter. Hay is not made, and very little winter forage seems to be collected. As the snows fall lower on the hills, the flocks and herds are driven down to the low ground, where they drag through the dark days as best they can, on maize-stalks and such like.

I noticed early in May the water buffaloes just turned out to graze in the Lolab, and more weakly, melancholy collections of skin—and—bone I have seldom seen.

Now, however, up high in every sunny grassy valley, the Gujars may be found camping with their flocks—cattle, ponies, buffaloes, and goats, working upwards hard on the track of the receding snow, where the primula and the gentian star the spring turf.

A series of grassy uplands brought us close to Lidarwat, when a sharp shower, arriving unexpectedly from nowhere in particular, sent us to eat our lunch under the shelter of some fairly waterproof trees in the company of a herd of water buffaloes of especially evil aspect.

One hoary brute in particular, with enormous horns and pale blue eyes, made me think of the legend concerning the origin of the buffalo.

When the Almighty was hard at work creating the animals, the devil came and looked on until he became filled with emulation, and begged the Deity to let him try his hand at creation. So the Almighty agreed, asking him what beast he would prefer to make, and he said, “A cow.” So he went away and created a water buffalo, which so disgusted the Creator that the devil was not permitted to make any more experiments.

As soon as the rain held up and the thunder had rolled off up the valley, we packed the tiffin basket, had one more drink from an icy spring, and left the shelter of the friendly trees, followed by the glares of all the buffaloes, who appear to have a decided antipathy to the “sahib logue.”

We soon came to Lidarwat, passing several tents there, pitched by the edge of a green lawn, and sheltered by a deep belt of trees. Crossing to the right bank of the river by the usual rickety bridge, we continued our way, as the farther up the glen we get to-night, the less shall we leave for to-morrow, when we intend to visit the Kolahoi Glacier.

The cream-coloured courser nearly wrecked my Kashmir holiday at this point, owing to the silly dislike of white folk which he possesses in common with the buffaloes. As I was incautiously handing Jane her beloved parasol, he whisked round and let out at me, and I was only saved from a nasty kick by my closeness to the beast, whose hock made such an impression upon my thigh as to cause me to go a bit short for a while.

We camped in rather a moist-looking place, where the wood begins to show signs of finishing, and the slopes fall steep and bare to the river.

A rather rank and weedy undergrowth was not inviting, and was strongly suggestive of dampness and rheumatism. It was fairly chilly, too, at night, as our camp was some 11,000 feet above the sea, and the little breezes that came sighing through the pines were straight from the snow.

_Sunday, June 25_.—A most glorious morning saw us start early for an expedition to the Kolahoi Glacier. The sombre ravine in which we were camped amid the pines lay still in a mysterious blue haze, but the sun had already caught the snow-streaked mountain-tops to our left, and gilded their rugged sides with a swiftly descending mantle of warmth and light.

A very fine waterfall came tumbling down a wooded chasm on our right, and as fine waterfalls are scarce in Kashmir we stopped for some time to admire it duly.

The track now led out into a wide and treeless valley, flanked by snow-crowned mountains, and we pushed on merrily until we arrived at the brink of a rascally torrent, which gave us some trouble to ford, being both exceeding swift and fairly deep. Luckily, it was greedy, and, not content with one channel, had spread itself out into four or five branches, and thus so squandered itself that Jane on her pony and I on coolie-back accomplished the passage without mishap. For some miles we held on along an easy path which curved to the right along the right bank of the river, which was spanned in many places by great snow bridges, often hundreds of yards in width. We lunched sitting on the trunk of a dead birch which had been carried by the snow down from its eyrie, and then left, a melancholy skeleton, bleaching on the slowly melting avalanche. Some two miles farther on we could see the end of the Kolahoi Glacier, its grey and rock-strewn snout standing abrupt above the white slopes of snow.

Behind rose the fine peak of Harbagwan, in as yet undisputed splendour, Kolahoi being still hidden behind the cliffs which towered on our right.

Distances seem short in this brilliant air, but we walked for a long while over the short turf, flushing crimson with primulas and golden with small buttercups, and then over snowy hillocks, before we reached the solid ice of the great glacier.

It was so completely covered with fragments of grey rock that Jane could hardly he persuaded that it really was an ice slope that we were scrambling up with such difficulty, until a peep into a cold mysterious cleft convinced her that she was really and truly standing upon 200 feet of solid ice.

The sight that now burst upon us was one to be remembered. Kolahoi towered ethereal—a sunlit wedge of sheer rock some six thousand feet above us—into the crystal air. From his feet the white frozen billows of the great glacier rolled, a glistering sea, to where we, atoms in the enormous loneliness, stood breathless in admiration. Around the head of the wide amphitheatre wherein we stood rose a circle of stately peaks, their bases flanged with rocky buttresses, dark amid the long sweeps of radiant snow, their shattered peaks reared high into the very heavens. A great silence reigned. There was no wind with us, and yet, even as we watched, a white cloud flitted past the virgin peak of Kolahoi—ghostly, intangible; and immediately, even as vultures assemble suddenly, no one knows whence, so did the clouds appear, surging over the gleaming shoulders of the mountain ridges, and up and round the grim precipices. We turned and hurried down the face of the glacier, and made for camp, as we knew from much experience that a thunderstorm was inevitable.

Over the beds of dirty snow, down by the side of the new-born torrent, which leaped full-grown to life from the womb of a green cavern below the glacier; over patches of pulpy turf just freed from its wintry bondage, and already carpeted with masses of rose-coloured primulas, we hastened, keeping to the left bank of the stream, in order to avoid the torrent which had so troubled us in the morning, which we knew would be deeper in the afternoon owing to the melting of the snows in the sunshine.

We had got but a bare half of our journey done when the storm burst, and in a very short time we were reduced to the recklessness which comes of being as wet as you can possibly be.

“The thunder bellows far from snow to snow (Home, Rose and Home, Provence and La Palie), And loud and louder roars the flood below. Heigho! But soon in shelter we shall be (Home, Rose and Home, Provence and La Palie).”

Crossing the river on a big snow-bridge below the point where our old enemy came thundering down the mountain-side, we tramped gaily through mud and mire and over slippery rocks until we were gladdened by the sight of our camp, dripping away peacefully in the midst of the weeping forest.

The rain, as usual, ceased in the evening. A great camp-fire was lit, and the neighbouring buffaloes of Gujar-Kote having kindly supplied us with milk, we dined wisely and well and dropped off to sleep, lulled by the roaring of the Kolahoi River, which raced through the darkness close by.

_Tuesday, June 27_.—Being still hopeful of achieving the pass over into the Sind, we struck camp early yesterday and marched down to Lidarwat, only to find that the party which we knew had camped there with a view to crossing, had given up the idea and retreated down the valley; so I sent a swift messenger to countermand the three days’ supply of “rassad” which I had ordered from Pahlgam for my men, and we marched on to Aru. Upon the spur which overlooks Aru we found Dr. Neve encamped, and proceeded to discuss the possibility of crossing into the Sind Valley _viâ_ Sekwas, Khem Sar, and Koolan. The Doctor, who is an enterprising mountaineer, was himself about to cross, but he did not encourage Jane to go and do likewise, as he said it would be very difficult owing to the late spring, and would probably entail a good deal of work with ropes and ice-axes.

This absolutely decided us, our valour being greatly tempered by discretion, and we camped quietly at Aru, and came on into Pahlgam this forenoon. The river, for some reason best known to itself, was so low that we got dry-shod past the corner which had worried us so much on the way up.