KASHMIR VALLEYS 9 



undried plaster, fireless, and unfurnished. Never was 

 dawn so welcome. I could have sat up and crowed 

 with joy, in reply to the giddy matutinal fowls, so 

 pleased was I to hear them, and as a little fever can 

 go a long way towards producing strange impressions, 

 I was quite prepared when I arose, still voiceless and 

 with a peculiar fluffiness about the head, to believe 

 myself either one of them or anything else rather than 

 the miserable sore thing I really was. 



Phenacetin will work wonders in a short space, a 

 bright sun do more, a good cup of tea most of all towards 

 restoring a sane view of things, but it may very possibly 

 have been due to a lingering high temperature that 

 the mountains on my right seemed that day literally to 

 touch the heavens, that the Jhelum on the other side 

 became a coffee-coloured flood flowing far down in a 

 vast seam in the earth, while all remembrance of the 

 strange antics of the ponies has remained as a blurred 

 vision of wild animals alternately balancing themselves 

 on their tails and their heads in order that their legs 

 might be free for gyrations of the purest phantasy, 

 often dropping a hind leg over the " khud " (sloping 

 bank), then trying conclusions with the huge boulders 

 that strewed the road, the debris of the landslips caused 

 by the heavy rains. It seemed due to a kindly chance 

 that we did not, a score of times, end our days in the 

 swift river, and that all the damage to ourselves accruing 

 from the violent encounters with sharp rocks and other 

 vehicles were such trifling damages as broken traces 

 and the grazing a pony's shoulder; but we made our 

 passing felt, leaving behind two over-turned " ekkas," 

 one of which contained a very fat ayah, much injured 

 in the upset. 



