BEAUTIFUL KRISHGANGA VALLEY 119 



was most disagreeable, and often most dangerous : we 

 had to cross sheets of rock, often high above the water, 

 sometimes actually below it ; at one point we had to walk 

 for a few yards along a rocky ledge, a couple of feet below 

 the water — there was no other practicable path. A slip in 

 any of these places would have lodged me in the stream 

 without possibility of escape. The steep grassy slopes, too, 

 were awkward places, being very greasy and slippery. I 

 was glad to get to the first village, Sirdari, where these 

 troubles ended. Krishganga is one of the most beautiful 

 tracts in Kashmir, and outrivals the valley itself in its com- 

 bination of forest, fell, and flood. At Halmatto I heard 

 that a gentleman and his wife had spent ten days here ; 

 he shot two bears and four musk-deer, and they left for 

 Kashmir six days ago. 



A mile and a half from the villao-e of Bao;tour we 

 camped on a beautiful spot a few paces from the river. I 

 had still a few days, and determined to spend them on the 

 range above this village, where brown bears were said to be 

 plentiful ; so sent for my friend, the head-man, to arrange 

 for flour and coolies. Looking up towards Bagtour, three 

 graceful curves of the river could be traced. Its bed 

 seeming to be a perfect level, it flows without a sound, 

 except where an obstructing rock wakes it to complaint. 

 On either side, the hills, clothed in green, slope gently to 

 the water's edge, the pine forest on the right bank having 

 its very roots in the water. Upwards, the jungle-clad hills 

 swell in green undulations — an island knoll rising here 

 and there to break the monotony of the wave. High above 

 all was a stony ridge crested with snow. 



During the night there was a thunderstorm. It came 

 right over the valley, north to south ; and as I lay on the 

 hillside, without even a tree for shelter, I watched it from 

 the very beginning, when the black and threatening cloud 



