KASHMIR VALLEYS 31 



to climb the Tragbal without a pony. He regretted 

 that the stiffness of his old legs prevented his accom- 

 panying me up, but he promised to sit and watch my 

 return to see if I spoke true. Meanwhile, I must take 

 a few shadh tut (mulberry, lit. honey worm), the 

 very first brought by a Bhai (brother, used for any 

 relation) from a favoured garden; also some roses. 

 These I fastened behind my ears under my topi (hat), 

 like a mountain woman, which delighted him hugely. 

 Then I continued my walk, taking a short cut that led 

 straight up the hillside, forcing one to clamber over 

 prickly berberis, shrubby and unpleasantly thorny rose 

 bushes not in their full beauty as yet. Every step took 

 one over tiny blue gentians, starry anemones, clusters 

 of the delicately striped pink and white tulips, violets, 

 and countless other flowers. On rejoining the main road 

 I decided to follow it instead of emulating the coolie 

 and climbing straight up the face of the cliff. The 

 zig-zag path I followed added four or five miles to my 

 walk, but it was a wise decision, for, after all, it is but 

 a foolish proceeding to arrive at one's destination a 

 limp mass of aching bones, and this would certainly 

 have been the result had I attempted the wild-goat like 

 methods of the hillmen, who scarcely understood 

 walking on an even surface. Backwards and forwards 

 wound the path, every turn showing new beauties of 

 snow peaks against blue skies, and frost-bound streams 

 like silver threads among the dark pine woods, the 

 distant Pir Panjal, to the south, hanging like phantoms 

 in mid-air, their base invisible by reason of the mist. 

 Flowers, flowers everywhere; sometimes the hillside 

 was rosy with the daphne mezereum, then yellow with 

 an extraordinarily handsome umbelliferous plant, two 



